Capture The
Mass Affluent By
Unlocking Sales
Force Effectiveness
2
Introduction
Banks are leaving 15 percent or more
revenue on the table by not leveraging
leading sales practices
Squeezed by increased regulatory
pressures, new competitors and an
uncertain economy, banks around
the world are increasingly looking to
generate new revenues and drive growth
by catering to the mass affluent market.
These consumers – with investable
assets of $100,000 to $5,000,000 –
numbering millions of households
globally, represent a lucrative market.
But there is a major impediment to
improving share of wallet with this
segment: banks’ own sales force. Too
often, many banks miss opportunities to
win investment assets from customers
and prospects because they haven’t
optimized around their sales force.
Banks also need to ensure that their
advisors have an in-depth understanding
of their clients’ needs. Recent Accenture
survey research, revealing that many
financial advisors significantly
overestimate the investment savvy and
risk appetite of investors, indicates there
is much work to do in this area. For
example, our study showed that advisors
are three times more likely to describe
their clients as “very knowledgeable”
about investing than investors themselves
(42 percent vs. 12 percent, respectively)1.
Consider some of the shortcomings
we’ve analyzed at financial institutions
in all corners of the globe:
• Key metrics such as lead generation,
book development and how sales
representatives are spending their time
are not tracked
• Compensation models don’t incentivize
the right client-facing and sales
activities
• An informal hiring structure, left to
sales leaders to determine the attributes
of who they should hire, and how to
pinpoint those attributes in candidates
3
Getting the
Basics Right
To stay competitive in the dynamic
wealth management landscape, banks
should improve the effectiveness of their
mass affluent sales force. That means
re-examining all aspects of the sales
function, including recruitment, training,
compensation, career advancement,
metrics tracking, sales support and
operations.
The need to get sales force basics right
is confirmed by Accenture’s 2012 Sales
Performance Optimization Study2. This
benchmarking study tracked more than
one hundred sales effectiveness metrics
against 1,500 companies worldwide. Chief
sales officers told us that their highest
objective was to increase sales force
effectiveness. Other top priorities, also
linked to growth and effectiveness, were
increasing revenues and improving upselling and cross-selling.
Of course, geographical context will drive
the decision on how to optimize the sales
force. Many North American and Western
European banks, facing an uncertain
lending environment and compressed
One-Fifth of Sales Reps Generate Roughly Half of Mass Market Sales
100%
Percentage of Total Sales
80%
60%
40%
20%
0%
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
Cumulative Percentage of Financial Planners
© 2013 Accenture. All rights reserved
4
100%
margins from low interest rates, will
increasingly rely on sales representatives
to help drive more growth from the mass
affluent while minimizing costs. In Hong
Kong and other Asian markets, hypergrowth of the mass affluent customer
base has strained the capacity of many
banks’ systems and infrastructures,
placing the burden on the mass affluent
sales force to help capitalize on this
growth while limiting revenue leakage at
the same time. In Australia and Canada,
a highly effective sales force can help
deliver a solid return-on-investment on
banks’ large-scale multi-million dollar
customer relationship management (CRM)
transformations.
Growth of
15 Percent or More
Expand the Ranks of
Top Performers
Accenture’s experience indicates that,
regardless of geography, banks can
achieve fifteen percent or more growth
in mass affluent sales through targeted
sales force improvements that we call
“interventions”. Importantly, this can be
achieved primarily by leveraging existing
tools, technology and people.
Accenture recently analyzed sales
forces across various banking and other
industries worldwide. We consistently
found that the top twenty percent of the
sales force generates one-half to fourfifths of an organization’s revenue. Banks
should change this paradigm. We believe
they can do so by studying, capturing and
industrializing the key attributes of these
top performers so that others can join
their ranks. Sales performance analytics
can play a key role in identifying top
performers, as well as determining key
performance gaps of their average or lowperforming peers.
Chief Sales Officers agree. According to
Accenture’s Optimization Study, CSOs
indicated that getting the basics right
can be achieved without a significant
information technology investment. The
top sales initiatives they were planning,
for example, included enhancing sales
team communications, revising their sales Improving the performance of the average
process and modifying their compensation sales person through targeted, lowprogram.
investment interventions can shift the
sales curve. To illustrate this, below is a
typical curve for sales representatives in a
hypothetical retail bank which targets the
mass affluent market, selling primarily
mutual funds and some additional
banking products.
To help achieve better results, we first
identify high-impact sales activities,
personality traits and behaviors that can
help drive success. Next we develop a set
of interventions which can be replicated
throughout the mass affluent sales force
network to drive growth. Many of these
behaviors and attributes already reside
among the top performer population – so
the challenge is to scale them. Some of
the most successful banks have used not
only a top-down training approach, but
also social and crowdsourcing principles
to improve adoption of these behaviors.
These interventions are primarily focused
on changing behavior and processes
by leveraging existing recruitment and
training methods and lead generation
methods. Most banks already have many
of the tools in place already. Since these
interventions can generate significant
uplift without major capital investment,
the potential ROI could be very strong.
5
Lifecycle:
Understanding your
Sales Force
By viewing their sales force through
a continuum or “lifecycle”, banks can
better assess the opportunities for
making interventions. The four stages of
this lifecycle are:
• Generating high performance
• Retaining talent to sustain performance
• Recruiting and hiring
• Developing new sales representatives
Our analysis will start with the bulk of
the sales force – those that are fully
proficient – and then review other groups
such as seasoned, top performing advisors
and inexperienced, new advisors. Each sales
representative follows the lifecycle stages,
and every sales force has representatives
who are currently in each stage. Driving
improvements in each lifecycle area will
improve key efficiency performance
indicators, such as sales per FTE.
Generating high performance, however,
requires more than individual skills.
Many banks pay equal attention to
key supporting roles, such as the sales
manager and sales support staff.
The specific interventions that drive
improvements in sales effectiveness varies
by organization based on the maturity of
sales tools, compensation model, sales
support model and other factors.
These interventions can help generate
high performance:
• Develop a “behavior catalogue”
outlining sales behaviors displayed by
high performers for use as a training
tool for average performers
• Match sales people to clients, based on
mutual interests and personalities, to
increase the likelihood of cementing a
loyal relationship
• Analyze how salesperson spend their
time; compare “sales” time versus
“support” (non-client-facing time) to
identify ways to improve productivity
• Leveraging sales analytics, identify
personal gaps by sales person to help
guide and tailor training sessions (e.g.
larger focus on products where a sales
person struggles to perform)
Mass Affluent Sales Force Lifecycle
3. Attract:
Identify Recruit and Hire the
Right Sales Reps
I. Improve: Generate
High Performance
Banks should rigorously examine their
sales process to understand the activities
and behaviors that help drive outstanding
sales performance. Some attributes of the
top twenty percent of a bank’s sales force,
of course, can’t be replicated – they are
genetic. However, the majority of these
attributes can be reproduced throughout
the sales force if properly captured. Based
on Accenture’s experience, they include: a
deep understanding of clients’ needs, the
ability to match clients with appropriate
products, highly effective communication
skills and network building knowledge.
2. Retain:
Sustain High
Performance
and Retain
Talent
1. Improve:
Generate High Performance
© 2013 Accenture. All rights reserved
6
Mass Affluence
Sales Force
Lifecycle
4. Build:
Develop New
Sales Rep
Examples
Potential Benefit
• At a large North American bank,
mass affluent sales representatives
were generating only about one
net-new client on average per sales
representative annually. A sales
force assessment revealed that sales
representatives viewed themselves as
“just” advisors, and not as sales people.
As a result, the bank revised net-new
client targets, changed its recruiting
profile and modified its compensation
model to encourage new client
development.
• Improve sales close rate
• Shorten sales cycle
• Shift sales representative time to higher
value activities
• A UK-based global bank paired its top
performing financial advisors with
clients having the greatest likelihood
of consolidating their holdings at the
bank, resulting in an average sales uplift
of twelve 12 percent per branch. Some
flagship branches enjoyed a sales uplift
of more than thirty percent.
• At a major European bank which
implemented a coaching program built
upon top performers’ leading practices,
eighty percent of participating branches
showed significant improvement within
one month. These leading practices
included: prioritizing leads, developing
a contact schedule for clients based on
their relative likelihood of buying more
products, asking for a client referral
at every client meeting, developing
relationships with colleagues within
the branch to drive referrals, designing
a client contact plan utilizing multiple
channels and asking for the “close”
earlier in meetings.
7
II. Retain: Sustain High
Performance and Retain
Top Performers
Once implemented, interventions
can’t simply be forgotten. Sustaining
improvements and retaining top performers
is critical. At the same time, sales
managers’ ongoing role of monitoring,
mentoring, and ultimately driving desired
behaviors and activities should remain a
priority, even with respect to the most
proficient advisors. The growing trend of
internal social collaboration can empower
advisors to share best practices, encourage
others and grow a sense of community.
It can also create simple and effective
communication channels between head
office, subject matter experts and advisors
to decrease advisor effort and frustration
during issue resolution.
Example
Potential Benefit
A European retail bank, working with
Accenture, developed an innovative
employee engagement model that
included a simulator enabling advisors
to plan their careers, a talent map
that allows the bank to identify top
candidates for open positions, an
enhanced performance assessment
process and new work-life balance
options. As a result, the bank enhanced
its competitiveness in the war for talent
and raised employee productivity,
resulting in a significant contribution to
the bottom line.
•Increase client acquisition rate
•Incent sales managers to sustain
improvements through personalized
coaching based on the individual
advisor’s learning style
•Deploy automation, straight-throughprocessing and pre-filled forms to reduce
administrative burdens related to booking
and prepping for client meetings and
originating products
•Install a “career progression model” for
top sales representatives to increase
retention for those that are ready for the
next career step, such as moving into
private banking or becoming a
sales manager
8
•Increase average revenue per sales
representative
ga Pro
ins jec
no t b
t s ase
us d
tai
ne
d
Sales Performance
•Analyze sales representatives’
performance management and
compensation models to verify they
motivate desired behaviors, such as
attracting new clients to the bank
and growing share of wallet for
existing clients
•Increase top sales representative
retention rate
Institutionalized
High Performance
Salesforce
Effectiveness
Impact
These interventions can help sustain high
performance and retain top performers:
•Increase share of wallet (percentage of
client’s total assets held at the bank)
Baseline Performance
Time
© 2013 Accenture. All rights reserved
Value at Stake
15% - 20%
sales activity
gains over
baseline on
a go-forward
basis for mass
affluencereps
III. Attract: Identify, Recruit,
and Hire Suitable Sales
Representatives
Hiring the right candidates for sales
representative sets the stage for
addressing further efficiency gains in
other lifecycle stages. Understanding the
key attributes of high performers in the
context of your firm culture forms the
basis for identifying the right candidates.
Once these attributes are identified
and centralized firm-wide, recruiting
policies and processes can be honed.
Sales leadership should be represented
in the development, roll-out and ongoing
maintenance of the recruiting model.
This recruiting model relies less on the
particular recruiting skills of individual
sales leaders and more on metrics.
These interventions can help improve the
recruiting process:
•Create a recruiting profile reflecting the
attributes of the top performers
•Develop a strong pipeline of potential
candidates both within and outside
the bank to supplement the role of
the human resources department in
recruiting new representatives
•Include top performers in the
recruiting process
Example
Potential Benefit
Accenture conducted an analysis of the
attributes of a North American bank’s
mass affluent sales force to determine
key differences between mid- and toptier performers (see chart).
• Decrease time-to-proficiency
• Improve new representative retention
• Decrease recruiting costs
Attribute Analysis of Mid- and Top-Tier Performers
Mid Performer Attributes
Top Performer Attributes
•More readily attribute chance or
external circumstances as key
factors behind success or failures
• Confident they will succeed in the
tasks they undertake and have a
strong drive to achieve
• Concerned with being perceived as
likeable
•More risk-taking
• Unaware of performance
shortcomings and not interested in
improving
• More rigid, less personalized in
their approach
•Believe effort, rather than luck,
will result in success
•More curious and interested in
learning about prospects; high
energy, endurance and persistence
•Highly adaptive and enjoy the
unpredictable nature of each
customer
© 2013 Accenture. All rights reserved
9
IV. Build: Develop New Sales
Representatives
After hiring a sales representative, many
banks struggle with the next critical step:
on-boarding and bringing the representative
to proficiency. The difference in value to the
bank of a new sales representative who is
unfamiliar with sales tools and processes,
compared with a proficient advisor can be
millions of dollars in lost revenue annually.
Accenture research shows that average
time-to-proficiency can be up to one year,
with a new sales person generating only
about sixty percent of what an experienced
representative brings in. Achieving a shorter
time-to-proficiency requires innovative
learning tools, reinforcement, handson coaching, formalized processes and
consistent support from sales managers.
These interventions can help the
development of new sales representatives:
• Create a sales force effectiveness
department to act as a center
of excellence and drive ongoing
improvements
•Develop a centralized onboarding team
within the sales force effectiveness
department
•Provide customized, one-on-one coaching
by sales managers and supporting
management team through joint client
sessions and real-time feedback
•Use multiple delivery methods to provide
a rich, blended learning environment
that addresses key capability gaps; for
example, offer game-based learning
solutions, video-cast refreshers and
thought leadership web links
10
Examples
Potential Benefit
• Accenture helped a global bank
redesign its on-boarding and entry
level learning process, resulting in a
significant improvement in time-toproficiency, reduction of class room time
by three weeks and a two-thirds decline
in training costs for new hires. The
redesign included formalized training
schedules, individualized learning based
on trainees’ backgrounds and practicing
newly learned skills.
•Decrease training costs by reducing
average number of training days per
salesperson
•Faster time-to-proficiency
• At a global wealth provider, Accenture
revamped the development process,
facilitating wealth advisors to decrease
time-to-proficiency and grow their
portfolios by creating effective contact
plans. This effort leveraged a wide range
of learning tools beyond traditional
computer-based training (see chart
below), establishing top performers to
achieve new peak productivity levels and
earn higher average compensation.
Formal
Learning
Informal
Learning
Education
Ask an
expert
Job aids
© 2013 Accenture. All rights reserved
Podcasts/
Videos/
Simulations
Instructor led
business games
Wiki /
Collaboration
Instructor led
virtual learning
& collaboration
Expert’s
directory
Conclusion
Sales Force Effectiveness: Potential Value
Improved Close Rate
Bank sales executives should
leverage opportunities to improve
the effectiveness of their sales force
at every phase of the lifecycle, from
recruiting and developing new sales
representatives, to generating and
sustaining high performance. The
potential payoff can be huge.
In this paper, we have presented
several interventions that have yielded
impressive results at a variety of
financial institutions worldwide. Yet,
there is no single right answer for any
bank. Each bank should undertake a
robust, in-depth analysis of its mass
affluent sales force as a first step to
achieving these kinds of outcomes.
That analysis, in turn, will facilitate
identification and prioritization of lowinvestment, high-return interventions.
It will also highlight other areas of the
ecosystem in need of improvement –
such as sales strategy, CRM tools, branch
director training, commercial governance,
back office processes and operating
model – that impact sales representatives’
effectiveness.
Shorter Sales Cycle
Increased
Sales
Shift time to higher value activities
Increase Client Acquisition Rate
Increase Share of Wallet
Increase Average Revenue per Proficient Rep
Sales Force
Effectiveness
Effort Value
Increase New Sales Rep Retention Rate
Reduce Sales
Operation
Costs
Increase Top Sales Rep Retention Rate
Reduce Complexity
Decrease Recruiting & Training Costs
Decrease Time to Proficiency
© 2013 Accenture. All rights reserved
Without a doubt, sales force
effectiveness is a vehicle to help drive
growth. The key is to understand and
unlock the potential value that already
exists within your sales force.
11
References
1
2
How Tech-Savvy Advisors Regain Gen D
Investor Trust: http://www.accenture.
com/us-en/Pages/insight-how-techsavvy-advisors-regain-trust-gen-dinvestors-summary.aspx
2012 Sales Performance Optimization
Study: http://www.accenture.com/us-en/
Pages/insight-connecting-dots-salesperformance.aspx
About Accenture
Contact
Accenture is a global management
consulting, technology services and
outsourcing company, with more than
336,000 people serving clients in more
than 120 countries. Combining unparalleled
experience, comprehensive capabilities
across all industries and business functions,
and extensive research on the world’s
most successful companies, Accenture
collaborates with clients to help them
become high-performance businesses and
governments. The company generated net
revenues of US$30.0 billion for the fiscal
year ended Aug. 31, 2014. Its home page is
www.accenture.com.
For more information, please contact:
USA
Jamie Breen
jamie.breen@accenture.com
Canada
Berkeley Warburton
berkeley.warburton@accenture.com
Europe
Stefano Trombetta
stefano.trombetta@accenture.com
Australia, New Zealand and Asia
Ian Webster
i.webster@accenture.com
Contributors
Shannon Hamilton and Hilary Watson
Copyright © 2015 Accenture
All rights reserved.
Accenture, its logo, and
High Performance Delivered
are trademarks of Accenture.
This document is produced by consultants at Accenture
as general guidance. It is not intended to provide specific
advice on your circumstances. If you require advice or
further details on any matters referred to, please
contact your Accenture representative.
ACC13-2606U/11-6972