Welcome to the Top 5 Percenter™ Blog

Top Bank Doubled Revenue with 1/3 Fewer Staff—Here’s How

by | Creating an Accountability Culture, Culture, Effective Leadership, Employee Training, High Performance, Hiring for Performance, Managing Employees, Profitability and Growth, Succession Planning, Workplace Culture

If your efficiency ratio strategy is built on budget slashing, you’re playing a losing game.

Freezing your training budget. Cutting headcount. Shoving top talent into shared hotel rooms. These aren’t signs of smart leadership—they’re signs of survival-mode thinking.

Real efficiency doesn’t come from trimming fat—it comes from fueling growth.

According to McKinsey’s landmark research, banks obsessed with cost-cutting see temporary wins… followed by long-term stalls or decline. But banks that invest in revenue-driving systems, customer-centric innovation, and team development consistently outperform.

Want to fix your efficiency ratio? Start by fixing your mindset.

In this week’s video, discover the dangerous myth of expense-cutting as a growth strategy—and the bold, bank-proven alternative that leads to sustainable dominance.

Watch the video below to see how elite banks are reimagining efficiency—and leaving the penny-pinchers in the dust.

 

 

If your efficiency ratio strategy revolves around penny pinching payroll, cutting your training budget, and forcing your talent to double up in hotel rooms, you’ve bought into pedestrian banking myths, and it’s killing your growth. 

Here’s the cold truth.

Real efficiency isn’t about cutting expenses until your employees and customers wave white flags in exhaustion.  It’s about driving the numerator, revenue, to sustainably grow your bank’s bottom line.

But don’t take my word for it.

According to the comprehensive McKinsey and Company report called “Reimagining Banking Efficiency” (2021), banks that overly rely on cost cutting strategies experience initial short term gains, but inevitably stall or decline. 

Conversely, banks that strategically invest in talent development, proven growth systems, and
customer centric innovation, consistently outperform their peers over the long term.

I’ve seen it happen hundreds of times, and many banks that were busy cost cutting no longer have
their independence. 

Nevin Grigsby, one of banking’s acclaimed Top Gun CEOs, didn’t just embrace this philosophy, he perfected it.

His bank doubled revenue while strategically reducing their workforce by a third.

This wasn’t through overburdening staff or cutting essential training. Instead, it was achieved by
creating a vivacious culture that transformed younger bankers into energized, highly efficient revenue generators who never defaulted to the pedestrian trap of matching competitor rates.

This isn’t luck.  It’s a meticulously executed formula.

Revenue doubled. There were strategic staff reductions by a third. A dramatic sustainable improvement in efficiency ratio came as a result of it. 

Now it’s your turn, and this is your final opportunity.

Join Nevin on June 18th for the exclusive Top Gun CEO Master Class.  Last warning, so please be sure to sign up now. 

Discover precisely how his team achieved extraordinary revenue growth and operational efficiency without ever sacrificing critical  resources or diminishing team morale.  

So secure your spot in the live June 18th Top Gun CEO Master Class now.

 

new values posters. You’ve probably tried those bag be better pep talks in your team meetings, and yet you’re still not seeing the needle move significantly.

You’re still not getting reliable, predictable performance. You’re still hiring more people hoping that you will fix the productivity issue only to end up with higher expenses and not much else. So let’s be clear. You can’t out hire, outspend, or outwork a broken culture.

Now imagine this scenario. Doubling your bank’s size, not in decades but in a few short years, operating efficiently with a third fewer employees while you doubled in size, creating a culture so aligned and disciplined that every single team member pays for themselves many times over. Impossible?

Not at all. Meet Nevan Grigsby, a Top Gun CEO who did exactly that. Nevan took his bank from just okay to extraordinary, earning the coveted extraordinary bank of the year award, the highest honor in the banking awards from the Institute for Extraordinary Banking. How did Evan do it? He didn’t do it by simply asking people to work harder. He didn’t do it by throwing more hires at the problem. He did it by engineering a performance culture.

A culture where clarity is king. Every team member knows exactly what succss looks like on a daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly basis. Accountability is automatic. No more excuses. No more waiting. Just consistent, measurable performance.

Productivity is predictable. His team delivers predictable results, consistently outperforming industry benchmarks.

The result? He doubled the size of the bank while offering with a third fewer people.

Not because he cut corners, but because he raised standards, making sure each person on his team was not just busy, that four letter word, but massively productive and profitable. Incidentally, Nevin’s revealing exactly how he did this during our upcoming Top Gun CEO interview. He’ll break down step by step how we built a sustainable, profitable, high performance culture. You’re gonna discover how he eliminated the busy work to focus only on profit driving activties, how you build accountability so strong excuses vanish overnight, how your culture itself can become your greatest competitive advantage and most productive asset. But whether or not you attend Nevan’s session, today’s message is crystal clear. Your bank’s culture isn’t a side issue. It’s your core strategy.

If it’s not paying for itself many times over, it’s costing you dearly. So make the choice right now to shift from tolerating mediocrity to building extraordinary. Because the banks that get culture right, they don’t just survive, they dominate. I’ll see you at the top.

Retun to playhead

0:11.66/3:26.70

Show timelTo your continued suc

More From The Blog

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.

Halfway Is No Excuse

Midyear banking strategy not working? Elite banks accelerate, not apologize. Here’s how to finish strong—with accountability, margin, and momentum.

Bank Drama is Draining Your Profits—Here’s the Proven Fix

Toxic conflict is quietly draining your profits.
Most banks reach for generic culture fixes and miss the root cause—low emotional intelligence and zero accountability. Discover how the best banks use healthy dissension to crush drama, boost performance, and lead the industry in profitability.