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.
What top-performing banks keep close to the vest… [VIDEO]
If you knew what the very top-performing banks knew, could you become a top-performing bank? I think there's a strong possibility. In banking, there are some secrets that many of the top-performing banks hold close to their chest because they don't want you to know exactly what they do. One of the areas where they keep secrets is in how they do strategic planning. Quite frankly, most banks have...
“Strategery” v. Real Strategy… [VIDEO]
If strategic plans actually exist to create predictable growth, profit, and bank culture, why is it that most of them do the opposite? Why is it that in most banks in America, the strategic plans don't get implemented? Why do I hear from hundreds of bank CEOs every year that they create a strategic plan, but don’t execute on it? They don't hit their projected numbers, and they don’t create...
How to keep your best people during the “Turnover Tsunami”… [VIDEO]
What are the cultural steps you need to take now to ensure that you have the glue to keep your best people? Culture is not just the happy bus. Anyone who has created a respectable bank culture understands that culture is a series of systems that align everyone to the values and behaviors of the organization in addition to profit drivers on a daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly basis. That is...
The glue to keep your best employees… [VIDEO]
According to BambooHR®, one-third of your people plan on dumping you in the next six months. Yikes. 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...
More Profit and Productivity with Fewer People [VIDEO]
With the current competition for good people, it's never been more important for you to elevate the productivity per employee. Let's face it, not everybody's going to get all the A's superstars attracted to their team. We're going to need to make some people into superstars by teaching them the right systems, approaches, and making sure your systems align to create great results, regardless of...
A Proven Strategy to Attract More Profitable Customers [VIDEO]
Do you have a proven strategy to attract more profitable customers? No, this strategy isn't to hire more lenders. No, this strategy isn't about stealing the guy from next door. No, this strategy isn't about having your officers do more officer calls. Those are all tactics. Those are not strategies. Those tactics rarely take you to the promised land. Let's face it, during challenging times, you...
Better executive decisions in half the time [VIDEO]
Most bank executives take entirely too long to make poor business decisions. Let's face it, this is not sustainable. Being an executive means learning how to make better decisions faster. Saying it and accomplishing it are worlds apart. Do your people have the skills to know how to not only discern through information and eliminate the information that doesn't matter but also how to communicate...
Are your employees about to dump you? [VIDEO]
Are One-Third of Your Employees About to Dump You? I hope not, but that's what the research is showing will happen in the next six months. In fact, according to research done by Bamboo HR, 79% said they felt "burnt out" in the last month, and 53% experienced "burnout" in the last week. This is a severe problem. To make things worse, as they leave you to go someplace else - it'll be like jumping...
Breakthrough Banking Blueprint Shows You The Best Way [VIDEO]
When I first left day-to-day banking to start this business, my first client was voted every year as the country's top franchise. Although I did their management development curriculum and educated their people about how to run that business, one of the things that I'm sure is true is that I learned more from them than they learned from me. I learned the concept of franchise thinking. How do you...
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 executive is, "what has to be true for us to challenge...
“I don’t want to work with any other bank but you” [VIDEO]
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 side. Well, here's the problem with that. Any bank that can only command 25...
150 Basis Points More… [VIDEO]
Terry Slattery, the Legend of IBM, the person who brought in more business for IBM than anyone has before or since, has been a dear friend and partner of mine for almost two decades now, helping our banks figure out how to grow their revenue streams. Terry recently said he has never seen a harder sales environment in his career across every industry. If prospects aren’t taking your team's calls,...