Halfway through the year is where average banks start explaining. Elite banks start accelerating.
Your strategic plan was not built to sit in a binder. It was built to move revenue, margin, deposits, cross-sales, and culture. And now, midyear, the truth is staring every executive team in the face: some metrics are moving, some are stuck, and some are exposing the avoidance no one wants to name.
In this week’s video, Roxanne Emmerich delivers a blunt midyear wake-up call for community bank executives who are done tolerating soft excuses and slow execution.
You’ll discover:
This is not the time for shame, sugarcoating, or “wait and see” leadership. It’s time to diagnose fast, adjust faster, and turn the second half of the year into a performance run your board can actually believe in.
Ready to stop explaining and start accelerating? Watch the episode now.
Watch now.
Let’s get brutally honest for a minute. You’re halfway through the year. Halfway through the strategic plan your executive team swore they’d execute. Halfway through the revenue, margin, and culture shifts you intended to create.
And let me guess: some of your metrics are on track and some aren’t. Maybe you’re ahead in cross-sales but behind on deposit growth. Maybe net interest margin is stable but not surging. Here’s what elite banks understand.
Results rule. Excuses drool. Blaming the Fed, the market, the crazy pricing from your desperate competitors—that’s not leadership. That’s avoidance. And let’s be clear: your board didn’t sign up for adult day care. They want traction, transformation, results, and now is the time to deliver.
Midyear is not the time for shame or sugarcoating. It’s the ultimate diagnostic checkpoint. What’s working? Do more of it now.
Pour the gas on the fire. What’s not working? Diagnose fast. Adjust. Move. This is a game of acceleration, not apology.
Most executive teams obsess over where they’re behind and miss the most profitable move: doubling down where they’re ahead. That’s the mindset of the top five percenters—not, “How do we salvage the year?” but, “How legendary can we make this run?” Boards don’t reward explanation.
They reward execution.
Thousands of bank executives are waking up to 2013 saying, “SALES training! Of course! It’s SALES training we need.”
Yeah, well sometimes the first thing that pops into our heads isn’t a keeper. Sales training is fine, but it’s NOT what you need to solve your problem and create a sustainable solution.
So you’ve decided to acquire another bank. For nearly 25 years, I’ve been giving the same advice about acquisitions: DON’T DO IT. I’ve had good reason to give that...
Growing a bank isn’t some mysterious process that involves tea leaves and oracles. It’s more like building a house or tuning up a car’s engine, with a power tool for every step and a hand tool for every part you need to work on. Effective builders have a “franchise system”—the proven best way to do things that minimizes mistakes and maximizes results per hour spent.
The process begins with one crucial step: Find out what matters to your best customers, then build hundreds of Unique Selling Propositions (USPs) around those components and list them explicitly in your marketing materials.
Most banks focus on what they should do. That’s a good thing. But too few seriously evaluate what they are currently doing that has to stop. Awareness of the common characteristics of low-performing banks can keep you from falling victim to any of these practices before you join the group.
Let’s start with the first four:
Let’s face facts. You know it is true. Banks stink at sales culture.
Most say they’re working on it…but most have been “working on it” for three decades now
For starters, if you want it to be read and followed, it’s one page long. No, not 3 to 5 pages—ONE! And it starts by identifying target niche markets because that’s what the whole plan has to be about.
Of course, it’s commonly known that 50% to 80% of mergers fail to meet expectations—in fact, they’re economically a disaster.
Getting a clear framework in place BEFORE you hit the road matters more to the outcome than anything else. Unaligned teams, fuzzy objectives, and a lack of common goals often bog down strategic planning sessions.
I get a kick out of watching Mad Men. There’s something captivating about being transported to another time like that.
Slightly less fun is the feeling I get when I see banks in the real world and the present day throwing money away on traditional advertising like it’s 1965.