Taking Ambitious Community Banks to a 
The reason most banks don’t succeed in their strategic planning, is that they lack strategies in their strategic plan. I believe most banks are sitting on a goldmine of untapped potential for organic growth and increased profits. Watch this video to find out how.
How to Guarantee Your Strategic Plan Will Fail, and What to do About It (Part 1)
I hear it time and time again
The overwhelming majority of bankers I talk to when I speak at banking conferences feel that their banks don’t get any real value out of their strategic planning process and the sad reality is—they’re right.
Because of this, strategic planning is often treated as a yearly burden that has to be endured every year. Most bankers play along with absolutely no hope of ever seeing the plan correctly implemented and executed.
This doesn’t just happen in bad banks. It happens to good banks with great employees. This tells us that failed strategic plans are a result of a flawed planning process.
It’s That Time of Year Again
Yes…it’s true.
It’s time once again to create a strategic plan for next year.
It’s time to create that ‘master plan’ that will make next year your BEST YEAR EVER.
If you just sighed or rolled your eyes, then you’re one of the many community bankers that have suffered through strategic planning year after year only to see the plan forgotten, ignored, or poorly implemented.
Many banks with well-meaning, talented people fail to successfully create and implement a strategic plan that produces the desired results.
So what is causing these plans to fall through the cracks?
Is Your Strategic Plan Out of Alignment?
I believe most people tend to be easily distracted.
One of the hardest things to do is get everyone and everything aligned on the few things that matter to the profits at your bank…yet this “intentional congruence” is one of the most important practices you must follow if you want to grow and prosper.
In this episode, I want to share with you a concept that has transformed the strategic planning results for hundreds of banks, increasing profits by 20–50, even 100% in one year.
If you’re the kind of person…
- Who is happy with your strategic planning process,
Get Whole-Team Weekly Alignment with Your Strategic Plan
I believe people are basically good. They want to do what they say they’re going to do, but sometimes they get distracted or they’re unsure of what their optimal role is. And that can be dangerous when it comes to your bank’s strategic planning.
In this episode, I’m going to show you how to get your entire team aligned so that everyone knows what their responsibilities are EVERY week and how it ALL ties into the bank’s strategic plan. You’ll be able to breathe deeply knowing you won’t be begging for forgiveness from regulators or your board.
The 4-Step System to Attract Top-Quality Prospects Who Pay Premium Prices
I believe everyone wants to feel special and be treated uniquely according to their specific needs and wants. And when it comes to sales, some prospects are more special than others.
Research shows that for banks up to $2 billion in size, their top 100 most profitable customers account for between 50–120% of the profit!
In this episode, I’m going to show you how to find another 100 just like them so you can double profits without adding more people or expense…and build a plan to get all of the most profitable customers out there by making them feel like you exist JUST for them.
Thousands of Dollars in Untapped Profits Found at Your Bank
I believe every business has a breakthrough opportunity—a missed profit opportunity, in fact—in several of their product lines.
In this episode, I’m going to share with you how any one of your product lines could be the source of thousands of dollars of additional profits within a few short weeks. You’ll need to radically change your strategic planning process to make it happen.
If you’re the kind of person…
- Who knows your team can sometimes keep repeating what they’ve been doing instead of taking the time to implement breakthrough ideas for a breakthrough increase in profit…you’re going to love this.
What really works in strategic planning
I believe most banks are sitting on a goldmine of untapped potential for organic growth and increased profits.
In this session, you’ll discover how you can get far more—and more predictable—profit and growth impact from your strategic planning process. After reviewing over 500 strategic plans, I find that many banks lack effective strategies, lack intentional congruence, and essentially have a list of goals, but lack an effective way to get there.
If you’re the kind of leader…
- Who hires a brilliant facilitator and comes out with a well-written plan that sounds good… but doesn’t ever really shake the ground from under your feet for a transformative profit surge,
How to Guarantee Your Strategic Plan Will Fail, and What to do About It (Part 2)
Hopefully, you tuned in last week when I shared three major mistakes most bankers make when strategic planning. If you missed it, click the link at the bottom of this email to watch it.
In this week’s video, I reveal the remaining four ways that banks set themselves up for failure.
Now that you know what NOT to do when it comes to strategic planning, you may be wondering what you SHOULD do.
I’ve put together a short 30-minute audio EXCLUSIVELY for Grow Your Bank Subscribers.
This free, on-demand, audio training reveals the strategic planning secrets of the most successful community banks in America.
Can Your Team Survive Strategic Planning?
If you haven’t done your strategic plan yet, be thinking about—not only the things I covered recently about strategic planning—but also the fact that one of the most important things you can do is bond your team.
Here’s the thing: if you’ve got great strategies, but people are not aligned behind them, the likelihood of getting them done is slim to none. Now, what happens in most strategic planning sessions is that people actually go sideways and they build resentments.
I worked with a bank team years ago, and the CFO and the head of retail did not make eye contact for about six months after the strategic planning session!