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...

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...

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...

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...

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...