In this session, I will show you how your people (like many bankers before them who couldn’t but now do) can average 6–7+ cross-sales and ALL the deposits in a way that never feels sales-y.

If you’re the kind of leader:

Who has been preaching to your people that you want all the deposits and all the cross sales, but you feel it isn’t getting better fast enough, stay with me.

Or, if you have some people who are still “order taking” and losing the opportunity to do business with many of the rate inquiries who would have turned into your customer IF your person handling the inquiry knew a system that would actually make that happen, stick around. I have your back.

Or, maybe you’ve got this. Your people are not matching rate and you’re fairly certain that no deals are falling between the cracks, stick around. We’ll talk about how you can know that for sure.

Maybe you have one of these obstacles.

Most banks have been doing internal or external sales training for years. They never accomplished the cultural transformation that created a sales culture with the sales accountability to keep a flow of low-cost deposits flowing. Now, after all that money and time, when they’re really truthful, they’ve realized that it just isn’t working when they see other banks are now averaging over 6–7 cross-sales and mastering attracting large low-cost deposits away from competitors. They know they can’t give up, but they just can’t have another false attempt because the team is now doing the “slow walk” thinking management will soon give up.

Still others are finding that most sales training is, well… sales-y. That simply doesn’t belong in community banks or any bank.

Also, many bankers lack the skill to be a trusted advisor. They do have the product knowledge but don’t know how to bring the type of extreme value necessary to be that person’s trusted advisor. Most importantly, they lack skills and confidence, but it’s not their fault—there just hasn’t been sound advice and a good system that helps them win.

One 30-year bank executive told me recently, when finishing a course in the Trusted Advisor certification, that he really had no idea that he had no idea how to be a trusted advisor until he discovered the right skills. He started pulling in seven-figure checking accounts immediately once he knew.

EVERY bank faces at least one of these challenges—join the club. Now let’s work together to knock the issues down one at a time.

I’m now going to give you three steps to build an accountability-focused sales culture system based on a sales education that works AND that your people will love. One bank president who had been a teller just four years before she learned this system told me last week, “I just feel like I’m making an incredible difference in people’s lives. My daughter said,  “mom, you really love your job, don’t you.”

THAT is how the right sales approach should feel. The customer wins. The bank wins. The team member wins.

Let’s crack these steps so you start getting some results within a few weeks.

Step 1: Build the right revenue system.  Have you ever heard a bank executive tell you that sales training’s impact doubled or tripled cross-sales and grew non-interest-bearing deposits by a dramatic amount?  As they say,  “said no banker EVER.”  It’s not about sales training. It’s about a system with intentional congruence between organizational development systems, performance culture systems, the right sales system that no sales training company ever seems to know.  All this is tied together with a blended learning program with ever-increasing expectations with accountability that builds them up—not shreds their confidence. You’ve seen how most banks lose about 1/3 of their team when they start traditional sales training so you know that is “a thing.”

Step 2: UNLIKE so many false-attempt sales trainings,  you have to get your people to come from their heart space—a place of extreme care for the future success of each customer.  With that as a base, they can then learn to ask questions in the order of how people like to buy what they need. It’s about purposeful help—not sales.

Until they get the impact that what they are really doing is saving marriages from divorce due to fighting over money, helping people retire with ease and peace of mind, and guiding businesses to sound fiscal management…they will always feel like it is sales-y and the client will feel it too.

Step 3: Create an ever-increasing accountability and visibility system. Most sales programs end up causing at least a third of the team members to run for the hills. That’s completely unnecessary and very unproductive.

The problem is that sales training must be integrated with a true understanding of cultural transformation at a deep level where people are learning how to be—holding each other accountable, celebrating success and learning to “live their word. ” Understanding that their promises and commitments are how they reveal their character.

The key is that every day and every week, as the blended learning of online, offline, coaching and practicing happens integrated with a management system and “stage appropriate” accountability, a predictable weekly improvement is imminent. Remember, you don’t have a sales training issue—you have a confidence issue.

Again, three steps to a solid foundation of community bank sales culture transformation:

Step 1: Ongoing cultural transformation with extreme integration.

Step 2: Get team members “at cause” to bring extreme value from transactional to transformational.

Step 3: Develop a progressive accountability and visibility system that builds confidence.

By doing this, you can sleep at night knowing your well-educated team can “connect” with prospects and customers effectively — attracting all the deposits you need CONSISTENTLY—regardless of what the economy or your desperate competitors do.

– Roxanne Emmerich

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

The post Unleash Your Bank’s Full Sales Potential with a Proven Accountability and Visibility System [VIDEO] appeared first on The Emmerich Group.

That lender put themselves in the position of having to match the rate. So, yes, they are in this mess, and maybe they can sweet-talk their way into getting something like, “Well, you get me, and we have good people.” They might get 25 basis points more, but you can’t become a Top Five Percenter™ with just 25 basis points more on a loan deal, especially when desperate competitors are pricing these things at crazy rates, and deposit rate competitors are offering sky-high rates. 

Margins are shrinking for those who don’t get it. Don’t be that person. You need to understand that having a four or even five net interest margin is essential, and it’s doable. I can prove it, and you’ll meet these people when you attend the Best Banks in America Super Conference. Many banks command well over a four net interest margin while other bank CEOs claim it can’t be done. 

They have a mountain of evidence. Everyone comes to them saying they must match the pricing or lose the deal, and it’s true. But there’s another mountain of evidence about how to engage in those relationships correctly from the start, so it doesn’t become about rate. All you need to do is watch the hard trendlines. Dan Burr, a dear friend and futurist, says that being a futurist isn’t that difficult. He says to watch the hard trendlines, and they’ll tell you where things are going. When I started this business, there were 18,000 banks. Now there are 4,500. Where is this going? We’re heading toward 2,000. Many banks are not nearly paranoid enough about losing the name on their door. They look at the fact that they had a good year last year, which means nothing for this year because every year brings new challenges. Unless you become a top 5% performer, you are always in a state of vulnerability. 

There will always be 2,000 great boutique banks that can command premium pricing and compete against all the desperate non-bank competitors. If you’re not on the path to becoming a Top Five Percenter, one who can command four and five NIMs, you’ll face challenges keeping your name on the door. The hard trendlines show where this is going and denying it won’t stop it from happening. So please wake up to this possibility. Your team members will love you when you start commanding premium pricing because they’ll no longer feel like vendors. They’ll feel like partners and will love coming to work every day because guess what? It is fun to win. 

To your continued success, 

Roxanne Emmerich 

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

The post How Do You Stop “Matching Price” and Set Yourself Apart as a Category of One appeared first on The Emmerich Group.

In this session, I will show you how your people (like many bankers before them who couldn’t but now do) can average 6–7+ cross-sales and ALL the deposits in a way that never feels sales-y.

If you’re the kind of leader:

Who has been preaching to your people that you want all the deposits and all the cross sales, but you feel it isn’t getting better fast enough, stay with me.

Or, if you have some people who are still “order taking” and losing the opportunity to do business with many of the rate inquiries who would have turned into your customer IF your person handling the inquiry knew a system that would actually make that happen, stick around. I have your back.

Or, maybe you’ve got this. Your people are not matching rate and you’re fairly certain that no deals are falling between the cracks, stick around. We’ll talk about how you can know that for sure.

Maybe you have one of these obstacles.

Most banks have been doing internal or external sales training for years. They never accomplished the cultural transformation that created a sales culture with the sales accountability to keep a flow of low-cost deposits flowing. Now, after all that money and time, when they’re really truthful, they’ve realized that it just isn’t working when they see other banks are now averaging over 6–7 cross-sales and mastering attracting large low-cost deposits away from competitors. They know they can’t give up, but they just can’t have another false attempt because the team is now doing the “slow walk” thinking management will soon give up.

Still others are finding that most sales training is, well… sales-y. That simply doesn’t belong in community banks or any bank.

Also, many bankers lack the skill to be a trusted advisor. They do have the product knowledge but don’t know how to bring the type of extreme value necessary to be that person’s trusted advisor. Most importantly, they lack skills and confidence, but it’s not their fault—there just hasn’t been sound advice and a good system that helps them win.

One 30-year bank executive told me recently, when finishing a course in the Trusted Advisor certification, that he really had no idea that he had no idea how to be a trusted advisor until he discovered the right skills. He started pulling in seven-figure checking accounts immediately once he knew.

EVERY bank faces at least one of these challenges—join the club. Now let’s work together to knock the issues down one at a time.

I’m now going to give you three steps to build an accountability-focused sales culture system based on a sales education that works AND that your people will love. One bank president who had been a teller just four years before she learned this system told me last week, “I just feel like I’m making an incredible difference in people’s lives. My daughter said,  “mom, you really love your job, don’t you.”

THAT is how the right sales approach should feel. The customer wins. The bank wins. The team member wins.

Let’s crack these steps so you start getting some results within a few weeks.

Step 1: Build the right revenue system.  Have you ever heard a bank executive tell you that sales training’s impact doubled or tripled cross-sales and grew non-interest-bearing deposits by a dramatic amount?  As they say,  “said no banker EVER.”  It’s not about sales training. It’s about a system with intentional congruence between organizational development systems, performance culture systems, the right sales system that no sales training company ever seems to know.  All this is tied together with a blended learning program with ever-increasing expectations with accountability that builds them up—not shreds their confidence. You’ve seen how most banks lose about 1/3 of their team when they start traditional sales training so you know that is “a thing.”

Step 2: UNLIKE so many false-attempt sales trainings,  you have to get your people to come from their heart space—a place of extreme care for the future success of each customer.  With that as a base, they can then learn to ask questions in the order of how people like to buy what they need. It’s about purposeful help—not sales.

Until they get the impact that what they are really doing is:

saving marriages from divorce due to fighting over money

helping people retire with ease peace of mind

guiding businesses to sound fiscal management

…they will always feel like it is sales-y and the client will feel it too.

Step 3: Create an ever-increasing accountability and visibility system. Most sales programs end up causing at least a third of the team members to run for the hills. That’s completely unnecessary and very unproductive.

The problem is that sales training must be integrated with a true understanding of cultural transformation at a deep level where people are learning how to be—holding each other accountable, celebrating success and learning to “live their word. ” Understanding that their promises and commitments are how they reveal their character.

The key is that every day and every week, as the blended learning of online, offline, coaching and practicing happens integrated with a management system and “stage appropriate” accountability, a predictable weekly improvement is imminent. Remember, you don’t have a sales training issue—you have a confidence issue.

Again, three steps to a solid foundation of community bank sales culture transformation:

Step 1: Ongoing cultural transformation with extreme integration.

Step 2: Get team members “at cause” to bring extreme value from transactional to transformational.

Step 3: Develop a progressive accountability and visibility system that builds confidence.

By doing this, you can sleep at night knowing your well-educated team can “connect” with prospects and customers effectively — attracting all the deposits you need CONSISTENTLY—regardless of what the economy or your desperate competitors do.

What if I told you that you can easily hold on to your best customers AND snatch the best customers from your competitors – WITHOUT even discussing rates?  Dive into the proven blueprint that turns skeptics into believers at the 2^nd Annual Deposit Mastery Conference: Deposit Domination Deep Dive this June!  Register here. 

– Roxanne Emmerich

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

The post Unleash Your Bank’s Full Sales Potential with a Proven Accountability and Visibility System [VIDEO] appeared first on The Emmerich Group.

However, shifting our focus from “training” to “educating” can turn this problem into a big win in no time.

Training teaches people what to do. Education teaches people how to be.

Banks have been using the words “trusted advisor” for decades now but are only about 5% of the way toward being able to say those words with any credibility. Their teams simply don’t know what to do to make themselves the only banker that customers would ever need.

Although there are many steps to bring sophistication and wisdom, the bar must be cleared first—being able to handle a rate inquiry and turn it into business that doesn’t depend on matching or coming close on rate.

According to the research from BankShop®, only about three percent of rate inquiries are handled in a way that would capture the business without matching rates. Three percent!

Perhaps you also have an accidental “sales prevention department? People are friendly but don’t have the system and abilities to stop the shopper from shopping rate.

If you have this problem, you’re not alone.

But as my dad used to ask, “If everyone else jumped off the cliff, will you do it too?” I heard that one too many times. But now it stuck. Thanks dad.

Most bank employees fail to ask engaging questions that could break this preoccupation with rates, ultimately resulting in lost business, and the inability to even keep your current customers without having to pay up

Perhaps most of your bank’s employees know how to handle those inquiries to convert them to business.
But, if even one employee mishandles an inquiry, it could sabotage a potential deal and lose a customer with a million-dollar lifetime value.

Most banks do mystery shopping … but they do it all wrong. If you aren’t shopping to make sure that at least 80% of the inquiries turn into business with at least 5-6 cross-sales, you’re creating a happy bus…but the bus isn’t going to Profit Land.

It’s not your fault. Almost every bank has this problem.

There are three easy steps to fix your basic and easiest deposit growth without having to pay higher.

The first step is to identify the areas that need improvement and focus on mastering the basics—converting every rate inquiry into business.

The second step is building confidence through mystery shopping and rapidly increasing those scores. You must work an organizational behavior system with those shops to radically shift the results every week. Shopping alone won’t work. It will just make you sad to look at the results and you don’t want to be sad, do you?

For most banks that use the system, we recommend, they pop their cross sales on new accounts from 2.2 on average to over 5.2 within five months. And that is sustainable because … well … that’s the point. When they start to own the entire relationship, it’s a game-changer for their bank’s efficiency ratio. It can knock off as much as 10 points without cutting one expense. Dozens of our clients witnessed that improved efficiency ratio and were shocked they could make that impact without cutting expenses—it’s all done on the revenue side.

Finally, the third step is to incorporate clear execution steps to capture all rate inquiries and convert them into whole-relationship clients for a rapid profit impact. A visibility system with intrinsic rewards must be carefully crafted so you do it right the first time. False attempts create a “this too shall pass” culture making each subsequent attempt harder.

You can capture those easy-to-capture deposits if you follow these steps:

Step 1: Follow a system proven to double or triple mystery shopping scores.

Step 2: Build confidence with a consistent system to jump numbers fast.

Step 3: Build on your progress to incorporate clear execution steps so that you capture 100% of all rate inquiries and convert them into whole-relationship clients immediately and consistently for an immediate profit impact.

Make sure you tune in to the next video where I’ll show you the best way to get the entire deposit relationship for your most desired prospects and best customers.

What if I told you that you can easily hold on to your best customers AND snatch the best customers from your competitors – WITHOUT even discussing rates?  Dive into the proven blueprint that turns skeptics into believers at the 2^nd Annual Deposit Mastery Conference: Deposit Domination Deep Dive this June!  Register here. 

– Roxanne Emmerich

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

The post Transforming Deposit Growth: Three Steps for Banks to Improve Sales Effectiveness and Boost Their Bottom Line [VIDEO] appeared first on The Emmerich Group.

When people truly trust you and you bring value that exceeds your additional pricing, people are willing to bring all their business to you and your bank. At that point, price has little relevance. They know that what you provide is worth the cost. That’s a prime position for you to be in—now here’s how you’ll get there. 

If you’re the kind of leader: 

Who has a team member or two who already know how to get large checking accounts without matching price? Stay with me to learn how to get your entire team to know how to do that.

If instead, you have team members who don’t know how to bring in large non-interest-bearing accounts, stay with me consistently. I’ve got you covered.

Or if you seemed to be doing well with deposits in the past but now it’s a different world and you’re concerned,  your answers are coming.

There are challenges to get deposits without matching rates.

First, most banks don’t have the right systems in place. They have many well-intentioned people doing their best. But they’re not yet at the level of wisdom that earns the status of “trusted advisor.”  

And perhaps your team does not yet average at least 6–7 cross-sales on a new account that walks in. If they don’t have the basics, you’re concerned they aren’t even close to being able to call on the large accounts and pull them in.

EVERY bank is facing at least one of these challenges.

Let’s get busy solving this. Here are four steps that will help you improve the stickiness of low-cost deposits within a few short weeks.  

Step 1: UNLIKE bank programs that address sales training in a vacuum (as if teaching them will fix the problem) you have to address the REAL issue. They’re trying. But it’s not working. You don’t have a sales training problem—you have a confidence problem combined with not having the comprehensive proven sales SYSTEM for them to deploy.   

You must ensure your team members have fire in their bellies and an impenetrable belief that the targeted perfect prospect is best served by coming to you—and is hurt when they don’t.

Quite frankly, most banks don’t add nearly enough value so they remain in the commodity status. “We offer great service” is met with deaf ears. It’s simply not enough with today’s level of competition.

Step 2: Know which USPs best align for that deposit prospect based on what you know about their psychographics and firmographics. IF the Level 4 USP you choose isn’t something they can tell you has at least hundreds of thousands of dollars of impact on them, why would they pay you more?

Step 3: Customize your sales system to get the customer to explain the substantial dollars that not having your USP could cost them. That way they are telling YOU why they can’t live without you. Nobody ever argues with their own logic.  

Step 4: Approach the process for a two-call close. IF your people follow the sales system correctly, your weighted sales funnel should show a 90% close rate. EVEN though they weren’t planning on switching. EVEN though your pricing will cost them more. EVEN though they love their current bank. We’ve seen dozens of banks achieve that close rate without matching price so don’t let your people tell you it can’t be done.

The steps are simple:  

1) Build the confidence that you are the best answer.  

2) Match your USPs to that prospect so they know you get them. 

3) Get the client telling you the cost of not doing business with you.  

4) Get beyond the “logical brain” to the “emotional brain” so that you have a deep, authentic relationship by using a proven sales system designed to take pricing out of the conversation.

With this professional sales approach, you’ll sound wise—not sales-y. Your prospects will applaud your character, trustworthiness and brilliance instead of backing away from a slick sales pitch. That makes you the preferred choice in your market for the elite customers for whom pricing is a slight concern versus the massive value you bring.  

Now, get to it.  And don’t miss next week’s video. It’s all about getting more deposits by giving your team the necessary tools.

What if I told you that you can easily hold on to your best customers AND snatch the best customers from your competitors – WITHOUT even discussing rates?  Dive into the proven blueprint that turns skeptics into believers at the 2^nd Annual Deposit Mastery Conference: Deposit Domination Deep Dive this June!  Register here. 

– Roxanne Emmerich

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

The post Beyond Trust: How to Get ALL of Your Customers’ Deposit Business [VIDEO] appeared first on The Emmerich Group.

In this episode, we will reveal a proven system to help you find your next top 100 most profitable clients, leading to increased profitability and peace of mind.

We understand the challenges that come with trying to attract large deposit accounts away from an incumbent bank. But with our five-step process, you can start closing deals with these top-tier clients in just a few short weeks.

Step 1: Instead of “fishing the whole lake,” start by analyzing your current most profitable deposit accounts.
Your best prospects look exactly like them.

Step 2: Ditch the outdated demographics approach and focus on determining the psychographic and firmographic similarities of your most profitable deposit accounts. One bank recently told me they hired a marketing firm and had been in meetings for 9 months to figure this out. My goodness. It only takes about an hour if you know what you’re doing.

Step 3: Find the intersections to determine no more than three target markets. Cull the list to under 100.

Step 4: Implement a “gives” program to build reputational equity and get hand-raises from potential clients before you even make a call. Make sure the “gives” bring massive value to your prospects so you get their attention.

Step 5: Use your Level 4 USP in the call properly—you have to unseat the incumbent bank. It should make them shake their head in disbelief that they stuck it out with their old bank for this long.

Does this work? One $200 million client picked up $14 million in non-interest-bearing deposits and $6 million in additional low-cost deposits in four months! Yes, you can have hope.

Imagine what it would do for your business to bring on another 100 customers just as profitable as your current top 100 deposit customers.  A different bank brought in 12 in one year and the CEO said those accounts accounted for 22% of that year’s profits.

But that’s not all! In the next episode, we will discuss how to get sticky deposits without mentioning pricing.

Don’t miss out on this opportunity to grow your deposits and subsequently improve your profit.

What if I told you that you can easily hold on to your best customers AND snatch the best customers from your competitors – WITHOUT even discussing rates?  Dive into the proven blueprint that turns skeptics into believers at the 2^nd Annual Deposit Mastery Conference: Deposit Domination Deep Dive this June!  Register here. 

– Roxanne Emmerich

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

The post Stop Fishing in the Whole Lake and Reel in the Most Profitable Deposits with These 5 Steps [VIDEO] appeared first on The Emmerich Group.

So, how DO you stop competing on rates and start winning on value?

In this episode, I will show you how to attract low-cost deposits without matching your competitor’s exorbitant rates.

Picture yourself as a captain of a ship lost in the sea, trying to find the right direction to reach the shore. You could see other ships on the horizon, but they are all heading in different directions, and you’re unsure of which way to go. That’s how most banks feel when they’re trying to find low-cost deposits. They see their competitors attracting deposits but don’t know how to do it without matching their rates.

However, before we proceed, let’s address the roadblocks that prevent most banks from finding low-cost deposits:

Roadblock 1: The people and organizations with low-cost deposits rarely walk into your lobby, causing an endless cycle of high-cost deposits.

Roadblock 2: Being responsive, offering good customer service, and following up isn’t enough to compete when competitors offer unreasonable rates. They will always be willing to go out of business sooner than you are.

Roadblock 3: Even after spending half a million dollars on a “branding campaign,” most bankers have to admit that it didn’t work…at all. Customers still want you to match pricing.

Now, let’s use a compass to guide your ship towards the shore of success.

Here are four simple steps to inspire change in your team and attract the customers you want:

Step 1: Target the businesses with a high probability of maintaining large deposit balances. Use the psychographic and firmographic alignment process, just like using a compass to find the right direction.

Step 2: Build reputational equity with prospects before engaging in sales conversations, so they can’t wait to talk to you, just like building a sturdy ship that can withstand the stormy sea.

Step 3: Instead of selling, get the prospect to tell you about the exorbitant cost of not having the outcomes from your unique selling proposition (USP), which they can get ONLY from you, just like listening to the sound of the waves to know the sea’s depth.

Step 4: Position your bank as the trusted advisor and the only banker they will ever need by using your USP question to get the prospect to tell YOU how much more they’ll make when they switch all the deposits and other accounts to you, just like the captain trusts the compass to guide the ship to the shore.

When you take yourself out of the vendor role and position yourself as an expert, delivering far more value than the extra you charge, you win all the business and get paid what you’re worth, just like the captain who brings his ship safely to the shore.

Overcome the common roadblocks of finding low-cost deposits and improve your bank’s success in just four easy steps. Stay tuned for the next session to discuss how to use psychographics and firmographics to find your next best large non-interest-bearing deposit customers.

What if I told you that you can easily hold on to your best customers AND snatch the best customers from your competitors – WITHOUT even discussing rates?  Dive into the proven blueprint that turns skeptics into believers at the 2^nd Annual Deposit Mastery Conference: Deposit Domination Deep Dive this June!  Register here. 

– Roxanne Emmerich

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

The post Revolutionize Your Bank’s Deposit Strategy: 4 Proven Steps to Attract Deposits Without Competing on Rates [VIDEO] appeared first on The Emmerich Group.

When your customers and prospects view you as no different than the bank down the street, you create a situation where retaining customers and attracting new ones is beyond difficult.

The first reaction is to blame the customers. You’ve heard it at banking conventions before. Someone will complain, “Customers don’t care about relationships anymore. It’s all about rates and fees.”

That’s backward thinking.

Yes, it is all about rates and fees if you don’t give the customer any other good reason to use in making their decision.

Notice the change…

It’s up to you to provide them with a good reason to choose you.

I know you’re thinking, “But we do give them reasons to do business with us. When you come to our bank, we have a friendly, service-focused staff.”

That’s great, but it’s not any different than what every other bank is saying. If you want different pricing — premium pricing, you have to be delivering premium value far beyond what your competition does.

Never let the words, “We have good people” or “We have good service” be uttered by your people again as a reason for your premium pricing. You must be able to prove you are worth at least 150 basis points more on the loan side and at least 25 on the deposit side.

And that is the new game of banking.

The post The Antidote to Commodity Hell appeared first on The Emmerich Group.

The cause is much more profound.

It’s inside each of your lenders, and it may be inside of you. Frankly, it’s not your fault (or theirs). It’s unconscious and has been a limiting belief in the banking industry for at least 100 years (probably longer).

And don’t worry, if you’re frustrated with your margin, but feel you have to fight any way you can to keep the customers you have and get new ones, you’re not alone. In fact, you’re in the majority.

Look at what the majority of people are doing, and do the exact opposite, and you’ll probably never go wrong for as long as you live.” — Earl Nightengale

I’d like for you to reflect on that quote for a moment. Look around you. The majority of people are not wealthy. The majority of people are sub-par in terms of health. The majority of companies fail in the first five years. And, the majority of bankers are screaming about compressed margins.

Do What the Majority Does and Get What the Majority Gets.

Are you doing what the majority of banks are doing right now? Or are you doing the things that the most successful banks are doing? The top 5% of banks?

I’ve invested the last 25 years of my life working with Top 5% and getting them there within just a few years.

The Top 5% performing banks operate very differently than the bottom 95%. And the difference starts with what I’m about to share with you.

Frankly, I’m concerned that if I do share it, you won’t believe it. It may seem too simple. It may seem like something that’s difficult to change (although it’s not). You may think, sure, I can do it, but how will I ever get my lenders and the rest of my team to do it… I’ll show you how.

The Real Reason You Match Rates

The root of the problem causing an industry-wide crushing of net margins isn’t the competition. It isn’t the economy. It isn’t the Fed. It isn’t even the meetings in Basel.

No, the root of the problem is in the limiting beliefs in the minds of bankers in banks across the country.

You see, if you don’t believe you’re worth a premium rate, you won’t get a premium rate. If you don’t believe you’re worth a premium rate, your customer won’t believe it either.

It all starts with fixing the beliefs about you, your bank, what you’re selling, and why it’s valuable to people.

People will never create results that exceed their “world view.”

Yes, there are some new skills that you’ll need to get out of the net interest margin crunch, but none of those skills will help if you and your people don’t first change your limiting beliefs… and begin believing that you’re worth premium prices.

You’re probably thinking right now, “No, I want premium prices, but my loan is essentially the same as the next bank’s. Why would anyone pay more for the same thing?

You’re right. They shouldn’t have to pay more.

The trick is this… don’t offer them the same thing as the next bank. Offer them more value that far exceeds the substantial additional pricing you charge.

The post How to Attack the Root Cause of Net Interest Margin Compression appeared first on The Emmerich Group.

And consciously or unconsciously, every time you match rates to win business, you’re saying, “Our strategy is to be the lowest price bank in our market.”

If you’re going to go the low-price route, at least make a conscious decision to pursue that strategy rather than have it be the result of dozens or hundreds of little unconscious decisions to match rate. And do it with the understanding of history.

Consider the history of the low-price strategy in business.

Let’s start with Sears. You may not know this, but Sears was the Wal-Mart of the late 1800s and early 1900s. They pioneered a breakthrough direct to consumer mail-order distribution model. The Sears Catalog had everything you ever wanted or needed: housewares, clothing, agricultural supplies, tools, and even the house itself! And because of Sears’ scale and distribution advantage, they were able to negotiate price advantages and carry a greater variety than locally owned stores.

Then there was Montgomery-Ward…and F.W. Woolworth Company…more recently Kmart and of course… Wal-Mart.

Each of these companies expanded rapidly using a low-price strategy coupled with some other advantage that allowed them to sell at razor-thin margins.

The problem with the low-price strategy is simple…someone’s always crazy enough to undercut you. No matter how low you go.

And whatever operational advantage you create to allow you to grow on low margins, will sooner-or-later be knocked off by the competition. Then you’re toast.

And just in case you’re reading this thinking who could ever beat Wal-Mart, look quickly to Amazon. They can, they intend to, and they have the capacity to take down Wal-Mart.

Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s CEO, says he’s afraid for the longevity of Amazon…because he’s a student of history. Those who compete at the lowest price tend to be disrupted easily and taken down quickly.

So, what’s the point?

Simple…if these icons of American business can’t survive for the long-term on a low-price strategy, how is it that you expect to do it?

Low price is grounds for fast and predictable death. Plain and simple. It’s only a matter of time.

The #1 thing I want you to get from reading this is that the easiest way…the most reliable way…and the only proven way to survive and thrive in every economic environment is to follow a strategy of premium pricing.

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