Football and the game of selling.

• Author: Palm, Gene
• Position: Database Marketing

Football coach Vince Lombardi didn't take anything for granted. During one of his training sessions, he went back to basics. He said, "Gentlemen, this is a football."

Not all bank marketers seem to have the same passion for database marketing--or even for selling--that football players have for their game! So, in the tradition of Vince Lombardi, we don't want to take anything for granted. "Ladies and Gentlemen, marketing is all about selling!" Just like football, them are some basic rules of the game of selling.

Rule 1: Having a passion to sell. As a bank marketer, you need to have a passion to sell. Marketing still involves the basics: designing, pricing, promoting and placing the product But, marketing in the 21st century also involves using complex marketing database technologies to reach your customers. Pass or run, but don't make your playbook so sophisticated that you forget the only way to score is have the passion to sell something to somebody.

Rule 2: Knowing what to sell. You can't simply sell any product. You need to know which products are the most profitable and then concentrate your efforts on selling them. Otherwise, you'll fall into the trap of evaluating your success on sales volume without regard to how profitable those sales are. Don't fumble the ball here!

Having a marketing database is extremely valuable because it can help you determine which products am profitable, and most importantly, why they are profitable. After balancing your marketing database back to your financial statements, you can then examine the average balance, spread, fees, costs, provision and break-even balances of your products. Tacking your least profitable products (understanding why they are unprofitable) can lead to a change in play.

Rule 3: Selling to qualified leads. It does no good to have profitable products if you don't have any qualified leads for your sales efforts. You're the quarterback of your...