This is the fifth post in our six-part blog series on “How Vertical IQ Supports the Sales Process,” featuring simple, concrete ways to incorporate economic and Industry Intelligence during each stage of the sales cycle.
Step 1: Determining which industries to call on | Step 2: Meeting the right people & networking | Step 3: Call Preparation | Step 4: Assess the Opportunity
In banking, your greatest competitive advantage often isn’t your rates, products, or branch network. It’s your relationship with the decision maker — oftentimes the business owner.
And another simple truth: These relationships can fizzle when bankers fail to stay top of mind. We’ve likely all seen it: A banker invests significant effort winning a relationship only to let months or even years pass without meaningful client outreach. Meanwhile, competitors are knocking on the client’s door.
Working in the banking industry for over 40 years, I know for certain that staying top of mind doesn’t happen by accident. It requires a deliberate, repeatable contact strategy supported by valuable insight. And by using Vertical IQ, bankers have everything they need to make client outreach easy, efficient, and genuinely impactful.
Building a deliberate contact strategy
A successful client contact strategy begins with stratifying your relationships based on complexity, risk, and revenue. High-revenue clients and at-risk relationships should receive more frequent and intentional communication. Smaller or low-risk accounts, on the other hand, need fewer touches.
Stratifying your book keeps your effort focused where it matters most. It also ensures that when a client suddenly needs financing, faces an unexpected challenge, or considers changing banks, you are the first name that comes to mind … not the competitor who happened to drop by yesterday.
Skip the “howdy doody” calls
The contact strategy benchmark I recommend is at least four meaningful touchpoints per year. This doesn’t mean four scheduled meetings or four sales pitches. It means four moments of genuine value for the business owner — insight they wouldn’t gain without you. What it also does not mean is empty, generic “just checking in” messages — what I jokingly call “howdy doody” calls. These hollow touchpoints add nothing to the relationship, and most clients see right through them.
Meaningful, value-added outreach, on the other hand, shows a business owner that you understand their world, you’re thinking about their challenges, and you’re proactively offering insight that benefits their business. And this is where Vertical IQ becomes invaluable.
Vertical IQ’s insight helps bankers stay top of mind
Vertical IQ equips bankers with a steady stream of high-quality, industry-specific content they can easily repurpose into thoughtful, timely client outreach. By weaving these insights into your routine, remaining top of mind becomes natural and quick.
If you’re looking for simple ways to level up your ongoing client engagement and touchpoints, here are a few of my most effective Vertical IQ tips:
Favorites & Newsfeeds: Easy, personalized Industry Intelligence
When you mark industries as Favorites within Vertical IQ, the platform customizes your newsfeed to show the most relevant, up-to-date news articles for those niches. Every morning, you can log in and instantly see what’s happening in the top industries you serve or prospect.
These articles then become easy, timely email outreach with a message like, “Saw this industry article and thought it might be relevant to you,” OR “This development may impact your supply chain; worth keeping on your radar.” It takes just seconds to send, but the perceived value from the business owner is often enormous.
Current Conditions & Notifications: Ready-made outreach every 30–45 days
The Current Conditions chapter of each Industry Profile automatically refreshes with new Recent Developments insights every 30–45 days. These timely updates come in a bullet point format that can be copied and pasted into an email with just a click. To create this simple outreach cadence:
- Choose “Add Notification” on relevant industries to get an email when any updates are made to the Industry Profile.
- Copy a timely bullet point or two from the profile’s Current Conditions chapter.
- Paste the bullet points into an email with a quick note like, “Saw this update on your industry; thought you’d appreciate the heads-up.”
It’s fast, relevant, personalized, and easy to scale, especially if you create industry-specific email distribution lists for your top verticals.
Quarterly Insights: Scheduled touchpoints with no extra work
In my opinion, Vertical IQ’s Quarterly Insights are one of the best tools for fulfilling your annual four-touchpoint requirement. Each quarter, Vertical IQ develops a ready-to-share newsletter summarizing key industry shifts. Whether you subscribe so they are emailed to you automatically or you pull them on demand, they serve as:
- A natural quarterly client check-in
- A reason to re-engage with the client even when nothing urgent is happening
- A value-rich deliverable every business owner appreciates
These quarterly emails keep you visible and credible without forcing you to reinvent content each time.
Prep Sheets & Financial Benchmarks: C-suite-relevant one-pagers
When you want to stand out with a client or need to make a good impression with a prospect, the Prep Sheets and Financial Benchmarks, found on each Industry Profile, are the perfect tools. Visual, concise, and filled with the kind of insight that grabs attention instantly, these one- to two-page documents are designed specifically for CEOs and business owners.
Use them to guide discussions, set up advisory-driven meetings, or even provide valuable peer insights to the client and their CPA.
Bonus client outreach tactics to create added impact
- Use email distribution lists for efficient scalability and bcc for client privacy.
- Vary delivery channels (hand delivery, email, FedEx, etc.) for maximum visibility and to keep outreach memorable.
- Personalize with small, human touches like hand-written notes.
Staying top of mind is a skill, and Vertical IQ makes it easy!
It’s been said that memorable people do memorable things. In my experience as a career lender, I often found that bankers who mastered the art of staying top of mind not only protected their portfolios, but also deepened relationships and won competitive opportunities long before rates or terms came into play.
Vertical IQ has the tools you need to make yourself memorable, providing the meaningful, industry-specific insight that business owners care about. When you share Vertical IQ’s Industry Intelligence consistently and creatively, you become the banker your clients rely on, not just a banker they use.
So, make regular client outreach a habit; build it into your daily routine. And let Vertical IQ help you become the business advisor your clients never want to lose!
Ready to get started? Contact us to learn more!
Image: Pexels, cedric fauntleroy