Book Excerpt: In Action: Measuring Return on Investment, Volume 3

Chapter: Partnering to Achieve Measurable Business Results in the New Economy

Background

First Union is the nation's sixth largest bank holding company, and it serves more than 16 million customers. It has the third largest branch network and a footprint that spans from Connecticut to Miami. With more than 1 million online banking customers, the nation's sixth largest brokerage firm, and 70,000 plus employees, the company is always competing to be better by providing higher levels of customer service and improving shareholder value through increased revenue and income.

This case began when the president of a multistate region within First Union received his budget goals for the coming year. First Union's president expected him to nearly double revenue and income in the Capital Management Group (CMG) products area over that year's performance. Based on historical data and his own experience with the salesforce (known as relationship managers [RMs]), he knew this goal was unattainable without some intervention. He feared that the salesforce was not prepared to properly prospect or to position these products with clients.

In a meeting with his direct reports and supporting leaders, he discussed the coming year's goals and challenges. Priority number one from this meeting was to quickly assess the sales team's ability to prospect and sell CMG products, and to propose a solution that would ensure they were prepared to meet revenue and income goals for the coming year.

Assessment

The first step in the process involved conducting an assessment to identify the cause of the human performance issue. In this case, the leader knew his sales team had never performed at the level they were expected to in the coming year. As is often the case, he and his leaders felt training was the solution, but was that really what was needed to ensure performance?

The First University client partner for this region conducted a performance analysis that included interviews and written self-assessments with product specialists, sales managers, and both average and top-performing RMs. First University is the bank's training and development division. The client partner is responsible for partnering with senior wholesale bank leaders in the region to address human performance issues. This analysis revealed the following performance issues:

• RMs knew very little about CMG product features and benefits. While they were somewhat familiar with products such as 401(k) and personal trust, they could not identify the basic features and benefits of most other CMG products and services. Furthermore, there was very little difference between average and top-performing RMs' basic knowledge of CMG product features and benefits or in their experience level in prospecting for these products.
• RMs were generally unfamiliar with the process for qualifying and referring prospects to CMG product specialists. They were also unable to name their CMG specialists more than 90 percent of the time when asked.
• RMs could not describe the incentive for selling CMG products and services, and didn't know what was in it for them financially. They also reported very little emphasis on CMG sales goals historically and admitted that no inspection or coaching had occurred.
• Managers' observations of RMs during sales calls resulted in disturbing results regarding their effectiveness in positioning CMG products and services. One manager reported an incident in which an RM introduced personal trust products to a valued client by saying, "Well, Jo, you know you're going to die one day, so don't you think we'd better talk about estate planning?"

Performance Improvement Proposal

As a result of this analysis, the client partner made the following recommendations to the senior management team:

• Provide training in a two-staged approach that includes: (1) self-directed learning to transfer basic knowledge of CMG product features and benefits, preparing RMs to profile ideal clients for CMG products and preparing RMs to match CMG products to client needs; and (2) classroom learning to prepare RMs to utilize a needs-based sales approach with CMG prospects and clients, to transfer the process for referring CMG prospects, and to provide practice opportunities to master the skills learned.
• Arrange for CMG product specialists to attend sales meetings after the classroom training to ensure that RMs know whom to work with on these deals, and to ensure that collaboration and communication occurred.
• Effectively communicate the personal financial impact to RMs for selling CMG products by opening the classroom experience with a focus on it from the president of this regional area and by providing written handouts in sales meetings to RMs from product specialists.
• Create a tracking and reporting process to facilitate effective capture of referral and closed transaction data at the individual RM level.
• Develop tools and a process to facilitate after-training coaching on behaviors taught to ensure transfer of new skill and knowledge to the job.
• Implement a measurement and evaluation strategy that will: (1) allow RMs to exempt part or all of the self-directed learning experience; (2) ensure knowledge transfer from the self directed learning; (3) provide for consistent feedback both during and after classroom training on performance during prospect calls; (4) provide forecast data to senior managers for CMG products and services both at a state and an individual level; and (5) determine the impact of the training on the business unit.