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Help Understand: MVT Retention Rant

By Jack Hubbard, Chief Experience Officer

What industry doesn’t honor its best of the best? Oscars, Emmys, Tonys just to name a few. In 1910 Major League Baseball created a Most Valuable Player Award and now ball players build components into their contract to earn bonuses if they are fortunate to be selected by the writers and their peers as the league MVP. I’ve always been fascinated by awards of this nature. Sure, Peyton Manning was amazing for Indy last year but he would be the first to tell you that if Ryan Diem did not block well, Manning would have been on his back a goodly amount.

Maybe there’s an interesting distinction here. Manning is an MVP because he understands his role and how everyone else fits in. He gets everyone engaged in the play and shares accolades with his teammates. He pushes his entire team forward because he has the personal passion to perform well for them. Terrell Owens on the other hand, is all about Terrell. He would be classed a Star. Stars win games, MVPs help win championships.

So help me understand…what are you doing to retain your Peytons – your Most Valuable Talent?

Bankers are all free agents and every year about this time, head hunters fine tuning their data bases. They likely aren’t calling the third string sales person. They are calling your Peyton. You can’t stop the hunters from calling or the hunted from picking up the phone. Sure, non-competes and employee contracts can stop some of it, but I’ve never been a fan of those, and that’s a short term solution at best.

Why do your most talented leave? Perhaps one reason is they don’t feel they are getting the reinforcement from the culture or that the bank cares enough about them. Some managers believe that leaving the MVT alone to let them perform is a good idea. The MVT might believe that they don’t receive enough of the manager’s time which becomes a negative. Perhaps the culture puts too many success roadblocks in the way or perhaps the reward the MVT receives does not mirror the effort they put in to the position. Perhaps they and their manager have not discussed career pathing or the income potential is not there.

We invest a goodly amount to retain the top 20% of our client base. Why don’t we do more to retain our MVTs? Some banks have made strides in this area. One east coast bank has added Retention Specialists to their HR staff. The responsibility of these people is to make certain the top 20% stay on the rope year after year.

Don’t have a budget for Retention Specialists? How about, identify your MVTs and talk with them. Ask what drives them to come to the office every day. Then, create an environment that gets them to want to perform at their peak, day after day, year after year. Think the Colts have inserted some special incentives into Manning’s contract? For your MVT, how about hiring them a sales assistant? Providing this FTE might viewed as a cost. What’s it cost to replace the MVT – and their clients who likely will move with them?

What about paying for a summer vacation for the family, subsidize some of the college expenses for their kids, find a way to help them play their favorite golf course – even if its Augusta, contribute a goodly amount to their favorite charity, send them to a seminar (with their family) to a really cool place and give them a few extra days to chill. Make certain they are the first to be offered the opportunity for advanced education.

Clearly banking law and your policies enter into what you can and cannot do for the MVT. You certainly live with the consequences of your actions or lack thereof. Here’s a fact; we talk a lot in our industry about keeping our best clients. We should doing no less to retain our MVTs.

The Deposit Conundrum

By Charles B. Wendel

Key Message: Deposits provide the lifeblood of bank profitability. Given lower loan spreads, efficient deposit gathering is more important than ever. However, despite their importance and today’s volatile environment, most banks lack a well-conceived strategy for obtaining and retaining deposits. The net result: competitive share gains and higher costs.

The Deposit Squeeze

Over the past 18 months, many customers reached their tipping points concerning interest rates. When deposit interest rates were low, consumers and small companies often did not make the effort to move funds from demand deposit accounts and low interest investments to higher rate products. The inertia factor kept deposits where they were. That apathy has disappeared, replaced by a customer who is keenly aware of the upside move in rates and has clear expectations about gaining from them.

The Wall Street Journal recently featured an article on the impact of rising rates on banks, stating, “Americans are transferring their money into high-yielding bank accounts, a trend that is taking its toll on the nation’s regional banks…results will be hurt by rising rates.” In a similar vein, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. reported that demand deposit (DDA) growth declined by more than 4% from 2005-2006. Our client experience indicates that DDA growth continues to decline.

Various sources, from CNBC and Business Week to bank and non-bank competitors, have succeeded in communicating the rate rise to your customers. In some cases, players such as ING and banks wanting to build share use the offer of higher rates to steal share. Larger banks and Internet-only banks have been particularly aggressive in exploiting the rate changes. Over the past few months, major sales initiatives have centered on the high returns offered by sweep accounts; of course, “free” checking has now been sold aggressively for several years.

With new players or those wishing to gain share emphasizing “free” and high yields, established banks have some difficult options to choose from.

Option One: Cannibalize. Some banks have decided to retain deposits, seemingly, no matter the cost. They aggressively sell sweep accounts and other cash management products. The rates may be good for the customer, but, since they replace demand deposit or low interest accounts, they erode profitability. In fact, we have seen cases in which intra-bank struggles occur over this issue. For example, the cash management group may be promoting sweeps while the branch is trying to retain as many low cost deposits as possible: different incentives lead to different actions within the same bank.

Option Two: Don’t ask. Don’t tell. Some banks have decided to, in effect, keep quiet about the higher rate environment, hoping to preserve DDAs for as long as possible while also hoping that rates will decline. However, those banks that avoid actively moving good customers to higher rate deposits risk alienating them and losing the customer when more aggressive banks come to call or when the customer wakes up. Banks not actively approaching current customers with investment alternatives are relying on the customer being preoccupied, lazy, or stupid; not a good strategy for the type of relationship building that many banks emphasize.

One example: several years ago a small business we know had close to $1million in a demand deposit account with a major New York bank. One day a Merrill Lynch rep called offering a strong return on money that was currently earning zero interest. Given the brand name of Merrill and the rate, the bank lost the deposits and the relationship.

Neither of the two above options is tenable long term. Banks need to develop a “third way” that allows them to maximize their returns on deposits and continue to benefit from the funding subsidy that low cost deposits provide. At the same time, they need to be proactive with those relationship clients who are most liable to require high rates.

Maintaining the Deposit Franchise

How should banks determine their approach to deposits? How can they keep both their customers and bottom lines happy?

Consider the following:

1. Begin by assessing your deposit product set. Banks need to operate with a product set that includes both on and off balance sheet investment options. Perhaps unexpectedly, we often find that bank offer too many products rather than too few. Product proliferation occurs at many banks. The reasons include: a smart and aggressive product management group; insufficient communication between the line and the product group; and, lack of a deposit strategy to guide product development. Too many products confuse the customer as well as the bank’s sales and service staff and often introduce an unnecessary level of process complexity.

The solution: RBC Centura, a subsidiary of Toronto-based Royal Bank of Canada, reduced its deposit product types from twelve to four.

Snippets of This and That

Our review of Exceptional Selling by Jeff Thull will be seen in the September 2007 Conversation Signposts. We ran out of space this month.

While we’re not a marketing firm we try very hard to stay current with the issues and challenges faced by CMOs in our industry. Clearly marketing and sales have a strong symbiotic relationship; at least they should. Sales depends on marketing’s resources and marketing relies on sales to bring its brand message to quality conversations inside and outside the bank. We were recently privileged to have been featured in a major trade publication with an article that dealt with this issue. We call it Smarketing – Marketing and Sales Connected at the Experience. If you would like an enhanced version of that article, call 847-717-4328, leave your e-mail address on the voice mail and we’ll forward you a copy. As budgetary season approaches this practical look at how marketing and sales can serve as partners might be quite timely. Don’t want to call? Send an e-mail to: jhubbard@stmeyerandhubbard.com and we’ll send you the article.

We recently received an e-mail from a non-banker subscriber with the following comment. “Bankers seem so intent on giving away gifts for free checking accounts. I don’t need any more Smokey Joe cookers but my community could sure use…” We’re at the point in our family life where we’re getting rid of stuff so maybe I’m more sensitive to the comment but here’s the deal. Banks want more deposits and the community organizations could always use the help. What about the “Bank Back Checking Program.” Instead of giving me $50 in cash or a $50 gift card why doesn’t the bank send the $50 to my favorite charity in my name? Seems like a win-win. It must be too simple or there must be a law…

The HR Chally Group is always adding new things to its great line of services. Not only is Howard Stevens book, Achieve Sales Excellence an outstanding read, Chally has just launched a new Employee Turnover Cost Calculator. This free, interactive tool is available online. It quickly estimates costs resulting from associates leaving the bank. Using the sliders built into the Web page, anyone can quickly enter the six values needed to estimate how much turnover is costing their bank.

The answer is automatically calculated in real time, and appears inside the Calculator web page. Categories calculated include:

Total Separation Costs

Total Replacement Costs

Total Training Costs

Total Turnover Cost per Year

What you typically would save in turnover costs using Chally's predictive assessment system for talent selection and development

To access the Employee Turnover Cost Calculator go to www.chally.com or click on the link below.

www.chally.com/turnover_cost_calculator2.html

Welcome Joanne Krettek

Thanks to clients who continue to push us to develop new and better learning interventions we began a search to find a best-of-breed writer and developer to help support Holly Sansone our EVP/Development Director. We reached across Lake Michigan to the shores of Benton Harbor where we reconnected with Joanne Krettek. Like each of our first 19 associates, we knew Joanne from a previous life and when we discovered she was available, it was an easy decision to add her to our rope.

Joanne invested more than 10 years serving the clients and bankers of Chemical Bank – a Midland Michigan-based financial services firm. At Chemical, Joanne was Training Manager, HR Generalist and most recently, Vice President/Branch Administrator. Joanne graduated from Dominican University with an education certificate and is currently certified as a Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR).

Credentials are one thing. Heart is another. Joanne has both. Her expertise is clear to anyone that works with her. Her passion for her craft and her clients put Joanne in a class by herself and we are privileged to have her on our team.

We’ll be There

Here’s where SM&H associates will be presenting during the next two months.

September 2007

24 North Carolina Bankers Association, Retail Banking Conference Asheville, North Carolina

October 2007

22 American Banker’s Association, Commercial Lending School Dallas, Texas

23 American Banker’s Association, Graduation Commercial Lending School Dallas, Texas

29 Source Media, 12th Annual Small Business Banking Conference Chicago, Illinois

Register for Conversation Signposts

Bankers tell us the articles and ideas in Conversation Signposts make a difference. If someone else at your bank could benefit from Conversation Signposts, forward this edition to them and have them click on the hyperlink below to register: it’s FREE!

http://www.stmeyerandhubbard.com/signup.html

Allowing Us to Be an Approved Sender

In today’s security-conscious environment, many times our newsletter ends up as junk mail. To make sure you receive every issue, why not add newsletter@stmeyerandhubbard.com to your “approved sender” list?

		Help Understand: MVT Retention Rant By Jack Hubbard, Chief Experience Officer What industry doesn’t honor its best of the best? Oscars, Emmys, Tonys just to name a few. In 1910 Major League Baseball created a Most Valuable Player Award and now ball players build components into their contract to earn bonuses if they are fortunate to be selected by the writers and their peers as the league MVP. I’ve always been fascinated by awards of this nature. Sure, Peyton Manning was amazing for Indy last year but he would be the first to tell you that if Ryan Diem did not block well, Manning would have been on his back a goodly amount. Maybe there’s an interesting distinction here. Manning is an MVP because he understands his role and how everyone else fits in. He gets everyone engaged in the play and shares accolades with his teammates. He pushes his entire team forward because he has the personal passion to perform well for them. Terrell Owens on the other hand, is all about Terrell. He would be classed a Star. Stars win games, MVPs help win championships. So help me understand…what are you doing to retain your Peytons – your *Most Valuable Talent*? Bankers are all free agents and every year about this time, head hunters fine tuning their data bases. They likely aren’t calling the third string sales person. They are calling your Peyton. You can’t stop the hunters from calling or the hunted from picking up the phone. Sure, non-competes and employee contracts can stop some of it, but I’ve never been a fan of those, and that’s a short term solution at best. Why do your most talented leave? Perhaps one reason is they don’t feel they are getting the reinforcement from the culture or that the bank cares enough about them. Some managers believe that leaving the MVT alone to let them perform is a good idea. The MVT might believe that they don’t receive enough of the manager’s time which becomes a negative. Perhaps the culture puts too many success roadblocks in the way or perhaps the reward the MVT receives does not mirror the effort they put in to the position. Perhaps they and their manager have not discussed career pathing or the income potential is not there. We invest a goodly amount to retain the top 20% of our client base. Why don’t we do more to retain our MVTs? Some banks have made strides in this area. One east coast bank has added Retention Specialists to their HR staff. The responsibility of these people is to make certain the top 20% stay on the rope year after year. Don’t have a budget for Retention Specialists? How about, identify your MVTs and talk with them. Ask what drives them to come to the office every day. Then, create an environment that gets them to want to perform at their peak, day after day, year after year. Think the Colts have inserted some special incentives into Manning’s contract? For your MVT, how about hiring them a sales assistant? Providing this FTE might viewed as a cost. What’s it cost to replace the MVT – and their clients who likely will move with them? What about paying for a summer vacation for the family, subsidize some of the college expenses for their kids, find a way to help them play their favorite golf course – even if its Augusta, contribute a goodly amount to their favorite charity, send them to a seminar (with their family) to a really cool place and give them a few extra days to chill. Make certain they are the first to be offered the opportunity for advanced education. Clearly banking law and your policies enter into what you can and cannot do for the MVT. You certainly live with the consequences of your actions or lack thereof. Here’s a fact; we talk a lot in our industry about keeping our best clients. We should doing no less to retain our MVTs.








		The Deposit Conundrum By Charles B. Wendel Key Message: Deposits provide the lifeblood of bank profitability. Given lower loan spreads, efficient deposit gathering is more important than ever. However, despite their importance and today’s volatile environment, most banks lack a well-conceived strategy for obtaining and retaining deposits. The net result: competitive share gains and higher costs. The Deposit Squeeze Over the past 18 months, many customers reached their tipping points concerning interest rates. When deposit interest rates were low, consumers and small companies often did not make the effort to move funds from demand deposit accounts and low interest investments to higher rate products. The inertia factor kept deposits where they were. That apathy has disappeared, replaced by a customer who is keenly aware of the upside move in rates and has clear expectations about gaining from them. The Wall Street Journal recently featured an article on the impact of rising rates on banks, stating, “Americans are transferring their money into high-yielding bank accounts, a trend that is taking its toll on the nation’s regional banks…results will be hurt by rising rates.” In a similar vein, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. reported that demand deposit (DDA) growth declined by more than 4% from 2005-2006. Our client experience indicates that DDA growth continues to decline. Various sources, from CNBC and Business Week to bank and non-bank competitors, have succeeded in communicating the rate rise to your customers. In some cases, players such as ING and banks wanting to build share use the offer of higher rates to steal share. Larger banks and Internet-only banks have been particularly aggressive in exploiting the rate changes. Over the past few months, major sales initiatives have centered on the high returns offered by sweep accounts; of course, “free” checking has now been sold aggressively for several years. With new players or those wishing to gain share emphasizing “free” and high yields, established banks have some difficult options to choose from. Option One: Cannibalize. Some banks have decided to retain deposits, seemingly, no matter the cost. They aggressively sell sweep accounts and other cash management products. The rates may be good for the customer, but, since they replace demand deposit or low interest accounts, they erode profitability. In fact, we have seen cases in which intra-bank struggles occur over this issue. For example, the cash management group may be promoting sweeps while the branch is trying to retain as many low cost deposits as possible: different incentives lead to different actions within the same bank. Option Two: Don’t ask. Don’t tell. Some banks have decided to, in effect, keep quiet about the higher rate environment, hoping to preserve DDAs for as long as possible while also hoping that rates will decline. However, those banks that avoid actively moving good customers to higher rate deposits risk alienating them and losing the customer when more aggressive banks come to call or when the customer wakes up. Banks not actively approaching current customers with investment alternatives are relying on the customer being preoccupied, lazy, or stupid; not a good strategy for the type of relationship building that many banks emphasize. One example: several years ago a small business we know had close to $1million in a demand deposit account with a major New York bank. One day a Merrill Lynch rep called offering a strong return on money that was currently earning zero interest. Given the brand name of Merrill and the rate, the bank lost the deposits and the relationship. Neither of the two above options is tenable long term. Banks need to develop a “third way” that allows them to maximize their returns on deposits and continue to benefit from the funding subsidy that low cost deposits provide. At the same time, they need to be proactive with those relationship clients who are most liable to require high rates. Maintaining the Deposit Franchise How should banks determine their approach to deposits? How can they keep both their customers and bottom lines happy? Consider the following: 1. Begin by assessing your deposit product set. Banks need to operate with a product set that includes both on and off balance sheet investment options. Perhaps unexpectedly, we often find that bank offer too many products rather than too few. Product proliferation occurs at many banks. The reasons include: a smart and aggressive product management group; insufficient communication between the line and the product group; and, lack of a deposit strategy to guide product development. Too many products confuse the customer as well as the bank’s sales and service staff and often introduce an unnecessary level of process complexity. The solution: RBC Centura, a subsidiary of Toronto-based Royal Bank of Canada, reduced its deposit product types from twelve to four. Ultimately, banks should develop targeted product packages that cut across product lines and a wider range of customer requirements related both to deposits and loans. Selling multiple products to a customer, whether through developing formal packages or other means can provide a bank with relationship ”stickiness”, allowing a bank more flexibility in dealing with situations such as interest rate volatility. 2. Analyze the customer base. All customers are not equal (economically), meaning they do not provide equal profit to the bank. Higher rates should be offered to relationship customers with whom the bank has multi-product/service links. One bank we know will proactively offer higher rates to some customer groups while reactively responding to others. On the commercial side, this bank is more than willing to negotiate; in exchange for higher deposit rates the client might have to maintain more deposits or a certain level of loan outstandings at a reasonable rate for the bank. This bank leverages its strong relationship to avoid “folding” to customer pressure. In turn, those relationships are based in strong industry expertise and product knowledge. Their segmented approach differentiates them from others. “Vanilla” C&I lenders that offer no differentiating factor lack this opportunity. Further, banks are increasingly differentiating their deposit pricing by customer, geography, and delivery channel trying to better align the rate offered with the overall customer opportunity. 3. Emphasize the non-borrowing customer and prospect. Most small businesses and commercial customers are non-borrowers. However, banks often give this majority minor emphasis, with relationship managers and business banking officers concentrating their efforts on borrowing accounts. While we think that has always been a mistake, it is particularly inappropriate now, in the current rate environment. Conversely, some of the most successful banks in this market have long operated with a segmented focus on non-borrowers. Chase in the middle market has emphasized hedge funds and not-for profits, not only for lending purposes but to attract their deposits and investments. In another case, Citibank has long had a strong offer aimed at serving the escrow needs of law firms. Unfortunately, banks frequently say they serve the non-borrowing business as effectively as the borrower, but the reality differs from the assertion. 4. Establish a deposit-only sales force. We have worked with clients whose net deposit growth is close to zero percent, as deposits leave the bank as quickly as new customers arrive. Creating a deposit-focused sales force places clear emphasis on the deposit customer and takes deposit sales out of the realm of the day-to-day to give it significant emphasis. A deposit-only sales force (in effect, “hunters”) can concentrate with laser-like focus on this one area. However, management needs to know that selling deposits takes more effort than selling loans unless the bank is willing to pay up on rates. In addition, while the sales force may focus on deposit only opportunities, the reality is that gaining deposits will often require a quid pro quo related to the customer’s loan requests or operational needs. By the way, even if management rejects the deposit-only sales route, they need to ensure that the retail and business sales forces are calling aggressively and trained to ask the right questions to uncover needs around deposits. Many bankers do not make enough calls; others do not make enough quality calls; still others fail to follow up effectively on the leads they develop. The degree of your bank’s consistency and discipline in sales management merits review. At most banks, even the largest, consistency and discipline are rare. 5. Align incentives for deposit growth. Does your bank provide meaningful incentives for deposits growth? We have heard too many bankers say: “Our incentives under-weigh the value of deposits,” or “Commercial bankers are not dis-incented to do deposits, but they are incented to do loans.” Unless clear, simple incentives are in place to support a deposit effort, it will likely fail. Concluding Thought Virtually, every senior banker we speak states that the easy days for deposit generation are over. Banks that assess and refocus their deposit products, emphasize key target segments, and execute an effective sales strategy will dramatically outperform banks that continue to conduct business as usual. “Business as usual” will result in increased deposit leakage, customer dissatisfaction, and an unsustainable competitive position. Charles Wendel is President of Financial Institutions Consulting, Inc. in Ridgefield, Connecticut. FIC has great expertise in the business banking and middle market arenas. Its focus is consulting around infrastructure and strategies as well as advice for executive management in the areas of product, pricing, distribution and process. FIC publishes a free twice monthly newsletter that is practical and rich in thought-provoking ideas. Charles can be reached at cwendel@ficinc.com or 212-252-6701. We are honored that Charles created this article specifically for our Conversation Signposts readers.

		Snippets of This and That Our review of Exceptional Selling by Jeff Thull will be seen in the September 2007 Conversation Signposts. We ran out of space this month. While we’re not a marketing firm we try very hard to stay current with the issues and challenges faced by CMOs in our industry. Clearly marketing and sales have a strong symbiotic relationship; at least they should. Sales depends on marketing’s resources and marketing relies on sales to bring its brand message to quality conversations inside and outside the bank. We were recently privileged to have been featured in a major trade publication with an article that dealt with this issue. We call it Smarketing – Marketing and Sales Connected at the Experience. If you would like an enhanced version of that article, call 847-717-4328, leave your e-mail address on the voice mail and we’ll forward you a copy. As budgetary season approaches this practical look at how marketing and sales can serve as partners might be quite timely. Don’t want to call? Send an e-mail to: jhubbard@stmeyerandhubbard.com and we’ll send you the article. We recently received an e-mail from a non-banker subscriber with the following comment. “Bankers seem so intent on giving away gifts for free checking accounts. I don’t need any more Smokey Joe cookers but my community could sure use…” We’re at the point in our family life where we’re getting rid of stuff so maybe I’m more sensitive to the comment but here’s the deal. Banks want more deposits and the community organizations could always use the help. What about the “Bank Back Checking Program.” Instead of giving me $50 in cash or a $50 gift card why doesn’t the bank send the $50 to my favorite charity in my name? Seems like a win-win. It must be too simple or there must be a law… The HR Chally Group is always adding new things to its great line of services. Not only is Howard Stevens book, Achieve Sales Excellence an outstanding read, Chally has just launched a new Employee Turnover Cost Calculator. This free, interactive tool is available online. It quickly estimates costs resulting from associates leaving the bank. Using the sliders built into the Web page, anyone can quickly enter the six values needed to estimate how much turnover is costing their bank. The answer is automatically calculated in real time, and appears inside the Calculator web page. Categories calculated include: Total Separation Costs Total Replacement Costs Total Training Costs Total Turnover Cost per Year What you typically would save in turnover costs using Chally's predictive assessment system for talent selection and development To access the Employee Turnover Cost Calculator go to www.chally.com or click on the link below. www.chally.com/turnover_cost_calculator2.html

		Welcome Joanne Krettek Thanks to clients who continue to push us to develop new and better learning interventions we began a search to find a best-of-breed writer and developer to help support Holly Sansone our EVP/Development Director. We reached across Lake Michigan to the shores of Benton Harbor where we reconnected with Joanne Krettek. Like each of our first 19 associates, we knew Joanne from a previous life and when we discovered she was available, it was an easy decision to add her to our rope. Joanne invested more than 10 years serving the clients and bankers of Chemical Bank – a Midland Michigan-based financial services firm. At Chemical, Joanne was Training Manager, HR Generalist and most recently, Vice President/Branch Administrator. Joanne graduated from Dominican University with an education certificate and is currently certified as a Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR). Credentials are one thing. Heart is another. Joanne has both. Her expertise is clear to anyone that works with her. Her passion for her craft and her clients put Joanne in a class by herself and we are privileged to have her on our team.

		We’ll be There Here’s where SM&H associates will be presenting during the next two months. September 2007 24 North Carolina Bankers Association, Retail Banking Conference Asheville, North Carolina October 2007 22 American Banker’s Association, Commercial Lending School Dallas, Texas 23 American Banker’s Association, Graduation Commercial Lending School Dallas, Texas 29 Source Media, 12th Annual Small Business Banking Conference Chicago, Illinois

		Register for Conversation Signposts Bankers tell us the articles and ideas in Conversation Signposts make a difference. If someone else at your bank could benefit from Conversation Signposts, forward this edition to them and have them click on the hyperlink below to register: it’s FREE! http://www.stmeyerandhubbard.com/signup.html Allowing Us to Be an Approved Sender In today’s security-conscious environment, many times our newsletter ends up as junk mail. To make sure you receive every issue, why not add newsletter@stmeyerandhubbard.com to your “approved sender” list?