As some of you may know, I played college football in the rough-and-tumble Southeastern Conference. In my part of the world, there are three sports seasons – football season, spring practice and recruiting season. If you don’t see a connection between college football and the world of banking, think again. Both are big-money concerns. And college football is such a part of … [Read more...]
Don’t worry about training your staff and having them leave – worry about not training them and having them stay
I’ve written before about the need for financial institutions to train their sales associates. The reason is this: most banks and credit unions have never had to worry about selling anything. They opened a branch and people just walked in and opened an account. But as we all know, those days are over. Today, even people who have bank accounts are starting to use … [Read more...]
Bananas, Baking Soda and Bank Marketing
What do bananas and baking soda have to do with bank marketing? I thought you would never ask. Let’s start with the bananas… If I were to hold up a bunch of bananas and asked an audience what they were, most would probably agree they were bananas. But if I held up a green banana and asked the same audience how many would buy this particular banana, less than half would raise … [Read more...]
“Turn your radio on . . .”
What started as a Pennsylvania bank’s blog transformed with the twist of a dial. We like blogs. You wouldn’t be reading this if we didn’t. But something caught our attention that’s worth sharing. It’s the story of how the idea for a blog became a radio show. And while the jury is still out on how much bounce Fidelity Deposit and Discount Bank in Dunmore, Pa., will get from … [Read more...]
Will smartphones replace smart bankers?
A check arrives in the mail. Your customer, still in his/her pajamas and down with the flu, needs to deposit those funds. Thanks to smartphone technology and Check 21 legislation, the ailing client can get that done with ease and has been legally able to do so for more than a decade. But this relatively recent technological advance begs a critical question for the future of … [Read more...]