Step-by-Step Blueprint to Get to and Stay in Top 5% Performance

I believe that we all take great pride in legendary performance.

In this episode, I’ll show you how you can have your best year ever and show you the system that doubled the profit in less than three years for over 70% of the stock banks that used it.

If you’re the kind of leader:

• …who is already in the top 5% of NIM, growth, ROA, ROE, and Efficiency Ratio, you’re going to love discovering how you can be assured that you’re not at risk of losing your edge as competition gets tougher.
• …who, on the other hand, is doing well, but you’re frustrated that you just can’t seem to have that breakthrough that takes you to the top of peers, you’re going to be glad to find out it is doable, and hundreds of banks have moved from average to top 5% in just a few years.
• …whose spirit is a bit crushed because you couldn’t work any harder, but you still aren’t getting over that breakthrough you want and need, it’s your lucky day.

I’m going to give you a 4-step process to transform your culture to put you—and keep you—at the top of your peers for all the metrics that matter to you.

Step 1: Forget what you believe to be true and do a bit of lobotomy. We’ve been told lies, and your people believe them, and it’s in the way.

Who made up the rules that, to get deposits, you should advertise CDs? Could there be a worse solution?

Or that you can’t get 150 basis points on A+ quality credits? Well, it’s true if you don’t know how.

Or that the way to improve the efficiency ratio is by cutting expenses? Thousands of banks tried that approach and no longer existed because they didn’t understand it’s a revenue game.

The list goes on, but you get the point.

Step 2: Understand that it’s all a mind game.

When people have huge transformations of their results on one small thing that matters, they build confidence. Then, they’re open for the next transformation, and the next.

Step 3: Blended learning is about how to “be.”

Forget training. As a past president of one of the leading training associations, I am uniquely qualified to assure you that training doesn’t work. Yes, perhaps for compliance and security—but not for performance transformation.

Training is about what to do. Education is about how to be. Winning large high-profit accounts does NOT come to a result of training. It takes so much more.

Also, note that blended learning is the only type of learning that works. A combination of on-site, in-seminar, internet learning, and other modalities tied with structured improvement processes is what works.

Step 4: Sequence stage-appropriate accountability.

Who doesn’t have a buddy in banking who has told you the horror story of the “transformation attempt” that went badly?

Almost every bank has hired a “sales training” firm only to find out that at the end of it they were left with a training bill, a third of their people wiped out, and a culture mess whereby nobody trusts management anymore. It’s happened close to 100% of the time. Shouldn’t be a surprise at this point, should it?

Sales improvements are the game of banks that perform. Still, stage-appropriate accountability, along with blending with management development, organizational psychology, and a coherent system of intentional congruency between strategy, marketing, sales, and performance development, is the game you can win.

Let’s repeat those four steps for clarity:

• Let go of the old-school beliefs that are crushing your potential.
• Understand it’s about the psyche of your people and opening them up to changes that will create profound results.
• Blended learning that is education—not training—and is interlinked with management shifts of mindsets and systems.
• Stage appropriate accountability—so your culture doesn’t go boom in the night.

What if you could have your best year ever? Come to my Top-of-Peers Performance Masterclass on July 21, 11am CDT, and find out how hundreds of banks (many of whom were losing money and are now in the SNL top 100 performers) created their performance transformation.

To your success,
Roxanne Emmerich