Financial Services Firm Increases Assets Under Management for the Long Term
Financial experts became high-performing sales representatives, help PIMCO expand beyond bonds
Executive Summary
Historically known as a provider of bonds, PIMCO set a goal in 2010 to grow assets under management (AUM) by offering additional asset classes to its institutional investor clients.
To make that goal a reality, PIMCO needed to rebrand itself in the minds of its clients. That started with training its account managers—who are first and foremost financial experts with MBAs from the country’s most prestigious schools—to build strong client relationships.
PIMCO had worked with OutSell Consulting a few years earlier to establish a culture of consultative selling, and engaged OutSell again, this time to help grow AUM.
During our work with PIMCO, we focused on:
- Identifying the actions top performers consistently took and training the entire team to make those high-impact actions part of every conversation.
- Training the team to effectively prepare for meetings from a sales perspective.
- Helping the team turn objections into opportunities to share PIMCO’s expertise and ultimately move the conversation toward a strong close.
Thanks to OutSell’s guidance, and other company-wide efforts, PIMCO tripled its AUM from $600 billion in 2006, the year of OutSell’s first PIMCO engagement, to $1.8 trillion in 2012.
The company, its clients, and the sales cycle
Some of PIMCO’s largest clients are institutional investors that manage billions of dollars, often for public pension funds and endowments. They may take multiple quarters, or longer, to deliberate about allocating funds to firms like PIMCO. They also expect to interact with highly educated financial experts. Conversations that feel rushed or too focused on selling a new product could disappoint long-term clients or turn prospective clients off.
That created a challenge for the PIMCO team: how to meet its sales goals while ensuring clients continued to trust the brand.
Studying top performers reveals specific, successful sales actions
The OutSell team interviewed PIMCO’s highest performing account managers and attended meetings alongside them. Through that process, we identified specific actions they took based on the conversational cues.
For example, if a client raised a question about the market, that could create an opportunity to introduce a new product offering. However, it’s up to the account manager to identify and act on these opportunities, and doing so requires preparation and practice.
That’s why, after studying the top performers, we first trained the PIMCO team to recognize these conversational cues. Then, we taught them the exact steps to take next to steer the conversation in the desired direction, all while ensuring the conversation felt natural.
The OutSell Operating System in ActionOur approach incorporates cutting-edge research on behavior science and training. For this client, we:
- Identified specific actions the sales team needed to take to drive results.
- Trained the sales team and then practiced with them using evidence-backed methods to help make these actions habits.
Learn more about the OutSell Operating System.
Building the preparation habit to persuade clients to allocate
The PIMCO team’s educational backgrounds meant they were well prepared for the technical and financial aspects of their client conversations. However, most team members hadn’t established specific habits around preparing for meetings from a sales perspective.
As a result, conversations weren’t as effective as they could have been at expanding PIMCO’s AUM. For example, account managers could discuss in detail the features of new and existing products but not always translate those into benefits that matched the clients’ goals. Clients left the meetings informed but not always persuaded to allocate money to PIMCO’s new offerings.
We created a series of sales playbooks for the PIMCO team that covered every aspect of preparation, from pre-meeting planning to cross-selling to closing. These playbooks, tailored to specific situations, such as events or client conversations, served as training manuals. They also became high-value reference materials that the PIMCO team could use to prepare for any client interaction.
Turning objections into opportunities to expand the relationship and close the sale
Preparation is also key to overcoming objections. When account managers know what objections clients might raise, they can pre-empt the resistance with strong positioning and be ready with clarifying questions and a strong response.
Perhaps most importantly, though, is for account managers to first empathize with the client rather than to contradict or invalidate their concern. As part of the OutSell training, PIMCO’s account managers learned how to use objections as a way to connect with clients and position themselves as good listeners and trusted advisors.
Account managers also learned to listen for cues within the client’s objection that could be the perfect segue to referencing PIMCO’s expertise or introducing a new product.
Building these habits, and the habit of clarifying objections before responding, empowered account managers to turn objections into opportunities. Opportunities to learn more about clients and what they want, and opportunities to ultimately shift the conversation towards a closed sale.
The OutSell Operating SystemMost sales training focuses on motivation and teaching concepts.
That’s a great start, but it’s not enough to get your sales team to consistently take the right action at the right time, every time.
We use science-backed methods to make sure training translates into consistent action that drives results.
Learn more about the OutSell Operating System.
Giving everyone the tools to be a top performer helps triple assets under management
With guidance from OutSell, the team at PIMCO unlocked the mystery of what made top-tier account managers so successful and gave everyone the tools necessary to become a high performer.
PIMCO then chose OutSell to scale the approach, hiring us to coach and train multiple client-facing teams throughout the company and around the world.
Within just six years, PIMCO had grown its AUM by three times and successfully repositioned itself as offering far more than bonds.
Contact us to learn how we can help you achieve similar results.
