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.
Your Marketing Isn’t Broken. Your Positioning Is.
Most banks never see it coming—the hidden sales leak that quietly kills momentum and stalls growth. Discover how top-performing banks fix it fast, triple cross-sales, and build teams that drive results without pushing harder.
How to Triple Cross-Sales, Light a Fire Under Your Team, and Finally Hit the Numbers You Know Are Possible
Most banks never see it coming—the hidden sales leak that quietly kills momentum and stalls growth. Discover how top-performing banks fix it fast, triple cross-sales, and build teams that drive results without pushing harder.
What the Top 1% of Banks Do That the Other 99% Still Don’t Get
In this video, I discuss how the top 1% of community banks are not working harder than their competitors—they’re working smarter. By leveraging a high-performance banking system, strategic execution in banking, and leadership alignment, these banks pull results like a magnet. This is not about vague best practices for community banks or watered-down customer service claims. It’s about installing...
How Top 5% Banks Drive NIM Through the Roof—Without Raising Rates [VIDEO]
Net interest margin is under pressure—and if your bank is still waiting on rate changes to save your profitability, you’re already behind. In this sharp, no-fluff video, Roxanne Emmerich lays out exactly how the top 5% of banks are outpacing the competition with bank margin growth strategies that don’t depend on rate specials or CD gimmicks. You’ll get a sneak peek of what’s coming in her next...
Deposit Growth Without Begging or Discounting—Here’s How the Top 1% of Banks Do It [VIDEO]
Bankers, let me ask you a brutal but necessary question:Why are you still playing checkers while the top-performing banks are playing 4D chess with deposit growth? If your team is still competing on rates, slapping up tired “Free Checking” banners, and praying your CD special brings in a few dollars… you’re not just falling behind—you’re being obliterated. In this video series, we’re going to...
Differentiation Value that Drives A+ Prospects [VIDEO]
Do you agree that high quality customers love high quality attention? Let's explore how you can transform your safety and profitability by creating the kind of differentiation that attracts the highest quality credits and makes price irrelevant. If you think that the best customers get the best pricing because everyone wants them, then you have to watch this episode because it can and is being...
Master the Four Levels of USPs [VIDEO]
What if you can use extreme differentiation to get 150 basis points or more on the loan side and improve your deposit pricing at the same time? If you're the kind of leader who feels strongly that you can’t follow the herd and believes that net interest margin compression is inevitable, you're going to love this. Or if you have some lenders who get premium pricing but are frustrated that others...
Stop Matching the Competition [VIDEO]
You deserve to get paid more. Rate matching is the most destructive force in community banking today. And because of it, as a community bank, you are underpaid for the value you deliver. Get ready because you could stop your prospects from asking you to match your rate to win the business and start getting paid more within the next two weeks. How does that sound? If you're the kind of person...
How to tie everyone to PROFIT [VIDEO]
Does every team member on your team know how they tie to profit? I mean really know? When a study published in Businessweek revealed they had asked 6,000 employees, "Do you perform in the top 10 percent?" more than 90 percent said they performed in the top 10 percent! Whoa. So yes, you likely have a problem. And no, your people don't really understand how they tie to profit—but they certainly...
Who Made Up That Rule? [VIDEO]
Everyone has patterns of disbelief. 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...
Accountabilibuddies: The Power of Mutual Accountability [VIDEO]
I hear the same thing everywhere I go—"We need to build an accountability culture!" Great idea, right? But here’s the problem: we’ve been saying this for decades, and most organizations haven’t moved the needle. So why do we keep talking about the same issue without fixing it? I’ve got a couple of ideas. Why Accountability Efforts Fail First, one big mistake organizations make is bringing in...
Second Order Thinking—No More ‘Pedestrian Thinking’ [VIDEO]
I have a book that I love—a book I read a couple of times last year and still reference often. It’s called Intelligent Thinking—which, let’s be honest, sounds like a pretty good thing to do. On pages 58 and 59, the author introduces a powerful concept: first-order thinking versus second-order thinking. As an executive, understanding this distinction is critical—not just for yourself but for...
