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Small Business Trends Radio, an hour-long radio program featuring small business experts on a variety of topics, today named Clarity Advantage’s Sales Thoughts podcast to its list of 100 Best Small Business Podcasts in 2010 (Marketing and Sales):

http://www.smbtrendwire.com/2010/03/01/100-best-small-business-podcasts-2010/

To listen and subscribe to the Sales Thoughts podcast, click here.

To access the podcast via iTunes, click here.

Introducing Econiq—Helping Banks Increase Branch Profitability

March 17, 2010 at 12:00 PM ET (One Hour)

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For decades, banks have been grappling with the challenge of finding effective ways to marshal the forces of their frontline staff to help sell more to customers.  It is simple, smart business sense and as relevant today as it was 20 years ago.  Who understands your customers better than the folks in the branches who talk to them?  What more cost-effective way is there to sell to existing customers than to use the resources already in place?

Effective selling at the frontline simply makes sense.  And now, there’s a new way for you to realize just how easily you can accelerate frontline sales effectiveness and improve key metrics like cross sell rate, investment and savings referrals, referrals to other specialists, staff satisfaction, reporting cost, and process efficiency.

Join Nick Miller, President of Clarity Advantage, and Colin Piper, President of Econiq, for a live, one-hour web demonstration of the Econiq frontline sales effectiveness solution, proven to deliver an increase in frontline sales by 20% or more within three months of deployment.  The solution is easily customized, requires no integration with your existing technology infrastructure, and can be implemented and delivering results within four weeks.

Date: March 17, 2010

Time: 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM ET

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Intended Audience

EVP/SVP Retail Banking, SVP/VP Branch Sales, SVP/VP Human Resources

Attend the webinar and see how Econiq can help you to:

• Increase sales and cross sales of financial products and services
• Generate higher quality and more qualified sales referrals
• Automate the sales referral process
• Increase efficiency and turnaround time by providing the right information, checklists, and tools to staff exactly when they need them
• Reduce error rates and levels of re-work through process automation
• Reduce cost of report generation through automation
• Eliminate paper-based processes used in customer profiling, customer on-boarding, quality management, customer surveys, and employee performance management
• Improve employee and customer satisfaction rates
• Achieve a better return on investment in training by targeting resources and directly linking training to individual performance

Econiq was cited in Forrester Research’s December 2009 report, “Hot Banking Tech Companies to Watch in 2010.”  Don’t miss your opportunity to see this hot banking technology in action — REGISTER NOW

Video: Nick Miller on Econiq – Improving Sales Conversion Rate

Business bankers can say “good-bye” to boring, redundant sales meetings with the launch of Clarity Advantage’s Sales Meeting in a Box—the fun, new way for managers to motivate sales staff and increase sales results.

Developing creative, new ideas for sales meetings can be a daunting challenge.  Even the most inspiring business banking sales managers know that putting together a fun and successful sales meeting that engages and motivates sales staff week after week, month after month is no easy task.  Sales Meeting in a Box, offered by small business bank training specialist Clarity Advantage, is the alternative to the same old boring sales meeting.

Each Sales Meeting in a Box comes complete with handouts and scripts to support interesting, useful, and fun team meetings with sales staff.  The sales meetings cover a variety of topics that business bankers struggle with including:

• Prospecting
• Positioning Value
• Understanding Clients More Completely
• Deepening Relationships
• Selling Solutions
• Negotiating
• Managing Sales Process

To learn more about Sales Meeting in a Box and to see a sample meeting on prospecting, visit www.clarityadvantage.com.

About Clarity Advantage: Small business bank training specialist Clarity Advantage helps banks generate more profitable relationships faster with small and medium-sized companies, their owners, and employees.  Clarity consulting, communications, sales tools and training help banks recruit and deploy sales team members, choose their best business and consumer prospects and clients, then approach, engage, sell, expand, and retain relationships.  Clarity also assists banks with consumer sales and cash management sales.  Clarity clients have posted increases in household penetration, cross-sells, deposit volume, and loan volume.   Visitors to Clarity’s website, www.clarityadvantage.com, can subscribe to “The Weekly Sales Thought,” a free eNewsletter and podcast focused on business-to-business selling and sales management.

Small business bank training specialist Clarity Advantage launches Sales Thoughts, a podcast aimed at helping bankers accelerate sales to small and medium-sized businesses.

There’s a new way for small business bankers and sales managers to keep up with the latest tips and techniques in business-to-business selling and sales management.   Sales Thoughts, an audio podcast produced by small business bank training specialist Clarity Advantage, is now available for subscription via RSS feed and iTunes.

The Sales Thoughts podcast is an extension of the company’s eNewsletter, Weekly Sales Thoughts.  Content focuses on areas business bankers and sales managers struggle with most including: prospecting, positioning value, negotiating, better questions and listening, coaching, and managing the sales process.  Each three- to five-minute podcast episode, which can be listened to virtually anywhere, anytime on a computer or mp3 player, offers bankers practical strategies they can immediately put to use to accelerate sales.

About Clarity Advantage: Small business bank training Clarity Advantage helps banks generate more profitable relationships faster with small and medium-sized companies, their owners, and employees.  Clarity consulting, communications, sales tools and training help banks recruit and deploy sales team members, choose their best business and consumer prospects and clients, then approach, engage, sell, expand, and retain relationships.  Clarity also assists banks with consumer sales and cash management sales.  Clarity clients have posted increases in household penetration, cross-sells, deposit volume, and loan volume.   Visit www.clarityadvantage.com to learn more.

In the article, The Whole Enchilada: Attracting the Full Small Business Relationship, small business bank training specialist Clarity Advantage offers seven tips to maximize opportunities with small business mixed households (business + personal + employees) and increase bank profits and balance-sheet growth.  Download here. Free registration required.

Mixed-household relationships leverage the entire bank to deliver significant increases in profits and balance-sheet growth.  Research by Novantas indicates that small business relationship profitability can more than double when banks capture the full mixed household.  Small business relationships can drive 40 to 60 percent of retail bank profits.

Even so, many bank senior executives miss the power of small business relationships.  Twenty percent to 40 percent of a bank’s nominally consumer households are connected to small business relationships that bank elsewhere.  In 50 percent or more of bank small business relationships, the owners and employees bank elsewhere.  Small business bank training specialist Clarity Advantage offers bank senior executives seven tips for capturing full small business relationships:

• Cut across silos. Integrate retail and small business strategies so there is ONE strategy for attracting a larger share of mixed-household wallets.
• Define a compelling value proposition for business + personal + employee relationships. Answer the question, “Why should our family + employees + business bank at your bank together versus separately at other banks?”
• Share information. Grant branch and small business banking staff access to all elements of existing small business and consumer relationships across all bank departments so they can see current relationship size and gaps they could address in future relationship development efforts.
• Train staff. Develop people specifically for the mixed-household role rather than “for retail” or “for small business,” alone.
• Communicate what’s important with scorecards and performance management. Align performance metrics with the bank’s strategy and align performance-review criteria and processes to support the strategy and incentive program.
• Incorporate quality standards into the sales and service process. The sales process and sales management disciplines must include quality standards that define how and how sales activities should be done.
• Observe and coach. Coach service and sales behaviors that deliver the desired customer experience and generate deep mixed-household relationships.

To learn more about driving profitability by leveraging small business mixed-household relationships, download The Whole Enchilada: Attracting the Full Small Business Relationship, a Clarity Advantage article published in The Commercial Lending Review.  Free registration required.

Small business bank training specialist Clarity Advantage shares best practices to boost the impact of training on bank plans to grow small business relationships in 2010. Small Business Readiness Checklist for Training and five-article series are available for download at www.clarityadvantage.com. Free registration required.

Concord, Mass., January 19, 2010 — For banks that want to attract, expand, and retain more small business relationships in 2010, training branch managers and small business bankers on business, product, and conversation skills is key.  The biggest training challenges lie in execution—connecting training managers with the bank’s lines of business early on in the process to introduce innovation and change in the workplace, and preparing branch managers and small business bankers so they know what they’re doing with small business clients.

Small business bank training specialist Clarity Advantage offers training managers five strategies to boost the impact of training on bank plans to grow small business relationships:

• Implementation structure. Help line-of-business partners define what results the bank wants from the small business effort, how results will be measured, specific expectations around how branch staff will achieve them, and a conversation framework for managers to communicate to staff.
• Business training. Train staff on the business challenges and operating cycle characteristics of the small businesses the bank is targeting.
• Product training. Train staff on bank products that address the targeted small businesses’ challenges and ensure that staff understand  the value created by the products and the implementation process (e.g. saving X dollars per hour by implementing Y product).
• Conversation training. Train staff on conversation models that encourage business owners to talk to the bank.  Conversation models need to focus on business environment, cash flow and goals, and how the big picture fits together.
• Manager training. Train managers in the same small business skills as staff (business, product, and conversation) as well as provide them with the coaching skills to drive and sustain results.

To learn more about how to increase the impact of training on small business growth in the branches, visit www.clarityadvantage.com and download Small Business Readiness Checklist for Training, a diagnostic tool and corresponding five-article series.  Free registration required.

The biggest opportunity for small business growth is penetrating the existing branch relationships a bank wants to keep.  Small business will be an attractive 2010 deposit and fee growth opportunity, despite current credit concerns.  The biggest challenge for line-of-business managers is sales execution—changing attitudes and behaviors and preparing branch managers and small business bankers so they know what they’re doing with small business clients.

Small business bank training specialist Clarity Advantage offers line-of-business managers five tips to accelerate small business attraction, retention, and expansion:

• Focus on households, not accounts. Pay more attention to customers after they open their accounts.  The value in “small business” is the leverage from business + personal + employees, not the business or personal checking accounts by themselves.  Systematically call existing branch small business customers to re-open dialogue and look for opportunities for the “whole relationship.”  Continue branch sales efforts with new customers assertively during the first 90-180 days after account opening.
• Emphasize specific high-value business types. Tell branch staff and small business teams exactly on which types of businesses—existing customers and new prospects—to focus.  Focus on the business types that bring the most deposits and the broadest business + personal + employee relationships.  Develop staff’s expertise, the bank’s sales process, and the bank’s products so it’s very clear why those businesses should bank with the organization.
• Measure looking forward. If branch scorecards focus more attention on consumer banking than small business, respond with very strong sales management and supplement scorecards with leading indicators such as small business sales activity frequency, focus, and quality and pipeline development to assess and guide the small business sales effort.
• Carve out branch sales time. “No time to sell to small business” is a killer in the branches.  Define roles, expectations, and selling time as a “set.”  Fifteen minutes, standard, every day is better than none.  If “no time” persists, use proactive phone representatives to call unassigned small business customers at least once a year.
• Provide specialized business training and extra coaching. Train sellers to recognize and discuss small business operating challenges as well as small business products and sales techniques.  Provide extra coaching before, during, and after initial training to ensure a return on investment is quickly earned.

To learn more about driving branch small business growth, download Small Business Readiness Checklist for Lines of Business, a diagnostic tool and corresponding six-article series.  Free registration required.

Banking mixed (not to be confused with “mixed up”) households can increase relationship profitability 300% or more and increase cross sells to 15 or more products.

Why? Small business owner deposit balances, loans, and services usage are significantly higher than those of “average consumers.”  If your bank has earned the small business relationship, attract the owner, his/her family, and employees.  If you’ve attracted the owner’s personal relationships, go after the business.

Join Nick Miller, President of Clarity Advantage, author of “The Sales Accelerator” and “Winning at Prospecting” books, and writer of the popular Weekly Sales Thought for Capturing Mixed Small Business Households—a fast-paced and information-rich one-hour webinar on Thursday, February 11, 2010 at 12:00 PM ET to learn how. In this session, Nick will:

• Discuss the critical importance of attracting both the business and personal banking of small business owners and their families.
• Reveal four critical elements within the control of individuals and sales teams that increase the probability that a business owner will bring both personal and business banking to a single institution.
• Introduce an “all inclusive” conversation approach that bridges consumer and small business sales conversations.

Audience:

Small business bankers, business bankers, branch small business specialists, platform financial services representatives, assistant branch managers, branch managers, and their managers.

Benefits to Participation:

• Learn a conversation structure that you can immediately use with small business owners
• Gain four strategies for increasing identification and attraction of full mixed-household relationships
• Feel more confident in your conversations with small business owners

Registration Bonus:

Register for the webinar and we’ll send you a link to Nick’s article, “The Whole Enchilada: Attracting the Full Small Business Relationship,” published in the November-December 2009 issue of Commercial Lending Review.  In the article, Nick shares seven tips for maximizing opportunities with small business mixed households.

Register Now and Receive a Link to Nick’s Article

Stories are a critical part of the sales discovery as well as presenting capabilities. Told well, they engage clients and prospects and accelerate the sales process. Catch Nick discussing how to use stories as part of an effective sales relationship in The Kurke Report, a radio show hosted by Kathleen Kurke.

Listen Now

Bank small business sales specialist Clarity Advantage offers small business banking account managers seven tips for engaging customers in valuable conversations, connecting their bank’s products to the business owner’s issues, and retaining and growing small business wallet share.

Banks that want to grow more profitable small business relationships must focus more deeply on their customers.  According to the 2009 Small Business Banking Satisfaction Study^SM conducted by J.D. Power and Associates, customer satisfaction increases when an account manager demonstrates a complete understanding of a small business customer’s business.  High levels of satisfaction (over 800 on a 1,000 point scale) can result in a 20 percent increase in revenue.

Clarity Advantage, a firm that helps banks generate more profitable small business relationships, offers these impact-boosting tips for account managers:

• Focus on the business and owner, not your products. Engage small business owners with conversations that focus on their personal and company goals and operations challenges rather than on products the bank is promoting. They want to bank with people who understand them and care about them.
• Conduct research. Learn about critical industry trends or challenges that targeted small business owners are facing. Use this information to anticipate customer challenges and guide conversation to issues that matter to the customer.
• Use business and financial acumen small business owners use. Understand and use accounting terms like “depreciation,” financial concepts such as “impact of growth on cash flow,” and tax issues like “the implications of leasing a piece of equipment versus buying it” to demonstrate knowledge.
• Understand cash flow. Know how business owners collect, pay out, invest, and withdraw cash from their businesses. Make connections to bank products.
• Know the value of the bank’s solutions. Understand how and when bank products solve customer operations challenges and the value that products create when implemented.  Use this knowledge to recommend the right products at the right time.
• Pay more attention to small business customers after they open accounts. Check in with customers during the first 90-180 days after account opening to broaden conversations to include personal and employee financial needs.  This requires that account managers ask a prescribed set of questions during the account opening process to identify likely future conversation topics, take notes so they can remember what was said, carve out the time to make the calls to continue the conversation, and complete a thorough check of the business’s payment cycle methods if this conversation wasn’t completed during the account opening process.
• Call existing small business customers at least once a year for an annual check-up. Lead a 15-minute to 30-minute discussion covering the business’s goals, performance, challenges, and plans; a review of the business’s payment cycle methods; the owner’s personal and family financial goals and challenges including deposit, investment, and retirement strategies and resources; and employee financial goals and challenges.  Twice a year is better than once a year. For profitable and expandable customers, touches at least quarterly.

To learn more and see how Clarity Advantage has helped numerous banks focus on their small business customers and increase results, visit www.clarityadvantage.com.

About Clarity Advantage: Clarity Advantage helps banks generate more profitable relationships faster with small and medium-sized companies, their owners, and employees.  Clarity consulting, communications, sales tools and training help banks recruit and deploy sales team members, choose their best business and consumer prospects and clients, then approach, engage, sell, expand, and retain relationships.  Clarity also assists banks with consumer sales and cash management sales.  Clarity clients have posted increases in household penetration, cross-sells, deposit volume, and loan volume.   Visitors to Clarity’s website, www.clarityadvantage.com, can subscribe to “The Weekly Sales Thought,” a free eNewsletter focused on business-to-business selling and sales management.