CU Grow in Galveston for TCUL Marketing and B-Dev Conference

Surfs up from Galveston this week! 

We will be there this week for the Texas Credit Union League's Marketing and Business Development Conference. Plus we also look forward to helping "Give Galveston a Hand". 

Check back to your credit union blog as we are always posting fresh content and video interviews from the conferences we attend.  Hope to see you in Galveston for some fun in the sun. 

Credit Union Man is back. Watch his video below. 

We're Going Green and Going to San Antonio

We are kicking off the fall credit union conference season after leading a few sessions at the Southwest CUNA Management School this summer. First up on the agenda is the Texas Credit Union League Leadership Confernce. 

I will be leading three breakout sessions there in addition to @mrjlay and @acm1985 helping out and doing the whole CU GROW video interview thing with speakers.  Just as we have done in the past for other conferences (TCUL Annual Meeting and Net.Finance), we have put together a fun little video starring "Credit Union Man" for your viewing pleasure below. 

Be sure to get the RSS feed in your reader and check back soon as we will be posting videos from the conference.  We will be in New Jersey for their 75th Credit Union Annual Meeting in about two weeks.

Also, be sure to follow all of us on Twitter (@jrwlay, @mrjlay and @acm1985) as we will be live tweeting the conference and breakout sessions.  Don't hesitate to get involved and shout out your thoughts, ideas and questions to us to interact with the session.

Together, we can do great things through innovation, communication and collaboration. 

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!

It's Time to Come Together, It's Time to Ramp Up "People Helping People"

Gathering together to support each other is even more important in hard times. Looking back, the companies that emerged from the Great Depression stronger and earlier than the competition had this in common: Looking to the future, workers bonded together around a common, well-articulated mission. Meetings are how this is done, and how business is done. It’s how economies are stimulated, and how employees and business partners are motivated to create positive results. For the complete white paper, check out tbaglobal.com's  The Value of Meetings. (Thank you for IAEE for highlighting this.)

Times are serious and business operations are changing. As prudent leaders, strategically managing your ROI is critical. The National Environmental Health Association has posted a list of questions to help you asses the value of a meeting for yourself and your credit union. Here are a few of them:

For the conferences [events] that you are considering attending:

1. Will it be beneficial for you to meet some of the people who will be attending the meeting?

2. Can you imagine: “crucial conversations," which you would want to be a part of even if only to listen, taking place at this meeting?

4. Is high-level interaction available to you at this meeting, and would it be beneficial to you to have such an experience?

5. Is the education available at the conference relevant to your work responsibilities?

6. Could this education enable you to do your job better and/or more cost effectively?

10. Would some of the conference offerings enable you to return to your workplace as an effective change agent?

12. Does the meeting take time to recognize its leaders and achievers with awards so that you might better understand what excellence in your line of work looks like?

14. Does the conference provide important updates on where the profession is? 

When dollars get tight, organizations typically head straight to marketing and training as they start slashing budgets. Though tempting, it's important to look out on the horizon and keep positioning your credit union forward. As a credit union movement built on the philosophy of “people helping people”, we need to continue to practice what we preach.

One new concept might prove priceless for your credit union. Gather together locally and at conferences and seminars to:

·         Share and learn from each other, speakers and vendors.

·         Collaborate to solve problems, creating synergy with innovative solutions.

·         Look for those ideas, processes, and strategic alliances to help you make your credit union more efficient and/or provide better products and services. You owe it to your member/owners and your staff.

·         Stay engaged and help strategically position credit unions forward.

Get creative when it comes to marketing to maximize your results. There has never been a better time to shout out the credit union story.

With the season for Association and League annual meetings starting, make the decision to attend. Arrive prepared to make a difference. Plan to both speak and listen. As challenging as these times are, they are also exciting. Don’t let this moment in time pass you buy as you quietly sit on the sidelines.