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.
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...
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...
Conventional Wisdom Is Killing Your Bank’s Future Potential [VIDEO]
Isn't it fascinating how for years and years and years, people would fight wars by standing in line with red coats on, in formation, shooting guns, while the other side would come at them when they had guns standing in line, running with swords, thinking that they could win. That same thing is happening in banking today. Video: Conventional Wisdom Is Killing Your Bank's Future Potential The old...
Are You Properly Utilizing Your Team’s Skills?: A Chief Lending Officer Case Study [VIDEO]
I'm always astonished how difficult we make the chief lending officer’s job. We tell essentially this wonderful human being, who is probably good at credit, “hey, you're in charge of finding your team members”; “you're in charge of making sure you’re onboarding them and making them strong”; “you're in charge of all the account management of the current existing customers and all the activities...
Reevaluating Values: What Stands the Test of Time [VIDEO]
As we celebrate the Fourth of July, it occurs to me that one of the beautiful things about this country is the wisdom that was brought to us by our founding fathers and the degree to which they stood by those principles, and how those principles mattered to them; how they could see what didn't work in other countries, and wanted to bring something forward into a new country that they knew would...
Your Customers Want to Hear From You Now…Are You Showing up for Them? [VIDEO]
Your customers want to hear from you now. During challenging times, people need a little bit more handholding than they usually do, but not just the, "Hey, how are you doing?" Video: Your Customers Want to Hear From You Now…Are You Showing up for Them? Although that's a nice intention, it doesn't add a lot of value. They're expecting you to call with wisdom and solutions and ideas of things they...
Customers and Prospects Demand Excellence in Stressful Times [VIDEO]
Now is the time that customers and prospects demand that you are excellent at what you do. I have a friend, and a vendor to my business, who told me that because a big chunk of his income comes as a result of community banking, he thought he should switch over his account and work with a community bank. So, for the first time in his life, he went to a community bank and opened an account....
How to Manage for Profit in Challenging Times [VIDEO]
Challenging times require great transparency of information going to the executive team and also going to the board. For instance, if I'm a bank CEO, I want to know if the account managers who are assigned to my current top 100 and top 1000 customers are in contact with each one of them, or if they've just left a voicemail, or if they've actually had communication. I want to know if anybody's on...
What You Should Be Communicating to Customers Right Now [VIDEO]
It's never been more important to make sure that you're talking to your customers in ways that matter. I bring this up because I just got done doing a live recording with some of the smartest marketers in banking across the United States, and I saw some tragic errors on their websites and some tragic errors in their press releases. Video: What You Should Be Communicating to Customers Right Now I...
Increasing Productivity and Accountability in the Midst of Chaos [VIDEO]
Challenging times require that people understand exactly how they tie to profit and they know how to do it on a daily, weekly, quarterly, monthly basis. When you are communicating with your team members, it's never been more important to keep them out of busy work and keep them into the right productive work. And let me assure you, many times they are confused. Video: Increasing Productivity and...
How to Avoid Layoffs: Tie Every Person to Profit [VIDEO]
During difficult times, everyone must know how they tie to profit, and become a master of the actions that allow for them to move their correct critical drivers—the leading indicators that move the lagging indicators. You see, during difficult times like this, one of the big mistakes that a lot of executives do is they start doing some massive layoffs. When in fact, if everyone ties to profit,...
Now More Than Ever You Must Focus on Revenue [VIDEO]
Challenging times require very focused revenue creating activities and fast. So the natural response for many executives during times like this will be to cut all the expenses, the very ones that in many cases would be what would take them ahead at the end of this and have them stand out Now More Than Ever You Must Focus on Revenue These are the times instead for you to get focused in on...