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.
Why Culture Cannot Be Delegated
Sometimes, two different ideas seem to challenge each other. You've probably heard me say that everyone has a role in managing the culture of the organization. You've also heard me say that you can't delegate culture. Let’s explore these distinctions so you can understand this concept clearly. Yes, everybody needs to understand that they’re responsible for the culture. When they see someone...
Everyone Is in Sales
I don't care what your position is; you have a sales position. Why? Let's say you're out with other soccer moms, and somebody mentions they're planning on building a new home. Hmm, there's potential for a mortgage there, isn't there? And since your mortgage lender isn’t present, you need to handle that inquiry and know how to move it forward. Now, imagine someone calls in and asks about your...
Learned Helplessness
When I was working on my graduate studies in organizational development, I learned about the concept of learned helplessness. What I've discovered is that it’s a significant issue. It’s often the reason why organizations don’t become Top Five Percenters™—people become helpless and resigned. Nobody informed me of this, and I didn't receive training on it. However, I always tell team members...
Can Strategic Thinking Be Taught or Nurtured? [VIDEO]
Ken Blanchard wrote several books years ago and conducted a research study. What he found was that the number one concern for business owners was the lack of people ready for C-suite positions. In other words, they lacked critical thinking skills and strategic thinking. They could follow instructions, but they didn't know when or how to change course, assimilate incoming information, and make...
Getting Excited About Why Cross-Sales Matter [VIDEO]
Do you feel good about yourself when you help other people? What if you could get your team excited about having your clients acquire all the products and services that would help them. A cross sales ratio is just a measure of trust. If a client trusts you and sees value, they bring everything to you and continue to add more as they need it. It's not sales. It's a measure that they see you as...
Everyone is In Marketing [VIDEO]
Whenever I do the Breakthrough Banking Blueprint Conference, I ask the question “Who here is in marketing”, and one or two hands go up. I ask again, “Who here is in marketing” and a few more hands will go up. And then finally, everybody catches on and all hands go up. And they understand everybody in banking is in marketing. Why? Because marketing isn't about pretty things, billboards, and...
How Technology Can Help Scale Personal Relationships with Customers [VIDEO]
It’s a whole new playing field out there. With AI we now have the tools to find your next best customers, but if you don’t bring wisdom to the tools, you have more junk. There’s a world of difference between information and communication. There’s a world of difference of being able to use AI to find customers and being able to use AI to find customers with the right parameters in the...
Finding Top 100 Customers [VIDEO]
We know that for banks that have 2 billion in assets that anywhere between 50 to 140% of their profits come from their top 100 most profitable customers. But the real question is how do we find another 100 just like these? Well, they have the same psychographics, and firmographics, and so we must study very carefully the psychographics and demographics of our current customers, and then find...
What is the Most Effective Way to Choose the Right Next Best Customer [VIDEO]
Several years ago, there was a gentleman who came into our boot camp, and he was an EVP of a bank on the West Coast. He told me that they had hired a firm, spent several hundred thousand dollars, and been in meetings for five months to figure out how to find their next most profitable customers. I was thinking, “are you kidding me”? I said, “Well, how's it working?” He said, “Well, we're not...
Mastering Team Selling [VIDEO]
All of our Top 5% performing banks have something in common. They've all mastered the science of team selling. Yeah, I know you think you're doing team selling because you put Josie and Molly together and you put Tom and Joe together- that's not team selling. An optimized team selling experience requires an incredible amount of skill sets, and different team members going out the first time...
How Can a Bank Best Align Personnel to Profitability [VIDEO]
Most bank CEOs tell me, we have great people, and yet, sometimes they suffer not such great efficiency ratios, return on assets, return on equity. And what they're really saying is we have good people, but they're not great because they don't know how they tie to profitability. Well, I get it. When I first started in banking, people showed me what to do, I moved things from the left side of my...
Loan Growth Multiplier Strategies [VIDEO]
I believe it's fun to win. How about you? What if you could help your lenders win more and better deals. If you're the kind of leader whose team already brings in nice deals, and you're fairly happy, you'll love this, because I'll show you that there's a lot more where that came from. They can, with that base, bring in so much more and at better pricing, and they're leaving hundreds of...