Traditionally, at least, banking and golf go together like sweet tea and cornbread. And this week - for weekend duffers like me - marks golf’s high holy days. The Masters tournament begins today. Think of it, the coveted green jacket, the resplendent azaleas painted every color in God’s palate. Green grass my wife would kill for. Bobby Jones, Palmer, Nicklaus, Watson, … [Read more...]
Millennials ARE worth the effort for community banks.
Marketing executive Kevin Tynan dropped a startling bombshell in the bank marketing world earlier this year. In an article on his website, Tynan pointed to a recent Harris survey that said that big banks are winning the hearts, minds and bank accounts of two-thirds of millennials. Community banks, he argued, aren’t so lucky. In his last sentence, he dropped the bomb: “I say … [Read more...]
5 Bank Marketing Lessons From Collegiate Athletic Recruiting
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...]