Three programmes linking commercial performance and operational excellence, from client negotiation to Lean deployment in branches.
Commercial Negotiation Techniques in Banking
Closing without conceding on margin, in a relationship built to last
Description
In banking, commercial negotiation takes place on a product whose price the client can easily compare, within a relationship expected to last several years. Conceding on margin to close is always possible; doing so without a counterpart is costly over time. This two-day course works the conduct of the negotiation interview, from needs diagnosis to closing, with filmed and debriefed role plays.
Learning objectives
By the end of the course, participants will be able to:
- Prepare a negotiation by identifying their real room for manoeuvre
- Conduct the needs diagnosis before making any proposal
- Argue an offer on value rather than on features
- Handle price objections without conceding automatically
- Obtain a counterpart for every concession granted
- Close and secure the agreement reached
Teaching methods and resources
Short input followed by immediate practice. Filmed role plays on banking client cases, individual and collective debriefs, interview preparation workshops. Negotiation preparation grid and concessions-counterparts matrix. Peer exchange between participants.
Course programme
1. Preparing the negotiation
- Identify the objective, the walk-away point and the room for manoeuvre
- Anticipate the client’s position and constraints
- Prepare the counterparts that can be mobilised
- Choose the setting and timing of the meeting
Practical work: written preparation of a negotiation from a client file, then cross-review between participants.
2. Conducting the diagnosis
- Question before proposing
- Distinguish the stated need from the real need
- Identify the client’s decision criteria and their ranking
- Reformulate to confirm understanding
Practical work: role play focused on the discovery phase, with proposing a solution prohibited before a set time.
3. Arguing and defending the offer
- Build an argument from the client’s own criteria
- Present price in a sequence that makes it acceptable
- Handle comparison with a competing offer
- Defend a position without rigidity
Practical work: filmed role play on presenting an offer to a client comparing several institutions. Debrief on the structure of the argument.
4. Handling objections and conceding
- Distinguish a real objection, a pretext and a test
- Respond without conceding immediately on price
- Obtain a counterpart for every concession
- Recognise the point at which the negotiation must stop
Practical work: a series of objections handled under time pressure, then collective analysis of the most effective responses.
5. Closing and securing
- Spot agreement signals and close without delay
- Formalise the agreement and its conditions
- Handle the client who pulls back after agreeing
- Prepare the post-negotiation relationship
Practical work: filmed role play on the closing phase with a hesitant client. Individual debrief.
Participants
Account managers, client advisors and sales managers.
Prerequisites
A client-facing role. No academic prerequisite.
Trainer credentials
The experts who deliver our courses are specialists in the subjects covered. They are validated by our teaching teams on both subject knowledge and teaching ability, for each course they deliver. They have at least ten years of experience in banking or consulting and hold, or have held, positions of responsibility.
Assessment
The trainer assesses progress throughout the course through quizzes, case studies and simulations. Participants also complete a positioning test before and after the course to validate the skills acquired.
Teaching resources and materials
- Audiovisual aids, documentation and course materials, applied practical exercises with worked solutions, case studies and presentation of real cases.
- At the end of each course, Helios Advisory provides participants with a course evaluation questionnaire, which is then analysed by our teaching teams.
- An attendance sheet per half-day is provided at the end of the course, together with a certificate of completion where the participant has attended the full session.
Enrolment and lead times
Enrolment is finalised with our teaching team. Send us your request through the contact form: we will confirm the next available sessions and the enrolment arrangements suited to your situation.
Accessibility
For any question or requirement relating to accessibility, contact us through the contact form. Each situation is reviewed with you so that the course arrangements can be adapted.
Commercial Action Plan Development
From stated targets to a plan that is actually executed and tracked
Description
A commercial action plan that stops at headline targets changes no behaviour. This three-day course is about building a plan that can actually be executed: portfolio diagnosis, choice of priorities, translation into dated and assigned actions, and a monitoring arrangement that allows correction during the year.
Learning objectives
By the end of the course, participants will be able to:
- Establish the commercial diagnosis of a portfolio or a branch
- Select a small number of priorities and argue for them
- Build a quantified, dated and assigned action plan
- Define monitoring indicators and their frequency
- Cascade the plan to a team and obtain its buy-in
- Correct the trajectory during the financial year
Teaching methods and resources
Methodological input followed by build workshops using participants’ own data where possible. Banking portfolio case studies, prioritisation exercises, team meeting simulations. Commercial action plan template and monitoring grid. Peer exchange between participants.
Course programme
1. Establishing the diagnosis
- Analyse portfolio structure: segments, product holding, tenure
- Identify growth pockets and areas of attrition
- Locate performance against the potential of the catchment area
- Distinguish cyclical from structural causes
Practical work: full diagnosis of a branch portfolio from supplied data. Presentation of the priority findings.
2. Choosing priorities
- Select three to five priorities and give up the rest
- Estimate the potential of each priority retained
- Check consistency with available resources
- Argue the priorities to senior management
Practical work: prioritisation under resource constraint, then defence of the choices before the group.
3. Building the action plan
- Translate each priority into concrete, dated and assigned actions
- Quantify the expected result of each action
- Sequence actions across the year taking seasonality into account
- Identify the resources and support required
Practical work: drafting a complete action plan for one priority, then cross-review between subgroups.
4. Cascading to the team
- Present the plan so as to obtain buy-in rather than compliance
- Allocate objectives between team members defensibly
- Handle objections and resistance
- Organise the rhythm of commercial management
Practical work: simulation of a meeting presenting the plan to a team, with objections. Debrief on how the meeting was run.
5. Monitoring and correcting
- Define a small set of indicators tracked regularly
- Organise review points and their format
- Identify early the actions producing no effect
- Revise the plan mid-year without emptying it of meaning
Practical work: analysis of a mid-year dashboard and decision on the corrections to make. Reasoned presentation.
Participants
Branch managers, sales managers and team leaders.
Prerequisites
A commercial or supervisory role. Comfortable reading activity indicators.
Trainer credentials
The experts who deliver our courses are specialists in the subjects covered. They are validated by our teaching teams on both subject knowledge and teaching ability, for each course they deliver. They have at least ten years of experience in banking or consulting and hold, or have held, positions of responsibility.
Assessment
The trainer assesses progress throughout the course through quizzes, case studies and simulations. Participants also complete a positioning test before and after the course to validate the skills acquired.
Teaching resources and materials
- Audiovisual aids, documentation and course materials, applied practical exercises with worked solutions, case studies and presentation of real cases.
- At the end of each course, Helios Advisory provides participants with a course evaluation questionnaire, which is then analysed by our teaching teams.
- An attendance sheet per half-day is provided at the end of the course, together with a certificate of completion where the participant has attended the full session.
Enrolment and lead times
Enrolment is finalised with our teaching team. Send us your request through the contact form: we will confirm the next available sessions and the enrolment arrangements suited to your situation.
Accessibility
For any question or requirement relating to accessibility, contact us through the contact form. Each situation is reviewed with you so that the course arrangements can be adapted.
Lean Management & Operational Excellence in Banking
Finding what brings nothing to the client and running the workshop to a measured gain
Description
Banking processes accumulate controls, re-keying and waiting time between departments, each justified when it was introduced. This three-day course applies Lean principles to those processes: identifying what brings nothing to the client, mapping actual flows rather than written procedures, and running an improvement workshop through to a measured gain.
Learning objectives
By the end of the course, participants will be able to:
- Distinguish, within a process, what creates value and what does not
- Map an actual flow and measure its timings
- Identify waste and rank it for treatment
- Run an improvement workshop with the teams concerned
- Measure the gain obtained and make it visible
- Embed the improvement so that old practices do not return
Teaching methods and resources
Short input followed by practical workshops on real banking processes. Flow mapping exercises, simulated improvement workshops, root cause analysis. Value stream mapping tools and a waste identification grid. Peer exchange between participants.
Course programme
1. Locating value from the client’s viewpoint
- Define value as the client perceives it
- Distinguish value-adding activity, necessary support activity and waste
- Handle regulatory controls, necessary but not value-adding
- Identify the organisation’s priority processes
Practical work: classification of the activities of a banking process by their contribution to value. Discussion of the contested cases.
2. Mapping the actual flow
- Observe the process as it happens rather than as it is described
- Measure processing times and waiting times
- Identify rework loops and re-keying
- Spot the points where work accumulates
Practical work: building a value stream map for a file-handling process, with timings recorded.
3. Identifying and ranking waste
- Spot the main families of waste in a services context
- Distinguish waste that can be treated locally from waste requiring a higher decision
- Estimate the potential gain from treating each one
- Rank the workstreams by effort and gain
Practical work: identification of waste on the map produced, then positioning on an effort-gain matrix.
4. Running the improvement workshop
- Form the working group with the operators concerned
- Look for real causes rather than apparent ones
- Design and test a solution at small scale
- Handle resistance to changing practice
Practical work: simulated facilitation of a root cause session on a recurring malfunction. Debrief on how the group was run.
5. Measuring and embedding
- Define the measurement of the gain before launching the workshop
- Make performance visible to the teams
- Standardise the new practice without freezing it
- Organise periodic review and continuous improvement
Practical work: design of a visual management arrangement for an operational team. Presentation and collective critique.
Participants
Managers, quality managers and operational teams.
Prerequisites
No prerequisite. Familiarity with the process the participant wants to improve is useful.
Trainer credentials
The experts who deliver our courses are specialists in the subjects covered. They are validated by our teaching teams on both subject knowledge and teaching ability, for each course they deliver. They have at least ten years of experience in banking or consulting and hold, or have held, positions of responsibility.
Assessment
The trainer assesses progress throughout the course through quizzes, case studies and simulations. Participants also complete a positioning test before and after the course to validate the skills acquired.
Teaching resources and materials
- Audiovisual aids, documentation and course materials, applied practical exercises with worked solutions, case studies and presentation of real cases.
- At the end of each course, Helios Advisory provides participants with a course evaluation questionnaire, which is then analysed by our teaching teams.
- An attendance sheet per half-day is provided at the end of the course, together with a certificate of completion where the participant has attended the full session.
Enrolment and lead times
Enrolment is finalised with our teaching team. Send us your request through the contact form: we will confirm the next available sessions and the enrolment arrangements suited to your situation.
Accessibility
For any question or requirement relating to accessibility, contact us through the contact form. Each situation is reviewed with you so that the course arrangements can be adapted.
Practical information
The following applies to every programme presented on this page.
Funding
Several funding routes exist and depend on your professional situation: skills development plan, sector funding bodies, or direct company funding. Contact us so we can work out the most suitable option together.
Timetable
Courses run from 9.00 to 17.30, with a lunch break of one hour to an hour and a half. Participants are welcomed from 8.45. Breaks and lunches are provided. For four or five day courses, sessions finish at 16.00 on the final day.
Dates and locations
In-company and open sessions are arranged on request, at our premises, at yours, or remotely. Contact us for the next available dates and to agree the format best suited to your teams.
A question or a specific requirement?
Every programme can be adapted to your context, your sector and the level of your teams. We will come back to you with a tailored proposal, a schedule and a price matching your request.
This programme is an original work designed by the teaching teams of Helios Advisory. Any reproduction, representation, adaptation or exploitation, in whole or in part, without prior written authorisation, is strictly prohibited.