Welcome to The Top 5 Percenter™ Blog

Dive in for concise, powerful insights on elevating community banking. Discover strategies and success stories for superior performance, from boosting financial margins to cultivating a dynamic culture. These posts literally contain the secrets of the Top 5 Percenters™. Sign up to the newsletter so that you don’t miss a single post.

News Flash—Markets Don’t Dictate Premium Pricing [VIDEO]

Every time I meet a new bank CEO, I hear the same thing I’ve heard from thousands of other bank CEOs before. They say, “Roxanne, it’s different here.” Here, we have to measure rates. Here, we have pricing competition. That’s just how it is.   I’ll never forget meeting two gentlemen years ago—one was the CEO, the other the president of a bank. They picked me up in their SUV as we headed to...

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Managing Through Victimhood and Learned Helplessness [VIDEO]

Have you ever rolled out of bed on a Monday morning, fired up and ready to take on the week, only to be met with a flood of excuses? You’re pumped, you’re ready to go, but instead, you hear things like, “I can’t because no one told me,” or “Boss, I have a hangnail—I think I need to head home early.” Or the classic, “My life is hard, don’t you understand?” Welcome to a world where victimhood is...

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Mindset for Premium Pricing: When Your People Don’t Believe You’re Worth More [VIDEO]

So, I’ve had a mentor for about 30 years now. He’s one of the wealthiest people in the country, and when he came here, he had just fifty bucks in his pocket. He once shared a system with me, and as soon as I started using it, things just clicked. It worked right away. Soon enough, some of my colleagues started asking him, “How is Roxanne getting all this business—and at such high prices?” And he...

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Life in the World of Over-Regulation [VIDEO]

So, are we as an industry overly regulated? Absolutely. But here’s the thing: when I sit down with my CEOs on Fridays—many of whom are in the top five percent of performers in this country—I hear a very different perspective.   One of them put it perfectly. He said, “You know what? I don’t care who gets elected or what happens politically, because at the end of the day, I’ve still got to go...

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Rate Risk is a Big Risk—Play Smart [VIDEO]

Are interest rates going up or down? Short-term or long-term? What? You don’t know for sure? Well, that’s actually a good sign.   It means you’re thinking because honestly, nobody knows for certain. Yet, we see banks creating these big strategic plans, making assumptions about where rates are headed. But we all know there are so many unknowns: when the next war breaks out, if inflation...

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Banish Your “Culture Ghost”—The Drag on Your Workplace that Haunts [VIDEO]

Ready to transform your team? Click here to watch our free masterclass to discover proven strategies for tackling low performers, improving communication, and building the high-performance culture your organization deserves—on your own time, anytime.   I'm not really into the paranormal, but I do believe businesses have their own kind of "ghosts." Let me tell you a story. A few years ago, I...

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Healthy Dissention: Handle Conflict Head On [VIDEO]

Ready to unlock the secrets of high-performance cultures? Click here to access exclusive tools and insights, including Next Action Templates and the National Study of High-Performance Cultures—your roadmap to driving growth and profitability today.   So, you can disagree without being disagreeable. Have you ever worked with someone who just seems to be constantly, well, disagreeable? No...

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Merry Christmas [VIDEO]

Merry Christmas to you, your team, and your family.  At a time like this, we should stop and reflect on what this holiday is all about.   It's all about family, and we know it—because having the love and the ability to impact other people in the world and the ones that we brought into the world is a wonderful thing.  But listen: Our family extends beyond the family that we've given birth to and...

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Drama Detox: Stop Gossip, Spark Results [VIDEO]

Ready to build a high-performance culture? Click here to watch our exclusive masterclass and discover proven strategies for driving excellence in your organization. This week, I want to talk about getting rid of the crazy. Almost every workplace has a little bit of crazy going on: gossip, whining, excuses, blaming, and pot-stirring. Almost every executive team I talk to when I ask them what has...

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The A-Player Playbook: Attract the Best [VIDEO]

Have you ever noticed it's a whole lot easier to get top performance from somebody who has more capabilities to be a top performer? So here's the challenge that I've been noticing recently for a lot of the banks that we've helped take to the top five percent of performers. Once they get there, they have a new problem that is mere mortals no longer fit into this organization because everybody...

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The Number One Motivator…NOT What You Think [VIDEO]

Trick question for you. What is the number one motivator for employees?   Every time I talk with executives, they often suggest that paying employees more—up to a certain level—is the answer. Sure, research supports this to some extent, but that’s not the full picture. Others say it’s about making employees feel appreciated. Yes, that’s important too, but it’s still not the core answer. So, what...

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Profit Connect: Tie Your Team to Profitability [VIDEO]

In talking to hundreds of bank CEOs, I've heard the same repeated message. We've got good people.   They have good customer service skills, but they don't really know how to bring in the entire relationship at premium pricing, and they don't really know how they tie to profit. Well, if you have this problem, you're not alone because this is the common thing....

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