Program teaches fine art of selling to rookie bankers

Northwestern Financial Review, Dec 15-Dec 31, 2004 by Telschow, Tony

Q: You teach a college course in sales innovation for bankers. Some would say the best salespeople are born, not made. Can you comment?

The Center for Sales Innovation deals with that every day. We believe that there's a definite strategy to what a successful sales professional does. Likeability is a big topic of discussion, whether it's a matter of someone liking you and that's why they do business with you. We talk a lot about different personality styles, and likeability is important, but someone can adapt to different personalities. At the same time, salespeople tend to gravitate toward customers with similar styles. I've seen very successful businesspeople who have very personal relationships with their customers - they know everything about their families and their interests. Other relationships are very analytical and impersonal. So, trying to find a good fit for customers and how they like to do business is where we spend some time.

Who enters the program? Do students who are sales-averse seek the training to round out other skills?

Students who find this program to be a good fit tend to have two things in common: They're very comfortable looking at things analytically, they like to solve problems and are comfortable with numbers; and they like working with people. This is a way to combine those interests and be successful. Some students start out in accounting and find that this is closer to customers, where they want to be. Other students start out in business-to-business sales and find that they have an interest in this industry. Others join when they discover that they have an interest and abilities that fit the program.

Do graduates mainly go to work in banks?

American Express helped us create this concentration and provides great financial advising opportunities, but this year we've added two new partners: Wells Fargo and ING. We wanted to have a variety of opportunities for students in the financial services industry. In less than a year, Wells Fargo has hired graduates for areas including mortgage banking, investment management and private banking. Graduates are in training programs for small-business, middle-market business and large-corporate business banking. One graduate is in the equipment finance division. In banking in particular, the trend is toward full-service, where organizations aren't just offering banking, they're offering investments, insurance, mortgage products, home equity products and loans. Cross-selling has been a big focus since the opportunity to do that was created through deregulation. If your goal is to earn more of your customer's business, you need to go about it the right way and not irritate customers by offering products that they do not need or want - especially more than once. So that sales and relationship-building piece becomes very important. I think it's very different from how bankers were hired in the past; they may have been finance majors, and the hope was to take those analytical skills and try to teach relationship skills. The companies we work with have realized that if you can find a way to build those skills before you hire someone, you're in a great situation.

Does the program help graduates balance customer demand with regulation or bank policy?

That is a huge issue. I think about my background in banking and the power of balance sheets. There's the balance of being able to provide a lending opportunity while trying to determine which relationships might offer the greatest value, because there's risk involved. That's why this program is unique: we're training students to assess risk and determine the value of their relationships with that risk. That can really be a challenge with small businesses, deciding which relationships to focus on, because you can't provide that balance sheet or lending opportunity for everyone. We're offering students exposure to successful managers across the industry, pulling in bankers and senior financial managers in different ways - to speak in our classes, let students shadow them, or to create mentoring relationships. Our goal is to highlight the best practices in the industry.