Learn how Youd Andrews Transformed sales for a leading Bank

Learn how Youd Andrews Transformed sales for a leading Bank

Selling to C-suite leaders is notoriously tricky, but the rewards are worth investing in. Getting it right results in faster deals, bigger deals, and valuable ‘partner’ status. That’s where we come in.

The Outcomes

“YA has helped us achieve true trusted advisor status with more of our clients

1. Broader and deeper C-level connections
2. Larger Value driven deals
3. Increased confidence and discipline to develop a client-first, strategic “trusted advisor” status with prospects and board-level clients
4. Youd Andrews 6C’s framework became part of the culture, providing a structure for preparing, connecting, and delivering C-level engagement with impact
5. The Youd Andrews programme was consistently rated by the participants over 8 years as the best training they had ever experienced

Before                                                    After

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The Challenge

A leading Global Financial institution approached Youd Andrews during a time of rapid growth to solve the problem of: –

“Our corporate and investment bankers lack the confidence and understanding to develop deeper and broader relationships with prospects and clients’ senior executives. Because of this, they aren’t transactionally driven and struggle to reach trusted advisor status, which is limiting their average deal size.”

Success rates in a way no other experience can match

Over eight years our programme was consistently rated by the participants as the best training they’d ever experienced.

It radically changed the attitude to preparing and managing client meetings which resulted in an increased impact on senior executives.

Made the clients’ lives easier by reducing the tendency to visit clients ‘en masse ‘, which was a drain on the bank’s time and resources.

Team leaders gained a structured framework to assess the effectiveness of their client-facing staff at a more granular level, using data-driven insights into the personal development needs of their teams.

This resulted in a  more dynamic way of bringing their team leaders and product specialists together to create a culture of cooperation and cross-border working

The Background

Over eight years Youd Andrews has delivered “immersion” programmes to senior and middle management of their global corporate and investment banking division.

Bringing to life the Youd Andrews business simulator with a hand-selected panel of senior executives (CXOs) from the banking and finance sector.

The Participants

Participants include an international mix of client-facing team leaders of industry sectors, regional and country leaders, as well as product specialists in corporate banking services, treasury, cash management, electronic banking, trade finance, project finance, debt structuring and M&A.

The Programme Objectives and Structure

The programme opens with group exercises covering the importance of building rapport, personal introductions, the bank elevator pitch, how well do you know your prospect/client, questioning techniques, active listening as well as meeting structure and disciplines.

A session on how to build business and relationships in the boardroom guided by a CXO drives a more ambitious and strategic mindset with participants. An exchange of experiences is held between the participants and the CXO, reflecting on “putting yourself in the CXO’s shoes”, what works well with CXOs, what is special about CXOs, what are a CXO’s expectations of a bank, strategic change and crisis management for CXOs and how do CXOs qualify and select strategic partners, like banks.

Each team then prepares their two-day campaign assisted by a CXO who, coaching without giving answers, instils a CXO mentality into the team’s view of the opportunity, making sure it is a C-Level worthy campaign, owned by the team as a whole that can then be executed with “real life interactions” with the CXOs during the Business Simulator.

The Case Scenario for the Business Simulator

The scenario chosen by the client is an executive management team of an FMCG company with a 5-year growth strategy to become a global player by using its European market presence as a springboard to build its activity in the USA, South America, and Asia.

To date, the FMCG’s financing strategy had been conservative, and the Board has mandated the CFO to review all existing banking relationships and facilities in order to explore new ways of funding and at the same time mitigate the risk to the Company’s balance sheet. A reduced number of competitor banks have been invited to meet key members of the Board and discuss how they can help, with a view to delivering an Executive Review presentation on their proposed solutions.

The scenario provides business and financial information on the FMCG case that it is critical for the participants to research as a team to have meaningful conversations with the CXOs. They discover what is needed and build a proposition over several meetings culminating in the Executive Review, including a social setting in which the teams meet CXOs in an informal dinner.

Participant Feedback

Programmes entail quantitative and qualitative feedback at multiple levels: Firstly, for the participants in action, who also receive a more detailed set of CXO’s observations after the program. Secondly, at the organisation level as CXOs feedback across the overall programme level is distilled. Lastly, the participants’ feedback and suggestions feed into the updates of the next edition of the programme.

Evaluation from the Participants

The programme has an outstanding NPS score of 4.7 pts

The programme triggers a high demand from colleagues ‘to attend.

Some of the recurrent themes that participants value include:

• The life-like engagement with the CXOs
• Honest and constructive feedback from CXOs after each meeting
• Gaining feedback and learning from other participants
• Understanding the CXO mindset and putting themselves in their shoes
• Growing confidence
• Useful discipline in applying the YA “6Cs” methodology.
• Ability to articulate the bank’s value proposition and point of difference
• The benefit of building a personal as well as a professional rapport with the CXOs
• The immense value in research and preparation for meetings at the CXO level