Written by Shaalin Parekh, Senior Market Development Manager at Seismic

It’s no secret that B2B banking is becoming increasingly commoditized. These days, small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are using far more banks than even just a few years ago. According to Gartner’s 2016 study, “A New Basis for Competitive Advantage,” 53 percent of companies use four or more financial providers. 

Meanwhile, fintech competition is also ramping up. In fact, research shows that 30 percent of corporate banking revenue is expected to go to new digital platforms over the next five years.

With so much competition in the financial services industry, banks are under tremendous pressure to find ways to differentiate themselves. The need for differentiation is also a common theme in banks’ annual reports, where it’s often outlined as a top corporate initiative. And while it’s a major concern for executives, it’s also an issue that bankers feel every time they’re out in the marketplace talking to potential clients.

So, what can banks do to differentiate themselves? Provide clients with the information they crave! 

It’s all about how you go to market

When banks go to market, they primarily rely on their bankers to carry their message into the marketplace. They’re the ones who are in the trenches, meeting with prospects and existing clients, building strong relationships, having conversations about industry trends, and selling end users on the value of the bank’s offerings.

The problem is that those bankers are usually limited in a few key ways. For instance, they’re typically only able to connect with prospects who are already in their contact list. Plus, when they do finally pitch to those prospects, it’s often with stock, standard presentations that look just like every other banker’s. 

Not only that, but they often miss opportunities to present the right solutions to meet an individual prospect’s needs due to a lack of training, education, and insights. Further, those pitches are often inconsistent and contain information that’s out of date. The result of all of this is lackluster presentations that aren’t personalized to resonate with individual prospects or tailored to provide them with the information that they crave.

Fortunately, there’s a better way. With the right sales enablement strategy, you can empower your bankers to create personalized pitches that, while consistent in terms of messaging, are tailored to resonate with the individual needs of any given prospect or client.

A few key ways a sales enablement tool will help you tailor those pitches are:

  • Training bankers on the product set, so they know when and how to best position solutions. For example, Seismic ensures bankers are up to date on the latest enhancements to treasury products and can access training resources before they share product-specific content with clients.
  • Consolidating all educational and client-facing materials in a centralized hub that’s available on any of a banker’s devices. Imagine a banker walks out of a meeting with a client where ACH Positive Pay was discussed, and can email the most up to date summary of their bank’s offering from their phone while walking out of the meeting.
  • Enabling bankers to present personalized, relevant, industry-specific information to clients on the fly, leading to true advisory conversations. In many scenarios, bankers present static presentations, but with Seismic and Vertical IQ, they can be empowered to pull industry information into their presentations and benchmark a client vs. their peers in real-time.

Learn how to combat commoditization with personalization and advice

The same consumers who benefit from Amazon, Uber, and Airbnb are looking to their business and commercial banks to create an engaging and personalized client experience.

Join The Financial Brand, Seismic, and Vertical IQ to learn more about how business and commercial banks are using personalization and true business advice to create an unmatched client experience that rivals their customers’ experiences in their consumer lives. To learn more or register, please click here.