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.
Biggest mistake made in strategic planning is… [VIDEO]
What's the biggest mistake made during a strategic planning day? That’s easy. Lack of intentional congruence. In other words, there's a whole bunch of stuff on the paper, but it doesn't match. I remember when I was a young mother, and my mother came to visit me. She was trying to make a meal and said: “You have a lot of food, but none of it matches. I don't know how to make a meal out of...
The Real Question Is, Can You Afford Not To? [VIDEO]
A dear friend asked me a question one time, “Oh really, can you afford not to?” And I thought that was one of the most brilliant questions I've ever heard. Let me pose it to you this way. Can you afford not to figure out how to increase your net interest margin by 100 basis points while bringing down your cost of funds and bringing up the quality of the loans you're making? Can you afford not to...
How To Command Premium Pricing for Your Bank
And hear your customers say, “I Don’t Want To Work With Any Bank But You.” If you don't care about premium pricing, you can stop listening right now. This is for bank executives who want to figure out how to command premium pricing despite the too-common assumption that banking is a commodity. Therefore, they cannot command premium pricing—or, at best, maybe 25 basis points more on the loan...
Forget Sales Training… You Need a Sales SYSTEM [VIDEO]
If your top 100 customers do account for 50 to 140 percent of your profits, like they do for most every bank with under $2 billion in assets, you have to ask yourself: Do you really know how to identify your next top 100 potential customers? Can you get an appointment and create a relationship with them, even though they love their current bank? Do you know that you can predictably have an 85%...
The Three Books That Can Move Mountains [VIDEO]
I am a nerd. I've always been a nerd. When I was a little kid, I used to go to the library every other day and I would drag books all the way up to my chin back onto the bus and back off of the bus, then back to the library. I'd fill up with books about twice a week. I've always had a passion for learning and discovering and finding out what other people know—rather than having to discover...
Step-by-Step Blueprint to Get to and Stay in Top 5% Performance
I believe that we all take great pride in legendary performance. In this episode, I’ll show you how you can have your best year ever and show you the system that doubled the profit in less than three years for over 70% of the stock banks that used it. If you’re the kind of leader: ...who is already in the top 5% of NIM, growth, ROA, ROE, and Efficiency Ratio, you’re going to love...
What Is Your Conversion Rate From Inquiry to Customer? [VIDEO]
What is your opportunity cost per inbound call? In other words, how much profit is lost per mishandled call that doesn’t turn into a lead, then a customer, then a full relationship? I'm going to show you some math that's going to make you a little bit crazy as an executive of a bank. Video: What Is Your Conversion Rate From Inquiry to Customer? Let's imagine for a second that you spend a million...
Create a Rockin’ Culture, Even in Difficult Times [VIDEO]
When times get a little challenging, people can wig out and the team dynamics get a little interesting. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Culture can be managed and culture can remain great, but you're going to have to pay more attention to your culture than ever before during challenging times. Video: How to Create a Rockin Culture During Difficult Times World events are impacting the level...
Make This the Year NIM Stands for Nothing Is IMpossible
I've been in banking for more than 30 years. Recently, I tried to estimate how often I've heard a community bank CEO say, “No matter what we do, we can't get our NlM out of the 3s. It’s impossible.” It turns out that I can’t estimate it. The number's so high I've lost count. Whenever I hear a CEO, CLO, or CFO declare, in front of the team, that banking is a commodity, I am never surprised to...
Heard of the “Challenger Sale”? Here’s What Works Even Better…
The past decades and even centuries have witnessed much banking innovation. Consider pneumatic capsule transportation (1799), the credit card (1950), and the ATM (1967). Those innovations were external—easily visible to everyone. But there is also a history of innovation that's internal to the industry, with bellwether changes to banking sales management and its increasing focus on the customer....
How To Ethically Steal Your Competitors’ A+ Top Clients
Loan growth. Ears of bank CEOs across the country perk up when those two words are spoken, especially now in 2022. But there's a caveat to that as well. Grow loans too quickly and regulators will be all over you, assuming all manner of misdeeds. Too slowly and your earnings and NIM suffer. Many bank CEOs tell me they're doing well...but they see danger on the horizon with small businesses being...
Cross Sales Part 3 of 3
The last two times we connected, we've been talking about the need to improve the cross-sales within your bank to create a better sales experience for your people. And to make sure that you capture the entire customer relationship by creating a transformation of the process that attracts the customers to you. Good Intentions Aren't Getting the Job Done Let's say it: Good intentions aren't...