7 Secrets to Keep Your Acquisition from Going Over the Cliff
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...
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Halfway Is No Excuse: The Midyear Execution Test Every Bank Must Pass
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:
- Why midyear is the most valuable diagnostic checkpoint of the year
- How elite banks stop obsessing over lagging metrics and double down where momentum already exists
- Why boards don’t reward explanations—they reward execution, traction, and measurable results
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.
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The Beginning of the End of Rate Matching in One Powerful Step
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.
7 Reasons Low-Performing Banks Stay in the Pits
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:
The 5 Myths That Tank a Bank Sales Culture
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
How to Put Your Strategic Plan Into Action.. and Always Win with Bank Builders™
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.
If an Acquisition Opportunity Falls in Your Lap, Are You Ready?
Of course, it’s commonly known that 50% to 80% of mergers fail to meet expectations—in fact, they’re economically a disaster.
Outcome-Based Thinking Gives a Clear View of the Road Ahead
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.
Leave Traditional Advertising to the Mad Men
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.
Succession Planning: How smart banks are securing future growth
If you saw that title and immediately thought, “Uh…succession plan?”—we need to talk.
A recent survey across all industries showed that leadership succession planning, or the lack thereof, was the most pressing area of concern among CEOs.