Join industry veterans Brian Wozniak of First National Bank (FNB) and Mary Kay Schneider of MK Insights2Action as they share their top insights on how to transition from transactional to strategic client relationships.
Listen as they discuss how bankers can elevate their roles by deeply understanding their clients' business needs and goals, allowing them to offer tailored solutions that go beyond the transactional. With a focus on cross-selling, the importance of personalized service, and the power of thorough pre-call planning, the conversation also highlights how sales leaders can coach their teams to excel in treasury and merchant services.
Dive into the webinar to discover actionable insights on how to transform from a banker to a trusted advisor who drives lasting client success.
Check out the transcript from the video below:
Jim Fuhrman: Welcome everybody who's in attendance today. We are very excited to continue the webinar series with a couple of industry partners, two seasoned vets within the industry, on a really popular topic in banking today. What we're titling this conversation, and the theme around it, is "You've gathered deposits, now, what?" So, it'll be a Q&A with Brian Wozniak of First National Bank (FNB) in Pennsylvania and Mary Kay Schneider, who is the founder of MK Insights2Action, who works closely with banks, consulting on effective sales strategies. So, a little bit of background about the panelists. First, Mary Kay is a 35-plus year veteran in the banking industry. Having built a career at PNC with a range of groups like retail, private client, business banking, and then evolving into leadership positions, overseeing Underwriting Excellence at the Bank, as well as sales enablement. Mary Kay then founded MK Insights2Action in 2023, which helps clients design and implement strategies to improve risk management, sales enablement, as well as client donor cultivation, and governance.
Our second guest has been in banking for 25 years, holding a similar range of experience to Mary Kay. Brian Wozniak climbed the ranks of PNC's business banking group to eventually lead their national expansion efforts. Before moving to FNB, the 46-billion-dollar Pennsylvania-based lender to lead the bank's small business efforts as EVP to oversee digital channels, payments, credit, marketing, as well as other business lines to further develop cross-functional solutions to effectively reach and serve small businesses.
The trend that we're going to be observing today and talking through in the Q&A is cross-selling. It's not a new concept in banking, nor is the idea of understanding your customer. However, the importance of combining these two concepts to offer customers the best-in-class experience has never been higher.
And particularly over the past 15 months, as the race for deposits began in the post-Silicon Valley Bank world, where deposits and gathering these became more important, more businesses reflect on the question of, "How well does my bank understand me?" And, "Should I trust them enough to keep my money here?" The new expectations set by business clients have caused many bankers to raise the bar and it's elevated what it means to be a banker in that sense. As most bankers now are looked at by their customers as a center of influence. And right up there with lawyers and accountants, bankers are really trusted with advising their clients on what to do next.
Fast forward to today, many lenders retain the trust of their customers as they gather deposits. And now they're faced with the question of how can we effectively position new solutions to the client that put this excess liquidity to work for meeting business goals. Before presenting a single product, it's crucial for the banker to understand as much as possible about the customer. Without understanding of their business and personal needs, goals, the life cycle of the business solution pitching will come off as transactional rather than strategic. While the current topic covers deposit and treasury, because of the aversion to loans at the current high-interest rates, the 2019 version of this webinar could have very easily been around solutions like C&I vs. SBA vs. lines of credit. The financial sector follows trends like any other industry; popular products are bound to change. However, what should remain constant is the emphasis on understanding the scope of the customer before making mention of the next bank product they should leverage.
After setting the stage on what we'll be chatting about today, I'm excited to ask a series of questions to our two panelists, Brian, and Mary Kay, starting off with Mary Kay, specifically around some of the data sources in your experience you've reviewed internally to determine where there might be opportunities for expansion.
Mary Kay: Thanks, Jim. It's great to be here to have this conversation and, for that question in particular, it's a combination of internal and external sources to be able to take a look at, and it might be something that the bank is going to do directly, or it might be something that they're going to get some centralized support on and be able to push leads to them. If you think about this, a number of the bankers may not have some of these names in their portfolio yet. If they had come in March of '23, perhaps they, have not been ones that were put placed into their leads to be able to follow them. And so that could be the benefit of having that support, but if the banker does have access to that certainly they're going to take a look for those accounts that have little activity in them, have idle balances, they can look for deposit-only relationships. Ones that don't have any borrowing with them, just maybe a stray deposit account with limited activity. They can look for those accounts that don't have treasury management or merchant services processing with them.
And as I mentioned, this could be done by the banker. There may be a way to leverage internal systems to be able to find this more readily, those accounts that are missing those attributes. And then another important source, I think internally is more qualitative. Speak to branch managers that are in that area. What do they know about the business or any of the key employees? And what is it that they hear about the local competitors in that particular market and potentially who that business may be keeping a primary relationship with. And what is it that those branch managers might say about what they hear? What are those competitors' strengths? What are those weaknesses? What are they hearing through the lens of those business owners and then, leverage external sources here.
And so, before you do your first call on the company, check for LinkedIn to see, what you can learn through their page. Take a look at their website. Be able to go in and if it's appropriate based on the type of business, like a business-to-consumer business, check for Google reviews and gather intel around that. It's important to take a look at understanding the industry and how their competitors are responding relative to challenges and opportunities you want to be knowledgeable about that, certainly before you have a conversation with them, because you need to know how that's impacting them. How are they viewing their business? And so, there's a variety of things through IBISWorld that give you that broad landscape of information, but then also some very specific help with call prep questions.
But some of the other more general things would be, what's the revenue outlook? What's the SWOT analysis? What are the challenges in the industry? Even some of the segment benchmarking, depending on the size of the business, that can be really useful as well. And so that way, then, when you are out on the call, you'll be able to demonstrate your knowledge there.
Jim: Absolutely. And with the information that comes along with any of the external resources, it's so important, Mary Kay, to understand your business and your customers before you go in for that conversation. Working with a broad range of business types, you maybe can't be a master of all, but it's important to do your research on what really makes this business in this industry tick. And so, there's a lot of good points covered. Moving on to Brian and probably we'll touch on some of these topics, but how do you suggest your bankers and branch managers can engage with these business owners in these conversations about business needs?
Brian: Thanks, Jim. It's a pleasure to be here with you and Mary Kay today. I think the first thing is to think like a business owner, not a banker. I think too often in our industry, bankers look out of the lens of what they want to get out of a conversation. The objective is to be a trusted advisor and to help the business owner achieve both their short and long-term goals. If you're both looking out of the same lens as the business owner, it may lead to a more meaningful conversation and belief the banker understands their goals and can assist in achieving them. The second point I would point out would be to do your homework, a.k.a. pre-call planning. So regardless if it's an existing customer or a prospect or even a COI, research them as much as you can.
This includes, to Mary Kay's point regarding both industry research to demonstrate that you understand their industry, as well as personalized research inclusive of mutual connections, website, social media, and reviews and recommendations online. The third point is to differentiate yourself. Chances are it's not the first time the business owner has been called on by a banker. So, what makes you unique enough to where they don't view you as just another pesky banker looking for their business? Their time is precious. And you understanding that and executing to my earlier points, coupled with something unique.
That may be leveraging mutual connections, acknowledging something specific about the company that you feel makes them unique, or providing a specific example of how you have helped another business like theirs in their industry. Couple that with their communication preference, being available not only when it's convenient for them but also understanding how they want to be communicated with, whether that's email, phone, text, etc. is also important.
Jim: Thinking short and long-term what a lot of bankers are looking for right now is a seat at that table to be that center of influence. So, the more you can understand their business and a lot of the cases, Brian, at your level with some of the smaller businesses, it's important to ask, or request that business owner to tell you what's their story? How did they start their business? Where did they get started? Where do they want to grow towards. Getting that kind of information can set the stage early on. So, you're working side by side to help achieve some of those growth goals, or if they turn the business over or plan to expand whatever direction they plan to take that business. You have a seat at the table to help them make really strategic decisions. Brian, another question for you is as a banker working with bankers and leading bankers, how can members of your team and others on the call make a small business owner confident that it's time to grow their business into more sophisticated products? This goes along with that thinking short and long-term strategy.
Brian: Yeah, it's a great question, Jim. I think first is to be knowledgeable. What do I mean by this? Understand what your value proposition is and what you have to offer. This includes not only intimate knowledge of the products and services that your bank can offer, but how does your personal brand tie into your value prop, which may differentiate you from a bank that might have comparable solutions.
The second point would be to listen and know your customer. Not only understand but demonstrate that you understand their short and long-term goals. And lastly, you can't prescribe a solution unless you diagnose a problem. You can do this by having a comprehensive cash flow conversation by thoroughly understanding how the business collects from customers, pays their vendors, potential short, long-term borrowing needs, how to manage liquidity and optimize return on excess cash or simplistic or more complex online banking capabilities. And especially in today's day and age, how are they protecting themselves? In their cash flow with fraud mitigation solutions.
Jim: In those diagnostic conversations it's so important to figure out maybe what other types of partners within the bank you could pull in to position some of these solutions to help a business grow. Alot of what's happened over the past 18 or so months is the diagnosis was “let's collect deposits.” Loans maybe aren't as popular products given the rate environment, but as the topic of the conversation goes now, having those diagnostic conversations can really help uncover some of these other areas of the bank and product solutions that a customer may not have known about otherwise. And doing your pre-call planning and being really curious about how the business operates can get a lot of those diagnostic questions answered.
Sometimes the hardest part in this conversation is knowing who to loop into the conversation to position the solution as well as how to navigate turning some of the relationships over maybe to a more expert person in the field and being some of those business partners within the bank. So, Brian, how do you help your team understand when to bring in these partners and how to navigate those conversations?
Brian: Another great question, Jim. I think as much as a banker can learn about a product, a service, and the detailed intricacies associated. It can't be an expert in everything. Think of it in terms of health care. Your primary care physician should have a comprehensive understanding of your general health. But if there are specific issues, they will do a warm handoff to a specialist that specifically is trained with deep subject matter expertise on that specialty. The same methodology can be applied in banking.
The second is the earlier the better. However, it's about being efficient, ensuring that you're capturing enough information as possible for your partner to do their own pre-call planning and to pre-call plan together while setting an agenda for the customer. This will likely lead to a more effective conversation with better outcomes. And lastly, is have a holistic focus on overall short and long-term goals for not only the business, but also the business owner as they often complement each other by understanding how and where you can add value on the business, the business owner, and employees of that business and bringing in relevant partners and specialists. The more value you are adding to that relationship and increasing the likelihood of primacy with the overall banking relationship.
Jim: So understanding those short and long-term goals of the client will be important for the long-term relationship, the economy, business needs - everything moves cyclically. The world today looks very different than it did just a couple of years ago. So, a lot of the trends, topics, ideas, themes that we've chatted about so far can be applied. Not just now when deposits and treasury management and merchant services are really popular, but really can span across all different types of services. Of lending environments, but specific to Treasury and merchant services. Mary Kay, you've led teams in the past and right now you're working closely with your customers on getting these skills rolled out effectively to sales teams. What do you see the most effective sales leaders doing to coach their teams on higher performance in these two key areas of Treasury and merchant services?
Mary Kay: Jim, thanks for that question. I think it's so important how the sales leaders coach their team members because that will help deliver a consistent approach that the businesses will feel and will attribute to the reputation of the bank. And it can really help instill all of those best practices across the team. So, if you think about this, I see four actions specifically that the sales leaders can take. And the first one is to just be very organized and disciplined about your approach with your team and your expectations of yourself as well as of them.
And through that, these are actions that are focused on behaviors that you see the bankers doing as well as the activity of not just what is the end result, right? And so, before the banker even goes out on the calls. I think those really effective sales leaders are asking about their calling efforts, who they're calling on and why they selected them, who they're calling on in the next week or month. What's their objective? And also, what do you think the client's objective is at making sure you leave room and space in the call to be able to find out what they wish to discuss? And then what research have they done? Is it timely? Is it relevant? What kind of questions are they going to be asking?
And using that as a way to see how they develop the relationship, how they build trust in that relationship, and also finding out how that helped them uncover some of the challenges and opportunities that business owner or decision maker is facing what they're proud of in their company and what they're looking to improve and, one of those things that Brian that you mentioned was talking about fraud. And honestly, I think that's a question that every banker should be asking about with their clients to just really help educate them on what can happen and how to be prepared for that and finding out what their level of preparedness is.
So that's the first action. I think the second action is, as we've already talked about encouraging the joint calling to take place, but also getting out. The sales leader getting out with the banker with the partner on the call to see what they've done well how they've addressed, in-the-moment new information that they're receiving, how they're building that relationship and then how they are explaining the solutions that can be effective for that particular client and then doing coaching afterwards to help increase their overall effectiveness and then following that.
Later, following up again on another call and seeing how they incorporate that on future calls. I think the third thing is to make sure that as a sales leader, you have those strong partnerships with the treasury management and the merchant services leaders and that you're collaborating. You have shared strategies, including joint calling that benefits your clients. So, one way, one of the ideas that you could do is host an educational session for your clients. We talked about fraud and thinking about how those business owners could help reduce the incidence of fraud and feel better prepared for that. I think it's also as you think about the partners, it's helpful to understand who they have in their sights that they want as clients that they're prospecting on. And where the banker then could use their skills and knowledge and their expertise to add value to that relationship. And so, it's not a one-way street where you're involving them, but they're involving your team as well with theirs.
And then finally, the fourth point is just making sure you celebrate the wins and share the learnings and that you're seeing that this is something that takes hold. And that more of the team members are following those winning strategies and you're expanding those deposit-only relationships that you might have.
Jim: Celebrating the wins and even some of the losses is always so important. And that's really great to be effective as a sales leader, overseeing a team of lenders. But in lender best practices, banker best practices, working closely with customers, the consistency of checking in with these customers with not just a, “hey, how are you?” But something more valuable an agenda that comes along with some of their growth plans and celebrating those wins as well. Staying consistent in a lot of these processes is the simple way to find a lot of success in understanding your clients better.
Brian alluded to it earlier with the diagnostic conversations and understanding the short and long-term vision of these companies' growth plans. Mary Kay alluded to how a leader of bankers can really get on the ground floor with your customers and lead success through consistent practices. That really is a great point to close on is celebrating the wins as well as picking apart the losses to see where conversations could have become better. Asking your clients what their goals are and how they can help grow will ultimately keep you at the table when it comes time for those growth plans, or for those not-so-fun conversations where you can be an advisor to help turn around any troubles.
So I want to thank everybody again for joining today's conversation and there'll be a recording online posted of this for anybody to review. But if you do have any questions, would like to work closer with MK Insights2Action, have any questions for Brian and the folks at FNB or myself at IBISWorld. Very happy to help address those as they come in. So, thank you again and all take care.
