Higher Net Interest Margin With Less Risk – Fact or Fiction? [VIDEO]

Higher net interest margin doesn’t come from better rate sheets—it comes from better positioning.

Most community banks are trapped in a pricing death spiral. Match the rate or lose the deal. Cut margin or lose relevance. Meanwhile, a small group of banks quietly charges premium pricing—and their customers gladly pay it.

This video dismantles the myth that higher NIM automatically means higher risk. The truth? Banks that stop competing on rate reduce risk, stabilize margin, and protect independence.

Here’s what top-performing banks do differently:

• They stop selling products and start selling differentiated value that customers can’t price-compare.

• They identify who will pay premium pricing—and stop wasting energy on rate shoppers.

• They reposition the conversation so customers decide the value is worth far more than the price.

Big banks will always win the rate game. Community banks win by becoming boutique banks—high-value, high-trust, and unapologetically priced for the outcomes they deliver.

If your margin strategy depends on squeezing an extra 20 basis points, you’re already behind. That model doesn’t survive the next cycle.

This is the moment to rethink how pricing really works—and how elite banks escape the rate trap entirely.

Watch the full video to discover how premium pricing actually protects your margin—and your independence.

Watch now. 

Net interest margin—three of my favorite words. Why? Because it is such an important component of what takes a bank to the top of its peers.

Listen, if you’re tired of being average and competing on rate, there is a way out of that mess. I would suggest that the banks that don’t figure their way out of having to match rates are probably not going to maintain their independence going forward.

Let’s face it—there is more competition than ever, and banks are undercutting each other on pricing. And yet, there are those who command premium pricing. What do they do? What do they know?

Why won’t they tell you their secrets? Well, you need to know their secrets—how they position themselves, how they identify those who are likely to pay premium pricing, and how they arrange the situation such that the customer is telling them that what the bank brings that’s different is worth millions to them.

So when they charge twenty thousand dollars extra, it becomes the bargain of the century—taking them out of direct competition. The only thing they’re competing against is not having that special uniqueness the bank offers.

You think it can’t be done?

Well, maybe you should hang out with the folks who are getting it done. Because if you cannot suspend disbelief and aren’t willing to say, “Maybe there’s something we don’t know,” I can guarantee you this—you will continue to match rate.

Banks can’t continue to do that anymore. Let’s face it, the big banks have a competitive advantage in pricing. We can’t compete in that space.

But there will always be room for the community bank that becomes the boutique bank—the one that adds tremendous value, knows it’s worth more, and doesn’t say lame things like, “We have good people,” or “We’ve been around for 120 years.”

That won’t command more than twenty basis points more—and you can’t survive on twenty basis points.

This is the time to bring in additional pricing. So discover how to do that.

I’m teaching a special class on exactly how to do this. I hope I see you there.