Are Fox(es) Watching Your Bank Hen House?

We’re all familiar with the old adage,“ Don’t put a fox in charge of the Hen House”! We’d all agree that doing that is a very bad idea. And yet, since the dawn of the new oppressive banking regulations era 6 or 7 years ago, I’ve observed that bank after bank across the country is doing exactly that. This leads to sleepless nights, and daily scratching of CEO and Board of Directors heads wondering why their bank’s earnings and growth continue to suffer!

Well, here’s the bad news: There is more than one fox that may be sitting and gazing at your bank, salivating! The good news is that these foxes can be eradicated if we recognize them, and have the guts and fortitude to do something about them. Today I’m going to briefly overview just one fox, and in future discussions we’ll overview some of their fox siblings and cousins.  

The first fox for many of you: Your almost paranoid emphasis on compliance. Should you stay on top of compliance? Absolutely! Should it become the CEO of your CEO and board emphasis? Absolutely not!!! Never forget that every bank, large or small, local or spread across the nation, should first focus on the two “P’s“: Performance and Perception. If your bank is so focused on compliance that your compliance focus interferes significantly with your bank’s Performance, you have a problem! In many banks today, the bank CEO has effectively allowed the bank’s compliance officer to become the bank’s CEO in critical areas. This affects your bank’s Performance, and your diminishing Performance affects you, your board, AND your customers. Now you have a second problem: Your Performance drop  negatively affects your market Perception.  And your bad Perception then further affects your bank Performance. It’s a Catch 22 which you must avoid, or get out of, as quickly as you can!!!

Compliance emphasis. Where does it fit in your bank? That’s something you really need to focus on so you can develop the emphasis that is specifically right for your bank. For one bank  that I’m very familiar with, the emphasis has been on making a large volume of quality loans to carefully selected key markets, and on controlling bank wide expenses. The result has been that they are the best earnings on assets bank in their state, and resultantly face less regulatory interference than most banks face. Compliance emphasis. It’s a “One size does not fit all” situation. Compliance. You can’t take it or leave it. You can control your focus and exercise more control over your bank operating results! It’s up to your bank to set the course. Every bank has likenesses, and every bank is as individual as a fingerprint. Get the help you need from whomever you need, but get it as soon as possible.

The next blog from Early & Company: Another fox watching the Hen House.

When Common Sense Should Prevail

I recently spent a couple of days in the hospital. Nothing serious…just needed a small tune-up. One of the things I’ve really focused on in recent years is the simple act of observation. Not so much on observing things and beautiful scenery, although I do try to do that, but on observing people.

So as I tuned and turned the volume up on my listening rod those couple of days, I observed that many patients had not figured out one simple hospital fact: Be VERY nice to the nurses and techs! Don’t worry so much about the doctors who come around sporadically. They are important, but the nurses and techs are the ones who do the heavy lifting with patient care and service 24/7. They are often the unrecognized heroines and heros  of our society!!! Show and tell them you genuinely appreciate everything they do, and the great care they give. Three interesting things happen when you do: THEY feel better, you get even BETTER service from them, and YOU feel better when you’ve made THEM feel better! It’s definitely WIN, WIN, WIN.

How does this apply to banking? Well, even more than your board and senior management group, your staff, from the newest to the most veteran contact and non-contact staffers all across your bank, is the group that is really your nurses and tech group. They take care of easy customer situations, difficult customer situations, winey customer situations, appreciative and unappreciative customer situations, happy and unhappy customers, and on and on. They provide your customers with the service they want and need to remain customers, and as a result of doing that, they put food on your table, and a roof over your head. What a group! Are they special? Absolutely! Should you show and tell them you appreciate them? At every opportunity, and minus an opportunity, create one! They’ll be happier, your customers will get the service they want to be happy, and you’ll be happier too! It’s WIN, WIN, WIN for sure!

The “ Why “ and “ How “ of Making Out- of- the- Bank Sales Calls:

In this blog, I’ll make a few brief overview comments on the “Why”. In Early & Company’s  in- your- own- bank training, we cover the “why“ and “how“ in depth. Here goes:

A fact: Most people don’t like to sell anything! Why? There are many reasons, but here are three very common ones: 1) So many amateur sales people have pestered us selling cars,  insurance, investments, retirement programs, et, etc, that we mentally see sales people at the bottom of our social structure, 2) We’re not sure we can answer all the questions which might be asked, and 3) We don’t like the possibility, even the thought of, rejection.

As a group, bankers, in particular, don’t like to sell! Why? Well, again, from among many reasons , here are three very common reasons : 1) For the reasons given in the paragraph above, and because we have not viewed ourselves as being in sales. Often we’re evaluated by our supervisors on everything else, i.e. Loan Quality, Balancing Our Windows, etc, etc., 2) Until recent years, we haven’t really had to sell. But here’s the good news: Competition for banking customers is more competitive now than it has ever been, and here’s the bad news: It is going to get worse! 3) And the granddaddy of all the reasons given by us bankers for not making sales calls, We THINK we don’t have time because we’re so busy!

From this point in our training, we address the subject of “ What sales IS NOT and what sales IS”, then move on to the meat of the training on the “ How “ to decide upon who to call on,  Making the Effective Sales Call , Overcoming Resistance, and “ How To KEEP the Customers We’ve Attracted “.