Professional Calling

Calling on both clients and prospects is an intricate and often difficult activity, yet it is at the core of successful banking relationship development. I recently learned from Bob Jones, President and CEO of Central Trust and Investment Company, an interesting and most effective way to structure your officers' calling efforts, whether they are commercial bankers, wealth management executives or retail professionals.

At the core of the program are four call categories, each with its own point value:

1 point - Internal center of influence

2 points - External center of influence

3 points - Intermediate (second or more) prospect meeting

4 points - Proposal presentation

All calls are expected to take place face-to-face, with the exception of customer or prospect-preferred pre-planned telephone appointment.

Calls involving bringing a colleague from another line of business are worth additional 2 points.

A minimum expectation is 4 calls a day and 24 calls a week. Vacations are not exempt; the officer should plan for them in advance and log in enough additional calls to make the 24 extra points. While this might seem harsh, examine any of your star performers and you'll see that this is what they do naturally. It is an important part of the discipline of call management.

Note that this expectation compels calling officers to make the most out of the 200 or so calls they have the capacity to make every year, since they can't reach their point minimums by logging in countless 1 point calls.

Setting the expectations is but the first step toward a successful calling program. Building in forethought and call planning is another important element to the program. All calls should have three elements:

• Pre-call planning session

• Agenda

• Post-call debriefing

The pre-call plan involves several aspects:

• Who will run the call

• Who will handle what questions

• Who's got the "stop sign" (a signal for the speaker to stop)

• Who is responsible for "reading" the client

• What's the client's psychology (e.g. are they numeric; detail oriented; talker vs. listener etc.)

• What's the goal for the call

• Call time expectations; who is responsible for ensuring the call ends on time

The call agenda is then built from the pre-planning meeting content.

Before the meeting ends, the lead person should ask the prospect or client two key questions:

• Was this call a good use of your time? Did you get value out of the interaction?

• What else can we do for you and what can we do better

Further input should be shared candidly among the calling team: what worked; what didn't; what could we have done better. Brutal candor is essential to get value out of this part of the debrief. In addition, the group needs to agree on next steps and the people responsible for them (without a neck on the line, things fall between the cracks way too often).

Calling on both clients and prospects, whether as an individual or in teams, is the lifeline of client retention and acquisition. Wrapping it with a clear set of expectations and a simple process such as the one described above can facilitate increased call effectiveness, improved teamwork across banking silos, and, ultimately, greater client satisfaction.