Tidy Up Your Bank or Credit Union Strategy

Clutter piles up over time…and it’s easy to get used to junk laying around everywhere. That’s why spring cleaning is so important. You get to look around your home with fresh eyes and remove the debris choking up an otherwise pleasant space.

Junk piles up at your community financial institution too. And like with your home, it’s easy to get used to the clutter (even if it’s hurting your business).?

Conduct a spring cleaning of your community bank or credit union strategy this year. Target these areas in particular:

• Shiny Objects
• Gargantuan Business/Marketing Plans
• Crummy Cultures

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Eliminate Shiny Objects

Some community financial institutions tend to make a solid strategic plan before adding new “priorities” to it halfway through the year. “Priorities” is in quotation marks because it’s hard to determine what’s most important if something new crops up all the time.

Yes, it’s the infamous “shiny object syndrome.” And if you suffer from it, you aren’t alone. Nine out of ten business leaders suffer from it at some point in their careers.

Luckily, there are tried and true methods to sweep away the shiny objects and clear the way for productive community bank and credit union strategy. Here are a few:

• Become an Occasional Recluse – You most likely hear about new trends and technologies via industry press or newsletters. Take some time each week (even if only 30 minutes) to shut off the news, phone or email and recenter yourself on the most important goals for your institution. Returning to the true priorities on a regular basis toughens you against shiny objects.?
• Find Your Buddy – Leadership can be a lonely role. Search your team and find someone you trust to steer you aright. Bring your new “priority” to your buddy and run it by them. They will tell you whether it’s a good or bad idea.
• Have a Cryo-Plan – What does this mean? It means your plan is cryogenically frozen. It’s a block of ice. Once you decide on your priorities, those are the priorities. They cannot change. You cannot add new ones. Essentially, your vaccinating your strategic plan against shiny objects.

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Cut Down Gargantuan Business/Marketing Plans

How long is your community financial institution’s business or marketing plan? I’ve heard of ones as long as 180 pages, which is a ton!

Clarity and concision are more important than lengthy explanations. Those from the boardroom to the breakroom must understand your community bank or credit union strategy. Otherwise, it’s not going to achieve results.

As Patrick Lencioni says:

“If you could get all the people in the organization rowing in the same direction, you could dominate any industry, in any market, against any competition, at any time.”

A long business plan looks impressive but won’t direct everyone on how to row the boat in the same direction.

If you want a truly useful business plan, it must be a manageable read. Entrepreneur recommends business plans be 20 to 40 pages long. Longer than 40 is too wordy. Your marketing plan should be shorter than that and should ideally fit within the business plan.

Here are some quick tips to start cleaning up your business plan now:?

• Cut the copy – It’s true for your marketing and your business plan. People skim; they don’t read. Keep things short, simple and to the point.
• Use visuals – A picture is worth a thousand words. Summing up relevant data in images is a quick way to show readers what’s happening without lengthening the plan.
• Reduce your goals - A long plan likely means you set too many goals at your planning session. Aim for three-to-five goals rather than ten-to-fifteen.

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Clean Out a Crummy Culture

Culture eats strategy for breakfast. Your community bank or credit union strategy might be wonderful, but a nasty institutional culture creates conditions that compromise its execution.

A bad culture can look several ways:?

• Lower-level staff see no point to your vision and work carelessly
• Managers drive results with a stick (and only a stick)
• The team obsesses over organizational politics
• Upper-level leaders don’t buy into the strategy
• Everyone avoids conflict out of fear of their coworkers

Your leadership team can have a bad culture all its own. Executives can pass the buck. Leaders excessively “own” their departments at the expense of transparency to each other. Watch this old Oracle commercial to see a visual representation of what I mean…

Foster an environment that inspires people to execute your strategy. Promote healthy conflict and use the “Team One” technique. “Team One” means your executives put the leadership team over their departments. This breaks down silos and creates health at the top.

From there, good organizational health travels downward. Once your leadership team is in order, you can clean up your culture room-by-room if you must.

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Hire Some Expert Cleaners

Some messes require more work than you can devote to them right now. On The Mark Strategies enters those situations and solves for any strategy, branding, marketing or training spills you can’t clean up.

Listen to what Melanie Kennedy, CEO of Southwest Financial FCU, had to say about a partnership with On The Mark Strategies:

Book a free consultation today!

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