Conferences & Education

Build Relationships. 
Build Success. 

Learn how the WIB Relationship Banking Academy and our innovative learning platform can take your bank from order-taking selling, which works once, to relationship selling which works over and over.

Empowering client-facing bankers to have an action plan – through a comprehensive relationship selling program – to develop deeper, sustainable and loyal customer relationships.

Comprehensive Relationship Selling

Upon completing the program, Certified Relationship Bankers will:

• Quickly assess whether a prospect’s business is a target customer for the bank.
• Prepare for prospect and customer meetings in a systemic, exact and organized manner.
• Develop a client-specific plan that meets the client’s needs.
• Translate the bank’s and the relationship manager’s value proposition into a tangible customer benefit.
• Improve bank profitability through increased customer loyalty in a highly competitive banking environment.

Why Relationship Banking?

Right now, 33% of small businesses report they are looking for a new financial institution and want a “relationship” with their bank. Relationship banking can help you address their most common complaints.

This program teaches ways to build sustainable client relationships as a trusted financial advisor.

Relationship Selling – Works Over & Over

• Focus on the client and attraction of new customers is viewed as the beginning.
• Emphasis is on establishing a long-term relationship.
• Needs satisfaction from the standpoint of the whole.
• Primary sales contacts are through marketing-driven professionals.
• Profitability is assessed on the total relationship.

The definition of relationship selling may be different than you think.

Relationship selling allows bankers to suggest products for their clients’ best interests, not the bank’s short-term interest. This approach will solidify the banking/client relationship and will lead to future products as the relationship grows and progresses through the business cycle.

5-Step Learning Model

Our platform is a hybrid mix of in-person, online learning and reporting on real-life practice missions, course workbooks, a case study, and one-on-one coaching followed by a certification test at the wrap-up session.

1. Teach – Ignition Workshop
   Get fired up with an in-person, 2- day instructor-led kick-off Ignition workshop.

2. Practice in Real Life
   Lessons with real life “missions” cement the learning from the Ignition Workshop. Missions include meeting with potential clients or with customers to practice the tools learned in each lesson. Students get their mission instructions from our online platform which has 10 short video instruction modules. After finishing the missions, students report their experience back to the instructor and share the experience with their classroom peers. This process enhances the learning experience, but all missions may not be applicable to all students. The instructor will review the student’s mission journal as part of their certification process.

3. Case Study
   Students receive a case study, including a loan write-up, at the end of the Ignition Workshop which they must complete 2 weeks prior to the Wrap-up Workshop. The instructor will review the student’s case study report as part of their certification process.

4. Coaching
   Real-time coaching feedback from our instructor and peers on the lessons, missions and case study provide for personalized support for each student.

5. Certification Testing
   In order to complete the course and be certified, students will be required to take an in-classroom test at the end of the Wrap-up Workshop.

Learn more about our curriculum

Time Commitment

Bankers will have two in-person workshops, for a total of 3 days of instruction and review. In addition, there are 10 lessons with real-life missions that provide for practice of the tools. We expect students to devote 1-2 hours for each of the missions over a 7-10 day period in order to be ready for a certification test at the end. Students can also use the Academy workbook and materials to ready themselves for the exam. In addition, a case study write-up will require a minimum of 4 hours of time to prepare.

Who Should Attend

Client-facing bankers or those who aim to enter client-facing positions are prime candidates for this Academy.

• Branch Manager
• Credit Analyst
• Credit Officer
• Business Banker
• Loan Officer
• Relationship Banker
• Relationship Manager
• Long-time bankers who want to master the relationship banking skills required in the new era of banking.

About the Instructor

Kyle D. Enger is the founder of the Relationship Banking Academy. As an expert in the field of relationship banking, he has been traveling the country for 15 years providing leading-edge training to bankers. Kyle is passionate about developing banking talent by getting back to the basics and making banking personal again. Kyle is a top-ranked faculty member at the nation’s leading graduate-level banking programs including Pacific Coast Banking School, Graduate School of Banking and BAI. He sits on several corporate boards and is an Associate Director of Pacific Coast Banking School.