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Expanding Small Business Relationships

Business Issue - The small business market (businesses with sales of less than $10 million a year) is a challenging market for financial institutions. How can you rapidly expand market share, build sustained relationships, maintain credit quality, and manage risk? The branch network offers the structure for delivery of small business credit products, but branch staff need to understand how to meet the needs of the small business customer.

Omega Performance’s Solution - Expanding Small Business Relationships helps relationship managers communicate effectively about small business needs and products through a combined focus on product knowledge mastery, selling skills, and credit expertise. Relationship managers become fluent in bank products and services, understand financial analysis basics, and are equipped to refer completed applications for qualified small business borrowers to a central credit unit for a prompt decision.

What Is Included

Expanding Small Business Relationships integrates self-study and a two-day workshop. Participants learn to examine customers’ borrowing needs, fluently discuss appropriate loan products, and conduct a successful loan interview.

A half-day kickoff session is conducted for each group of participants to launch the training. The following issues are addressed during the kickoff: purpose of the program, review of the bank’s small business strategy and goals, overview of the program, introduction to the readings, and introduction to product mastery exercises.

During the two to three weeks following the kickoff, participants complete 10 to 12 hours of self-study. The self-study material helps participants understand why businesses borrow. With this knowledge, they use product mastery techniques to become proficient in explaining and selling the bank’s products.

The self-study material includes the following modules:

Course Introduction presents the program overview and objectives. Prework Introduction gives instructions for building product mastery and a recommended study plan.

Bank Approach and Policies describes the bank’s message on approaching the small business market, information on new policies and procedures, how to best talk about the bank, and methods of overcoming objections.

Assessing the Opportunity describes a strategy for conducting a preliminary assessment of the business opportunity. It provides guidance in determining if a customer’s request is reasonable and describes basic information to obtain from the borrower.

Financial Statement Analysis reviews the fundamentals of financial statement analysis. It provides a list of questions to ask customers in order to understand their financial situation.

Understanding Customer Needs teaches participants why businesses borrow by analyzing asset conversion cycle timing differences and classic borrowing causes such as sales growth, operating cycle slowdowns and purchases of fixed assets.

Business and Management Analysis helps participants recognize risk factors and distinguish between high-risk and low-risk small businesses.

Bank Solutions describes specific products and successful questioning approaches for small businesses.

Conducting Conversations teaches participants how to obtain the necessary and correct customer information through a Customer Interview and identifies customer questions and objections.

Communicating Credit Decisions offers strategies for communicating counteroffers and denials while maintaining a good relationship with the customer.

A two-day workshop builds on the concepts, processes, and skills introduced in the readings. Using the bank’s market segmentation model, participants practice applying product knowledge in a real-world environment.

Delivery Options

Expanding Small Business Relationships is delivered via a halfday kickoff session, self-study, and two-day workshop.