Over the past 25 years we have trained and coached over 20,000 Financial Advisors and 2,500 branch managers, producing branch managers, complex directors, regional managers, and divisional directors. In that time frame, we have partnered with 15 wealth management firms on some of their most strategic initiatives to help them achieve their goals.
Business Challenge
- The three-year retention rate of diverse next-gen Financial Advisors was lower than the average of all three-year and under Financial Advisors
Solution
Goal: Increase three-year retention rate of diverse next-gen Financial Advisors
- Received organizational alignment from the top down on the initiative.
- Gathered best practices of 30 highest-performing three year and under diverse next-gen Financial Advisors
- Program built around those best practices
- Nationwide roll-out to every three-year and under diverse next-gen Financial Advisor
- Program repeated with new participants, consecutively for three years
Delivery:
- Mandatory digital pre-work consisting of 27 modules around business planning, client acquisition, and conducting meetings
- Two-day instructor led training focused on skill development practice. Each participant received a “Best Practices Playbook” in support of the instructor led training.
- Sustainment:
- Four-month live webinars to reinforce learning and hold the Financial Advisors accountable to pre-determined performance metrics. Each participant received a “Best Practices Playbook” in support of the webinars.
- Mobile sales training to reinforce key learnings.
- 120-day email campaign consisting of a tip of the day, quote of the day, a link to a short best-practice skill development video, and an action step of the day based on the video.
- One year access to the digital training platform as a resource
- The client received performance reporting on a monthly basis to measure success.
Results
- Client reported after three years that the three-year retention rate of diverse next-gen Financial Advisors increased by over 50%.
- Client then rolled out the program to every next-gen Financial Advisor in the firm.
- This program is still continuing with each new hire class.
We have worked with five major and regional banks in the last decade, helping them to improve the performance of their banking associates as the environment changes.
Business Challenge
- Fewer clients are coming into the bank
- More and more clients are doing their banking online
- Less opportunities for face-to-face interactions with clients
- For many clients, their financial situation is becoming more complex—they have more need for banking solutions available that they may not be aware of.
Solution
Goal: Increase the volume of relationship calls to clients to schedule face-to-face meetings to strengthen the relationship while keeping the emphasis on service.
- Received organizational alignment from the top down on the initiative.
- Gathered best practices from Relationship Managers and Financial Advisors.
- Program built around those best practices
- Regional roll-out to the Regional Executives, Regional Sales Managers, Consumer Banking market leaders and Regional Sales Performance Managers
- Two-step training program consisting of how to make outbound relationship calls and a train-the-trainer program
Delivery:
- One half day instructor led training program focused on how to make outbound relationship calls
- One half day train-the-trainer program focused on training participants on how to do skill development training for the outbound relationship calls program
- Sustainment: Four-month situational coaching follow-up calls
- The client received performance reporting on a monthly basis to measure success.
Results
- Outbound client relationship call volume increased 300%
- Face-to-face meetings in the bank increased by 200%
- In the bank’s footprint, market share increased by 2%
Professional sports teams have unique challenges which impact their ability to sell tickets which can range from team performance – or lack thereof – to changes in ownership, coaching staff, or players.
Business Challenge
- The Los Angeles Dodgers are in competition for entertainment budgets in the Los Angeles market with the advent of two NBA franchises and two new NFL franchises that moved to Los Angeles.
- Attendance numbers are so high that it’s difficult to improve on that number year over year.
Solution
Goal: Sell four million tickets.
- Gathered best practices of highest-performing inside ticket sales executives
- Program built around those best practices
Delivery:
Conducted instructor led training in 2016 and 2017 for the newly hired inside sales team through a customized program called The Dodger Way that was designed to…
- Improve selling skills
- Sell more season tickets
- Sell more group events
- Increase season ticket holder renewal rate
- Sell more plans
Results
Increased ticket sales over two years by 5%, culminating in overall attendance in 2019 of 3,974,309, the highest yearly attendance in the history of the Dodgers.
Over the past three decades, we have worked with multiple telecommunication firms, training over 22,000 representatives, coach leaders, sales managers, and directors. Our programs have helped our clients address performance gaps in the areas of sales, service, and compliance. Key concepts that were introduced in our programs were consultative sales skills and product bundling techniques, as well as coaching skills and operating rhythms.
Business Challenge
- A major telecommunications company relied on promotional discounts lasting one year to sell and retain broadband customers for the past 20 years. As a result, service reps relied on the promotional discounts rather than conducting a needs-based sales conversation. They simply relied on the discount to close the sale or retain the customer. At the beginning of 2022, the company decided to change their strategy and do away with promotional discounts because they were causing customer dissatisfaction and lowering profit margins.
- The company’s solution was to implement a straightforward pricing model, which removed all discounts and instead focused on an all-inclusive price point for broadband services. This would reduce customer aggravation with promotions expiring and would help improve profitability.
- The challenge with that solution was that the service reps were ill-equipped to conduct a needs-based conversation and position product benefits.
- Another challenge was getting the sales managers to effectively support and coach the reps through the implementation of this new strategy.
Solution
Goal 1: Service Representative Call Flow: Implement a needs-based call flow to uncover customer needs and wants, confirm understanding, make a personalized recommendation, address concerns, and close the sale. Train and coach all service reps in the organization on the new call flow.
Goal 2: Coaching Skills: Implement a sales coaching model to drive performance improvement on key performance indicators by all call center managers.
The company partnered with The Next Level to implement a three-phase solution plan:
- Phase one was to develop, train, and implement a needs-based call flow.
- Phase two was to introduce a sales coaching model so the sales managers could reinforce and sustain the new skills.
- Phase three involved identifying and upskilling any sales managers and reps that had performance gaps and provided them with additional coaching and support to improve their performance.
Approach:
- Gain organizational alignment on the initiative from the top down.
- Gather best practices of top-performing service reps and sales managers across the nation and customize both the call flow program and the sales coaching program based on those insights.
- Nation-wide roll-out to every call center service rep (~7,000 reps).
- Nation-wide roll-out to every manager, at every level (~600 managers).
- Upskill the in-house trainers. New managers and service reps hired after the initial roll-out were to be trained by in-house trainers.
Delivery:
Phase one: Call Flow
Initial rollout of the call flow was done in four, two-hour, virtual sessions (one module per session) in cohorts of six service reps. After each module was completed, there was a test for competence before the service reps implemented the skill with customers. After the four modules were completed, there was a cumulative practice, and the service reps were tested for competency on the entire call flow. Competency results were provided to management for accountability. The practice scenarios used were the most common call types for each specific channel (Sales, Service, Loyalty, and Technical Support).
Phase two: Sales Coaching Model
As a pre-work assignment, each manager received a copy of the book, The Next Level Sales Coaching – How to Build a Sales Team that Stays, Sells, and Succeeds, to introduce the behaviors. Then managers attended three days of instructor-led training focused on skill development through practice. Each manager received a sales coaching playbook in support of the training. The first four hours of each day consisted of training two new coaching tactics and practicing them. Each afternoon every sales manager was observed implementing the sales coaching tactics and received feedback on their performance.
Phase three: Performance Gaps
At the end of the week any sales manager who was struggling with a tactic received extra coaching support from the Next Level who then reviewed the situation with the manager’s supervisor to inform them that extra coaching was provided to bring them to the appropriate level of competency.
After the instructor-led training, a sustainment plan was implemented. Participants were observed (either in person or remote) and given feedback two times within 90 days. These observations reinforced learning, further developed skills, and held managers accountable to implementing the sales coaching model.
In addition, the Next Level up-skilled trainers in professional development to provide follow-up observation and coaching to managers in order to continue to drive performance.
Results
- Call Flow Training with Service Reps: 5,500 training sessions completed.
- Broadband close rate increased by 133%.
- Broadband revenue grew by more than 19%.
- Offer rate increased by 19%.
- Save rate increased by 15%.
- Sales Coaching Training with Managers: 1,500 training sessions completed.
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- Group and one-on-one coaching sessions (from sales manager to service rep) increased from 185,000 in 2022 to 346,000 in 2023, an 87% increase.
- Transferred calls reduced by 14%.
- Resolve rate improved by 8%.