Business Development
The Rainmaker in Business Development
“We have 537 Select Employer Groups.” Pick a number, but how often have we heard this kind of boast? It can be the boast by a multi-common bond or a community field of membership credit union. Is this model of adding hundreds of small businesses into our membership prospects creating anything other than incremental growth…
Read MoreM&A, There’s a Lot to do about Culture
One of the primary growth strategies for credit unions includes Mergers and Acquisitions. Any decent CFO can aggregate the income statements and balance sheets, and forecast the impact on the key ratios to establish the business case. But, an essential consideration for any successful Merger is how the two companies fit culturally. When the merger…
Read More7 Steps to Transforming your Credit Union to a Digital Economy
It’s not a matter of if or even when, it is happening now. PNC, Wells Fargo, Key Bank, BofA, and Chase are experimenting with digital transformation now. What does your credit union/bank need to do to stay relevant in a digital economy? Create a digital strategy – This isn’t about SEO, SEM, websites, email, FaceBook,…
Read MoreGrow Deposits and Liquidity, Three Strategies
“The times, they are a changin’.” This famous refrain from Bob Dylan’s song (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7qQ6_RV4VQ) is as real today as it was in the early 60s, especially when we look at deposit needs for financial institutions. In 2008, FIs had to shrink deposits as a tactic to keep their expense ratio in line with the regulators.…
Read MoreStrategic Planning is Like Running a Half-Marathon
Strategic planning for a lot of companies is an annual exercise in thinking big, dreaming of possibilities. Unfortunately, for a lot of these organizations, strategic planning stops there and this annual ritual that when the ritual is done, everyone returns back to business as usual. Let’s stop for a minute to really understand what strategic…
Read MoreBranching Strategy, It Starts with the Member
Historically branches are seen as transaction channels. Today, this view of branches has changed and continues to evolve. Members and potential members like the convenience of brick and mortar, they like the demonstration of financial strength and security, but the truth is, they rely less on branches for their daily, weekly and monthly transaction business…
Read MoreData-Driven Marketing Primer
For marketers today, it was essential to bring to light how the Marketing team will provide offers to members as it’s a significant change to our traditional methodology. The new approach is designed to provide improved, more consistent and more relevant product offers using the wealth of data from our core and your ancillary systems…
Read MoreStrategic Planning is the Easy Part
Working with organizations across the country, I see a familiar miss-step in their strategic planning process. The process I’ve observed is as follows: Once a year a strategic planning event is scheduled with the Board and a few key executives The event starts with a “state of the industry today” presentation, typically by a consultant.…
Read MorePay for Performance and Reputation Risk
An increasing trend in the financial services sector is “pay for performance.” This practice shows up in several formats: Commission – rep is paid a percentage of balances acquired Incentive – rep is paid per closed referral Bonus – rep is paid based on goal performance over a set period (per month, quarter, bi-annually, annually)…
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