A Day in the Life of a Banker

Good Morning DINKS.  Today is the next post in our “A Day in the Life” series.  You may recall that we already chronicled a day in the life of an Intern, and today we are going to take you through a day in the life of a Banker.

There are several different types of jobs available for bankers within a bank branch.  There is the Sales Team which is made up of Small Business Account Managers, Financial Planners, Personal Account Managers, and Mortgage Representatives.  There is also the Service Team which is comprised of the Bank Tellers.

Each position in a bank branch has its own personal responsibilities and tasks which make the bank branch efficiently function as a whole.  In order to provide excellent customer service to our clients, we are required to have general knowledge about all aspects of banking.  We are also required to maintain a great working relationship with all of our partners in order to ensure a smooth transition from one banker to the next.

Tellers are often referred to as Customer Service Representatives, but I feel that this is unjust. Whether we are processing client transactions, selling mortgages, or offering personal financial planning advice we are all customer service representatives.

Financial Planners along with Small Business and Personal Account Managers are relationship managers with a sales objective.  We aim to make our clients feel at ease so they are comfortable dealing with us.  Mortgage Representatives are an extreme sales force that aim to bring new mortgage business into the branch through their external contacts; they do not maintain a relationship with clients after the sale is complete.  We grow our business relationships through referrals from other bankers in the branch, as well as client referrals, and external contacts.

My day as a Financial Planner begins at 8:30 am. Every morning our branch has a morning huddle from 8:30 to 8:45 am to discuss important updates and the sales focus for the day.  At 8:45 am I return client calls while the Tellers prepare to open at 9 am.  15 minutes to open an entire bank branch is not a lot of time.

At 9 am there are already clients in line waiting to be served by the Tellers.  Sometimes when we arrive at 8:30 there are already clients (usually seniors) lined up outside waiting to be let in to the branch.

Appointments for the Sales Team start at 10 am.  From 9 am to 10 am we return telephone messages and follow up on administrative work.  Tellers start serving clients at 9 am on the nose.  The average transactions time for a teller is 6 minutes, but ideally it should be 4.5 minutes.  Think about the last time you went into a bank branch, did you spend 4.5 to 6 minutes with the teller?

The average appointment time for a member of the Sales Team such as Financial Planners, Small Business Account Managers and Mortgage Representatives is one hour.  On a really busy day we serve 3-4 clients, and tellers can serve between 40 to 50 clients on a busy day.

The focus of all bank employees is sales.  We have to find a balance between good customer service and meeting our sales objectives.  Bankers live on the motto that good customer service comes first.  The sales will follow if we build trust with our clients through great customer service.

Everyone has different sales objectives throughout the bank, my annual sales goal as a Financial Planner is $10 million in net sales.  Mortgage Representatives also have a $10 million annual sales goal.  It is easier to achieve the $10 million sales goal as a Mortgage Representative because the average investment sale in our district is $50,000 while the average mortgage sale is $300,000.

Small Business Account Managers have an annuals sales goal to bring in 10 new clients per year and increase their total portfolio by 10%.  If the total assets under management were $40 million at the end of the previous fiscal year, the sales goal for the upcoming year would be $4 million in net sales.

On top of our annual sales objectives, we also all have a weekly productivity goal. We each have an objective of 15 proactive calls per week.  This ensures that we communicate with all of our clients at least twice a year.  On an average Financial Planners manage approximately 350 clients.  Proactive calls lead to client appointments which hopefully lead to sales.

Being a bank employee has several advantages such as a competitive base salary, excellent health benefits, the possibility for a yearend bonus, as well as several banking advantages.  All bank branch employees are entitled to the same benefits.  The disadvantage of being a banker is the daily risk that we might get robbed.

The goal of our A Day in the Life series to learn about different professions.  The next time we are having a bad day and loose our temper at someone, we should stop and think…maybe they are having a bad day too. The world would be a much better place if we were all a little bit nicer to each other.

Photo by The Consumerist

Kristina Tahnyak

Tahnya is a Certified Financial Planner and former Investment Advisor turned marketing and communications professional She holds a degree from Concordia University, is debt free and currently works in the field of digital marketing.