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 Beginning of the End of Rate Matching in One Powerful Step
The process begins with one crucial step: Find out what matters to your best customers, then build hundreds of Unique Selling Propositions (USPs) around those components and list them explicitly in your marketing materials.
7 Reasons Low-Performing Banks Stay in the Pits
Most banks focus on what they should do. That’s a good thing. But too few seriously evaluate what they are currently doing that has to stop. Awareness of the common characteristics of low-performing banks can keep you from falling victim to any of these practices before you join the group.
Let’s start with the first four:
The 5 Myths That Tank a Bank Sales Culture
Let’s face facts. You know it is true. Banks stink at sales culture.
Most say they’re working on it…but most have been “working on it” for three decades now
How to Put Your Strategic Plan Into Action.. and Always Win with Bank Builders™
For starters, if you want it to be read and followed, it’s one page long. No, not 3 to 5 pages—ONE! And it starts by identifying target niche markets because that’s what the whole plan has to be about.
If an Acquisition Opportunity Falls in Your Lap, Are You Ready?
Of course, it’s commonly known that 50% to 80% of mergers fail to meet expectations—in fact, they’re economically a disaster.
Outcome-Based Thinking Gives a Clear View of the Road Ahead
Getting a clear framework in place BEFORE you hit the road matters more to the outcome than anything else. Unaligned teams, fuzzy objectives, and a lack of common goals often bog down strategic planning sessions.
Leave Traditional Advertising to the Mad Men
I get a kick out of watching Mad Men. There’s something captivating about being transported to another time like that.
Slightly less fun is the feeling I get when I see banks in the real world and the present day throwing money away on traditional advertising like it’s 1965.
Succession Planning: How smart banks are securing future growth
If you saw that title and immediately thought, “Uh…succession plan?”—we need to talk.
A recent survey across all industries showed that leadership succession planning, or the lack thereof, was the most pressing area of concern among CEOs.
5 Keys to Unlock a Profit-Rich Commercial Loan Strategy
Improving the commercial loan portfolio means bringing in high-quality business customers who are in growth mode or who have some other financing needs—while minding the good loans that you already have. It's just that simple. But, unfortunately, many banks (perhaps yours) are dead wrong with their strategy for bringing in commercial loans. Have you ever had a day where you left exhausted, but...
5 Easy Steps To Creating Internal Cultures That Rock
Try this as a 30-Day Turnaround: Why is it that a $450 million bank with nine years of flat organic growth suddenly had an annualized growth rate of 35 percent within 30 days of one culture intervention? Why is it that a $920 million bank consistently ranked in the fourth quartile—a fact which they blamed on their low-income, shrinking market—eventually moved into the first quartile after...
Really Stupid Things Smart Bankers Do
One of the attendees at a bank CEO conference came up after my speech and began to lecture me. “There’s one distinction you’re missing, Roxanne. We bankers, we’re like sheep.
Shift Your Bank’s Performance Environment
Most banks are experiencing acceptable spreads, so they are holding onto their horses while financial services companies are moving on to four-wheel drive, turbo-charged tractors.