Your Brand Speaks Volumes – Who Does It Say That You Are?

Marketing To Do List:

☑ Update logo
☑ New, slick, promotional pieces
☑ Marketing campaign approved and ready to launch

But wait, there’s more. When it comes to branding and image, ask yourself:

• Does the campaign support your credit union vision? Mission?
• Is your message consistent?
• Will your member experience match your message?
• Have you let your credit union staff know about you’re about to launch?
• Are the employees trained on the essential skills? Up to date on the featured product or service?

Branding goes well beyond marketing. As Mark Arnold passionately puts it, “branding is more than just changing a few brochures or the look of a newsletter. Much more. A true comprehensive branding program takes years to develop and impacts the entire organization. Your credit union doesn’t just “do” branding one year and mark it off its “to do” list. Your credit union must “live” the brand every day.”

Mark Arnold is teaching a full day course this summer at Southwest CUNA Management School on Advanced Branding. Limited seats available to help you further explore and expand your knowledge about branding.

Building a Lasting Brand: Advanced Branding for Credit Unions
Mark Arnold, CCUE July 20 (8:30 am – 4:30 pm)

Mark speaks from first-hand experience when he covers:

• Maintaining Brand Consistency
• Lovemarks & Emotional Branding
• Gaining Staff Buy-In
• Brand Leadership in the 21st Century

Having led his credit union through a name change and ongoing branding efforts, Mark provides practical information on what to and not to do with your credit union’s brand.

If you’re looking to develop your team or enhance your skills, plan to spend July 20 (8:30 am - 4:30 pm) on the TCU campus (Lupton-Brown University Union) with Mark and the SCMS Class of 2011. Limited seating available on a day rate. For more details, visit www.scms.coop or contact Janine McBee, SCMS Synergist & Director.

You do not have to be an alumnus or have a student currently enrolled to take advantage of the opportunity to attend individual classes.

SCMS New Faculty On Board for Summer 2010 Session

Fresh faces are on board to join the Southwest CUNA Management School faculty team and challenge students forward:

· Matt Davis  (AKA "The Credit Union Warrior") partnered with Filene Research Institute, Matt joins Denise Gabel for the 1 1/2 days of Innovation classes with 2nd & 3rd year students.

· Julie Ferguson, JRF Consulting Services brings a wealth of credit union and business development background to Grad School.

· David Goldsmith, MetaMatrix Consulting Group, Inc., is about to have a book published on strategic planning. He’s the final class for 1st year students, charged with sending them out challenged and future focused.

· Mike Petrone, CFE, CFSA joins us from CUNA Mutual Group (CMG) for the 1st year Risk Management course. In 2002, Mike was honored with the 2nd annual Michael G. Hallinan Risk Management Choice Award.

· Shawn Temple (one of last year’s Award of Excellence recipients), Bossier FCU, joins the team to work with students on the project (a two-year strategic business plan) requirements.

· Amanda Vega,  Amanda Vega Consulting brings real world experience to help second year students make strategic decisions related to social media and their  credit unions.

 

For a complete faculty team and course listing, scholarship information (deadline this week), and school application, visit www.scms.coop.

Excitement mounts as registrations come in for this year's first year class. To give you an idea of what students looks like:

• They are coming from Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Texas and possibly Africa.

• They hold titles ranging from President, Manager, Director, COO, VP, Accounting, Business Services Representative, Branch Manager, to E-Branch Manager and more.

• The credit union asset sizes range from under $20 million to around $1 billion

• The students range in age from early 20's to 50's. They have 2 to 28 years service in credit unions, with 2 to 33 years in the financial services industry.

• Education backgrounds range from Masters Degrees to High School Grads.

Thank you Bossier FCU for enrolling three in the first year class and to numerous credit unions who continue to enroll credit unions year after year!

 

Lessons Learned Thru Twitter - Twitter, Customer Service and Good Brand Management

- Building the Business Case for 140 Precious Characters

Checking this morning's tweets, I came across @ConversationAge Twitter, Customer Service and Good Brand Management http://ow.ly/yz2H.

She got my attention and I followed her link. For those of you serious about brand management and customer service, I recommend spending some thought time reading Valeria Maltoni's post. She addresses how those 140 character twitter messages have the potential to directly impact your brand and can function as a customer service tool.

She gives great tools about how to track tweets about your company. Maltoni goes further, nothing that "online monitoring is broader than Twitter", as she mentions additional web monitoring sites.

Keep exploring and learning as online communication channels grow and develop. Join the conversation, develop the relationships, and keep positioning forward!

Tweet on my friends.

When Do You Brighten A Room?

The choice is yours. What attitude do you bring to the table? Are you and your team committed to serving your members/customers? Sometimes we all need a reminder...

 

Guest post by Curt Tueffert, Brick Wall Motivation

 

It has been said that there are two kinds of people, those who brighten a room when they enter it, and those who brighten a room when they leave. The question is; “Which one are you?”

 

People bring things into the room, into a conversation, into a meeting, into a connection with our members, vendors and fellow employees. Typically, they bring in an attitude. Attitude is usually the first thing that brightens a room on entering or exiting.

 

Have you ever been in a meeting where one of the attendees kills the flow with their facial expressions, body language or comments? They walk around like Tigger without his tail, like they just sucked on a lemon. There is a diagnosis for these types of people who brighten rooms when they leave; Emotionally Constipated! You know them; they roll their eyes at any and every positive message. Their sarcasm is cutting and hurtful beyond the light hearted words that are used for humor. The glass is always half empty. They have a world view of scarcity instead of abundance. They are quick with comments of what they cannot do instead of what they can do. If the diagnosis is emotional constipation what is cure? From this writer’s perspective, a good start is ATTITUDE.

 

Think about the meetings, the sales calls, the phone conversations with someone with a great attitude. It brightens the room when they enter the meeting, makes the sales call more engage, and builds a stronger connection on the phone. The best thing about attitudes is that they can change. The worst think about attitudes is that they can change. The good news is that we can have a powerful impact with the simple change of an attitude.

 

I Am Passionate About Member Service! Are you? Since we are all in the member service business, we have a choice. Are you passionate about it? Do you have an attitude that brightens a room when you discuss member service, or are you so emotionally constipated that just the mention of member service brings anger, resentment, bad experiences, and apathy?

 

Here is my secret to having a PMA (Positive Mental Attitude) about almost anything. It comes from a speech by Lee Iacocca when Chrysler was in tough times. He addressed the crowd and made the comment “Yesterday ended last night.” Meaning – it really does not matter what happened in the past, today is a new day and a chance to brighten another room, to impact someone with a great, fresh, powerful, positive attitude.

 

Do you have tips and tricks for keeping yourself and your team's attitude remain positive? Shout back and share your secrets.

How to Lead with LUV

When I fly Southwest Airlines I can't help but read Spirit Magazine. Even though it is wriiten for an airline, there have been times I actually bring the magazine home (and yes this is permitted). It was no surprise in the recent edition the message from Gary Kelly, CEO of Southwest Airlines, would be timely and at the forefront explaining Southwest's stance through the current economic crisis. Kelly's message parallels the credit union industry in many ways. Kelly states,

One of the sweet agonies of childhood was receiving a large gift of money from a relative. (At the time, $25 was a huge amount.) Like a typical kid, I would immediately begin calculating how many model car kits or (when I was older) eight-track cassettes I could buy. Of course, my parents had their own calculations: the compound interest the money would earn in a savings account. With hindsight, I see their wisdom, which was forged by the Great Depression.

While the country is in better shape than those dark days, we still are in the midst of what experts are calling the worst recession in the last 50 to 75 years. Some household names are already history, and by the time you read this, others may be. Still, in the midst of all this gloom, I feel very, very good about the Southwest Airlines brand and where it is headed.

Of course, no one knows the future, and I will be the first to tell you that no one could have predicted the unusual way this financial crisis erupted last fall. But I can tell you emphatically that Southwest Airlines was prepared for it—just like we were prepared to survive the aftermath of 9/11 and the first Gulf War in 1991. My parents knew that family finances would have their ups and downs, and companies are no different. One of the Cultural legacies that our Founder and Chairman Emeritus Herb Kelleher has given us is to manage during the good times so we can survive the bad times. And in our industry, bad times always come along—especially when you least expect them.

Sound familiar? Yes, the economy is in a bad place but lucklily the credit union industry as a whole is prepared to handle it. As a whole we are at 11% capitol and strong, safe, and prepared to serve our members.

To read Gary Kelly's entire message click on this link Managing for Bad Times

What do you think your credit union can learn from Southwest Airlines? Blog back and tell us!

Wow Service and Service Selling

When is the last time you remember receiving excellent service? When Rory Rowland asked this question at the Sabine Chapter meeting earlier in December not one person could think of a time when they received excellent service.  As unfortunate as that may be, this is not how you want your members to feel.  In this video Rory outlines what it takes to Wow your members and measure up to the goals you set. 

Check out the video below to see Rory in action.  Shout back at us with ways your credit union is working to provide the ultimate WOW experience.

Tear it Up!

Have you ever wondered what you could have done to improve your marketing efforts?  This unique session that gave participating cu employees that very chance.  Many people had the guts to bring a sample of their recent work and allowed a panel of three marketing experts to "tear it up" - in other words they offered tips on how each piece could be improved.  The award winning marketing executive and author, Mark Arnold facilitated the panel to ensure everyone walked away with improvement skills.

Check out the video below to see how the panel worked and what feedback was given.  Shout back with ways you are working with your credit union to improve future pieces!

Sales is NOT a Dirty Word

 

William Quinn at Callahan & Associates wrote a great guest article on Jeffry Pilcher's blog with some fascinating numbers and tables. To expand on these thoughts, it's important that credit unions begin to be open and accept and sales culture and environment.

What do you think when you hear the word sales?  Do you cringe and run away?  Do visions of schmuckish used car sales man dance in your head?

It’s time for a paradigm shift.  Take those visions and throw them away.

Start to embrace sales as a way of being and a chance to build relationships and friendships.  Through relationship selling, you can connect with your members on a much deeper and personal level to help provide products and services that will make their life better.  In turn, they will thank you for this and be more than willing to tell their friends making your member the ultimate marketing and sales resource.

However, you cannot do this with the “old school” way of selling.  Below are three tips to help you grow relationships and sell.

1. Cross Sell to Existing Members
You have members.  But do you have a relationship?  Sales is not a dirty word if you have a relationship.  Your members will thank you for being their financial consultant and helping make life better for them.  There is an opportunity to enhance relationships with existing members to provide them with additional products and services.  The relationship with a member may start with an auto loan, but if they are not getting a savings account, checking account, credit card or other product or service from you, they are getting it somewhere else.  They may not even know that you can provide this product or service to them.  Below is a breakdown of the “Average Penetration Among Credit Unions” for products and services provided to members (source Callahan & Associates on The Financial Brand).

Average Penetration Among Credit Unions	Percentage or #
Credit cards	14%
Share savings	46%
Number of accounts	2

 

Start to build a relationship with your members while educating them on how you can truly help them.  Don’t just meet a monthly quota. 

 

2. Sell and Market to Potential Members

As you grow relationships with existing customers, it is also important to connect with potential members within your community.  The table below shows how little market share credit unions have providing a huge opportunity for growth (source Callahan & Associates on The Financial Brand).

 

Credit Union Asset Size	Members vs. Potential Members
Over $1 billion	11.63%
$500 million - $1 billion	6.28%
$250–500 million	5.09%
$100–250 million	5.66%
$50–100 million	5.67%
Less than $50 million	7.58%
All U.S. credit unions	7.08%

 

Financial institutions are a commodity as there are banks on every corner in your neighborhood. What makes you different and stand out.  As turmoil continues to rock the banking world, customers are looking for a safe and secure place to put their money.  Do they know your there?  Credit unions have received so much positive press through many different channels including mainstream broadcast and print publications.  Capitalize on the current financial crisis and convert customers to members. 

 

3. Breed an Internal Sales Culture

You have employees. Train them.  Use them.  This can be your least expensive marketing channel if they know your CUs brand and product/service. However, everyone in your CU must have a member-service mindset.  Take time to invest in your employees and your investment will pay off in the long-term. Everyone must get involved.  From your member service representative, to the call center to the loan officers. If members have a positive experience “banking” at your credit union, they are more likely to do business with you again in the future plus tell their friends.  Your member has now become your most effective marketing channel but it started with a  trained employee providing a positive “banking” experience.

 

What Will You Do?

As you know, the market is primed.  You can use the above three thoughts for ways to help grow your credit union through relationship selling.  Now is the time to act and be proactive as opposed to being reactive.  How will you help your members?  Shout back and let us know.