I have observed that selling retail financial services is getting tougher with the passage of time.
My feel is the way in which financial industry has evolved has led to these difficulties
On one hand the sheer number of financial companies with their equally larger product/services offering has made this industry highly competitive.
On the other, customers are more savvy about the choices available to them. They are also wary about the financial salesmen showing them the moon and delivering very little on them. Hence customers go with the assumption that the salesman is lying until proven otherwise, keeping other factors in check for the moment.
From a sales personnel’s point of view, the sheer pressure from top management to sell leaves them no option but to promise stars and hope the customer falls in the trap.
Since customers have become very choosy, the only option left for them is to keep meeting more and more client with the objective that a larger sample size would help them in achieving their targets.
Now for every financial company, the effort to reward ratio (for salesman) would vary based on brand image, size, sector etc. Hence an ICICI would be a lot easier to sell than a DCB product.
So for every salesman, his sample size for achieving his targets would vary based on above parameters. E.g. Keeping things same (sales skill, target audience etc), An LIC salesman would have to meet 10 customers to achieve 1 closure, The salesman from Bharati AXA would have to meet 30 customers for achieving the same.
Hence it is important for each prospective employee to know the effort to reward ratio of the company he is joining. After all just as he would promise the stars, the company might just be doing the same to him at the time of joining.
My feel is the way in which financial industry has evolved has led to these difficulties
On one hand the sheer number of financial companies with their equally larger product/services offering has made this industry highly competitive.
On the other, customers are more savvy about the choices available to them. They are also wary about the financial salesmen showing them the moon and delivering very little on them. Hence customers go with the assumption that the salesman is lying until proven otherwise, keeping other factors in check for the moment.
From a sales personnel’s point of view, the sheer pressure from top management to sell leaves them no option but to promise stars and hope the customer falls in the trap.
Since customers have become very choosy, the only option left for them is to keep meeting more and more client with the objective that a larger sample size would help them in achieving their targets.
Now for every financial company, the effort to reward ratio (for salesman) would vary based on brand image, size, sector etc. Hence an ICICI would be a lot easier to sell than a DCB product.
So for every salesman, his sample size for achieving his targets would vary based on above parameters. E.g. Keeping things same (sales skill, target audience etc), An LIC salesman would have to meet 10 customers to achieve 1 closure, The salesman from Bharati AXA would have to meet 30 customers for achieving the same.
Hence it is important for each prospective employee to know the effort to reward ratio of the company he is joining. After all just as he would promise the stars, the company might just be doing the same to him at the time of joining.
1 comment:
keep going
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