3 Sales Coaching Scenarios You’ve Likely Seen and Must Change

Over the last few years, I have had the great pleasure of working with many amazing credit unions. More importantly, I have been able to work with many great people who have spent their careers advancing the credit union movement. They see the same vision that I see, that we, as credit unions, can work to help our members create a positive financial experience.

When working with credit unions, our goal at SalesCU is to give clear direction on what sales really is and how to approach sales in the credit union way. There is still a lot of misunderstanding about sales though. And while many credit unions see the importance of sales in the success of the organization, many still struggle to foster a successful sales culture.

The credit unions who have cultures with a successful sales focus have not gotten there by accident; nor have they simply gotten lucky. To become a sales focused organization credit unions must do a few things very well. First, they must successfully adjust the mindset of what constitutes exceptional service and the role the credit union plays in their members’ lives. Second, they need to provide exceptional training that effectively blends both operational and sales training needs so employees have a clear understanding of what their job is. And lastly, credit union leadership, at all levels, should continuously support the sales mindset and skills with the right actions, messages, and expectations.

In past articles, I have written on each of these points. They are all important and cannot be overlooked or set to the side. Arguably though, the most important aspect has to be coaching.

Before leaving my credit union job, I managed an outbound call center. We had great success selling to our members. I would get calls all of the time from credit union leaders at other financial institutions that were trying to get their team to be more proactive in their sales approach. Without fail, the one question they would always ask is, “How do we get past the order taker mentality?” or similarly, “How do we get our employees to sell?” I get asked the same question today and the answer is still the same: coaching.

Coaching is a critical element in any organization’s sales initiative. Without it, selling just doesn’t happen consistently or effectively. Given its crucial role, one would expect it to be among the top priorities of credit union leaders. Sadly, it isn’t.

In a recent survey we conducted at SalesCU, we asked credit union leaders from across the country about their sales coaching efforts. I was surprised by the results. A vast majority of respondents, ninety-two percent, said that coaching is not happening or is ineffective at their credit union. There were various reasons given by respondents for this lack of coaching. They are:

  • A misunderstanding of what success is
  • A lack of coaching skills
  • Poor time management

It’s on these points that I’d like to share a little more insight. And to help illustrate and hopefully provide more depth to each of these points, I’d like to address them by using scenarios. I think you will likely recognize these scenarios and possibly see a few of them happening currently at your credit union.

What Is Success?

Laurie has been with the credit union for over ten years. She has the reputation of being a master of the credit union’s processes, systems, products, and procedures. As a teller, she led the branch in transactions and was rarely out of balance. As a loan officer, she was the “go-to” person for questions and excelled in processing difficult member requests and resolving problems. Her loan audits were always clean and her title work was always up-to-date.

Because she did so well in these branch positions for nearly eight years, when Laurie’s manager retired, she was the clear choice to take his role.

Today, Laurie’s branch is a model for accuracy and speed and her team leads the credit union in nearly every efficiency category. However, when sales expectations were rolled out last year, Laurie’s branch did not respond well. They have failed to reach these additional expectations consistently and no improvement has been detected. When sales....-->

Over the last few years, I have had the great pleasure of working with many amazing credit unions. More importantly, I have been able to work with many great people who have spent their careers advancing the credit union movement. They see the same vision that I see, that we, as credit unions, can work to help our members create a positive financial experience.

When working with credit unions, our goal at SalesCU is to give clear direction on what sales really is and how to approach sales in the credit union way. There is still a lot of misunderstanding about sales though. And while many credit union...


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