Some people believe that in politics, there is one side or the other, and they’re unwilling to look at the alternative. Still others believe that the moon is made of cheese.

You may have a belief system that’s true. You may have a belief system that’s not true. And the question that we have to look at as an executive is, “what has to be true for us to challenge what we believe to be true?”

You see, there are many beliefs within our industry right now, such as, in order to have a higher net interest margin you must have more risk.

Who made up that stupid rule?

Why would we be unlike any other industry whereby they can achieve a higher premium pricing by taking themselves out of the commodity approach that they had been using. Of course, that is possible, but not if we don’t believe it’s true.

Many people believe that loans are hard, that deposits are hard to get, that it’s hard to get premium pricing, that it’s hard to get the executives to follow the strategic plan and get everybody aligned with it, it’s hard to get everybody knowing how they tie to profit.

And when we believe that to be true, it leads us to the question, “what do you have to do to challenge your beliefs and be open to a new set of beliefs?” Because that is what we, as executives, must do in order to stay on top of the pile.

– Roxanne Emmerich

Please watch the video above and share it with your exec team and board.

The post Who Made Up THAT Rule? [VIDEO] appeared first on The Emmerich Group.

This begs the question, what kind of glue do you need to make sure your very best employees stick with you during a time of accelerated “employee poaching?”

To be clear… employee retention isn’t just about the pay.

Yes, extrinsic (financial) rewards matter—up to a certain level, according to research. But quite frankly, people are more complex than being about money.

They don’t just work for money. They also work for being a part of the team—making great things happen, feeling rewarded, feeling like they’re a part of the culture, feeling like they’re making a significant difference, and knowing that they’re on a career path where they get to keep learning how to be a super banker.

It’s never been more important than now to have an awareness of what it is that employees are looking for today.

Let’s start with the basics. Employees demand some things from their bank employers. They want to be learning, they want to be growing, they want to grow as individuals, and they want to grow in their professionalism.

Let’s face it, for too long banks have used the words “trusted advisor,” but most banks are nowhere near an accurate representation of that concept. Sadly, your clients know it, too.

Not only that, your employees know they’re not really trusted advisors. They don’t feel good about themselves when they remain product sluggers.

Now is the time to make massive movement from the transactional banking model to the transformational banking model.

Answer this honestly. Do you have the right systems and the right training and development in place to radically shift your “trusted advisor” status with your first efforts?

Every time you have a false attempt in anything that you do, it’s another chance for them to proclaim that famous mantra, “This too shall pass.”

Every time you have another false attempt on improving your sales culture, the next time it gets even harder.

False attempts are infinitely costly.

If you really want to retain your best employees, take an aggressive stand to develop your people to become trusted advisors.

Let the journey begin…

– Roxanne Emmerich

The post The Glue to Keep your Best Employees… [VIDEO] appeared first on The Emmerich Group.

In this episode, I’m going to share with you how to overcome what I call “the middle management breakdown”—the block that keeps executives’ dreams from being the reality executed by the front-line team members.

If you’re the kind of leader who worries that perhaps your managers act more like “individual contributors” and don’t do nearly enough to maximize the results of their team members, I’m going to give you some solid executable ideas to get some traction for your managers. You’ll find it very useful.

If instead you feel as though your managers are PROFICIENT managers, I’ll show you how you can build on that so they become high achievers—superstars who can drive even more performance.

Or, if you feel you are already doing great at getting your managers to manage AND you have a fire in your belly to always take it up several notches to be the best of the best, you are going to LOVE this session.

Sounds strange. But it isn’t easy to get managers to effectively manage. There are some predictable challenges:

First, they often don’t have “street smart” tools to manage people, situations, or processes, causing them to feel inept. As a result, they often gravitate back to doing the technical parts of their individual contributor’s roles where they can enjoy feelings of success.

Second, they quickly learn that not all people want to take their coaching. When a manager runs into those who don’t benefit from strong self-esteem—who deflect or become defensive when they are coached on their performance—that manager quickly learns to not put their hand on the hot stove. They’re “trained” to not manage by the very people who most need to be managed.

Third, because they are managers and not leaders, many lack the “why” distinctions of what you are asking for as an executive. They put the people under them into a mode of “doing” without the “why” too, and, as a result, things get screwy real fast.

Seems like these happen with almost all management teams in some way, shape, or form.

I’m now going to share three steps to help you have a breakthrough in whatever level of “middle management breakdown” that you’re experiencing so that you can rapidly get everyone and everything aligned in order to exceed your strategic plan.

Step 1: UNLIKE so many management theories and training processes that are based on conventional wisdom, your managers need to have some basic knowledge of psychology and how that applies to changing behavior. They need to learn how to take the complex and make it simple—breaking everything down to the simplest of steps so that people can execute quickly and effectively to get results and feel the joy of progress daily.

Step 2: One of the most meaningless tools ever developed in the workplace for improving performance is giving people a job description. Instead managers need to communicate to their team what the real purpose of each job is. And IF they are performing as a top 5% performer, they must know what the metrics are of performance and what the key roles, tasks and responsibilities are of a high-performer so that it is clear what good performance looks like.

Step 3: Teach managers how to align each person to what we discussed in step two as well as the new quarterly key initiatives from the strategic plan. Let’s face it, if you can get people doing the behaviors of a top 5% performer, they’re certainly going to increase performance for everyone who has that job. The skills to coach, celebrate, do one-on-ones and conduct quarterly performance reviews that tie to the strategic plan transforms performance.

So just three steps, really:

1) Help create simplicity from the complexity so people know how to win.
2) Then make it clear exactly what extraordinary performance looks like.
3) Follow that by getting everyone aligned with what the metrics, key roles and responsibilities are, and how they fit with the strategic plan.

By solving the “middle management breakdown” for good, you can reap the benefits of having each team member hit every goal and metric with consistency. You KNOW that YOU can hit all of your goals and metrics—and receive all the praise and personal satisfaction that comes with a job well done.

– Roxanne Emmerich

Please watch the video above and share it with your exec team and board.

The post How to Avoid the “Middle Management Meltdown” [VIDEO] appeared first on The Emmerich Group.

Video: Bank Marketing Isn’t What It Used To Be

The post Marketing Isn’t What It Used To Be [VIDEO] appeared first on The Emmerich Group.

In this video, I’m going to show you how to eliminate the limiting beliefs that keep your team matching rates instead of going after substantial premium pricing on better quality clients.

They’ll start getting bigger and better-quality customers within weeks.

If you’re the kind of leader…

Who feels like a broken record and is about ready to pull out your last hair begging and pleading for your team to change their ineffective sales approach—you’re going to love this.

Or if perhaps you’re one who already has a few sales superstars, but there are still “resistors”—you’re going to love this video.

Or maybe you have a team that is committed to doing things their way, so you don’t have a sales system, you have dozens (and none of them working well)—and perhaps your team is absolutely adamant that your approach is wrong…then you’re going to love this.

Here are the problems you’re likely facing…

Some banking schools actually TEACH, in the simulations, that the way to get premium pricing is to take on bad credits so nobody is questioning that the earth is flat.

Or maybe your veteran salespeople take the “young’uns” under their wing and tell them you have to match rates.

Or (based on the fact that you’ve matched pricing on hundreds of deals) there is seemingly a mountain of evidence that it can’t be done.

You’re not alone. Seems like EVERY bank is facing these issues.

Now, I want to give you three steps that can break down that impenetrable wall of a belief system that you must engage in rate matching. Let’s get your team excited about premium pricing – and show them how to get it.

Step 1: Forget rah-rah sales hype training.  Your people need a solid and proven sales system designed specifically for community banking that works the very first time and every time.

Step 2: Replace “trust me” with “tangible evidence” that your approach to sales works. Get your people to see others like them who didn’t believe and, now that they do, are crushing it over and over again. This will convert the “resistors” faster.

Step 3: The commonly accepted three-prong system talked about at banking conferences for years of goals, sales training, and incentive pay has never worked…even once…for anybody. You must recognize that a true integrated marketing/sales system is necessary. It should include how you choose the next customers, how you create differentiating value, and how to manage the specifically planned, optimized steps to create a predictable result. That result being closing over 90% of deals without having to match pricing. If that metric is not managed and hit, there is something very wrong with your sales system or else it is not being followed.

With a proven integrated marketing/sales process in place—and clear evidence that it works—you will quickly be able to get enthusiastic buy-in from your team—even from those who have been reluctant to follow your lead in the past.

You can finally stop sounding like a raging lunatic begging for them to change. They will enjoy the pride and accomplishment of winning quality deals at premium pricing. Winning is fun.

– Roxanne Emmerich

Please watch the video above and share it with your exec team and board.

The post Boost Your Bank’s Bottom Line with One Change [VIDEO] appeared first on The Emmerich Group.

Do you hold the entire relationship for every one of your bank account holders? 

I hope you do. But maybe you don’t. And maybe your people don’t know how to get effective cross-selling done.

If you’re not averaging five, six, or even seven cross-sales on every new relationship that is opened up in your bank, somethings just not right yet.  

And it doesn’t mean you have bad people. It just means they don’t know what to do for effective cross-selling. But they’re going to need to figure it out.

Think of it this way. I’ve watched bank after bank after bank move their cross-sales and new account figure from 2.2 up to five in less than a year.

At the end of the year, they’re always surprised. “Oh, look at that. Our efficiency dropped by 10 points. We weren’t even cutting expenses.” Oh, no, you don’t have to. It’s dealt with on the revenue side. And look at the equation here. How beautiful is this, that we didn’t have to hire more people, and we didn’t need new buildings. 

All we had to do is that every time a customer, or a new potential customer, walks in that person knows how to turn them into a customer and create an entire relationship using tried and true cross-selling strategies that work. 

That takes some skills, that takes some distinctions, it takes some understanding, and it takes some repetition. Most banks have given this lip service for decades. They’ve talked every year about how they’ve got to get past the order taking. 

Saying so doesn’t seem to get it done. What is your defined action plan? The one where you know with great certainty that you will, within a year, be up to five, six, or even seven cross-sells? If you say it can’t be done, look at the case studies on our website, and you’ll see hundreds of banks that have pulled it off. So if they can do it, you can do it—but you have to do things correctly. 

Is this the year that you own the entire relationship for your bank account holders? I hope it is.

– Roxanne Emmerich

Please watch the video above and share it with your exec team and board. 

The post Can You Retain And Win All Of Your Bank Account Holders’ Business? appeared first on The Emmerich Group.

In this episode, I’m going to show you how the right sales system can help your people get excited about and effective at pulling in the very best customers…without PRICE even being brought up. You’ll get the respect of getting paid what you’re worth.

If you’re the kind of person:

• Who is frustrated that your people fall into the trap of thinking they’ll lose a deal unless they match the rate…you’re going to love this.
• Or if you’re the person who has some superstars who can get great pricing…but it’s not consistent in your bank…you’re going to love this.
• Or maybe you’re the one who has tried sales training but you still haven’t been able to consistently get the pricing you want…you’re going to love this.

You probably face three challenges:

• Your salespeople are not using the Level 4 USPs properly to break preoccupation with rate immediately in the process, so they get dragged into the price match and there is no way to reverse that.
• Maybe your people don’t have the belief that you are worth more.
• Or perhaps there is a wrong assumption (based on what they learned from well-meaning senior lenders) that the only way to get a higher price is when there is more risk.

EVERY bank is facing these issues. But you can make a change for the better.

I’m going to show you how you can get paid more in just three steps.
You’ll experience dramatically different results–as soon as your next sales call.

Step 1: UNLIKE most sales trainings, which are somewhat manipulative and “us against them,” you need to create a logical ROI analysis process in which the prospect tells YOU how much more you are worth to them BEFORE your people bring up pricing.

Step 2: It’s frustrating that salespeople don’t know the right order for the sales process, so they get dragged into the price conversation. Your people need to know which USPs to use and when, and how in the sales process they will use each of the USPs you’ve created based on that target market.

Step 3: It’s important that your people know how to get the prospect to share the financial impact of your USPs so it seems quite ridiculous for them to ask the price.

Here are those three steps again:

1) Logical sales process in the right order.
2) Know when and how to bring up your USPs.
3) Get the prospect to tell you the financial impact of USPs.

Do that and you as a leader and your people can have the confidence and pride knowing that you never have to match a commodity peddler ever again.

In the next episode, I’ll help you transform the engrained mindsets of those who believe they can only get 25 basis points more on a deal, or, worse yet, think they have to match the rate.  I’m going to show you how to instill the confidence they need to go after premium pricing with every prospect.

– Roxanne Emmerich

Please watch the video above and share it with your exec team and board.

The post Do Your Salespeople Know When to Talk USPs? [VIDEO] appeared first on The Emmerich Group.

The days of transactional banking are over. 

Yes, there was a day when the customers would walk into our lobbies. Yes, there was a day where they came looking for us. Yes, I remember those days, too. 

Those days are long gone 

And it was a rapid turn. Yes, the amount of traffic coming into our lobbies had been declining. But boy, when we closed the doors for COVID, that changed everything from transactional to transformational.  And now we are in a transformational model instead. And those banks that hang on to their transactional model where they sit behind their desks cannot possibly compete in this world where the apps are stronger, and the competitors are stronger. 

What’s necessary now? 

Your people are out having conversations with people. And not only do they need to have conversations that are initiated by the banker, but those conversations need to be effective. They should be asking the right Socratic questions to find out what needs to be improved in the relationship:

• How to get them unstuck
• How to get them to create commitments for what they’re going to do next
• How to make a decision about moving ahead with their business and buying one of your services

These are just a few examples of some of the Socratic questions that they need to master. 

In addition, the old belief that having universal bankers was going to get the job done only means that we have people who understand several different product lines. 

Transactional to Transformational 

But listen, having product awareness is, of course, a baseline, and it’s necessary, but it does you no good when people are not walking in the door. The new model of transformational banking means that they’re saying to you, “You are the only banker that I’ll ever need.”

– Roxanne Emmerich

Please watch the video above and share it with your exec team and board.

The post The Transactional to Transformational Model for Community Banks appeared first on The Emmerich Group.

What if you thought about your bank as a franchise? 

Seriously, any business should think of itself as a franchise system. And everything in your bank should be thought of as a system. And of all the bank franchise systems, the most important of those is the revenue system. 

Let’s face it.  Revenue solves lots of problems. 

But most banks really don’t have a revenue system. They have a lot of well-meaning people who work very, very hard, make a lot of calls, and try really hard. But they don’t have a system to figure out and identify who your next most profitable customer is. 

Seriously, there are top 100 next best prospects. So how do you figure out who they are? And then how do you put them into a system? 

If you don’t have a system:

• How do you begin to create reputational equity with them so that they’re falling in love with you and starting to be disconnected from their current bank before you even do the call? 
• How do you set up the call to make sure that you have a 100% chance of making sure you have the appointment? 
• How do you prepare the team between making the appointment and having the first call with all the right things they need to do to ensure they get the second appointment and close the deal?
• What happens between the first appointment and the second appointment?
• What happens on the second appointment to make sure you close it 85% of the time, even though they didn’t come looking for you? Even though they love their current bank and you charge premium pricing compared to what they’re currently paying at their incumbent bank? 

This takes a system.  And it’s going to take great adherence to a well-thought-out A/B split-tested system. 

It works. In fact, there are banks that have radically transformed their performance and profitability by thinking of their bank as a bank franchise system and putting all the elements in place. And then the crazy thing is watching everyone execute with perfection as opposed to winging it. 

That’s the game you want to be thinking about. So think of your bank as a franchise system. But of all the franchise systems, the most important system of all is that of safe, profitable revenue.

– Roxanne Emmerich

Please watch the video above and share it with your exec team and board.

Want to find out more about the bank franchise system that can get you to top-of-peer performance and stay there? Get your copy of the Breakthrough Banking Blueprint here. 

The post What is a Bank Franchise System? appeared first on The Emmerich Group.

Well, here’s the problem with that. Any bank that can only command 25 basis points of premium pricing will probably not have its name on the front door five years from now.

Our industry is now in a significantly disrupted environment. Just because your bank has been in business for 120 years doesn’t mean that you will still be standing five years from now.

If you’re not paranoid, you’re not paying attention to how quickly the disruptors are becoming sophisticated and are about to target your best customers.

Implementing a proven sales culture system is the only way to lift yourself above your competitors to be the only bank that a prospect would consider. Your customers should be telling you: “This is worth a million to me, and that is worth $500,000 to me, and you’re only charging an extra $10,000—it’s a no brainer.”

If your people don’t know how to get that, and if you don’t give them the differentiation to do that, you send them out set up to lose.

You can’t expect to fix this by asking them to make more calls. We’ve all been there. We’ve all called on people when we didn’t really have anything unique and different to offer, and our good looks and charm just weren’t enough. So they sent us packing.

Every time we have another loss, our self-esteem goes down, so the next time we go out, we anticipate rejection: “Yeah, you’re probably going to say no, but would it be okay if we talked for five minutes anyway before you throw me out?”

When would be a good time to figure out that extreme differentiation?

When I talk about unique selling propositions—those differentiators that help you get paid more—I don’t mean getting one of those slogans that most branding companies will charge you half a million dollars for. I’m talking about having a plethora of differentiators that fit different industries. When you do your pre-call plans, your people will know: “I’m going to use these three because they will resonate with the prospect in front of me. And they’re going to tell me we’re worth at least half a million dollars of financial impact here and $200,000 there. So, when I say to them, “we’re $10,000 more,” they’re going to say, ‘that’s a bargain!’—because it is!”

Mastering how to do that is a vital part of the equation, but most banks just don’t get the verbiage right. This is not a game where “close enough” wins. This is a game where getting it right wins.

It’s not rocket science. So why do banks still keep paying branding firms to solve this for them? And why do branding firms never deliver premium pricing opportunities when that is what they’re hired to do?

Set the intention that this is the year when you create extreme differentiation. But know that that’s not enough. You also have to figure out how to use it in your sales process, which means your team must know how to use it. They can’t just talk about their stuff like a traveling salesman opening his tattered suitcase. They have to know how to get the person to say what the financial value and impact is to them. That’s a game to be mastered, and that’s something where sales training has failed the banking industry miserably.

Most sales training feels icky. But when done correctly, differentiating yourself and knowing how to use that differentiation feels like the greatest gift you’re giving that prospect or customer in front of you. That’s a game-changer because, as a community banker, your job is to be a source of wisdom, honesty, integrity, and authenticity. That’s what relationships should be built on.

When we bring differentiation to that relationship, that changes everything. We bring significant financial impact to our customers.

As challenging times continue, we know one thing for sure: Whatever is happening on the outside, you can change your approach in response.

One of the best things you can do is to create differentiators that are extreme enough to stimulate your prospects to say: “Whoa, you’re playing a different game. Why don’t all banks do this? I don’t want anyone else.”

– Roxanne Emmerich

Please watch the video above and share it with your exec team and board.

The post “I Don’t Want to Work with Any Other Bank but You” [VIDEO] appeared first on The Emmerich Group.