Implementing a CRM system in a bank can have tremendous value, but it is also incredibly hard to get it right. Charlie and Andy will share some first hand experience in what worked and what didn't, and more importantly, what they wish they had known when they started.
Almost every community bank in the country claims to differentiate themselves through superior customer service. How do you define customer service? More importantly, how do we actually go about providing it instead of just talking about it?
This week, Jessica Stone joins Dallas Wells in discussing the overarching concept of customer service and also the specifics of customer service in the banking world.
McKinsey's study of the S&P 1500 companies that found a 1% improvement in pricing would generate an 8% improvement in operating profits is something that we love to share. What we hear more often is how banks are focused on cutting costs. Cost cutting is seemingly always the first club out of the bag, but why?
If your bank has a commercial loan portfolio of $500 million, a 1% improvement in pricing translats to 4 basis points, which is $200k per year on that portfolio. A commercial loan book usually turns over quickly, meaning you can get to those results faster than in banking than other industries. For this fictional bank, it would take less than 20 months to hit that number.
In this episode Dallas Wells and Al Pacino talk about the game of inches, and why it's those inches that make all the difference.
Dallas Wells talks about the 3 biggest problems he sees while working with banks trying to take their lending to the next level.
Who are the Mad Men characters in the stereotypical bank? In this light-hearted Labor Day special, we'll poke some fun at the stodgy "old boys' club that still runs a lot of banks, and to point out how they are being left behind by the new way of thinking.
A disclaimer, and that is that I am much more of a banker than a techie. I'll be explaining this in layman's terms, but that is mostly because those are the only terms I have for it. I work at a software company, but the only code I've ever written was a couple of very buggy macros for Excel. So instead of the techie angle, I am tackling this issue from the business perspective, which is generally where bankers are coming from.
We think of pricing as your steering wheel for the bank.
It should be the mechanism by which you are guiding production onto the books, but a lot of times it just doesn't feel that intentional.
The car itself is doesn't feel attached to that steering mechanism. The lenders are just going about their business pricing deals the way they've always priced them, or they're coming in after the fact and putting in the terms that they've already promised into the pricing system and then we're giving them a report card on how well they did in that pricing discussion, or often how bad poorly they did.
There's a better way.
As we've asked bankers about topics and ideas that we should be covering with these podcasts, there is one answer that is almost universal, and that is HELP US WITH SALES. Every bank out there is thinking about growth, and loan growth specifically. Even those that are hitting their numbers have to work really hard to get there. Banking is a highly regulated and seemingly commoditized business, so those that win have to do so with a purposeful and well executed sale strategy. So, to that end, we've talked about business development, we've talked about building relationships, and today we are going to talk about managing a pipeline.
Today, we're going to take a little bit different approach. PrecisionLender has a customer success team, which happens to be where my role fits. Our job is a little more low-tech. Specifically, we spend big chunks of every day on the phone with lenders. Those conversations cut a wide swath, as they range from talking big picture strategy with management teams to talking through the mechanics of individual deals. But, a recurring theme is looking for ways that banks, especially lenders, can build stronger relationships with customers. Obviously ours is often pricing focused, around what we call "weaponizing the math" to find a workable deal that is hand crafted for a borrower. But, we also hear a lot of tips of the trade, which is our topic for today: we're going to talk about some specifics on building stronger relationships.
High-performing banks are making significant investments in integrated systems that push the focus upstream, toward the lender-borrower relationship.
Integrating your bank’s pricing with leading CRM systems (e.g. Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics, etc.) create richer opportunities for lenders and allow comprehensive reporting for management. This significantly increases the “R” in your ROI for each one of those systems.
This week, we’ve stolen one of the PrecisionLender Development podcasts (from May, 2015) that talks about how we think about integrating our specific solution with Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics.
In this episode, we'll be talking about what we're learning from looking at the data from the $11 billion dollars in loans and deposits that go through the PrecisionLender system each month. What do the numbers tell us? What intuitive conclusions were wrong, and which were dead on? To help answer those questions, I'm joined today by Laura Jackson. Laura is the PrecisionLender Data Scientist in residence and has been charged with the very broad task of figuring out what the data is trying to say.
One of the overwhelming trends in banking that lenders have had to deal with over the last several years is the mass exodus away from variable rate financing.
With rates at generational lows across the globe, any borrower worth his salt is asking for (and getting) long term, fixed rate deals.
In order to compete, lenders have had to stretch beyond the typical comfort zone at many banks. With that stretch comes the next obvious question. How the heck do we hedge some of this risk so that we can keep booking deals without putting our balance sheet in a really ugly position?
Because PrecisionLender watches about $10 billion in loans and deposits flow through our pricing solution, we get to see a lot of great things.
Starting today, we want to start sharing some of that aggregated data with you and what it means.
Relationship pricing is one of those terms that almost every bank we talk to throws around a lot. When John Tull says it, he means how they holistically evaluate customer relationships. They look at both the opportunities that is in front of them in terms of a potential opportunity as well as the existing relationship that have with a customer currently at the bank.
Even if you don't have fancy software to make the process easier, lenders can "act like quarterbacks" by better preparing for negotiations. It's not always about rate, so being willing to think about some of the other variables (rate type, term, collateral, etc) will help lenders add real value for their borrowers.
Joel Rosenberg talks through the benefits and the things to watch out for with SBA loans, including when to sell them.
Providing value to your borrowers is largely driven by your expertise in matching the right financing structure to specific business needs. Join us as we discuss the current rate structure and yield curve, as well as the ability to discuss it intelligently at the knowledge level of the borrower.
This episode we're going to be talking about growing loans in a small market, and some of the challenges that go along with that. To help us find the answers, I'm joined by Eric Judd. Eric is the Senior Loan Officer at West Plains Bank & Trust in West Plains, MO.
You have Chief Officers for everything under the sun, but you probably don't have a Chief Pricing Officer who is tasked with making sure that your bank is doing everything it can to price your loans in a way to insure profitability and accelerate growth.
Dallas Wells makes the case for a Chief Pricing Officer.
Trent Tomlin, President at Tomlin Advisory Group, provides strategic planning, financial advisory and growth implementation strategies and modeling for entrepreneurs.
He also has been a very successful commercial lender. Trent offers us an unvarnished peak into the mind of a professional who sits on the other side of the table now.
If you've ever wondered what the person was thinking about you as you shook their hand before they left, don't miss this episode!
Can lenders really use social media for business development? Is it really worth all of the extra time and effort it takes to “do it right” and engage on things like Facebook, twitter, or LinkedIn?
Jill Castilla, President & CEO at Citizens Bank of Edmond (Edmond, OK) joins me in this episode to talk about how she has actively used social media as an integral part of the turnaround story and now growth at her bank.
Jeff Marsico, EVP of Bank Strategy, Profitability, and Mergers/Acquisitions at The Kafafian Group, Inc joins me this week to talk about all the data you have access to, and how to decide which is actually valuable.
Dallas Wells talks with Carl Ryden about how lenders can out maneuver their competion every single time.
Brett McDowell is an Executive Vice-President at Centennial Bank in Lubbock, Texas.
As a young, smart and ambitious lender, Brett needed to figure out how to get his older peers in the bank to take him seriously and ultimately follow his lead.
In this 15 minute podcast, I speak to Brett about how he managed to accomplish that feat, what he thought of Banking School and other hurdles younger lenders have to struggle with.
Carl Ryden. co-founder and CEO at PrecisionLender, spoke at the Data4Decision conference in Raleigh on March 26, 2014 about how to ask the right question about the mountain of data in front of you.
Not all data is useful, in fact, much of it is useless and looking at it means nothing. There are a few simple steps you can take to make sure you're not wasting your time.
You can follow along with the slideshow by opening http://www.slideshare.net/precisionlender/whats-are-you-going-to-change-monday-morning