BizyDad
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FASTLANE INSIDER
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
LEGACY MEMBER
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
My first thread. Exciting.
So over in this thread, I made a case for new folks who don’t know what their Fastlane looks like, to consider banking as a job as they figure it out. You can read why there, but long story short, it’s a place business owners come to talk about money. You can ask them all kinds of questions, and you see the bank account, so you know who to listen to and who is full of it.
@Andy Black asked me to share what I learned in my time there having basically interviewed something close to 2k business owners. I figured I’d make it its own thread. I basically dumped anything I think might help you from my experience as a banker into this post. Thanks for taking the time.
Banking Ain’t What It Used To Be
This was a disappointment to me at first. Where are all the gray haired bankers?
By working at a bank I had hoped to find a mentor, but I quickly learned my mistake. Working at a bank branch, you are a RETAIL banker. Ugh. I hated the word retail back then. You’re "just" a sales person. An order taker. Collect info, wait for some central department to make a decision. If you get to be really good, some business owner might recruit and mentor you to a higher paying job, but you have to stand out. Which is what happened to me, and maybe I'll detail that in my future intro post.
Also, no one at the branch level cares about your business plan. Save that for investor meetings. At the bank, it is all about how much money did you claim on taxes over 2 years and what collateral were you putting up ($$, home, business assets). As soon as I learned the rules, I was determined to find a better way to play the game.
The Biggest Threat To Your Money Is You
The dumb things people do to part with their money! Wild Vegas trips that get exposed and lead to divorce. Wiring money via Western Union to Saudi princes. Giving their girlfriend or college student kid or top salesperson a debit card linked to your main account. Smh. But getting that office space that is way too big or way too luxurious is also just as dumb.
I used to be surprised at how many times people said "We'll grow into it" and then don't. I figured these professionals knew their business. I was wrong. Business owners are still just people, and they get caught up in how it feels to have big offices, lavish furnture, nice cars, etc. If any part of your decision to spend big bucks in business is aspirational or motivational then you didn't make a business decision. It's ok to put yourself behind the 8 ball as a motivational technique, but don't put your business there.
Besides you, the next 2 biggest threats to your money are divorce, and a very very distant third is your internal accountant/bookkeeper/office manager To put that in perspective, I heard the tale of key employee embezzlement/theft about once a year. As a small business owner, you should never take your eye off your $$, and you shouldn't give anyone access to it. Just one man's opinion...
Know The Power Of A Question
My job as a banker is to profile you quickly to find out what I can sell you. Questions are powerful. He who asks the questions controls the conversation.
You ask, they answer. If they don’t respond with a question, you can ask another and guide the chat. Ask the right questions in the right order, and really pay attention to the words someone chooses, and you can uncover so much about a person, what they think, what they value, what they want.
You tell me what a person wants, and I’ll tell you who they are.
What I loved, as a salesperson, about being a banker to business owners is before they even sit down, I can be fairly confident about these basic facts about them:
Ask intelligent, insightful questions, and people will perceive you as an expert, EVEN WHEN YOU ONLY HAVE A CURSORY KNOWLEDGE OF THE SUBJECT. So whenever a business owner sat down in front of me, I’d always find a way to ask these three questions:
Show people you understand what they are going through and they will open up to you like nobody’s business. That’s good rapport building. I’ll show some other examples of question use here in a moment.
Business Ideas Come From Anywhere… But Usually From The Line Of Work You Are Already In
Sorry Fastlaners, but there is no super secret shortcut. I think MJ has written about this process better than I ever could. Most people don’t have great imaginations. Most businesses start because some employee thinks they can do it better going alone. Most of the time they over-estimated themselves.
I will say this also. A business coach client once told me that when starting out, however long you think something will take, and however much you estimate something will cost to do, always triple the time and double the cost estimate.
In a start up, nothing ever happens as fast as you think it will, and that often leads to more costs to accomplish things. I wouldn’t say this is an absolute truth, but having seen many start ups, I’d say this is true enough. Even when its wrong, the worst case is you complete something ahead of schedule and for less cost.
Businesses Don’t Fail. Business Owners Quit.
I’m exaggerating a bit. But there’s that statistic about how many businesses fail within 2 years or 5 years. Yes, many businesses that start can’t get customers and close up shop.
But a lot of businesses “make it” to earn a decent income. But the business owner still shuts it down. Couple of examples:
Creatively Assess Your Assets
Most people think as a banker the chief thing I had to sell was accounts and loans. That’s true. And every other banker was trying to sell that to.
I quickly realized another asset… A database of a few thousand local homeowners and 400-600 business owners. And boy did I ever leverage that to try and stand out from other bankers.
So picture any networking event. You come up to me, see my bank logoed sweater vest (yeah, I rocked it like that), and you think “Oh crap, I gotta get outta here! Don't look him in the eyes!” You’ve already talked to like 4 other bankers, not another one! But I don’t let you go. I engage you in a quick conversation with a question…
“Hey, you look interesting. Let me ask you when you come to these kinds of events, who are you looking to meet?”
This accomplishes a few things:
Business owner? I’ll keep asking insightful questions until some point you kind of have to ask me what I do. If I really have to, I just stop asking questions and look off for a second disinterested. I never offer it. I make you ask. To fill the silence and not be rude, you’ll ask what I do. You think you know, and then I say:
I help my client’s businesses grow revenue.
What? Don’t you work for a bank? How? Is this some special division?
Oh no, I laugh. I work in a branch. And I have 500 businesses in my database, including several (insert their ideal prospect). My job is to call them regularly and know what's going on in their business. I’m on the phone all the time at work. But I also have to grow my branches’ balances. So one thing I do is try to get my clients do business with other clients. This way money goes from one account to another, and my branch doesn’t lose the balance. By helping my clients and introducing them to each other to do business, I achieve a win, win, win.
So let me ask you, does your banker send you business?
In 3 years, only 2 people ever said yes their banker sent them business. I said great! Keep ‘em. You have a good one. And I moved on.
To everyone else, I said, Let’s chat a little more so I can learn a little more about your business, and when I leave, I’ll try and find 3 people I think you can do business with, ok? I just make introductions, up to you whether you do business, but I promise I don’t waste anyone’s time. Sound good? (They nod their head). And after I do that and you meet with them, will you then consider bringing your banking relationship over to me?
Of course they say yes.
Do you see the sequence of questions and predictable answers? It got to be robotic for me, but for them, it was always a first. I stood out.
So I’ve built rapport at this point and I’ve promised them they want. And they know what I want too. Its all out in the open. So now I get to ask the magic question. “Can you give me a rough idea how much you keep in your account?”
It didn’t always work, sometimes I made it a joke, other times I gave a little further explanation for the question, but eventually I got so good at it that more than 50% of the time people would tell me. No matter what they said, I quickly moved on because this is an uncomfortable question to ask (in a public networking event, no less). I spent the next several minutes enthralled as I asked more questions about who was a good client for them.
(Side note... Ok, I haven’t thought about this in years. But I just wrote this story down, and yes, I got a lot of people to tell me their bank balance in a public setting! It was normal to me then, but writing it out just now… woah! People are crazy. Pro tip - Don't give strangers your bank balance people! Ok, moving along...)
Ok, so when I left the event, I’d prioritize the people with the biggest balances first (sometimes I had to guess), and I’d do my best to find 3 meetings for them. Added bonus, making those client calls I was supposed to make went so much easier when I was calling to introduce my client to somebody. By reciprocity, I’d get 75% of prospects to actually follow through and open accounts, get loans, etc. My clients loved me. This is a big part of how I became a national achiever at my bank.
I believe this basic tactic can be applied by any number of businesses and/or taught to your sales people. I had a database and the ability to drive sales for people. Be a connector. Give more than you get. Ask powerful questions. Most people can develop these assets.
An unexpected benefit is this, since this was their first introduction to me, my clients always felt like I am honest and like they can confide anything in me. They would come to me for all kinds of advice. All because I dared ask these kinds of questions. And that's still true to this day.
So look at your assets differently. Here are other examples:
Talk about creatively assessing an asset.
Sell Thru, Not To
I heard someone once tell the story about how the guy who invented Velcro approached his sales. I don’t know whether its true or not. But someone says to the guy “How were you able to convince the world to buy your product?” And he responds, “I didn’t. I convinced 5 people”. “What?”
“Yea, all I had to do was convince the heads of the sneaker industry and the car industry. They sold it to the world.”
Some of the best businesses I saw leveraged this idea of not trying to directly sell to the customer, but instead selling thru Centers Of Influence. A lot has already been written in this forum about finding other businesses who target your customers and trading referrals or developing cross promotional tactics. If you can, do it. It’s “easy” money.
Leave No Marketing Channel Unconsidered
Think classified ads are dead? Wrong. Think AOL is dead? Wrong. Think phone books are dead? Wrong.
I was shocked at the stories I heard about where people got their customers. I’m not suggesting you are going to Fastlane by using classifieds, AOL and phone books. I am just saying that for the right businesses, your customers might be reached using techniques others think are dead.
Dead just means less noise for you to cut through.
I had a multi-million dollar estate planning law practice with 15 employees. Their only paid marketing channel? Ads in Catholic church flyers (a place full of older people who take legacy seriously). Yes, just Catholic churches. Yes, I’m talking the paper leaflets handed out.
If I remember right, they just covered the cost of printing them and in exchange get to say something tactful and respectful on bottom quarter of the back page, with a nice hook. I don’t recall the hook. $4-5 million a year in sales if memory serves.
What Did They Wish They’d Done Differently?
These answers are all as personal as the owners and businesses were. But there was one consistent message I got, and it came from the ones who felt they were successful. They often said:
“I wish I had started sooner”.
----------
Thanks again for reading. I know it was long. I hope some piece of this helps you get a little farther, a little faster down your path. If you could give me some feedback, I'd appreciate it. What stood out to you?
So over in this thread, I made a case for new folks who don’t know what their Fastlane looks like, to consider banking as a job as they figure it out. You can read why there, but long story short, it’s a place business owners come to talk about money. You can ask them all kinds of questions, and you see the bank account, so you know who to listen to and who is full of it.
@Andy Black asked me to share what I learned in my time there having basically interviewed something close to 2k business owners. I figured I’d make it its own thread. I basically dumped anything I think might help you from my experience as a banker into this post. Thanks for taking the time.
Banking Ain’t What It Used To Be
This was a disappointment to me at first. Where are all the gray haired bankers?
By working at a bank I had hoped to find a mentor, but I quickly learned my mistake. Working at a bank branch, you are a RETAIL banker. Ugh. I hated the word retail back then. You’re "just" a sales person. An order taker. Collect info, wait for some central department to make a decision. If you get to be really good, some business owner might recruit and mentor you to a higher paying job, but you have to stand out. Which is what happened to me, and maybe I'll detail that in my future intro post.
Also, no one at the branch level cares about your business plan. Save that for investor meetings. At the bank, it is all about how much money did you claim on taxes over 2 years and what collateral were you putting up ($$, home, business assets). As soon as I learned the rules, I was determined to find a better way to play the game.
The Biggest Threat To Your Money Is You
The dumb things people do to part with their money! Wild Vegas trips that get exposed and lead to divorce. Wiring money via Western Union to Saudi princes. Giving their girlfriend or college student kid or top salesperson a debit card linked to your main account. Smh. But getting that office space that is way too big or way too luxurious is also just as dumb.
I used to be surprised at how many times people said "We'll grow into it" and then don't. I figured these professionals knew their business. I was wrong. Business owners are still just people, and they get caught up in how it feels to have big offices, lavish furnture, nice cars, etc. If any part of your decision to spend big bucks in business is aspirational or motivational then you didn't make a business decision. It's ok to put yourself behind the 8 ball as a motivational technique, but don't put your business there.
Besides you, the next 2 biggest threats to your money are divorce, and a very very distant third is your internal accountant/bookkeeper/office manager To put that in perspective, I heard the tale of key employee embezzlement/theft about once a year. As a small business owner, you should never take your eye off your $$, and you shouldn't give anyone access to it. Just one man's opinion...
Know The Power Of A Question
My job as a banker is to profile you quickly to find out what I can sell you. Questions are powerful. He who asks the questions controls the conversation.
You ask, they answer. If they don’t respond with a question, you can ask another and guide the chat. Ask the right questions in the right order, and really pay attention to the words someone chooses, and you can uncover so much about a person, what they think, what they value, what they want.
You tell me what a person wants, and I’ll tell you who they are.
What I loved, as a salesperson, about being a banker to business owners is before they even sit down, I can be fairly confident about these basic facts about them:
- They want to make more money. This usually means they want to sell more product or they want more clients.
- If you show them a believable way to save/make money, they’ll probably do it.
- They are comfortable with a certain degree of risk. Meaning they will give you less objections to your ideas in #2 than the average person will.
Ask intelligent, insightful questions, and people will perceive you as an expert, EVEN WHEN YOU ONLY HAVE A CURSORY KNOWLEDGE OF THE SUBJECT. So whenever a business owner sat down in front of me, I’d always find a way to ask these three questions:
- How did you get started in this business/Where did you get the idea for this business?
- How do you get your clients/customers?
- What’s something you wished you had done differently?
Show people you understand what they are going through and they will open up to you like nobody’s business. That’s good rapport building. I’ll show some other examples of question use here in a moment.
Business Ideas Come From Anywhere… But Usually From The Line Of Work You Are Already In
Sorry Fastlaners, but there is no super secret shortcut. I think MJ has written about this process better than I ever could. Most people don’t have great imaginations. Most businesses start because some employee thinks they can do it better going alone. Most of the time they over-estimated themselves.
I will say this also. A business coach client once told me that when starting out, however long you think something will take, and however much you estimate something will cost to do, always triple the time and double the cost estimate.
In a start up, nothing ever happens as fast as you think it will, and that often leads to more costs to accomplish things. I wouldn’t say this is an absolute truth, but having seen many start ups, I’d say this is true enough. Even when its wrong, the worst case is you complete something ahead of schedule and for less cost.
Businesses Don’t Fail. Business Owners Quit.
I’m exaggerating a bit. But there’s that statistic about how many businesses fail within 2 years or 5 years. Yes, many businesses that start can’t get customers and close up shop.
But a lot of businesses “make it” to earn a decent income. But the business owner still shuts it down. Couple of examples:
- A better opportunity. After three years, an entreprenuer's ecommerce business was paying her bills, but after three years she was frustrated. Margins weren't high enough to hire. She questioned if she could even be a leader. Sales weren't growing fast enough. Everything was on her. So when a GiantCorp recruiter saw her blog and reached out, she jumped at the chance to work at GiantCorp and make twice the money. She missed being around others to learn from. She never gave entrepreneurship another thought and for her, it was a good move. She is way happier now.
- Just sick of it. A pizza guy knows how to make good pizza. He opens a pizza shop. His place gets known. Classy joint. Music on weekend nights. Pretty soon he’s spending more time in the back office dealing with things like rising food costs. His pizza is great, people love it, but he hates his new life. "Math? No one told me I’d need math to make pizzas!" (Yes, that's a quote. He was having a bad day.) After trying to sell the biz for 2 years with no takers, he closed the doors and went back to work for the guy he used to work for 5 years prior. Could you imagine? But his wife told me he was happy again, because he got to make the pizza.
Creatively Assess Your Assets
Most people think as a banker the chief thing I had to sell was accounts and loans. That’s true. And every other banker was trying to sell that to.
I quickly realized another asset… A database of a few thousand local homeowners and 400-600 business owners. And boy did I ever leverage that to try and stand out from other bankers.
So picture any networking event. You come up to me, see my bank logoed sweater vest (yeah, I rocked it like that), and you think “Oh crap, I gotta get outta here! Don't look him in the eyes!” You’ve already talked to like 4 other bankers, not another one! But I don’t let you go. I engage you in a quick conversation with a question…
“Hey, you look interesting. Let me ask you when you come to these kinds of events, who are you looking to meet?”
This accomplishes a few things:
- You're rude to walk away from a question. Especially after being paid a compliment.
- I intrigued you; you are secretly wondering if I can help you. You have to engage to find out, now you're making eye contact.
- You just told me who your ideal prospect/client is. So I know what you want.
Business owner? I’ll keep asking insightful questions until some point you kind of have to ask me what I do. If I really have to, I just stop asking questions and look off for a second disinterested. I never offer it. I make you ask. To fill the silence and not be rude, you’ll ask what I do. You think you know, and then I say:
I help my client’s businesses grow revenue.
What? Don’t you work for a bank? How? Is this some special division?
Oh no, I laugh. I work in a branch. And I have 500 businesses in my database, including several (insert their ideal prospect). My job is to call them regularly and know what's going on in their business. I’m on the phone all the time at work. But I also have to grow my branches’ balances. So one thing I do is try to get my clients do business with other clients. This way money goes from one account to another, and my branch doesn’t lose the balance. By helping my clients and introducing them to each other to do business, I achieve a win, win, win.
So let me ask you, does your banker send you business?
In 3 years, only 2 people ever said yes their banker sent them business. I said great! Keep ‘em. You have a good one. And I moved on.
To everyone else, I said, Let’s chat a little more so I can learn a little more about your business, and when I leave, I’ll try and find 3 people I think you can do business with, ok? I just make introductions, up to you whether you do business, but I promise I don’t waste anyone’s time. Sound good? (They nod their head). And after I do that and you meet with them, will you then consider bringing your banking relationship over to me?
Of course they say yes.
Do you see the sequence of questions and predictable answers? It got to be robotic for me, but for them, it was always a first. I stood out.
So I’ve built rapport at this point and I’ve promised them they want. And they know what I want too. Its all out in the open. So now I get to ask the magic question. “Can you give me a rough idea how much you keep in your account?”
It didn’t always work, sometimes I made it a joke, other times I gave a little further explanation for the question, but eventually I got so good at it that more than 50% of the time people would tell me. No matter what they said, I quickly moved on because this is an uncomfortable question to ask (in a public networking event, no less). I spent the next several minutes enthralled as I asked more questions about who was a good client for them.
(Side note... Ok, I haven’t thought about this in years. But I just wrote this story down, and yes, I got a lot of people to tell me their bank balance in a public setting! It was normal to me then, but writing it out just now… woah! People are crazy. Pro tip - Don't give strangers your bank balance people! Ok, moving along...)
Ok, so when I left the event, I’d prioritize the people with the biggest balances first (sometimes I had to guess), and I’d do my best to find 3 meetings for them. Added bonus, making those client calls I was supposed to make went so much easier when I was calling to introduce my client to somebody. By reciprocity, I’d get 75% of prospects to actually follow through and open accounts, get loans, etc. My clients loved me. This is a big part of how I became a national achiever at my bank.
I believe this basic tactic can be applied by any number of businesses and/or taught to your sales people. I had a database and the ability to drive sales for people. Be a connector. Give more than you get. Ask powerful questions. Most people can develop these assets.
An unexpected benefit is this, since this was their first introduction to me, my clients always felt like I am honest and like they can confide anything in me. They would come to me for all kinds of advice. All because I dared ask these kinds of questions. And that's still true to this day.
So look at your assets differently. Here are other examples:
- A client with drivers did a food drive where they handle the pick ups. It was “easy”, their clients were biggish companies, so they just asked the HR managers to send out an email for people to donate cans of food by leaving them next to the shredding bins. Over the course of a month, the drivers left boxes for the cans one week, picked them up the next. They generated press and good will. (SEO people, this is great link juice). I’m sure this impacted client loyalty too.
- Another client had a way too big and empty parking lot. Do you like going to coffee shops with big empty parking lots? So they opened up the parking lot for any number of events, which basically gave her coffee shop free publicity, word of mouth, and easy customers. Talk about turning a weakness into a strength.
- Another client was in the costume business. Super seasonal. When they decided to start selling sexy costumes, their business really took off. Another word for sexy costumes is lingerie, and viola, their super seasonal business morphed into an actual Fastlane business with consistent sales and shocking enough gear that generating press and social media buzz became, for them, super easy. Who buys sexy Donald Trump outfits for women? Yuck. But you’re going to Google it now, aren’t you? And the HuffPo will write about it. Buzzzzzzz.
Talk about creatively assessing an asset.
Sell Thru, Not To
I heard someone once tell the story about how the guy who invented Velcro approached his sales. I don’t know whether its true or not. But someone says to the guy “How were you able to convince the world to buy your product?” And he responds, “I didn’t. I convinced 5 people”. “What?”
“Yea, all I had to do was convince the heads of the sneaker industry and the car industry. They sold it to the world.”
Some of the best businesses I saw leveraged this idea of not trying to directly sell to the customer, but instead selling thru Centers Of Influence. A lot has already been written in this forum about finding other businesses who target your customers and trading referrals or developing cross promotional tactics. If you can, do it. It’s “easy” money.
Leave No Marketing Channel Unconsidered
Think classified ads are dead? Wrong. Think AOL is dead? Wrong. Think phone books are dead? Wrong.
I was shocked at the stories I heard about where people got their customers. I’m not suggesting you are going to Fastlane by using classifieds, AOL and phone books. I am just saying that for the right businesses, your customers might be reached using techniques others think are dead.
Dead just means less noise for you to cut through.
I had a multi-million dollar estate planning law practice with 15 employees. Their only paid marketing channel? Ads in Catholic church flyers (a place full of older people who take legacy seriously). Yes, just Catholic churches. Yes, I’m talking the paper leaflets handed out.
If I remember right, they just covered the cost of printing them and in exchange get to say something tactful and respectful on bottom quarter of the back page, with a nice hook. I don’t recall the hook. $4-5 million a year in sales if memory serves.
What Did They Wish They’d Done Differently?
These answers are all as personal as the owners and businesses were. But there was one consistent message I got, and it came from the ones who felt they were successful. They often said:
“I wish I had started sooner”.
----------
Thanks again for reading. I know it was long. I hope some piece of this helps you get a little farther, a little faster down your path. If you could give me some feedback, I'd appreciate it. What stood out to you?
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