Let’s explore how you can transform your safety and profitability by creating the kind of differentiation that attracts the highest quality credits and makes price irrelevant.

If you think that the best customers get the best pricing because everyone wants them, then you have to watch this episode because it can and is being done. 

Pay close attention if you feel overwhelmed because your team is stuck. Because they do the same thing year after year with the same results, but don’t know how or what to change even though you know deep down there’s a way to get those best customers in your market and get them to pay more.

Or maybe you’re the kind of leader who rallies the troops to focus on the best quality loans, but still have several who believe they need to lower them with rate, and when they do, they squeeze all the profit on the deal.

Or you’re worried about how to get your entire team to buy into the idea that they can get the best quality credits, and at the same time get substantial premium pricing.

I’m going to show you how to overcome the mountain of evidence that your team leans on to hold up their old beliefs. I know you’re thinking who wouldn’t want top shelf pricing on top shelf customers, but if it’s that easy, wouldn’t everyone be doing it?

First you have team members who have been doing their job as well for decades, creating an okay result, but not tapping into the real goldmine opportunity. It’s not their fault. They’re doing everything they learned at conferences and lending school. It’s just that it’s outdated and inefficient. They don’t feel that what they offer is different or worth more than the bank down the street, so they typically ask for 20 or 25 basis points more tops. And they’re probably right. They don’t have a game-changing unique selling proposition that shows the extremely unique value that you offer.

Let’s cover how to create USPS that are permanent game changers:

Step one – forget the powder puff attempts at USPs and get your people to stop saying them. “We have good people”, “We have great service”, “We’ve been around 89 years.” Really, who cares? They expect you to have great service and great people and experience. That’s just the ticket to the dance. Never in the history of time has a person said “Oh, great, you have good people. I’m switching everything. Oh don’t worry about price, charge what you want right?”

Step two – build USPs that matter to the customer. By definition, a unique selling proposition, or USP, has three elements: 1) it must matter to the customer 2) it must be dramatically different, and 3), it must be stated as an explicit benefit to the customer. Tons of top banks dump a few $100,000 on branding every year. Sadly, after all of that, they get one really weak level one USP, such as how fast they close loans, when what they’re really needing is at least 40 USPs, all of which can be used in their sales process. And, those A+ quality credits that we want flocking in are not going to flock in until you give them a level three or level four USP, the kind where they tell you that’s worth $100,000 or more, or maybe even a million yearly, I can’t live without you. Let’s get everything switched over right away. Oh, did I mention they don’t even ask your pricing? If you have three or four USPs that total up to be worth over 10 to 20 to 50 times more than the amount of additional fees or interest that you charge, pricing doesn’t matter anymore. I’m guessing they’re pretty good at math. That is how they got to be an A+ quality credit. And you need to get your head wrapped around that you deserve extreme premium pricing. When you deliver that kind of value. It’s not too good to be true, it’s just too good to be free.

Step three – start developing level one USPs for each of your top three target markets. I believe the best way to get something accomplished is to achieve some small wins fast. So start with level one USPs and get about 20 to 30 of those in place. Level one USPs are the ones that prove that you have differences that matter to the customer. At our events for elite banks and their ambitious executive teams, we go through exercises together to do this right there at the event. Each executive carries home over 20 to 30 USPs that are just right for their bank, and we make sure that they state them as an explicit benefit. In less than an hour, we make more progress than they made after six months and $200,000 or more of branding. Don’t blame your marketing department, it’s not their fault. They just haven’t been exposed to a better way.

Step four – optimize how you use your USPs. That’s right, USPs do no good whatsoever in a binder. Although they can be transformative to marketing results, when used correctly in your marketing, the real magic is in the sales process. The magic happens when your team uses them in the right type of question format that allows for the prospect to tell you how much it is costing them not to have your USPs. Oh, that’s so fun. It’s like printing money legally.

I had a bank that on their first deal after they learned us nailed a $5.4 million loan without the prospect ever asking how much. Their CEO said that they charge 150 basis points more than any of the 100 banks located between the prospect and that bank would have offered. Wouldn’t you like to do that all day every day? What’s it costing you this month with your current pipeline to know that you’re missing 100, 150 or 200 basis points on every deal?

Step five – do a backflip. Once you figure this out, and you get the system in place to do it over and over, you should do a happy dance because you just protected your bank from the ups and downs of the economy. Which means that while other banks will be crushed by their belief that NIM compression is a thing, you will be there to pick off their best customers. It’s supposed to be fun, isn’t it?

Stay tuned much more great content coming your way next week.  

To your continued success, 

Roxanne Emmerich 

Please watch the video above and share it with your exec team and board. 

The post Differentiation Value that Drives A+ Prospects [VIDEO] appeared first on The Emmerich Group.

If you’re the kind of leader who feels strongly that you can’t follow the herd and believes that net interest margin compression is inevitable, you’re going to love this.

Or if you have some lenders who get premium pricing but are frustrated that others still fall back to rate matching, you’ll want to watch this.

Or maybe you’ve given up on getting premium pricing because you believed the conventional wisdom that banking is a commodity that you’ve heard at the industry conferences and if so, this is for you.

Here’s why. When you get it, you’ll have a blueprint for catapulting yourself past the three biggest problems in banking right now:

Problem 1: Customers who love you and leave you for better rates.
Problem 2: Customers believe your commodity and you might not be giving them a reason to think differently.
Problem 3: Your people mean well and offer great service, but they don’t know how to sidestep the whole rate conversation trap.

Every bank is facing these three. Today you will learn about four levels of USPs and why you need dozens of them.  But to get extreme premium pricing, you need to create level four USPs.

Level one USPs offer basic differentiation. If you’ve ever believed that great customer service was your key differentiator, then you’re working with a level one USP.
Level two USPs are our gadgets and products. Your super-duper free checking, your nifty online banking site, and your instant approval mortgage are all level two USPs. You need them, but they’re too easy to copy.
Level three USPs are where it gets juicy. They’re the special education and certifications that matter to discerning customers and put you in a league of elite bankers.
Level four USPs are the pinnacle. They are the proprietary processes that clients tell you are worth at least 10 times more than the additional amount that you charge. These take you way out of the commodity world.

Flex your level for USPs with a sales process designed to monetize them, and you’ll pull away your competitor’s best customers at 150 basis points or more.

Some of our banks regularly average at least 200 basis points more than what their competitors get. So don’t tell me it can’t be done. Also, you’ll have the peace of mind that you are profitable and safe during good times and bad.

What if you could use your USPs in your sales process to make sure you never hear those ugly words, “can you match the rate?” So you and your people can feel the competence of knowing that you are an elite, prestigious organization worth more.

Get your USPs right and stop worrying about what the economy or desperate competitors do to your profits. That’s for those other banks.

To your continued success,

Roxanne Emmerich

Please watch the video above and share it with your exec team and board.

The post Master the Four Levels of USPs [VIDEO] appeared first on The Emmerich Group.

Get ready because you could stop your prospects from asking you to match your rate to win the business and start getting paid more within the next two weeks.  How does that sound?

If you’re the kind of person who has team members at your door saying, boss, we can do this deal, we match the rate and you know, that’s no good.

If you’re the kind of person who has one team member who is already getting premium pricing, and you want more, you’re going to love this.

Or if you have team members that believe they have a moral obligation to match the rates. Don’t worry, it’s not their fault. I’ll show you how to get them to come around.

In this video, you’re going to discover:

The three elements of a unique selling proposition or USP, that actually make it work.

The most common banking USPS, and why you should never use them.

The business mistake we see banks make when creating USPs.

Unlike so many branding efforts, that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars, but never really deliver the new profitable customers you want, USPs act like magnets for the best customers in your market. If you build them, right.

For any of your USPS to be successful, each has to meet all three criteria:

They must matter to your customer.

They must be dramatically different than anything else in your market.

They must be worded as an explicit benefit.

As opposed to the “we love them all the same” approach to customer service, the job everyone must get is that you take very good care of all customers, but your Top 100 customers and your Top 100 prospects are the reason you exist.

There’s got to be a benefit that matters to your customer, a reason why they should do business with you over the other 10 to 100 banks in your market. What makes you different in a way that actually matters to your future customer and is said in a way that is believable

It’s time for you to up the game. If you’re serious about getting rid of rate matching. When you put all of these things together and use them properly in your sales process, you can see big results within days and weeks.

A few years ago, we had a bank that brought several of their executives and their President to our event. We took them through an exercise to develop their USPs. When they went back to their bank the very next week, the President wrote me excitedly to say that one of their CSRS had used the USP with the prospect and the prospect pulled in an additional 5 million dollars the next day, after opening the account for what was supposed to be a $250,000 checking account.

USPs unlock big accounts without ever having to match rate. And by the way, not all USPs are equal.

In the next video, I’ll show you why you need a particular type of USP, a level four USP if you want to get extreme premium pricing.

To your continued success,

Roxanne Emmerich

Please watch the video above and share it with your exec team and board.

The post Stop Matching the Competition [VIDEO] appeared first on The Emmerich Group.

What if you could restructure your lending department and increase the productivity per lender by 30 to 40% or more within 12 months.  

Now if you’re the kind of leader who thinks your team kicks butt and takes names at securing quality loans at extreme premium pricing, and you’re sure it’s because of your teams execution of a particular and predictable success system, not driven by the customers recent mistakes or the economies impact, you’re about to uncover a great foundation to get even more traction within weeks.

Or maybe you are the person whose team is not quite getting the traction you want and pulling in the very best credits and premium pricing. If so, you’ll see how others who had the same problem with the same type of people transformed regular lenders into business development ninjas that pull in massive low-cost deposits.

Perhaps you have found that your folks do some of the business development activities that you want, but not enough and not in the optimal way. Stick tight because I’ll give you some ideas to turn that pattern around quickly.

Every time a bank gets serious about transforming their lending team, they hit one or more of the same four issues:

One, they start strong with a new initiative and then it fizzles out within weeks or months.
Two, they put in a new incentive program, set goals, and hope that this works. But it never does much or lasts long.
Three, they try to hire a superstar or two, but often that star is a nightmare in the making, creating your next asset quality issues or cultural disaster.
Four, or perhaps some of your people get it but many don’t, like those who expand the unimportance, so they never quite seem to have time for their sales calls. But their paperclips are sorted by color.

If you’ve had any or all of these, join the club. This has been the pattern for almost all banks for decades.

Here are three steps that will dramatically shift your results in a few weeks:

Step one – Unlike most personality assessment, hiring tools that can be cheated, or are representative of how team members see themselves or try to convince you that’s how they see themselves, reliability studies clearly demonstrate that emotional intelligence assessments are undeniably predictive about who is going to win at sales, and who isn’t. Also, who is likely to win managing accounts versus who should hunt for accounts becomes obvious.

If you are like most banks, do you have at least 30% of your team in the wrong seats? Emotional intelligence is the thinking underneath most behaviors that drives those behaviors and is therefore very difficult to change. You can’t coach height, right? Sadly, personality assessments do not have the powerful correlation to success by position that emotional intelligence assessments do. Research on thousands of lenders shows that a low risk sales profile will outsell a medium risk profile by 400% on average. What would that mean for your bottom line to quadruple the production per lender? Exactly.  

Step two – In contrast, a low sales rank that gives everyone the same training and expectations across the board, would be better served to get people in the right slots. Realize that only 6% of the population has a hunter profile. So you absolutely can’t afford to have your hunters working in busy work, loan renewals, and relationship management. A good account manager profile does everything they can to avoid business development, and a good business developer can’t be kept behind the desk talking to renewals. They are almost like different species.

Step three – Once you know how to put each person in their area of excellence, you create the process. That consists of figuring out the different responsibilities and determining when the baton is passed on a new loan to an account manager so that the client feels more love, not less. All of that takes a solid system, then you manage the system.

So three steps: 

One – Assess the emotional intelligence of your team– the only reliable way of knowing who your hunters and farmers are.
Two – Assign the right responsibility to the hunters 
Three – Create your team selling system. Team selling has replaced independent selling in all professional industries except banking. But the very best community banks are all about it, and they know how to do it right.  

By revamping your sales approach and getting people in the slots where they can win with a game plan that sets them up for success, you can transform your loan growth quickly and more importantly, predictably.  

Make sure you tune in next time where I’ll show you how to normalize big wins fast and help your lenders consistently win better deals.  

To your continued success, 

Roxanne Emmerich 

Please watch the video above and share it with your exec team and board. 

The post Put the Right Players in the Right Seats For Loan Growth [VIDEO] appeared first on The Emmerich Group.

Let’s explore how you can transform your safety and profitability by creating the kind of differentiation that attracts the highest quality credits and makes price irrelevant.

If you think that the best customers get the best pricing because everyone wants them, then you have to watch this episode because it can and is being done. 

Pay close attention if you feel overwhelmed because your team is stuck. Because they do the same thing year after year with the same results, but don’t know how or what to change even though you know deep down there’s a way to get those best customers in your market and get them to pay more.

Or maybe you’re the kind of leader who rallies the troops to focus on the best quality loans, but still have several who believe they need to lower them with rate, and when they do, they squeeze all the profit on the deal.

Or you’re worried about how to get your entire team to buy into the idea that they can get the best quality credits, and at the same time get substantial premium pricing.

I’m going to show you how to overcome the mountain of evidence that your team leans on to hold up their old beliefs. I know you’re thinking who wouldn’t want top shelf pricing on top shelf customers, but if it’s that easy, wouldn’t everyone be doing it?

First you have team members who have been doing their job as well for decades, creating an okay result, but not tapping into the real goldmine opportunity. It’s not their fault. They’re doing everything they learned at conferences and lending school. It’s just that it’s outdated and inefficient. They don’t feel that what they offer is different or worth more than the bank down the street, so they typically ask for 20 or 25 basis points more tops. And they’re probably right. They don’t have a game-changing unique selling proposition that shows the extremely unique value that you offer.

Let’s cover how to create USPS that are permanent game changers:

Step one – forget the powder puff attempts at USPs and get your people to stop saying them. “We have good people”, “We have great service”, “We’ve been around 89 years.” Really, who cares? They expect you to have great service and great people and experience. That’s just the ticket to the dance. Never in the history of time has a person said “Oh, great, you have good people. I’m switching everything. Oh don’t worry about price, charge what you want right?”

Step two – build USPs that matter to the customer. By definition, a unique selling proposition, or USP, has three elements: 1) it must matter to the customer 2) it must be dramatically different, and 3), it must be stated as an explicit benefit to the customer. Tons of top banks dump a few $100,000 on branding every year. Sadly, after all of that, they get one really weak level one USP, such as how fast they close loans, when what they’re really needing is at least 40 USPs, all of which can be used in their sales process. And, those A+ quality credits that we want flocking in are not going to flock in until you give them a level three or level four USP, the kind where they tell you that’s worth $100,000 or more, or maybe even a million yearly, I can’t live without you. Let’s get everything switched over right away. Oh, did I mention they don’t even ask your pricing? If you have three or four USPs that total up to be worth over 10 to 20 to 50 times more than the amount of additional fees or interest that you charge, pricing doesn’t matter anymore. I’m guessing they’re pretty good at math. That is how they got to be an A+ quality credit. And you need to get your head wrapped around that you deserve extreme premium pricing. When you deliver that kind of value. It’s not too good to be true, it’s just too good to be free.

Step three – start developing level one USPs for each of your top three target markets. I believe the best way to get something accomplished is to achieve some small wins fast. So start with level one USPs and get about 20 to 30 of those in place. Level one USPs are the ones that prove that you have differences that matter to the customer. At our events for elite banks and their ambitious executive teams, we go through exercises together to do this right there at the event. Each executive carries home over 20 to 30 USPs that are just right for their bank, and we make sure that they state them as an explicit benefit. In less than an hour, we make more progress than they made after six months and $200,000 or more of branding. Don’t blame your marketing department, it’s not their fault. They just haven’t been exposed to a better way.

Step four – optimize how you use your USPs. That’s right, USPs do no good whatsoever in a binder. Although they can be transformative to marketing results, when used correctly in your marketing, the real magic is in the sales process. The magic happens when your team uses them in the right type of question format that allows for the prospect to tell you how much it is costing them not to have your USPs. Oh, that’s so fun. It’s like printing money legally.

I had a bank that on their first deal after they learned us nailed a $5.4 million loan without the prospect ever asking how much. Their CEO said that they charge 150 basis points more than any of the 100 banks located between the prospect and that bank would have offered. Wouldn’t you like to do that all day every day? What’s it costing you this month with your current pipeline to know that you’re missing 100, 150 or 200 basis points on every deal?

Step five – do a backflip. Once you figure this out, and you get the system in place to do it over and over, you should do a happy dance because you just protected your bank from the ups and downs of the economy. Which means that while other banks will be crushed by their belief that NIM compression is a thing, you will be there to pick off their best customers. It’s supposed to be fun, isn’t it?

Stay tuned much more great content coming your way next week.  

To your continued success, 

Roxanne Emmerich 

Please watch the video above and share it with your exec team and board. 

The post Differentiation Value that Drives A+ Prospects [VIDEO] appeared first on The Emmerich Group.

Today, we’re going to blow up the biggest limiting belief in banking. It’s so bad that it keeps you and your team from attracting the very best credits and commanding extreme premium pricing.

If you’re the kind of leader that has a team that already gets premium pricing and attracts the best credits, you’re gonna love this because I’ll show you how you can get even more and get them faster.  

Or maybe you have a group of lenders who just came back from a conference with a strong belief that higher pricing happens only for weaker credits. I’ll show you how to flip that belief and get the best credits in your market while getting 100,150, or even 200 basis points above market. Yes, it’s very possible if you do what I’ll show you.

Or maybe you personally believe the conventional wisdom that higher pricing is only for weaker credits, and you learned that in the Graduate School of Banking, so it must be true. It’s not your fault, it is true, but it is equally true that you can get extreme premium pricing from the very best credits, and that is a far better game to play. Let me show you how.

There are a few challenges of course in getting the best credits to pull away from the current bank and pay you 100 plus basis points more while they do that.  

First, you must get your team to challenge the mountain of evidence that they have telling them that good credits will never pay anything but the lowest price because your competitors will CUT and CUT and CUT to get the business. It’s just not true.

Second, you must decide to be worth more. Saying we’ve got great people or we turn around your loan fast, do not create enough differentiation to get that premium pricing.  

Third, you have to turn the entire ship. Belief systems, differentiation and sales processes must all change together or it will remain a pipe dream instead of an ongoing reality where you always get paid more while attracting the best quality loans.  

Let’s discuss three steps to help you get serious traction on pulling in better prospects and premium pricing in a few short weeks.

Unlike how most marketing is done in banking today, you need to target the precious few. A recent study showed that the average community bank’s top 100 customers account for more than 50% of their profits. In some cases, between 50 to 140%. The fastest path to more profits is obvious. Find another 100 just like your current top 100. You’ll double your profits without adding people or infrastructure.

The first step is to figure out who those customers are.

Next, figure out the similarities, specifically the psychographics and demographics they have in common. Psychographics are things about the ways that they’re thinking such as Active American Farm Bureau members who are second generation with the first generation still involved. Firmographics are like demographics for businesses. An example is medical device manufacturers with over $30 million in revenue.

Finally, unlike most marketing and sales approaches normalized in banking today, you have to figure out how to get prospects to pay attention to you. In fact, fall in love with you before you contact them. When you start the conversation, you want them to see that meeting with you is an honor, not another inconvenient meeting with a vendor. You don’t want brand awareness; you want brand insistence.  

Again, three steps: 

First, find out who your current most profitable customers are.
Two, determine the intersection of psychographic and firmographic similarities.
And then three, create a system to build reputational equity.

Don’t miss the next video where we’ll cover how to build differentiation that gets the attention of A+ quality prospects to help you win more and better business fast. 

To your continued success, 

Roxanne Emmerich 

Please watch the video above and share it with your exec team and board. 

The post You Deserve More and Better [VIDEO] appeared first on The Emmerich Group.

What if you could immediately find your next Top 100 most profitable, low risk clients; exactly the customers you want on your roster? Would it be worth the work to bring them in? You bet and using this system I’m about to reveal has brought my clients a closing rate of nearly one 100%, so stay tuned.

If you’re the kind of leader who spends a lot of money on marketing, and you think it’s working to pull in the best customers or premium pricing, you will use this process to make those results even better.

If however, you can’t really say that your marketing has created a stampede among the most desirable customers that will bring low-cost funds, you’ll want this new strategy to turn that result around quickly.

Or if you haven’t done much analysis, or marketing at all, you’re going to love this because we’re going to save you from the endless money pit of spending marketing dollars on things that can’t prove a positive return on investment.

There are certain obvious challenges to getting low cost large deposit accounts pulled away from incumbent banks. But accounts are usually taken care of by the incumbent financial institution. And your people are well meaning but look in all the wrong places for the prospects. 

Also, there are still entrenched traditional beliefs like demographics or zip code marketing actually works. It’s not your marketing department’s fault, because it’s still being taught even though it hasn’t worked in a few decades.

Every bank faces these, but there’s no time like the present to take them head on.

Now let’s work on five steps that will give you a bucket of warm quality leads, those next Top 100 best, most profitable customers, and start closing them in a few short weeks.

Step One – Unlike so many marketing processes that are fishing the lake, you should start analyzing your current most profitable customers.  

Step Two – Instead of the old school demographics approach, determine the psychographic and firmographic similarities of those who are your most profitable deposit accounts now.

Step Three – Look for the intersections to determine approximately, two, maybe three target markets.

Step Four – Start a massive gives program before you call to build reputational equity and get hand raises. That’s them winking back at you, showing that they’re interested in what you have.

Step Five – Make sure you have at least one level four USP ready for the call plus enough other USPs. It’s key that you know how to use them in the sales questioning so you’re not telling about them. They should see you as the expert on the subject matter, not a salesperson.

Now one more time…

One – Analyze the current accounts.
Two – Identify the psychographics and demographics.
Three – Find the intersection to find two or three targets.
Four – Follow a gives program to get winks.
Five – Be prepared with level four USPs and appropriate usage to get the appointment.

Clients tell me that before they started this process, they only landed appointments in business 30% of the time, but now some are closing close to 100%. A few are actually at 100% for over six months, which is a miracle. Remember, these are people who love their current bank and do not call on you.

What would it do for your profitability and peace of mind to bring on another 100 customers just as profitable as your current top 100 deposit customers? Think of the possibilities and get to work. 

To your continued success, 

Roxanne Emmerich 

Please watch the video above and share it with your exec team and board. 

The post Fishing Hole Instead of the Whole Lake [VIDEO] appeared first on The Emmerich Group.

Now if you’re the kind of banker who has all the deposits that you want already, you’ll appreciate this because you’ll discover how to bring your cost of funds down even more.

The post Stop Looking in All the Wrong Places [VIDEO] appeared first on The Emmerich Group.

What if one of your product lines could be the source of thousands of dollars of additional profits within a few short weeks? You’ll need to radically change your strategic planning process to make that happen.  

If you’re the kind of person who knows your team keeps repeating what they’ve been doing, instead of taking the time to implement breakthrough ideas for a breakthrough increase in profit, you’re going to love this.  

If you feel weary of all the regulations and busy work and know that you and your people haven’t taken the time to question the way that you offer your products, this could transform your profitability.  

Or maybe you want the infusion of energy and cash that comes with a rapid increase in the sale of a product line when revamped using a new strategy. True low hanging fruit.  

First of all, you’re not alone.  

Every bank has been stuck in one of these scenarios. It’s time to break the mold and implement revolutionary and effective ideas that bring more money to the door from existing product lines. 

Let’s explore four steps to start attracting thousands of dollars of additional profit within a few short weeks. 

Step One: Eliminate many strategic planning processes that are fuzzy such as cross-sale products to new mortgage applicants. Great idea, but not a strategy. Instead, a strategy is what you would specifically do differently to get cross sales. 

Step 2: Teach your managers and production people to understand what the strategy is, and what it is not. Since so many banks don’t have even one strategy in their strategic plan, often their executives would benefit from some clarity about that as well.

Step 3: Choose one strategy and then, as an experiment, move it into one product line. For example, take a strategy of product packaging and try it with mortgages…could be a miracle.

Step 4: Create a system whereby different departments and product lines introduce new strategies at least once a year and choose the ones that get results within a week or two. That way they demonstrate their commitment to moving the sales and profit needle and all that weight isn’t on your shoulders all by yourself.  

Get started as soon as possible to begin these four steps so that you can see results as quickly as possible.

To reiterate, they are: 

Step 1: Create awareness of what a strategy is compared to an outcome so that the outcome isn’t a pipe dream.
Step 2: Teach your managers the difference between a strategy to get a result and an actual result.  
Step 3: Encourage each department to brainstorm and implement a strategy that has an immediate impact on sales 
Step 4: Build an ongoing system for the entire team to create new and improved strategies constantly and consistently so that you can sleep easy at night knowing your team is 100% committed to hitting and exceeding their numbers.

Imagine if you could double your profit without increasing your infrastructure of staff…that will take the right strategies. 

To your continued success,

Roxanne Emmerich

Please watch the video above and share it with your exec team and board.

The post New Product Line Strategies for Rapid Sales Transformation [VIDEO] appeared first on The Emmerich Group.

After reviewing over 500 strategic plans, I find that most banks lack effective strategies, intentional congruence, and essentially have a list of goals but no effective way to achieve them.

If you’re the kind of leader who hires a brilliant facilitator and comes out with a well-written plan that sounds good, but never really shakes the ground from under your feet for a transformative profit surge, you’re going to love this.

Or maybe you were happy with your plan and doing well, but you wonder if you could enjoy even better results.

Or perhaps you are the kind of leader who was frustrated that you spend a pot load of money on the off-site facilitator who never gives you the breakthrough strategies that can power up your trajectory for decades.

If any of this sounds like you keep listening. Here are the typical challenges that keep you from an even better year.

Most banks have a strategic planning book with a plethora of goals.  The missing components are at least 25 different actual strategies that will bring earthmoving changes that get you paid more for doing business with the most desirable prospects in your market.  That’s the point.

In looking at hundreds of plans over the years, I can honestly say that I’m not seeing more than five total strategies, combined on banks that were happy with their strategic planning process, yikes. That’s right in hundreds of plans only a total of five strategies. Imagine if they had a plan that actually made a difference.

Also, most plans lack intentional congruence. The BHAG or the Big Hairy Audacious Goal is not congruent with the psychographics and demographics of the top two to three target markets. And the key initiatives are a disjointed list of to-dos, there is no alignment. Additionally, the plan doesn’t account for an extremely relevant fact. If you are a normal bank, only 13% of your customers are profitable, let that sink in. The problem is your plan doesn’t have solid and proven strategies to get more profitable customers like the 13% nor does it get all their business at premium pricing. So even if the plan is executed well, it still puts the franchise value at risk.

Every bank faces these problems. 1000s of strategic plans are lackluster and ineffective without exception.

Let’s talk about strategic plans that actually work to bring you the most profitable prospects and convert them into your best customers. That’s the point.

There are four simple steps you need to take to get positive results:

Step One: Unlike so many strategic planning processes, you must start with an understanding of the psychographic and firmographic similarities of your top 100 most profitable customers, to make sure your plan is about profit and not busy work.  Ensure that you base the entire thing over no more than three integrated psychographic and demographic intersections of that group.

Step Two: Forget everything you learned about strategic planning from school. That old model mission statement, swots, and goals is ridiculously antiquated. We live in a world of disruption, where non-bank competitors are vultures ready to eat the lunch of banks who still think a yearly strategic planning process is enough to drive growth and profitability; heaven forbid if you are a bank that’s still doing the “we do this strategic planning process every two years approach.”

Have you ever seen a top 10% performing bank do that? Exactly.

Step Three: Move to a one-page strategic planning process. Don’t think because it’s brief that it’s easy or quick. If you do it right, it will be 10 times harder, but then you’ll work 100 times smarter all year. You’re packing a lot of punch in that one page with an extreme focus on the few things that matter. Make sure there is intentional congruence so that all the elements of the plan are working together for an immediate profit boost. The build-out from the one page is where the magic happens, but you have to get the one page right first.

Step Four: Get everything and everyone in a visible accountability system so that every team member in your organization knows what they need to do every week to align with profit.

To emphasize here are the four steps again:

Step One: Align the plan to the most profitable customers and prospects.
Step Two: Forget the old models.
Step Three: Create intentional congruence in the one-page plan.
Step Four: Create visible alignment of every person to profit.

Put a strategic plan into place using those elements and you can relax and know that your plan will be implemented.  You will get people away from being busy to being profit-oriented, which dramatically contributes to your bank’s bottom line, doesn’t it?

To your continued success,

Roxanne Emmerich

Please watch the video above and share it with your exec team and board.

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