18 MAY / JUNE 2021 SALES / MARKETING High-Touch Coaching In a high-tech world Relationship management has changed. In order to be successful in today’s highly digitized world, relationship managers need to cultivate the art of high-touch selling. At the heart of high-touch selling is making meaningful human connections that focus on service instead of sales. The book, Go-Givers Sell More, by Bob Burg and John David Mann, tells us that the word “sell” is derived from the Old English word “sellan,” which means “to give.” Good service is selling. Moreover, high-touch selling fits well into what today’s relationship managers want, which is to: • Know that their work matters. • Make a difference. • Work collaboratively with a team. • Work remotely and independently. These desires go hand-in-hand with a distaste for an aggressive sales culture that prizes sales over service. High-touch selling is about having great interactions with clients, providing solutions for their clients that solve their problems, and also creating revenue for the bank. Selling is not about the product or about the relationship manager, but about the client. How does a bank ensure that its relationship managers are competent in high-touch selling? The answer is high-touch coaching. Experience tells us that most banks are good at setting sales goals and measuring results, but the statistics around coaching tell a different story. First, let’s examine facts about salespeople today:* • 91% are too trusting of prospects. • 68% have difficulty recovering from rejection. • 90% do not have a clearly defined and effective selling system. • Only 32% have written goals. Next, let’s look at the weaknesses of managers as coaches: • Do not consistently coach and debrief. • Ineffective at joint sales calls. • Do not ask questions. • Have a need for approval from salespeople. • “Rescue” salespeople. • Do not have a sales process. • Ineffective at commitments. • Beliefs do not support coaching. • Do not have goals and a plan. • Do not know what motivates salespeople. Less than 2% of managers are adept at coaching. There are many reasons for this, including: they themselves were not coached or had a bad experience with coaching; they were elevated to a team lead or management position based on their sales success and not their coaching performance; and they have not had any coaching training, either formal or informal. Short of establishing a formal coaching program, there are some simple, concrete steps managers can take to initiate high-touch coaching and high-touch selling. It begins with managers developing an understanding of what motivates their salespeople. Less than 7% of sales managers know the personal goals of their people. Since most relationship managers today are intrinsically versus extrinsically motivated, this is key in the manager-salesperson relationship, as Tony Cole Founder Anthony Cole Training Group LLC tony@anthonycoletraining.com Anthony Cole Training Group LLC is an associate member of the Indiana Bankers Association.
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