Cultivating Business Clients

Jack Anastasi, Senior Vice President, Kearny Bank

Jack Anastasi, Senior Vice President, Kearny Bank

Is your organization committed to attracting new business clients, while retaining those it already has? Then there are specific processes I’d recommend. These are based squarely on my professional experience, including both successes and errors.

As a starting point, it’s essential to carefully consider what you can offer. Ideally, you’ll have multiple offerings specifically tailored to the needs of businesses. As an example, my team at Kearny Bank is able to provide a sweep account with FDIC insurance on deposits of up to $50 million, plus the Z Suite of digital tools that automate processing of payments and security deposits. In addition, there’s Smart Safe, which provides for online management of cash. The point is you must have products and services with the capacity first to attract clients and then effectively address their needs.

But, as important as tangible offerings may be, nothing is more significant in terms of working with businesses than establishing and maintaining relationships. That’s why, at Kearny Bank, we created the role of Private Client Relationship Officers to interact on the figurative front lines with business clients. The responsibility of these PCROs, as we refer to them, is to serve as “personal bankers.” They identify, call on, then advise business clients.  In order to be even more tailored to the medical and educational verticals, we also created Medical Relationship Officer and Education Relationship Officer roles to meet the unique needs within these spaces.

“But, as important as tangible offerings may be, nothing is more significant in terms of working with businesses than establishing and maintaining relationships.”

The most obvious question is how these relationship officers go about locating prospective clients, then connecting with them. There’s no one-size-fits-all strategy. They communicate consistently with key influencers throughout their assigned territories, they pursue referrals, they consult with staff at our local branch locations, they attend local and regional business events, they send out electronic communications, while also striking up lots of face-to-face conversations and shaking lots of hands. In short, they pound the pavement – figurative and literally.

In discussing our team of relationship officers, I’m absolutely not suggesting we’ve identified the perfect strategy. Rather, we’re always seeking ways to improve, to increase our effectiveness. So while our relationship officers started out as generalists who were ready to work with a wide range of businesses, we’ve now started to implement vertical positions that focus on clients in a particular field or sector. For example, one of our relationship officers might target physicians, dentists, and other healthcare providers, while another might focus on higher education. It’s a promising strategy, but it’s success will depend on our demonstrating we can provide highly customized products and services in sync with each client’s unique needs.

It's also necessary to embrace a consistent day-to-day, week-to-week, month-to-month process. For our relationship officers, this begins and ends with a commitment to visit – on a quarterly basis – each prospective and current client in person, while offering advice and sharing details on products. I firmly believe in the wisdom of the phrase “out of sight, out of mind” – we must never allow someone we work with to forget we’re ready and willing to help.

When I discuss Kearny Bank’s relationship officer program with banking industry colleagues, I’m often asked about whether I can justify the time expenditure necessary to conduct in-person visits and cultivate personal relationships. From my perspective, particularly considering the current situation with interest rates and also the spate of bank failures we’ve seen this spring, there’s no better banking strategy than getting to know your clients and demonstrating you truly care about their success. Whatever the transaction at hand, I want to do business with someone I trust – and I’m certain our business clients feel exactly the same way.

Healthcare