A series of scandals have recently rocked Australia’s banking and finance industries. Incidents like these are becoming increasingly commonplace throughout the business world, underscoring the need for ethical selling training for employees at all levels.

Why it’s Essential to have Ethical Selling Training for Financial Services Companies and Banks

Having a genuinely ethical sales culture is crucial for any organisation – particularly financial services and banks.  A major reason that employees behave unethically is because they have been allowed to do so. It’s important to build a culture that fosters a different attitude.

Another common factor is a ‘pressure-cooker’ sales culture in which employees resort to cheating the system in order to achieve quotas and keep their jobs.

One way to create an ethical selling culture is to change perceptions of selling, especially among banking and financial services professionals, who may have a distorted of selling in that they view it as a transactional process. Creating a culture that values selling as a customer-oriented service rather than pushing products makes it easier to inspire ethical behaviours.

Ethical selling training for financial services companies and bank can help employees develop this new perception by helping them change their mindset.

Ethical salespeople have a customer needs-focused mindset rather than a transactional or product-focused outlook. Teaching salespeople to ask questions that uncover their prospects’ real needs can help them establish a rapport that builds trust and subsequently avoid taking advantage of customers.

How Ethical Sales Training Develops the Right Skills

There are many ways financial services organisations are training their sales professionals in ethical behaviours. Common approaches include:

• Introducing ethical sales training programmes that equip employees to identify ethical grey areas
• Establishing processes for reporting ethical problems and encouraging employees to take immediate action if they have any concerns
• Introducing ethical performance metrics for employee evaluation
• Refresher ethical selling courses for managers and employees
• Ensuring managers have the right skills to effectively coach their teams

People typically need to be told something several times before they remember it.  What’s more, everyone has different learning styles. The best employee training is ongoing and delivers the content in multiple different ways (live, self-study, audio, visual, departmental).

It is important to keep ethics at the forefront of employees’ minds. This can be done by way of including sales ethics in department and team meeting agendas, regular reminders of customer service standards such as confidentiality, and quarterly customer service training and ethical selling training on each standard.

In other words, an ethical sales culture should be interwoven in the daily life all employees – from the top of the organisation, to the bottom.

Contact us if you would like to know more about ethical sales training in Australia and New Zealand for financial services companies and banks.