Banks Can Learn From Obama

Barack Obama will become the 44th president of the United States for many reasons.  Among them are his exceptional communication skills.

Obama will become the country's "communicator-in chief" in just a couple of months, in large part because of the way he presented himself in a variety of challenging and stressful communication situations (does the global financial crisis and the loss of trust in banks come to mind).

Obama connected with millions of Americans on a human and personal level.  Persuading customers (or voters) is about more than having logical or sound ideas.  Facts, data and details alone won't motivate and move people. It won't inspire them.  Obama understood this and worked hard to improve his communication style.

It seems like everyone wants to sell solutions today. Actually doing it, however, requires a fundamentally different starting point when it comes to how Marketing creates and delivers customer communications.

Today, the top three challenges faced by traditional bank marketing and sales departments looking to move to a solutions selling approach are:

·       How do we shift from product-centric messaging to more customer-centric messaging?

·         How do we create more solutions-oriented, value-driven customer communications?

·       How do we drive, more consistent, high-quality customer conversations and collateral materials throughout the sales cycle? 

There’s a significant opportunity to avoid parity in your value propositions and set your company apart in the competitive marketplace by truly communicating with customers in the way they want to buy. 

Since product managers often have P&L responsibility, they may charge myopically and parochially into creating the ultimate product training, sales information, marketing content, and customer communications tool kit -- extolling the virtues of their particular offerings.

Essentially, they equip business development people to tell the customer: “Here’s what it is. Here’s what it does. Here’s why it’s good for you. And, here are some ways that we think we’re better than the competition.”

Does this seem to be the typical outline of a product launch and sales kit at your company?

If product management or marketing is going to help a business development person create and sell a “solution” for a customer – whether in a conversation or presentation – then they will have to show how their product, or particular features of that product, can be applied to help the customer accomplish a real business goal, or solve a business problem.

Unfortunately, too many product marketers, while having a good grasp of their products, don’t know enough about their customers’ problems or goals.  Ultimately this “company-centric” view can trickle out to sales and service people. As a result, aligning products and capabilities with real-world customer needs is left to chance with only the most intuitive business development people doing it naturally – the trait that sets them apart as successful consultative sales people.

The opportunity is to “codify” this intuitive solution selling approach and begin to pre-build marketing messages and sales content in an attempt to clone the best customer conversations and collateral materials for your overall sales staff,  whether it's retail or business banking.

This requires a transformation of your sales coaching and customer-facing communications.

One way to think about it: as organizations we need to move from traditional company product-centric messaging to customer problem (or goal)-centric messaging.

The key lesson here is communication...communication...communication.  It's taking the good products and services that your bank has developed and communicating to the customer or prospect how they have relevance to their particular needs today, tomorrow and in the future.

Whether or not you voted for Obama, he continues to offer valuable communication lessons to any professional who must persuade, motivate and inspire others.

Cheers,

Nick Vaglio, CFMP