Banking | Sales | Career | Corporate jobs
Chronicles of a Bank Salesperson/Relationship Manager
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No, we didn’t turn into zombies, clowns or walking dead. But sometimes we did or it felt so…
It was bitter-sweet, Sweat & Blood, fun & tears, highs & lows, rough terrains-smooth terrainS…but very fulfilling in the end
To make matters worse, I was a salesperson and a relationship manager (RM). Don’t get me started on the chronicles and madness of a day in the life of a bank RM, oh I could write a whole book! And I was selling mortgages, selling mortgages in Kenya ain’t easy.
But at the end of the day, it was fulfilling, the pressure was worth it…
A sale closed, a deal lost, a pipeline that “Drunk water”, a pipeline in flight, a happy customer, an unhappy one, difficult days, easypeasy days, scandals, security investigations & threats, audits, fraud cases, sales meetings, etc…
At the end of the day, what did it for me was that there was a customer smiling; either because they finally got a loan to pay that medical bill, wedding, business, or school fees. Their life got elevated in some way, they got advise on how to plan for owning a house in a few years time, they got a good FX (forex exchange) rate, a student or new employee got PFM (Personal financial management) training, etc.
You see, knowing that the end goal of your job is to illuminate people’s lives in such ways makes it all worth it. It’s not just banking anymore, but a mission to touch people’s lives and solve problems, maybe even save a life.
The ultimate for me was upon a mortgage disbursement. All the pressure, pain of cold, warm, hot and dead pipelines, sometimes being so lost you feel like you’re running around like a headless chicken...it all went away, it all suddenly felt worth it, it all culminated to a smile!!!
Oh the fulfilment of knowing I have changed a life, touched a life, helped one put a roof over their family’s head, put a smile on someone’s face! Amazing how something as simple as banking or a loan can make one feel!
It was sweat and blood with heart-melting smiles and light a the end of the tunnel…
The customer’s gratitude and fulfilment, the smile in their eyes-you know, there’s a way someone can smile and you can tell that they are smiling with their eyes and not the genuine-fake beauty peagant smiles
As a banker, I could tell genuinety from the customer’s happiness.
They would happily invite me for housewarming, or that you go and see their house.
All the annoyance they had when things stalled, the long monologue-lamentation phone calls and hatred when construction issues went heywire, or they just had a bad day and wanted to vent…it all melted away.
And we were supposed to take all this with grace, smile and poise…the customer is always right afterall…
I wonder whether if one day I go and cause trouble in a bank they’d smile and treat me nicely! Anyway…the mortgage disbursement is the point @ which I would know the customer’s wife. She would take over the communication! Amazing how roles change! She’d be behind the scenes the whole time, just peeping at emails and waiting for the mulla. And when the house is paid for…She’s the one who’d ask for the statement, when the loan would end, invite me for housewarming, etc.
And it was fun! It was amazing! It was oh so fulfilling! All the sweat and blood was worth it! Of course then this bubble bursts when you remember there’s still more targets, more pipelines, more stress to follow (rolls eyes). That big sale “Goes down the drain” and is quickly forgotten because it won’t count next month! But well, it would still lead to a happy ending.
We were smart and experts, but also idiots for ourselves
I, however, wonder; we would expertly advise customers on investment and savings yet not apply the same for ourselves. What the hell was wrong with us! Our employer even had to organise periodic personal financial planning coaching sessions.
Well, at least we never ran out of money for drinks, occasional local trips and looking like convincing well-off bankers who had their shit together! There came a certain prestige with saying ‘I’m a banker’!…fake it untill you make it, right?
The meetings, the sales meetings!! (I need that sweaty emoji here!)
These were literal slaps in the face!! Having a candid conversation with the pipeline, which looked extremely fat, but shrunk slowly as the conversation progressed. In these sessions, we’d be told the bitter truth of how one needs to prove their reason for existence in the company.
The small circle of friends within the team made it less painful.
Then we’d secretly resort to the WhatsApp group to vent and/or gossip as the meeting progressed.
Humor was our only solace during these times, otherwise we’d have gone crazy!
For me, I recoiled to a world within my corner in the boradroom with sweets I only had in my childhood known as ‘koo’ and ‘Patco’; I turned into a sweets’ peddler, secretly smuggling them around from under the table. We’d feel better biting so hard into them the next person would hear the bite! It felt like redirecting the stress and resulting energy….These sweets are used by weed smokers and khat chewers…Well, if we could neither get nor use any of the real good stuff without being declared illegal, then anything legal but closer was welcome.
God knows how many PIP’s I survived. Somehow at the end there was always some light, a big sale that comes through after dodging me for ages, a saving grace!
Bank Sales Jobs Give You Grey Hair….
I have a lot of grey hair. I tend to think it is genetic as it looks like my mum’s when she was younger. I am, however, somehow convinced mine was escalated by work stress, they greyed way too early half of my head is f*** grey and I’m still in my thirties!!! Starting before I was even 30, and escalating extremely rapidly in the last few years.
People tell me it is a symbol of riches. But I wonder when the riches will come, my parents were never rich or well off, and as an adult, I feel like my somewhat nifty bank account keeps playing hide and seek with me, surely that cannot be how riches come about!
It helps if your boss is supportive, or you’ll be a walking dead always…and female bosses are sure amazing!
The best thing about my job as a banker is that I had the most amazing direct bosses.
If your supervisor is not supportive, understanding, and in my case, treating the job like you’re a team, then you’re destined for a very fast failure in which you’d be on your way out before you knew it, either because they’ll flush you out or you’d quit due to frustration. My bosses at the bank were the most amazing I’d ever had!
There’s a common belief that female bosses are the worst and that they’re their own enemies especially if managing fellow females. I beg to disagree!
I worked under female bosses over 95% of my 8+ year career, and they were by far the best I ever had, most supportive, understanding, caring and filled with concern. Yes they’d ‘beat me up’ when things went wrong, but they’d do it objectively. I’d never have survived if they weren’t as they were. And the only bosses that ever mistreated me were male ones.
An example; my last job at the bank, I moved to a new position in a new region and everyone asked me, ‘how will you survive with her? She’s impossible, she’s tough, she’ll drive you crazy!’. This seemed true when on the first day of reporting, she called me back by telling me to turn back halfway on my way to a meeting, and I thought, ‘who does that?! This must be what people have been telling me!’….Well, she turned out to be the best of them all! I figured out it was only a matter of doing my thing, showing that I know what I’m doing, and giving it my very best, and she’ll be happy…It worked!
Oh the amount of drinking we did!!
Ummmm…it wasn’t coke!
Ps; don’t trust your banker if they don’t drink…on a light note;):)
I guess that’s why I only drink herbal teas, endless water and coffees lately.
But you know, the way we’d do our thing back at work and work miracles for customers, we must be related to Tyrion Lanister, because we literally qualified for ‘I drink and I know things’….
It was, however, a good time…A time when the word ‘colleagues’ changed to ‘friends’ and then to ‘family’. A time when I made the best of friends. A time when I witnessed the true meaning of family because of how we would come together when one of us had a problem. We’d take over the whole thing and the colleague’s real family had to sit back and let us run the show…Now that’s friendship…real friendship!
When you take beatings together, fall out fighting with each other over pipelines and stolen sales and customers, share the pain of job stress, but still go drinking together, arrange for impromptu trips, maybe once in a while sneak out of work on a Friday afternoon for a road trip to the coast, etc, at the end of the day you’ll be as tight as a family and come together to selflessly lift one another up in time of need…
To be continued…
Cheers to all bankers!
