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Closing the sale – National Bank seminar

Posted October 24th, 2009 by peter

After I purchased 100% of @ web one, I decided to change banks. This decision was not taken lightly, because the ASB had looked after us pretty well in the past and their on-line banking facilities are great. Never heard from them apart from bank statements though. The main reason I changed was because National Bank Business Manager Ngaio King is a member of our BNI chapter, and I liked both what I heard from her and Ngaio herself.

So in May, we set up the new on-banking account, and I have to admit that I was disappointed with their on-line resources. For example we keep a pretty tight ship on credit cards, and with the ASB I could do an immediate transfer. Unfortunately with the National Bank system you cannot do that, although in working hours I can ring a number and make it happen in an emergency. That together with the “different ways” of doing banking online, I found the change over frustrating. Now of course I am used it all, and nothing is really a problem.

Rambling aside, I was fortunate to join around 20 other local Nelson small business representatives to participate with  Stephen Caunter in one of the National Bank workshop series called “Closing the sale“. Now I have been involved in sales one way or the other since 1976, but things change as we all know, and the opportunity to brush up on these skills was a good one.

I have to admit that I did not actually learn anything new from the seminar. Interestingly though, Stephen really reinforced some stuff that I was aware of and practising for a number of years and it felt quite good when something came up and I thought to myself  “we do that”, or “we should do that more often or better”

At the end of the day, it is all about passion, knowledge and experience: helping your clients to achieve their goals in their business activities (so maybe they can have more leisure time). Help them achieve those things, making them feel you want to help them and in most cases, they are a client for life.

Thanks Steven for parting with your knowledge and experience and your passion – WOW.
I look forward to the next seminar that will be of help to @ web one.

And for those who dont know, Stephen has a passion also (apart from his family) for Farmall tractors in New Zealand.
He would love you to go and read and respond to his new blog.