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Success Stories
- Creating a Uniform Culture
- Driving Organizational Focus on the Right Customer
- Driving Revenue Through Referrals
- Establishing Differentiation Through a Distributor Sales Force
- Executing a New Sales Strategy
- Helping a Client Quickly Turn an Existing Program into Sustainable Action and Results
- Increasing New-Hire Productivity
- Instilling a Winning, Competitive Attitude in the Sales Force
- One-on-One Coaching to Breakthrough Results
- Providing Practical Tools for Sales Management in a Changing Marketplace
- Raising the Bar on Performance
- Results Soar for 700-Agent Call Center
Increasing New-Hire Productivity
Industry:
Large Commercial Banking Organization
Situation:
For this banking organization, the new employee retention and failure rate was a significant concern. A disturbing percentage of newly hired business bankers had failed or quit the bank within six months. As a result, this organization lengthened and strengthened new-hire training, tightened hiring criteria, established weekly performance metrics, created weekly tracking reports, and refined pipeline reporting. However, the failure rate remained the same. The senior executive team was frustrated and expected management to improve the new-hire success rate.
Analysis:
Business Efficacy conducted select interviews and reviewed the hiring, training, reporting, tracking, and management activities in place. The correct pieces were in place, but the issue quickly became obvious – management was disconnected. Research showed newly hired bankers did not receive support or development in the field. Management did not hold new hires accountable for executing the critical sales activities. Instead, management concentrated on low-impact activities such as structuring deals and inspecting pipelines.
Plan:
Management had to change their method for developing new-hires. Managers needed to become “coaches” to the new bankers. In order to do this, managers had to learn how to coach, what to coach, become motivated to coach, and have the urgency to change their approach. To train managers to do this, Business Efficacy designed a six-month coaching program. A Business Efficacy sales performance coach worked with each business-banking manager to obtain breakthrough performance with one newly hired individual within 90 days. During the next 90 days, managers coached additional new hires to obtain and sustain breakthrough performance.
Execution:
Business Efficacy began by engaging the management team in the objectives and process for the six-month period. The one-on-one coaching process began by helping managers set a breakthrough goal with each individual.
Business Efficacy coaches:
- Observed and tracked key sales activities and results.
- Analyzed activities to determine what was working and not working and identified which high-impact activity to focus on.
- Conducted one-on-one coaching sessions on performance against the breakthrough goal and on developing the new hire’s ability to identify client needs and sell the bank’s products to meet those needs.
In all cases, new hires achieved their “breakthrough” goal in the first 90 days. After the first 90 days, Business Efficacy met with the coaches to determine what worked and why. Also during this session, Business Efficacy coached the managers to repeat the process with additional new hires during the next 90 days.
Impact:
- Most new bankers increased their overall sales performance by 20 to 30 percent, while some new bankers’ overall sales performance increased by 70 percent.
- On average, new bankers’ appointments with new prospects increased from .5 per week to 2 to 3 per week.
- On average, new bankers’ retail referrals increased from .5 per week to 4 per week.