Oxymoron: A combination of contradictory words
Jumbo Shrimp, Student Teacher, Blind Eye, and Alone Together. We define individual performance as the actions employees should take on a daily basis. If your actions don’t match up with your community bank’s expectations, then guess what? You might be an Oxymoronic Employee.
Warning: Oxymoronic activity can lead to shortened career life, difficult relationships with coworkers and the death of advocacy. Listed below are three types of Oxymoronic Employees we’ve seen over the years. In the coming weeks, we will also take a look at the Oxymoronic Manager and the Oxymoronic Leader, so stay tuned!
Great Non-Performer
You can’t be considered great and not perform at a high level. We recently shopped a few hundred community bank branches asking for their Money Market rate. About 80% of the employees gave us each of their tiered rates and that was the end of the call. They were in the order-taker mode. The other 20% asked how much we were investing. The answer: $120,000 and we went on to say that we would be using about $70,000 of that to buy or build a home, being that we were new to the area. With that information, about 5% of those employees began a conversation about mortgage loans.
Here’s the point. Being nice on the phone or saying you provide great service because you smile and call a customer by name is fine, but if that isn’t combined with conversation to uncover needs and opportunities, then you are not providing great service. In fact, you’re actually hurting the customer, the bank and yourself. Great Performers do the basics and at the same time they proactively help the customer. How many checking accounts have you cross-sold in the last 30 days? If you’re a loan officer you should be selling a primary checking account to new loan customers about 75% of the time. Ask yourself the question, “do I serve my customers well”? Now, look at your cross-selling activity. Does it match up with your answer? Are you even
tracking it?
Self-Centered Influencer
Relationships go two ways. There’s give and take. The lifeblood of the elite in community banking comes from advocates. What are advocates? They are the people who are singing your praises, your biggest fans and those who are sending you customers. Advocates are your relationship score. When people send you business they are letting you know what they think of you and your bank. However, advocates will be short-lived if you have a self-centered approach and never give back.
As a community banker, you should be a center of influence for your business customers. You should be the one giving life to their business by connecting your customers to their business. The most successful bankers do this on a consistent basis and their customers reward them for it by becoming their advocate. You can read all the self-help literature on getting referrals and you may see limited success, but it you’re not giving life then you’re never going to experience a true, profitable relationship with your customers.
Profitable Pirate
Bank pirates kill profits. Pirates destroy things around them and steal from others. We’ve classified an entire group of employees as Profit Pirates, based on their activities which cause destruction to an organization as well as loss of profit. Typically, up to 30% of a community bank’s staff is involved in Piracy. A recent survey shows that half of all U.S. workers are looking to leave their job or have “checked out”. Our employee engagement surveys confirm this. Still don’t think there’s a piracy problem? Have you seen or done any of the following recently?
- Complained openly in front of customers or fellow employees
- Never have enough time for change
- Arrive at the last second or late and then watch the clock for your time to leave
- Consistently come to work in a bad mood
- Verbalize your concerns about the integrity of other, more successful, employees
Profit Pirates have no place in community banking or in any business. Make them walk the plank and get them off your ship. If you’re lucky, they will join your competitor.
Community Banks and the Living Dead
If any of these three oxymorons described you, then you may be part of this bonus group we like to call, The Living Dead. You’re punching a time clock, you’re doing the basic job or close to it and you have already resigned yourself to a bleak and dying future in community banking. But there’s hope! The future is about building profitable relationships, being an engaged member of a quality team, and offering real value to your customers by helping them achieve their financial goals. If you take this approach to your banking career you future will be bright, profitable, and fulfilling. It’s up to you, do something about it.
