Rate Risk is a Big Risk—Play Smart [VIDEO]
Guessing interest rates is not a strategy. Here’s how top community banks remove rate risk and stay profitable.
Picture yourself in the driver’s seat of your dream car, ready to go—but the windows are all painted black and there are no gauges. You turn the key and the engine roars. You push the pedal to the floor and away you go!
Oh you’ll end up somewhere, all right—but it won’t be pretty.
Too many banks operate exactly this way. People go to work every day and push that pedal to the floor. But do they have any idea WHERE they’re going? Too often, the answer is no—and the reason is a lack of outcome-based thinking. “What is the end result I’m after?” and “What’s the best way to get there?” should be front and center at all times.
Getting a clear framework in place BEFORE you hit the road matters more to the outcome than anything else. Unaligned teams, fuzzy objectives, and a lack of common goals often bog down strategic planning sessions.
Sound familiar? If so, it’s time to get serious about lifting the hood on your strategic planning process. Strategy clarifies how you will operate your bank, your department, and your marketing plan, not just in the long term, but on a day-to-day basis.
Roxanne Emmerich
President and CEO
Guessing interest rates is not a strategy. Here’s how top community banks remove rate risk and stay profitable.
A Christmas reflection on why community banking matters—and why your leadership impact extends far beyond transactions.
Top banks don’t complain about regulation—they execute around it. Here’s how the elite outperform anyway.
Low-cost deposits are the ultimate margin advantage. Discover how top 5% performers attract them consistently—and why most banks fail to compete.
Banks don’t fail from a talent shortage—they fail from a thinking shortage. Discover how critical-thinking systems like the SIR Formula build your future executives now.
A powerful Thanksgiving message on how gratitude shifts leadership presence, reframes pressure, and strengthens your bank’s performance culture.
Most employees believe they’re top performers but can’t show how they drive profit. This episode shows how to tie every role to the bottom line, boost profit per FTE, and build a high‑performance culture in your community bank.
Traditional sales training fails because it focuses on tactics, not transformation. Discover how to shift from sales training to sales culture and achieve lasting growth.
Escape commodity pricing. This episode shows how Level-4 USPs—proprietary, client-valued processes—let community banks command +150–200 bps and keep deposits loyal.
Rate matching drains margin. Install USPs that matter, differentiate, and promise explicit benefits—so buyers pay more without a price match.