The areas that showed most promise were those potential customers who either were interested in investing in their financial future but needed help in negotiating their way through the financial maze, or did not have the interest but wanted someone to do it for them, and do it well. These were the ‘Show it to me!’ and ‘Do it for me!’ customers.

Although those in the High–High quadrant were generally high net worth individuals, the people who fell into that category wanted a high level of service but were also more liable to shift their savings and investments from one financial institution to another fairly frequently. The Low–Low quadrant likewise required a high level of support but did not necessarily have the available funds to warrant that level of investment from the organization.

Once the primary focus for business development opportunities had been established, the next stage was to decide what sorts of things needed to happen for customer needs to be satisfied. This included outlining the behaviours and attitudes that customer-facing staff (and those back-office staff supporting them) needed to exhibit. Key areas included the ability to generate interest, to establish credibility, to have clarity of communication and to be proactive to customer needs.

The reorientation of the company to this particular strategy included the generation of a new set of company values. These values were not just a list of slogans but were translated into behavioural statements. These statements defined the preferred way of operating in the business and indeed also became part of the recruitment process.

The values were not only ‘nice-to-have’ or ‘motherhood and apple pie’, but were designed to align people within the organization to the company strategy and the preferred behaviours. So for example a value of ‘treat people well’ was translated into making people feel they are your number one priority, and treating all customers and each other with respect. The value of ‘say it as it is’ was translated into talking to customers and colleagues in a straightforward manner. These behaviours could be verified by observation or customer feedback. They could also be learnt.

Of course to get to the stage where frontline staff behaved in accordance with company strategy required other enabling actions, which were drawn from best practice and appropriate models of individual, team and organizational change