Motivating Employees to Cross-Sell

ETSU02

You make a very good point in your comment to my last post. Last week was a little crazy and I was on vacation for a few days and unable to respond...so let's jump in and get started.

In my ever-humble opinion, I believe that employee motivation is directly tied to expectations. The two are so closely related that it is difficult sometimes to tell the difference. I would also argue that cross selling and sending referrals internally is about as optional as balancing the teller drawer.

In order to motivate your employees to do more cross selling, we should talk about the current culture within your institution. Does the initiative come from the top of the line and trickle down, or is the marketing department in charge? In my experience, when an institution tries to implement a sales and service culture, but is not initiated by the senior managers/CEO, it is doomed to fail. I have even run across institutions where the CEO was responsible for the sales and service culture shift but it still failed...this later failure is completely related to the lack of accountability on the part of the employees.

Shifting your culture will be one of the most difficult things you have to do. Notice I say, "have to do." This culture shift is not only necessary for success, but it is mandatory for growth. If your employees don't embrace the philosophy of better serving your customers, it will be difficult for you to grow (hence the attrition issue you mentioned in your original comment). Your competition really only wants what you have...YOUR CUSTOMERS.

Teaching your staff to better serve your customers (i.e. cross selling) is truly like teaching an old dog a new trick. However, that being said, it is still executed with great success by MANY financial institutions every day. It takes time, but here are some baby steps to help you get started.

1. Create a plan, include the expectations of each employee type and the associated rewards AND punishments for not meeting the expectations.

2. Set goals for EVERYONE with a time line for meeting those goals.

3. Training

4. Training

5. Training (it is listed three times, because not only is this THE MOST critical piece of the puzzle, it is not a one time deal. Training needs to be on-going, progressive, and refreshed frequently)

6. Measurement. What good will shifting your culture do if you can't say to your employees, "thanks to your hard work and dedication to serving the customers of our bank, we have 1000 new customers this year and our asset size has increased by 10% in the last 12 months."

I hope this will help you get started in the right direction. I have updated my profile with my email address and my phone number, should you have any questions or like additional information.

Good luck, and good selling!

Jenna