Taking Ambitious Community Banks to a 
Don’t look now, but strategic planning season is right around the corner, and what do you do in a time with all of this unrest? Just when you’ve had a great PPP season and a record-setting season for mortgages, we know (more…)
The Three Books That Can Move Mountains [VIDEO]
I am a nerd. I’ve always been a nerd. When I was a little kid, I used to go to the library every other day and I would drag books all the way up to my chin back onto the bus and back off of the bus, then back to the library. I’d fill up with books about twice a week. I’ve always had a passion for learning and discovering and finding out what other people know rather than having to discover everything myself. I have some favorite books. One of them, I think is really important during strategic planning season (more…)
Breakthrough Banking Nine Years in the Making [VIDEO]
Finally, my new book is out—The Breakthrough Banking Blueprint.
It occurred to me years ago when I had the great honor of working with the top franchise company in this country, which was awarded top franchise year in and year while I worked with them, doing their leadership development training, that in banking, we didn’t know anything about franchise thinking or development. What if we could bring that kind of thinking to create a predictable success machine within the community banking industry? (more…)
How A Flawless Sales System Brings Competitors’ Customers to You [VIDEO]
Profitable loan growth is the name of the game, but it’s not just profitable—it’s having profit, safety, and growth all done together. When I wrote my very first book, Profit-Growth Banking, I talked about how I’m impressed by banks that have a great ROA and by banks that have great growth, but not nearly as impressed as I am by banks who sustainably accomplished both very systematically. That’s the game as an executive that you must (more…)
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?
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. I needed to be able to (more…)
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.
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.
Are You Properly Utilizing Your Team’s Skills?: A Chief Lending Officer Case Study [VIDEO]
I’m always astonished how difficult we make the chief lending officer’s job. We tell essentially this wonderful human being, who is probably good at credit, “hey, you’re in charge of finding your team members”; “you’re in charge of making sure you’re onboarding them and making them strong”; “you’re in charge of all the account management of the current existing customers and all the activities around that”; “you’re in charge of making sure credit quality stays up”…
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. That’s a significant thing to understand. They are precious. They pay for all the bills and you must, of course, keep all of them.
Reevaluating Values: What Stands the Test of Time [VIDEO]
As we celebrate the Fourth of July, it occurs to me that one of the beautiful things about this country is the wisdom that was brought to us by our founding fathers and the degree to which they stood by those principles, and how those principles mattered to them; how they could see what didn’t work in other countries, and wanted to bring something forward into a new country that they knew would work.