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.

Remember What It Is All About [VIDEO]

The economy has gotten tougher. People are getting crankier. A lot of people are still unhealthy. Everywhere you look there seems to be a new problem, but how many new problems can we stack on top of each other and still keep your sanity as an executive? One of the things that's important to do is to ask yourself this. When the pressures mount, it's likely you're going to go into your head,...

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The Virtues of a Gratitude Habit [VIDEO]

Just today I heard about one of our banks where a quarter of their people are out with COVID. Hmm. These are challenging times. Imagine trying to run a bank with that amount of people who are sick, who we know will be out for at least two weeks, maybe longer, and think about the further contamination as well. These are challenging times when a lot is going wrong. We have commercial properties...

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What Are You Pretending You Don’t See? [VIDEO]

What are you pretending not to see? Hmm. That's a question that I asked The Council of bank CEOs, a round table of some of the highest performing bank CEOs in the country, just a few weeks ago. We all lie to ourselves about things we don't want to see. When I asked that question and I said, "Let's have a safe place to talk here and really bring some things up," I heard all kinds of things. I...

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Is Your Loan Growth Strategy Updated for 2021? [VIDEO]

Rockefeller taught his kids, "Learn marketing and sales, and you will never go hungry." No more brilliant words were ever said. Even during the Great Depression, those who focused on revenue were the ones who survived and thrived. Those who were in sales and marketing were the ones that survived and thrived. So think about your bank as not being a bank anymore, but instead, a sales and marketing...

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Marketing Isn’t What It Used to Be [VIDEO]

Marketing isn’t what it used to be. And for many banks, it's changing how we should be investing your dollars and the strategies that you should be using. In my new book, "The Breakthrough Banking Blueprint," I quote some of Tom Farrell's research in which he talks about, "Businesses think that 13% of their marketing messages are unsolicited, but contrast that to the opinion of consumers who...

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Is Your Loan Growth System Flawlessly Executed? [VIDEO]

I'd like to read you something, "If we want to reach people no one else is reaching, we've got to do things no one else is doing," Andy Stanley. The reason I bring that up is Steven Hovde was speaking at the Acquire or Be Acquired Conferences last year, and he talked about the trend line in banking. He said that if we continue the trend line we've been on for another 25 years, we'll be down to...

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Bold Strategic Choices for 2021 [VIDEO]

Your outcomes will be the result of your choices, but what kind of choices might you be making? Will you let inertia get in the way, or will you make bold choices to step forward? Are you looking for a life of ease, or are you willing to step in and do the hard things others aren't willing to do? Are you going to be afraid of criticism, or will you step out of your circumstances and create a...

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Post-COVID Strategic Planning [VIDEO]

Don't look now, but strategic planning season is right around the corner, and what do you do in a time with all of this unrest? Just when you've had a great PPP season and a record-setting season for mortgages, we know those games are over and now come the weak loans as a result of what we've just been through. Video: Post-COVID Strategic Planning So what kind of strategies do you need to have...

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Breakthrough Banking Nine Years in the Making [VIDEO]

Finally, my new book is out—The Breakthrough Banking Blueprint. It occurred to me years ago when I had the great honor of working with the top franchise company in this country, which was awarded top franchise year in and year while I worked with them, doing their leadership development training, that in banking, we didn't know anything about franchise thinking or development. What if we could...

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How A Flawless Sales System Brings Competitors’ Customers to You [VIDEO]

Profitable loan growth is the name of the game, but it's not just profitable—it’s having profit, safety, and growth all done together. When I wrote my very first book, Profit-Growth Banking, I talked about how I'm impressed by banks that have a great ROA and by banks that have great growth, but not nearly as impressed as I am by banks who sustainably accomplished both very systematically. That's...

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An Important Skill You Must Develop to Be a Great Leader [VIDEO]

Does your executive team know how to stand in the heat of difficult conversations? It's easy to be nice to each other.  I grew up in the Midwest, and my mama taught me to be a nice girl. That was one of the things that was held very dear in my heart, and it was one of the things that I valued.  As I became an executive, I realized I needed to learn how to call people tight on their behaviors...

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Take Your Team From Meaning Well to Meaningful [VIDEO]

Everybody means well, but do your team members really know how they tie to profit on a daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly basis? Well, you may think they do, but the business research would cause you to pause.  When they asked 6,000 employees if they performed in the top 10%, the answer, 90% of the time, was “yes.” Hmm. Something must be off here. Video:Take Your Team From Meaning Well to...

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