Welcome to the Top 5 Percenter™ Blog

Why Premium Pricing Is a Leadership Decision—Not a Market Condition [VIDEO]

by | Customer Service, Customer Success, High Performance, Premium Pricing, Profitability and Growth, Sales Process, Sales Training, Strategic Planning, USP

For decades, community bankers have blamed their markets for shrinking margins, rising deposit costs, and the need to match competitors’ rates. But what if the market isn’t the real problem?

This week’s video will reveal why the highest-performing banks refuse to accept commodity pricing—and why believing your market dictates your pricing may be the most expensive story your leadership team ever tells itself.

You’ll discover:

  • Why “it’s different here” is one of the most dangerous beliefs holding banks back from premium profitability.
  • How elite banks command premium pricing by creating meaningful differentiation instead of competing on rates.
  • Why banks that continue believing they’re commodities risk becoming acquisition targets instead of market leaders.

The banking industry isn’t consolidating because every bank is the same. It’s consolidating because too many banks believe they are.

If your institution wants to protect its independence, improve profitability, and escape the race to the bottom, it starts by changing the story your leadership team believes.

Watch the full video to discover why premium pricing is a leadership decision—not a market condition.

Every time I meet a new bank CEO, they say something very similar to what the three thousand-plus conversations I’ve had with bank CEOs sounded like. And what they say to me is this: “Roxanne, it’s different here.”

Here, we have to match rates. Here, we have competition for pricing. That’s just how it is here.

Now, I gotta tell you, I met two gentlemen years ago when they picked me up in their SUV. They were the CEO and the president of the bank, and we were about to do their kickoff.

The one said to me, “Roxanne, everybody complains that their deposit costs are high, but I can prove to you that we have the highest deposit cost in the nation.”

At which point, I stuck my fingers in my ears like a grown-up and I said, “I’m not listening. I’m not listening. I’m not listening.”

And I had a smile on my face. I was nice about it. They said, “Why are you doing that?”

And I said, “Because if your story becomes my story, I can’t help you.”

Markets do not dictate interest rates.

Let me say it again. The market doesn’t dictate the interest rates that you charge.

You dictate those through your differentiation and your ability to sell that differentiation.

If that were not the case, then every restaurant that has something other than the Golden Arches in front of it would be charging the same price as a McDonald’s hamburger.

It just isn’t that way, and yet in banking, we believe we’re the one great commodity that no one can break through.

Here’s the really sad part. Every time I hear a CFO or a chief lending officer say that to me, I should have always shorted the stock because I know that bank will lose its independence.

They’re right.

It is a commodity until you make it not a commodity.

So yes, in fact, they’re right. And there’s a whole other mountain of evidence, and you better get on that other mountain. You better get there fast because when you look at how we’ve moved from twenty thousand banks down to four thousand banks, we know where this is going.

The only banks that will be left will be the boutique banks that can command extreme premium pricing because they are worth it.

That’s the only game in town, and it’s a game you better master—and fast.

More From The Blog

Is It Over Yet?

s there anything worse than a bad meeting? Anything? Fine, yes, world hunger, soul-crushing poverty, and violence in the Middle East. But in the midst of a truly bad meeting, it’s easy to convince yourself that all of those problems will be distant memories before the meeting EVER ENDS.

The #1 Reason Bank Acquisitions Fail

 Think you’re ready for an acquisition? Think you’ve got a bullet-proof plan? Imagine if you take a “bring-it-on-and-make-it-happen-no-matter-what” bank culture where...

So What’s Your Story?

“Homework? Ah, yes, I did my homework, but it didn’t quite make it here. Why? Well, my dog ate the homework. We took him to the vet to get the homework back, but the...

Get Paid the Premium Pricing You’re Worth with Critical Drivers that WORK

If you ask commercial lenders how they’re doing, most would say they’re performing strongly. But performance for them too often means sitting in the bank, waiting for B and C credits to walk in, interviewing them, getting their data, sending it to the credit committee—then trying to sell the committee on how to make that loan work, even though it has risks.

Acquisitions That WORK: The Bomb-Proof Management System That’s Ready to Roll

A lot of bad things happen around acquisitions. If you’re being acquired, it’s rarely pretty. And if you’re the one acquiring, the Wharton School of Business says your chance of failure is greater than 83 percent. And even if you don’t go down in flames in the opening round, the real heartaches continue for two years after the acquisition as two dark forces are inevitably unleashed: