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.
The “New Math” to Measure the Right Things [VIDEO]
How much do you invest in your marketing budget every year? Now divide that amount by the number of calls or inquiries it generates. For most banks, the marketing budget is driven by shiny new ideas from conferences that marketing people attend or based on what was done the year before. From the newly attended conference “pitches,” they go shopping for new software, new branding, new social...
The Elite Bank Performance Blueprint [VIDEO]
Let's think through profitability for a second. Profitability has different meanings to different people because profitability by itself doesn't mean much. When I first wrote the Profit-Growth Banking book before the last recession, I talked about how I'm not impressed by banks that grow fast. I'm not impressed by banks that are profitable. Video: The Elite Bank Performance Blueprint I am...
Your Team-Selling Checklist [VIDEO]
Team selling is the new “it.” But most banks get it all wrong, sadly. They think team selling is “I send Joe out with Susie, and Pat goes out with Jane … and everything is good.” That is not team selling. Harvard Business Review had an instructive research-based article making the case that team selling is clobbering the traditional Maverick model. But, hey, to get better results, you’ve got to...
The Great Money Migration: How Much Money Will Leave You [VIDEO]
We all got away in 2020 with not having to be out there calling on people all the time because we've been waiting for things to go back to normal. For customers to walk into our lobbies again…to go back to the way it was. But it doesn't seem to be going back very quickly and certainly is never going to go back to the way it has been. Video: The Great Money Migration: How Much Money Will Leave...
You’ve Seen This All Before [VIDEO]
In every recession, the same things happen. Deposits get difficult. Everyone's fighting over those same dollars. They all need deposits. Regulators are coming in. They're cranky, and they're writing up banks. There are liquidity issues. Everybody gets desperate and tries to find deposits, just when they're hardest to find. That doesn't seem like a good strategy to me. Video: You've Seen This All...
Where to Find Large Low-Cost Deposits Now [VIDEO]
Low-cost deposits are “it.” Having large, sticky, low-cost deposits with a large amount of cross-sales solves a plethora of problems. When you increase your core deposits as a percentage of total deposits and have that metric continue to move up consistently and stay up, well…in the banking world, we call that the meaning of life. As rates go back up and as the world gets a little bit crazier,...
High Performance Accountability Secret [VIDEO]
I just did a seminar today where I asked people, "What's your biggest challenge?" “Accountability” always seems to be number one whenever that question is asked. No matter the bank—it seems to be universal. Video: High-Performance Accountability Secret There is one key concept often missed regardless of what level you're at on that continuum of accountability. Maybe you're just introducing it....
The Great Money Migration of 2021 [VIDEO]
Which side of the great money migration of 2021 will you be on? There was a day when customers used to walk in your lobby—those were good days. They loved you. They loved your people; your people would know how to greet them by name. They would be in relationships, sometimes they even hugged. Life was good. Now they're not walking into your lobby, and they haven't been for pretty close to a...
Forecasting Your Ideal Future for 2021 and Beyond [VIDEO]
It's a new year. Now, the question is, what are you going to create in 2021? Here's an effective way to create your best possibilities for 2021. Ask yourself this: If it's the beginning of 2022, and you're looking back, what do you wish you would have done in 2021 that would have catapulted you ahead? Video: Forecasting Your Ideal Future for 2021 and Beyond That's a great way to context a...
How Most Banks Get Team Selling All Wrong [VIDEO]
There was a day, back when I started as a commercial and agricultural lender, that we did everything. We did the channel checks; we did the credit analyst work; we did the business development; we did the account management. We did it all, and we collected the loans. Those days are over, and now we live in a world of specialization because, let's be frank, there are only a small handful of...
How to Make Your Virtual Sales Model Work [VIDEO]
Don't look now, but the sales model has changed. Let's face it, going onsite with one person, carrying a briefcase and being introduced through the door, is not working anymore. So, what an opportunity! You know that sales will need to continue, but if you go into reaction mode and only wait for them to call into your bank, you know where you'll be in two to three years. It's not going to be...
An Oasis of Loan Growth… [VIDEO]
Loan demand has dried up. Boy, those are words you never want to hear. Not just because you don't want to hear that there isn't as much demand for loans, but when your people actually think that the only reason that they're producing loans is because there is a demand. In other words, they walk in for it. Now you know you've got a real problem because people don't understand that loan demand is...