Frequently Asked Questions

> Real Estate FAQs
> Banking & Other Industry FAQs

Real Estate FAQs:

1.What are your core industries?

Real estate, financial services, high tech service providers.

2. What is your main area of specialization?

Training in Consultative Selling, negotiation skills, presentation skills, sales management, building and managing key relationships and trade show selling.

3. What is your company’s approach to learning?

Direct, instructor-led sessions. Programs for follow-up for continuity and reinforcement. The assumption is that professionals need to know how to do their jobs more effectively, not become experts in training. Simply put, we recognize that there is a huge difference between training and education. Education teaches new material but does not necessarily focus on application of that information. Training is about acquiring and honing skills and changing behavior patterns. While most ‘training’ companies describe themselves in terms of training, they spend far too much time ‘educating’ rather than teaching how to actually effect change in behavior to gain results. Our sessions use discussion, real-life case studies, role-playing and exercised to reinforce training points.

4. How are you different from other sales training programs?

Most training companies focus on short-term motivation and confuse marketing issues with sales. Both marketing and sales are important, but you can’t close sales with good ads or a great website. You must know what to say and how to say it. We know selling at the expert level. Credibility with real estate professionals is assured due to work history and experience, but more importantly, attendees realize immediately that what we say and how we say it “rings true.” Our broad experience successfully training and working with other firms makes us insiders to the industry.

We have a well-established track record of success and our clients tend to be very long-term. We focus on questioning techniques to determine the needs/motivation of the buyer and/or seller. We are recognized experts in training people how to sell property. Working with both buyers and sellers, get listings, working for sale by owners, expired listings, prospecting and farming, objection handling, self promotion and negotiating offers.

Most firms that train in the real estate market know the industry, but that is not nearly enough. Knowing the industry is just the beginning. We have a long distinguished history of success in consultative selling helping thousands of sales professionals optimize their performance.

5. How many years have you been in business?

Over 30

6. What efforts have been made to sell to diverse markets?

In addition to the real estate and financial service marketplaces, which represents the majority of our business, we have done both training and consulting in a wide range of industries. For example: Home health care, public relations, heavy and light manufacturing, transportation, U. S. Government including the Treasury Dept. and the Central Intelligence Agency. We helped the new Panama Canal Authority and have worked in Latin America, England, Europe, the Caribbean and Canada. Please see our client list for more insight.

7. Is your company a minority / women owned business?

We are 50% female owned.

8. How can success be measured from your training?

Success can be measured in many different ways. For example: Increased earnings, more listings, more transactions/deals, increased referrals, increased market share increased customer satisfaction, etc. We would need to discuss with you your goals to be able to really answer that question.

We offer a series of options for follow-up including Marks & Associates instructor led sessions, Internal led sessions designed by us, case study development, and other approaches.

9. What efforts have been made to ensure that course content includes diversity/multi cultural considerations in examples, case studies, scenarios etc?

All cases, materials and discussions are fully multi-cultural and include no gender or other biases. In addition, some of the case studies help focus on sales problems that have historically occurred as a result of exactly these types of issues.

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Banking & Other Industry FAQs:

1.What is your core competency/area of specialization?

Training in: Consultative Selling, sales management, building and managing key
account relationships, cash management, negotiation skills, trade show selling,
presentation skills. Consulting focused on sales management and marketing to
support sales activities. 80% of our work has been for banks in all size ranges
including community, regional and major money center banks worldwide.

2. What is your company’s approach to learning?

Direct, instructor-led sessions using highly pragmatic (de-emphasized theoretical) sessions and follow-up for continuity and reinforcement. The assumption is that bankers need to know how to do their jobs more effectively, not become experts in training. Simply put, we recognize that there is a huge difference between training and education. Education teaches new material but does not necessarily focus on application of that information. Training is about acquiring and honing skills and changing behavior patterns. While most “training” companies describe themselves in terms of training, they spend far too much time “educating” rather than showing bankers how to actually effect change in their behavior to gain results.

Our sessions use discussion, real-life case studies (all the cases used are actual
sales situations), role-playing and exercises to reinforce replicatable sales skills.

3. How are you different from other vendors?

Aside from the pragmatic approach described in brief above, we know banking at
the expert level. Credibility with the RM’s, lenders, treasury, operations and product
management staff is assured due to work history and experience, but more importantly, bankers realize immediately that what we say and how we say it “rings
true.” Our broad experience successfully training banks and working with other
financial services firms makes us insiders to the industry.

We have a well-established track record of success and our clients tend to be very
long-term. We are recognized experts in training people how to sell lending, cash/
treasury management and retirement products but more importantly we spend most
of our time training relationship managers across product lines. Because we know
bank products, we can focus on real business issues and use your products and
client bases as our examples.

We are perfectly comfortable customizing sessions for bankers that live inside various industry verticals, for example: real estate, high tech, oil and gas, executive and professional, transportation, heavy manufacturing, etc. Perhaps more importantly, we can execute sessions for mixed groups from different industry segments effortlessly and immediately.

Our reputation as trainers and speakers is also unrivaled. Larry Marks has been rated as the number one speaker at the University of North Carolina’s Kenan Flagler Business School Executive Education course “Advanced and Fundamentals of Cash Management for over 20 years. He is also the number one speaker at the University of California’s Haas School of Business Executive Education courses on
the same topics. In 2001 and 2002 he was the number one-rated speaker at the Association for Financial Professionals (AFP) annual conference in both speaker score and attendance.

Our instructors are all ex-bankers who have sold in the real marketplace and
understand how to deal with all the normal problems that are seen in training
bankers. For example: Occasional arrogance, assumption of already being a
successful salesperson and status issues. We know how to keep bankers focused
on the training and off their cell phones. We take the training very seriously and are
not strangers to working with diverse groups.

4. How many customers do you have?

Our customer base number can vary but usually holds at about 7 to 12 for both training and consulting. It is our feeling that the customer gets the best result when we get to really know them, their goals, managerial team and culture. For those reasons we do not seek to grow the client base too large, but prefer to have longer-term relationships.

5. What have you done for other companies? What were the results?

Following are some examples of our achievements:

Cross-Selling (Product Linkages)
During 12 years of Marks & Associates training, a major West Coast bank increased customer penetration by over 300%. Non-credit services skyrocketed from 1.2 to 5 products per relationship and profit contribution for non-credit services jumped to 45% from less than 20% five years earlier. Loan portfolios grew substantially as well.

Productivity
Over 4 years of our training, domestic U.S. lenders from a major UK bank increased sales leads by 60% and closed 40% more sales. Training of UK-based bankers from the same bank, helped sales by over 200%.

Product Penetration
Two years of our sales training for a Midwest regional bank led to a 100% increase in non-credit services sales and expanded product penetration from 2.3 to 4.2 products per relationship.

Organizational Challenge
Our work with another Midwest large regional bank during a very difficult business period helped them stem the tide of customer flight and solidify their market share. These actions help lead to a profitable acquisition by a foreign-owned bank holding company.

Diversification
Our sales training for a Super Regional helped them increase non-credit sales by more than 20% in less than 12 months.

Community Banking
Three years of training and consulting for a Chicago-based community bank, helped them grow their loan portfolio by 35% and their cash management product penetration by 30% in an extremely competitive market. Most competitors lost market share during the same period.

International
Sales training for the Latin American division of a New York based money center bank yielded substantial increases in sales volume and profit contribution and helped the bank successfully re-enter two difficult Latin American markets.

Growth
Two years of training for a Midwest super regional resulted in 25% loan portfolio growth and a 35% increase in non-credit product sales.

6. What experience do you have with Financial Service Organizations?

Almost all our work is with FSO’s. Please see our client list.

7. How many years have you been in business?

Over 30

8. What efforts have been made to sell to diverse markets?

In addition to the FS marketplace, which represents the majority of our business, we have done both training and consulting in a wide range of industries. For example: Home health care, public relations, heavy and light manufacturing, transportation, U. S. Government including the Treasury Dept. and the CIA. We helped design the cash flow system for the new Panama Canal Authority and have worked in Latin America, England, Europe, the Caribbean and Canada. Please see our client list for more insight.

9. Is your company a minority-women owned business?

We are 50% female owned.

10. Are you willing to provide references?

Of course.

11.What role do you play in the Needs Assessment phase?

We will have substantial discussion with you to both understand your current knowledge of needs and to help you hone the classes to achieve your goals. We will meet with your key managers as necessary to get their input on needs.

12. What quantifiable results/consequences should we see as a result of your training? (i.e. how do you measure success?)

Success can be measured in many different ways. For example: Increased penetration of existing clients, increased number of products sold per client, increased market share, decreased losses, increased customer satisfaction, etc. We would need to discuss with you your goals to be able to really answer that question.

13. What are your customization capabilities/approach?

Most of our work is customized to some extent, generally at little or no cost to the client, to fit your products and market situations. That is a normal business approach for us and we would question any firm that did not do this. We would talk to your staff and managers to determine your needs and how best to help you meet your goals.

14. What leadership and coaching processes do you provide/endorse for sustaining the skills learned?

Most banks fail at this point. The training will be properly executed and the people will learn and begin to practice the new skills that we have taught, but if the bank does not commit itself to continuing managerial effort to support the new skills development then you will achieve greatly reduced results.

We offer a series of options for follow-up including Marks & Associates instructor led sessions, Internal led sessions designed by us, case study development, and other approaches.

15. What efforts have been made to ensure that course content includes diversity/multi cultural considerations in examples, case studies, scenarios etc?

All cases, materials and discussions are fully multi cultural and include no gender or other biases. In addition, some of the case studies help focus on sales problems that have historically occurred as a result of exactly these types of issues.

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