You Don’t Talk About Things You Don’t Understand…Unless You’re My In-Laws

Over the years I have found that most people will not get involved in a conversation that will verify they are ignorant about the subject under discussion. This excludes certain people, such as those from your spouse’s family, who are clearly ignorant about many things but have an opinion about most everything. Additionally, they have suggestions about what you should do, while many of their family have either been incarcerated or in a segment of The Jerry Springer Show.

Research has shown that the most significant reason that people avoid selling is “fear of rejection.” There is really no way to take someone who has a significant fear of rejection and make them into a great salesperson. We simply have to make sure we do a great job of avoiding hiring these people by utilizing attribute based pre-employment testing. The second most significant reason people reject opportunities to sell is “lack of product knowledge.” We are back to my original theory: most people won’t talk what they don’t know. For our purposes, it is better to say, “You don’t sell what you don’t know.” The great news here, unlike fear of rejection, we can impact a solution to this challenge with training.

Here are two suggestions:

1. Develop a Customer Solutions Manual (CSM)

• Make it available on your Intranet
• Have it include
  Features
  Benefits
  Benefit Talking Points
  Compatible Products
  Best Questions to Ask to Get the Customer Interested
  Common Customer Objections and How to Overcome Them
• Provide the CSM to employees during New Employee Orientation
• Don’t train employees on the contents of the CSM
• Provide the comprehensive CSM and expect the employees to go after the information provided. Don’t spend 4 hours on a class that begins with, “This is our checking account.” I would want to shoot myself knowing I have 3 hours and 59 minutes left of that class. Expect your employees to learn what they are should know.

2. Develop and Implement a Product Knowledge Certification Test (PKCT)

• Make it available on your Intranet
• Make it comprehensive
• Include all of your product and service solutions
• Include questions about both features and benefits
• Don’t make it open book (They either know it or they don’t.)
• Must be passed by frontline employees within their new employee probationary period.
• Have the PKCT taken by all frontline employees annually with each employee’s score having significant weighting on their annual evaluation.

We have an obligation to ensure that our customers are getting the most accurate and complete information about how our products and service can improve their financial well-being. Any professional sales organization will ensure that this is the case. If we are to treat our employees as adults, we will give them effective tools, resources and knowledge to do their job effectively. Additionally we’ll expect, and verify, that the employees have taken advantage of the great tools we have provided.

If your bank wants to improve sales, one of the best ways to move the ball toward the goal is to get serious about the product knowledge of those who are responsible for sharing it with your customers. You don’t sell what you don’t know.

If your organization is serious about sales and service excellence, contact Michael Neill and Associates at 888-440-0552, or mike@banksaleschamps.com, to find out how you can join other organizations that have done so.

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