Challenging times can be overwhelming. They can also be times of great opportunity for those who stay awake.
First, we have to change our way of doing things and discover—or rediscover—the ability to systematically pull in the very best new customers at premium pricing.
There was a day when customers used to walk in your lobby—those were good days.
They loved you. They loved your people; your people would know how to greet them by name. They would be in relationships, sometimes they even hugged. Life was good.
Now they’re not walking into your lobby, and they haven’t been for pretty close to a year. After a year of only being connected by having an email sending out a statement, you’re pretty disconnected from a lot of your customers.
It’s a new year.
Now, the question is, what are you going to create in 2021?
Here’s an effective way to create your best possibilities for 2021.
Ask yourself this: If it’s the beginning of 2022, and you’re looking back, what do you wish you would have done in 2021 that would have catapulted you ahead? (more…)
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; we did the account management. We did it all, and we collected the loans. Those days are over (more…)
I don’t know about you, but I loved the movie The Founder, probably because I’ve been a systems thinker all of my life, and I truly believe there’s one way that’s the best way to do everything. I believe that when you obsess over how to get the fastest way from A to B in everything that you do in your business, things begin to really shine quickly. (more…)
Don’t look now, but the sales model has changed. Let’s face it, going onsite with one person, carrying a briefcase and being introduced through the door, is not working anymore. So, what an opportunity! You know that sales will need to continue, but (more…)
Loan demand has dried up. Boy, those are words you never want to hear. Not just because you don’t want to hear that there isn’t as much demand for loans, but when your people actually think that the (more…)
The economy has gotten tougher. People are getting crankier. A lot of people are still unhealthy. Everywhere you look there seems to be a new problem, but how many new problems can we stack on top of each other and still keep your sanity as an executive? One of the things that’s important to do is (more…)
Just today I heard about one of our banks where a quarter of their people are out with COVID. Hmm. These are challenging times. Imagine trying to run a bank with that amount of people who are sick, who we know will be out for at least two weeks, maybe longer, and think about (more…)
What are you pretending not to see? Hmm. That’s a question that I asked The Council of bank CEOs, a round table of some of the highest performing bank CEOs in the country, just a few weeks ago. We all lie to ourselves about things we don’t want to see. When I asked that question and (more…)
Taking Ambitious Community Banks to a 
