The key to accelerating your performance? Consultative partnerships

Deluxe's Tom Heaton, Zions Bancorp's Jared Geisler and banking industry leader Chris Hushka identify the main differences between being a service provider vs. a true partner, share how to establish and maintain client relationships and outline the importance of understanding your client's needs and goals. 

What makes an ideal consultative sales professional?

To position your bank as an indispensable partner and advisor for your clients, you first must assess the attributes of a consultative partner.

Heaton set the scene for the discussion, sharing that the time to focus on the customer is now more than ever. According to a Salesforce research study, 86 percent of business buyers are more likely to buy if companies understand their goals¹. However, in the same survey, 73 percent of business buyers say that most sales interactions feel transactional. Your bank and your sales team have an opportunity to stand apart from the competition by investing the time to understand your client's needs deeply.

Proactive service

On average, industry research reports that 53 percent of customers expect companies to anticipate their needs. For business buyers, 73 percent expect companies can anticipate their needs¹. This finding means your bank needs to be proactive in your business partnerships within the commercialization process and give your sales team the tools they need to succeed.

"For me, commercialization is really about showcasing the stuff you have, what products you have today, and what you can bring to the table in terms of an organization," says Chris Huska, a banking industry leader who co-presented. "Our goal is always to be proactive. As a product manager working side-by-side with sales, it's getting to the core of what the client needs and making sure you have the right amount of tools and education so that your sales organization can be successful."

Understanding your customer's needs

Investing the time to understand your business clients' needs is incredibly important. Your bank must guide and support your business clients. Focus on relationship-building over a transactional approach to sales to build trust and authority.

"The fact that 73 percent of business buyers say most sales interactions feel transactional is really interesting. Gartner did a study that said that 70 percent of a buyer's journey is already done before any salespeople ever walk through the door," says Jared Geisler, SVP and Sales Enablement Manager of Fee Income for Zions Bancorporation. "This tells me that if your salespeople don't play in the remaining 30 percent, if you don't drop those insight bombs, you're dead."

The bottom line: Understand your customers' unique needs and goals to set yourself apart from your competition and retain long-term customers. Hushka says that if you're able to understand your clients well enough and understand the data, you're going to be able to derive results from that and make suggestions to your clients that are really going to move the needle for them."