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.
Are Your People Being Lied To?
So, you’re at the start of the sales funnel. And a prospect has been prequalified, and it's time to make the first call. Most bank sales people take one large gulp of air and then smother the prospect until the end of the call with how good, fast, easy, reliable, inexpensive, and reputable their bank's services are. Although you’ve alluded to value throughout your monologue, it has yet to be...
What Will Top 5% Banks Do in 2016?
Is having a good year in 2015 going to impede your chance of having a spectacular 2016? What if this next year HAD to be twice as good as last year? And what if instead, you changed your framework from “have to” to “get to” to make this the best year ever? Jim Collins, the author of the perennial business bestseller, Good to Great, taught us that attachment to “good” impedes the possibility of...
The 3 Biggest Lies Told to Community Bankers
I’ve been eavesdropping in on conversations at banking conventions for the last 18 months, and I have to tell you…I’m a little shocked. Because again and again, I’ve heard very smart bankers repeat three…lies to one another. Now, I don’t think they’re “liars.” I’m sure they’re not. But I do think that they’ve lost their grip on the truth. So, today, right here, I’m going to debunk many of these...
Ask This Question BEFORE Starting Your Succession Plan
Imagine for a second that some of your top executives would be departing from your organization. Through retirement, or illness, or some other unforeseen circumstance. What kind of ripple effect would that have on your organization?... And imagine if that wasn't addressed. Even worse, imagine if that next level behind those executives doesn't have succession planning in place as...
The 7 Habits of Highly Successful Community Bank Managers
It’s crazy-making… You create a strategic plan, promise the board that you will deliver, and then communicate it to your team. You think you’ve covered all of the bases, but the first month in, the sickening reality hits—you’re already off base. Sure, the economy is tough. And yes, the competition is doing crazy things. But your board does not want to hear it, and you know that your days...
What to Do if You’ve Tried Sales Training and Still Don’t See Results
What if you’ve put together a great incentive program…and it’s not working? What if you’ve had phenomenal sales training…and that’s not working? Perhaps you’re solving the wrong problem. If fact, research shows that emotional intelligence has more to do with sales results than anything else. And, knowing what it is that most matters about emotional intelligence can create a transformation...
7 Startling Signs You’re Losing the NIM Battle
Is net interest margin compression a given? It is for most banks…but it’s not for all banks. In fact, many banks are bringing up their net interest margin by 40, 50, 60, 100 basis points in a half a year to a year. And if they can do it, perhaps you can. So what are the seven telltale signs that you will have continued NIM compression? Number one: You have people who believe that they have to...
The Fast-Track to Consistent Profitable Growth
You’ve got a problem… Your sales staff was lulled to sleep during the good times and those that are left, now years later, well, they don’t have the skills or the confidence to go snap up quality accounts and get them at a rate you can be proud of. They sit in the office trapped, as if in a box of their own making, believing that it’s not possible to rapidly grow their portfolio with quality...
For Community Bankers Who Want More Sales
So, congratulations! You now have mobile banking. That’s good news…and it’s also horrible news. You probably haven’t thought about the fact that now that we have half of the lobby traffic already removed from our banks, we’re about to drive away the rest of it. So, something is going to have to change…and what that is, is that your people will need to be getting out and having conversations. And...
Are You Really Selling?
I've got a question for you: are your people really selling? You see in a snow storm, all the plows are busy. The snow plowing companies answer their phones, they take jobs that competitors can't do because they're too busy, and everybody thinks they are selling, but they're not really selling—there happens to be a snow storm. Right now there's a bit of a snow storm in banking. Times are...
How to Avoid the Price-Matching Slippery Slope
Here's the thing about price: matching price is an addiction. When you're discounting, it has a debilitating future impact on so many different things. It sabotages your ability to recruit, hire, and train the very best. It deteriorates your best customer service efforts, because you can't invest in the customer service that you have. It doesn't allow for you to have cutting-edge products...
Cranky Regulators: Why They’re Focused on the Core Deposit Sacred Six
It's happening again. The regulators are cranky, yet again, and this time for some good reasons. They're a little heavy-handed right now on banks that are not mastering the deposit strategy and the execution of that strategy. They're looking at six key issues—first, relationship depth. Do you have cross-sales on those accounts? Especially your large deposit accounts—make sure that you're...