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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.
Bank Loan Growth Strategies for Steady, Sustainable Growth in 2022
Loan growth in your bank has never been more important. And it's probably never been harder. There have probably never been more desperate competitors who are willing to undercut your best customers. Competitors who will take that business away at a profit margin that you can't even understand—at a margin that you're sure it is a ticket out of the business. But if they become lunatics...
Community Banking Trends for 2022
There are many new trends that are hitting us in banking. Let's face it, it's not like it used to be. So, let's talk about some of the many things that are happening. And let’s also talk about how to make sure that you're successfully managing some of these banking trends. Banking Trend Number One Culture remains much more challenging than it's been before. Yes, we've just seen the great...
How Can Your Bank Create Brand Insistence?
Way too many banks have spent a lot of money on brand awareness. And yet, can you even point to one customer who said I came to this bank because I just love their brand? In fact, most money spent on branding has a negative return on investment. Sadly, we've all been sold a bill of goods that is not producing. However, there's something to be said for branding. And that is in the conversation of...
Higher Net Interest Margin With Less Risk—Fact or Fiction?
Net interest margin. Three of my favorite words. Why? Because it is such an important component of what takes a bank to the top of its peers. And if you’re tired of being average and competing on rate, I’m going to tell you that there is a way out of that mess. And, in fact, I would suggest that the banks that don't figure out how to avoid matching rates soon are probably not going to maintain...
Happy New Year!
Listen, I don't know about you, but I think everyone's pretty much tired of 2021. But what's going to happen in 2022? Well, first of all, what did we learn from 2021? 2021 Lesson Number 1 As community bankers, we’ve learned we are tough and that we can withstand a lot of pressure from putting in PPP loans into the system at three o'clock in the morning and working around the clock through the...
Wishing You and Yours the Happiest of Holidays
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...
How to Increase Bank Profits in Challenging Times
How do you increase your bank's profits, and replace PPP revenue, when your desperate competitors are doing crazy things, and it has never looked harder to create profit within your bank? Well … Here's the reality There are circumstances outside of your control that you can't do anything about. But there are things within your control that you can do a lot about—by just being very systematic,...
How To Improve Cross-Selling in Banks
There's been a popular question around for decades: How to improve cross-selling in banks? Yes, some people don't like to use the word “cross-sells” after what happened with a certain large bank that got into some trouble. But the reality is that bookkeeping is bookkeeping, and revenue per day producing items are sales, and cross-sells is not a dirty word. It's just a measure of trust. And it...
Profitable Bank Differentiation: How Top Banks Rise Above the Rest
This last year was brutal for NIM compression at most community banks. And yet it was understandable, and it reconciled with some nice PPP fee income that drove up the profits of many banks. However, bank boards are now more than a little concerned. Since fee income from PPP won’t be there in 2022, they are wondering how you intend to bump NIM back up without sacrificing loan quality or growth....
What is a Bank Franchise System?
Find out the surprising things the franchise system of banking can do for your bank revenue 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...
Today’s Bank Strategic Planning is Neither Strategic Nor Planning…
What’s the biggest question in board rooms and among smart bank executives right now? Easy: “How will we replace PPP income in 2022?” That is the hottest question from call-ins to our office from bank CEOs over the last few weeks. And this may be the most important question you answer in your bank’s strategic plan for 2022. If your plan has the old tired “strategies” of “hire more lenders” and...
Can You Retain And Win All Of Your Bank Account Holders’ Business?
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 ... Something's just not right yet And it doesn't mean you have bad people. It just means...