How to Avoid the “Middle Management Meltdown” [VIDEO]

I believe that when middle managers master management, the resulting breakthroughs are profound and sustainable.

 

In this episode, I’m going to share with you how to overcome what I call “the middle management breakdown”—the block that keeps executives’ dreams from being the reality executed by the front-line team members.

If you’re the kind of leader who worries that perhaps your managers act more like “individual contributors” and don’t do nearly enough to maximize the results of their team members, I’m going to give you some solid executable ideas to get some traction for your managers.

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How Most Banks Get Team Selling All Wrong [VIDEO]

There was a day, back when I started as a commercial and agricultural lender, that we did everything. We did the channel checks, we did the credit analyst work, we did the business development, and we did the account management. We did it all, and we collected the loans. Those days are over, and now we live in a world of specialization because, let’s be frank, there are only a small handful of people on Planet Earth, usually about 6% of the population, according to emotional intelligence assessments, that are really designed and built for business development.

Video: How Most Banks Get Team Selling All Wrong

So,

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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?

Video:An Important Skill You Must Develop to Be a Great Leader

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 when they weren’t in alignment.

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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.

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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. 

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Keeping Your Top 100 in Your Back Pocket [VIDEO]

During challenging times, the one thing you can count on is that desperate competitors and fly-by-night organizations are going to come in and try to take away your best customers.

 

 

Let’s face it, your top 100 customers, for any bank under $2-billion asset size, account for anywhere between 50 to 140% of your profits.

And you also can’t be matching the rate.

At the time of the inquiry, when someone calls in and says, “Hey, I’m one of your best customers, and I just got this offer from someone else and it’s looking pretty good,” is the time when your team member needs to get this exactly right.

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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 the outside. I want to know if anybody has called in and asked for a lesser rate to match something that they’re getting in terms of an offer someplace else.

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