What Your Board Doesn’t Know About Performance—And What It’s Costing You
Most boards are left out of execution—and it’s destroying performance. Here’s how top 5% banks fix it.
Welcome to the Top 5 Percenter™ Blog
Can You Retain And Win All Of Your Bank Account Holders’ Business?
Do you hold the entire relationship for every one of your bank account holders?
I hope you do. But maybe you don’t. And maybe your people don’t know how to get effective cross-selling done.
If you’re not averaging five, six, or even seven cross-sales on every new relationship that is opened up in your bank, somethings just not right yet.
And it doesn’t mean you have bad people. It just means they don’t know what to do for effective cross-selling. But they’re going to need to figure it out.
Think of it this way. I’ve watched bank after bank after bank move their cross-sales and new account figure from 2.2 up to five in less than a year.
At the end of the year, they’re always surprised. “Oh, look at that. Our efficiency dropped by 10 points. We weren’t even cutting expenses.” Oh, no, you don’t have to. It’s dealt with on the revenue side. And look at the equation here. How beautiful is this, that we didn’t have to hire more people, and we didn’t need new buildings.
All we had to do is that every time a customer, or a new potential customer, walks in that person knows how to turn them into a customer and create an entire relationship using tried and true cross-selling strategies that work.
That takes some skills, that takes some distinctions, it takes some understanding, and it takes some repetition. Most banks have given this lip service for decades. They’ve talked every year about how they’ve got to get past the order taking.
Saying so doesn’t seem to get it done. What is your defined action plan? The one where you know with great certainty that you will, within a year, be up to five, six, or even seven cross-sells? If you say it can’t be done, look at the case studies on our website, and you’ll see hundreds of banks that have pulled it off. So if they can do it, you can do it—but you have to do things correctly.
Is this the year that you own the entire relationship for your bank account holders? I hope it is.
– Roxanne Emmerich
Please watch the video above and share it with your exec team and board.
More From The Blog
The Strategic Planning Lie That’s Keeping You Average
Forget templates. Roxanne Emmerich reveals how top banks burn the rulebook and build execution systems that deliver relentless results.
Fix Performance, Fix Everything—Why Great Banks Don’t Leave Results to Chance
Hope doesn’t scale. Systems do. Find out how elite banks drive results with engineered behaviors and real-time accountability.
Community Banks Doing It Right – What the Top 5% Know and Do
Roxanne Emmerich reveals how top 5% banks grow $100M+ in core deposits and triple cross-sales—without matching rates or chasing gimmicks.
Why Most Banks Fail at Cross-Selling—And How the Best Banks Are Tripling Results
Cross-selling isn’t a script—it’s a system. Discover how top-performing banks engineer daily discipline that triples products per customer and locks in loyalty.
Your “Nice” Culture Is a Lie. And It’s Costing You Millions.
One bank ditched fake smiles and vague reviews—and doubled profits in 12 months. Here’s how they built a culture that actually works.
Straight Talk from the C-Suite: What High-Performing Bank Execs Are Doing Differently
Top execs are done with old sales playbooks. Discover what’s replacing them—and why one COO hasn’t missed a quarter in six years.
How Elite CEOs Run Game-Changing Board Meetings
Most board meetings are packed with data—but starved of strategic clarity. Discover how the top 5% of banks engineer boardrooms that drive performance, challenge respectfully, and align with breakthrough plans. This week’s episode reveals what high-performing CEOs do differently—and how you can bring that same power to your board.
What the Best Banks Know—and the Rest Still Don’t Get
Top banks play to win. Discover what they do differently—and why it starts with culture and strategy.
What the Best Banks Measure (and the Rest Miss): The Hidden Levers of Top Gun Leaders
Most banks track performance after it’s too late. In this week’s video, Roxanne reveals the exact metrics Top Gun CEOs use to fix results before they lag.