How to Sell to Banks – Tips and Strategies

Selling to financial institutions might seem like mission impossible…

After all, how do you get busy CFOs and CEOs to notice your product or service? 

These decision-makers are quite high up in the corporate world, therefore your value proposition and copy have to be quite captivating. 

(And don’t forget building a list of super targeted prospects who are the ideal fit.)

If not…. You’re not going to stand out, leaving you with very few leads, and perhaps even fewer sales. 

So if you would like to sell to banks or fintech institutions, (or even just increase your lead generation knowledge) then this article will show you how. 

In this case study, we will share with you the exact process we used to generate 85 leads in 8 weeks for DigiPli, a Regtech company specializing in Anti-Money Laundering Compliance. 

Who is DigiPli?

Anti-Money Laundering Compliance

DigiPli is a RegTech firm whose ‘Onboarding-as-a-Service’ solution helps FinTechs and other digitally progressive financial institutions build or strengthen critical anti-money laundering controls through delivering SaaS-based, customizable workflows, integrated AML data, and ID verification products, as well as expert AML support in a single, affordable package. 

They have worked with some really big companies including Microsoft, Authenteq, AML Partners, and The Host Xchange. 

Some more information on DigiPli: 

• Their management’s deep regulatory and compliance experience ensures  consistent delivery of high-quality results 

• They help to maximize the customer experience without sacrificing on  compliance requirements 

• Their AML experts provide full lifecycle support by: Configuring and implementing an AML infrastructure tailored to businesses quickly and efficiently.

• Remediating false positives and performing due diligence 

• Tracking and advising on regulatory changes, and making the necessary system updates to ensure continued compliance.

• Generating analytics and reports to demonstrate compliance.

• Providing support in AML audits and exams 

DigiPli solves the following challenges for Fintechs:

They are redefining how FinTechs meet their anti-money laundering (AML)  and know the various challenges that their customers face.

By leveraging new  technology, automating workflows and providing ongoing AML expertise  and support, they will increase the efficiency and effectiveness of a  FinTech’s AML program. 

Why did DigiPli approach Salesbread?

DigiPli found a gap in the market.

For example, they could have purchased prospecting data, but they needed more help than that.

They also didn’t need someone completely outsourced, and they weren’t ready to hire a full-time in-house SDR, as they were a relatively new startup.

BUT they also didn’t want to hire a cheap lead generation agency that did a crappy job.

They needed someone who would mine the data and find sales leads that would be the ideal fit for their business.

And this is why they hired Salesbread. We filled this gap in the market and were just the right amount of business development effort for them; providing high-quality leads but we were still cheaper than hiring a full-time sales rep.

They approached us because of a mutual connection who had used our services and were happy with the results.

Who did they want to target?

DigiPli was looking to find new customers and leads in the spaces listed below, but specifically, companies that dealt with payments.

Why? Because they were looking to partner up with other fintech companies to help with “know your customer” KYC / anti-money laundering: 

These were the types of companies/platforms they were looking at :

• cryptocurrency
• crowdfunding platforms
• consumer and savings banks, 
• brokerage and trading firms, 
• online lenders and fintech companies
• Digital payment processors and money transmitters

And they were mainly targeting:

• Compliance Experts
• Chief Risk Officers
• CFOs
• COOs
• Managing directors and founders of fintech startups
• Fintech companies who needed AML services

They were targeting decision-makers at these companies. 

As you can imagine, this isn’t always an easy group of people to target. CFOs and COOs are busy people. (But, we did it, and got great results for DigiPli. Keep reading to find out more.)

This was our strategy

Step 1: Find all the fintech companies in the US

The first thing that we needed to do was build a list of all the financial technology companies in America. As you can imagine there are thousands.

In Fact, a quick search on Crunchbase showed that there are over 2000 fintech providers in the US. 

We then needed to refine this list and see who would be the best fit for Digipli. 

How do we refine our lists? 

Well, we ask who has purchased from you within the past 6 months. What do your existing customers look like? This then helps us to look out for any patterns. 

For example, are fintech companies that are buying from you, newly formed startups? Do they have a specific number of employees? Are they mainly in cryptocurrency or crowdfunding? What financial products are they offering? 

But we also refined the search by making use of specific keywords to see if the company at least had an AML person on their payroll or an AML title on Linkedin in order to find out if they were a good match. 

By looking at the above in great detail, we can see who would be more likely to accept a meeting with our clients. 

Eventually, we narrowed down our list to 1138 fintech companies. 

Step 2: Find all the CEOs, founders, COOs and CFOs at these companies

Finding this kind of information isn’t too difficult if you have the know how. 

For example, can plug this list into Linkedin‘s Sales Navigator and then filter by “title”. Include the words CEO, CFO, COOs.

You can get quite specific about titles in this filter. 

Once you have a list of the decision makers at these financial service institutions, you can then filter the list by your second degree network or by those who have recently posted something on Linkedin within the past 30 days. 

(This will show you if they are active on this social media platform or not. If they haven’t been active on Linkedin, it would be better to reach out via an email campaign.)

Most of the CEOs should have Linkedin profiles, if not then you can find their email addresses using tools such as:

• Apollo.io
• Hunter.io
• Reply.io

These programs offer a vast database of email addresses and phone numbers of just about anyone. 

So if you can’t connect on Linkedin use these email finder tools to help in your sales process. This was what we did for DigiPli when it came to finding the right people at these companies. 

NOTE: At Salesbread we use a number of these tools, which we pay for every month. Therefore contact us if you would like to skip on monthly membership fees, as we pay for these tools already. 

PRO TIP: Connecting with those in your second degree network means that you already have a shared commonality. This means that the prospect you are reaching out to has already accepted someone like you in the past, which means that they will be more willing to accept new connections. 

Step 3: Send personalized connection requests and messages

Once we knew who to contact at these companies, we did a bit of research on these prospects.

Why?

Research allowed us to write personalized messages that got these decision makers interested in setting up meetings with DigiPli.

Messages that are personalized are more likely to receive a response than those that aren’t.

This is especially true for busy founders who are bombarded daily by sales teams with their products or services.

So, we needed to write messages that would stand out; Something that would allow us to start a conversation.  And research on these busy CEOs helped us to do this. 

For example in the connection request message you could say:

“Hi, I heard about your company through a mutual connection and it looks really interesting. Do you mind if we connect here?”

Or

“I enjoyed the article you wrote on the top 10 fastest growing fintechs in the banking industry. Do you mind if we connect?” 

The above examples are similar messages that we used to connect with busy founders. 

Step 4: Reply once prospects have connected

The next step was to add a little bit more personalization and reply once the prospects had connected with us. 

You can thank the prospect for connecting and then mention briefly why you are reaching out to them, but only for context. 

For example in the messages that we sent to DigiPli prospects, we asked the CEOs how they were addressing AML challenges today.

This quick question stimulates engagement but also allows the prospect to give their opinion. 

We also ask to set up a meeting to discuss the prospects’ opinions in more depth on the subject. 

And at the end of the message, as a PS we mentioned briefly what DigiPli does that sets them apart from other AML programs. 

Did this work? See our stats

We sent out 392 connection requests on Linkedin.

Side Note: As you can see we narrowed down our list even more from 1138 fintech                    companies.

Why do this and not send connection invites to everyone? 

The reason is that if you have an ultra defined list of prospects the chances of these leads saying yes to a meeting will be higher because they are looking for what you are selling. 

At Salesbread we know that time = money. 

We don’t want our clients to waste either and this is why we obsess about list building. We would rather have a list of 100 prospects who say “yes” to a meeting than a list of 1000 prospects whose 10 leads agree to a meeting. 

So if you are looking for a lead generation strategy that works…

The bottom line is that we were able to find 85 leads that booked meetings with DigiPli in 8 weeks. 

We fulfilled our promise of one lead a day, and more. 

If you would like the same results, bringing in greater profitability for you and your business, please click the button below.

No matter who your ideal target is, whether you’re selling bank products to busy CEOs, or SaaS solutions to salespeople, Salesbread can help you get your foot in the door.

All you have to do is show up and close the sale.