Washington Mutual - Taking the Sleaze Out of Sales
I hate sales. I hate everything about it. That feeling of having to “talk someone into” buying, or subscribing, or upgrading always conjures up images of sleazy car salesmen and snake oil peddlers. You can imagine my disdain then on my first day as a teller when I learned that I had to “refer” every single customer a product. I cringed as they explained that a huge part of my new job was getting our customers to consider new bank products. After all, I had just come to Washington Mutual after a year doing the most deceptive, dishonest, manipulative work I’d ever encountered: selling refrigerators.
To put it mildly, the major appliance racket had left me a bit jaded about the morality of salesmanship. My entire paycheck depended on convincing customers to pay a little more for a feature they’d never use. This was how I was trained. Behind the pretty facades of those friendly department stores lies a profit hungry machine that tells you “SELL, SELL, SELL!” We weren’t given product knowledge, or customer profiling skills. Instead we were taught how to sell people products they didn’t need and sometimes didn’t even want. “Oh, this shelf is super-double reinforced, ten times less likely to break than those old models.” Whoever heard of a refrigerator shelf breaking?! It was all smoke and mirrors - a work environment where patrons came second to profits.
With this bitter taste in my mouth, I looked at Washington Mutual’s referral process with an understandable dose of skepticism. I went through my training and shadowed my supervisors convinced that this was another morally bankrupt…well, bank. But despite my cynicism, I was actually impressed by the types of referrals I heard. My coworkers were offering products that benefited the customer. They’d recommend a new account that would earn more interest, or incur fewer fees, or both. This was a totally novel concept for me. My trainers were teaching us how to determine what our customers needed and would benefit from. It all came together in a mini epiphany: More products benefit the bank, and better products benefit the customer, so everybody wins. We stay in business by providing our customers with what they actually need. Could it be that “sales” is not inherently evil? I was amazed.
Flash forward four years and now I’m Operations Supervisor giving that same referral speech to another cynical new teller. I can tell them honestly that in all my Washington Mutual sales training (and I’ve had a lot) I’ve been developing skills to offer my customers what they do need. That’s a great feeling. For someone who’s seen the company from the vantage point of the teller line, new accounts platform, and supervisor’s desk to still be able to believe in the intentions of his company is a rare and valuable thing. When I listen to my tellers (who, by the way are amazing) explaining to customers that a Home Equity Line of Credit would help them finish their renovations or how the Platinum Checking would pay them more interest, I know that we’ve reinvented salesmanship. And when I see my customers given accounts and products that help their savings grow and lives improve, I know why. I’m proud to say that Washington Mutual has the rare distinction of practicing what it preaches. It’s this integrity and customer focus that’s kept me working hard at my job all these years and most likely, it’s what’s kept you working hard at yours.