Conversation Signposts - September 2006

October Preview: Value Integration Prospecting–The VIP Approach to Reaching Pre-Clients

We get many questions from bankers about the most effective ways to prospect. Do cold calls work any more? Is building a COI network worth the effort? What company should I buy my lists from? In the October edition of Conversation Signposts, we begin a three-part series following one bank in its effort to execute on a systematic and value-focused method of reaching pre-clients. In part one, we explore the strategic markets this bank was attempting to penetrate, how it planned to source opportunities, and the training their people experienced. Don’t miss this one.

Baker Hill Client Summit: Best of the Best

For nearly 15 years, Baker Hill has been exceeding the technology needs of financial services clients. In 2006 Experian purchased Baker Hill. The Experian resources add to an already best-in-breed cadre of operations, lending, and sales-related tools. Recently, Baker Hill hosted its annual Solutions Summit in San Antonio. Nearly 275 bankers attended the program, representing 150 banks–the greatest turnout ever. Bob St. Meyer & Jack Hubbard met Prince Varma, Practice Manager and one of Baker Hill’s Senior Consultants, over 10 years ago. If you are looking for someone to help with the many nuances of CRM, ERM, SFA, and lots of other initials, Prince is your guy.

36 education sessions were held at the Summit. Here’s a recap of the top four:

The Customer Experience in the New Millennium
Eight Steps to Better Loan Pricing
The Future of the Commercial Desktop
Industry Intelligence and the Relationship Management Process

The Customer Experience in the New Millennium

By Ted Olson, Business Development Manager
US Banking Service, Microsoft Financial Services

The banking industry has migrated from the service economy to the experience economy. The customer experience differentiates the brand.

Jet Blue Airways and Starbucks have become masters in operating within the experience economy. Consequently, Jet Blue has had 16 consecutive profitable quarters despite the impact of 9/11. It is among the top in seats filled, operating margin, and on-time performance. It is a leader in technology and offers no frills, except leather seats and satellite TV. The company’s customers and its employees love the experience of interacting with Jet Blue.

Starbucks has enjoyed a stock appreciation of 4,000% since 1992. The company has engineered process improvements that allow baristas to shave valuable seconds off order delivery–the average wait of three minutes is down 30 seconds over five years. There is no credit card signature if the order is under $15 and floaters take orders during busy periods. At Starbucks, as at Jet Blue, customer and employee loyalty is very high.

What are some of the rules of the experience economy?

Know what business you are in
Everything and everyone is a commodity
Time is the currency of experience

Here are some innovative experiences for the banking brand:

Smart phone/PDA which issue alerts
GPS showing the location of the nearest branch
Keychain fob used to pay cab fare
RFID tracking when customer enters branch
Personalized video touch screen
Wireless hand-held devise allowing loan officer to automatically
download information
Pen-based OCR that enables wireless transfer of customer information
Remote video conferencing to a financial advisor sitting on a bench

The keys to a robust experience banking vision and strategy include the customer experience, the employee experience, and the operations experience. Three steps to a changed customer experience include: standardized infrastructure, integrated productivity and service departments, and differentiating your brand.

People drive business success, so work to amplify their impact and you improve business results. Develop and strengthen profitable customer relationships. Create innovative products and services. Streamline operations to reduce costs. Build high-value connections with partners and suppliers. Discover, decide, collaborate, act.

Eight Steps to Better Loan Pricing

By John Barrickman, President
New Horizons Financial Group

Step 1: Know what you have to get

Do you know your pre-tax objective on earning assets? Your income is based on rate, fees, and balances, of course. Your expenses are based on cost of funds, direct product costs, administrative overhead, and risk premium.

Cost of funds alternatives include: average, marginal, weighted average of marginals, match funding, and pool of funds. Direct product costs include: interest paid on deposits, account administration and services, and reserves. Allocation of general overhead should consider: size of transaction/usage, per transaction, risk, monitoring, and matrix. Differential capital allocations must include: expected versus unexpected losses, measuring capital risk, and allocating capital. Profit objectives explore: return on revenue, return on assets, return on equity, return on risk-adjusted capital, and economic value-added.

Are each of these measured at your institution?

Step 2: Price for risk

Risk components include: credit, interest rate, term, operations, compliance, and options. When pricing for risk consider: risk premiums (default and loss), risk mitigants (collateral, guarantees, covenants), differential capital allocations (line of business, industry/type of ag/property type).

Step 3: Price the transaction

When pricing the transaction, consider: tenor (cost of funds), administrative burden (commitment, usage, risk, monitoring), terms (collateral, guarantee, covenants). Each transaction is unique as to risk and risk-adjusted return on capital. Performance-based pricing should include review of financial statements, financial leverage, liquidity, cash-flow coverage, and management efficiency/effectiveness.

Step 4: Recognize the value of the relationship

Think income, not rate! Pricing alternatives are: rate; spread over index (cost of funds, treasuries, LIBOR, prime); rate and fee; rate and credit for deposit balances; relationship pricing.

Step 5: Present benefits, not costs

Alternative value propositions include: best total cost (“faster, better, cheaper”), best product, or best total solution.

Step 6: Sell the value of the banking and personal relationship

Examine tenure, prior assistance, experience/knowledge, reciprocal business, and personal rapport. “What is the worth of the privilege of doing business with me?”

Step 7: Establish a walk-away point

As you are examining this, consider alternative investments, marginal costs, and future relationship.

Step 8: Plant, nurture, and prune

Are you clear about the lifetime value potential of this borrower? Segment your clients and implement retention strategies based on the profitability of each relationship. In other words, highly profitable clients who have a high lifetime value should be retained and cross-sold. Those with high profitability and low lifetime potential should be retained and costs reduced around those relationships. Those with a low profitability and high lifetime potential should be migrated, upsold. Those with low profitability and low lifetime potential should be repriced or divested.

The Future of the Commercial Desktop

By Steve Williams, Principal
Cornerstone Advisors, Inc.

Workflow and process improvement in commercial lending will be one of the banking industry’s highest priorities in the next five years. Technology has finally matured to do the things bankers have talked about for 15 years. Heated competition will emerge in the vendor market. Lenders will need to plan how loan processes/systems fit into their overall vision of sales and relationship management.

History and evolution of commercial automation:

The analysis phase (mid ’80s): Stand-alone, PC-based credit analysis
The compliance phase (late ’80s): Loan document preparation automation
The back-office phase (mid ’90s): Exception tracking becomes automated; specialized commercial loan systems grow
The sales phase (late ’90s): Sales Force Automation arrives in earnest

The next phase involves putting it all together.

#1 Origination Rolls into Relationship Management

Commercial origination is becoming more standardized as a process, like consumer and mortgage origination
Data collection is “cumulative” and event-driven in the origination process
Constant renewals mean origination data should be stored and easily updated for renewal purposes

#2 Sales and Pipeline Reporting Simplified and Integrated

Most officer calling, pipeline and sales tracking reports have been over-engineered by management
Next generation systems have simple calling screens for input of basic customer information
Most of the more extensive “profiling” data will only be added if it is done post-deal and by a loan assistant, not a loan officer
A clear purpose needs to be defined for profiling data before it is collected

#3 A Tiered Approach to Scoring Analysis

Small business scoring and deeper credit analysis have grown up as separate systems or applications
Banks seek a “continuum” approach, where analysis is added based upon deal type and size, but with a common origination system in place
Banks want to burn into the origination process different types of analysis templates with controls/context help

#4 Stages and Work Cues Defined by the Bank

Banks will be actively seeking improved workflow capabilities in their commercial systems over the next five years
Banks want the ability to define each “stage” in the origination process:

– Sales

– Analysis/underwriting

– Approval

– Processing

– Closing

– Funding

– Servicing

#5 Credit Approval is Burned into Data Flow

The approval and loan committee process often happens outside of automated workflow today:

– Can be very paper and manual labor intensive

– “Version control” of credit memorandums becoming an issue

– Consistency among credit memos, loan checklists, loan documents, and booked loan information can be a problem
Loan approval should be an automated stage in the system that acts as the gatekeeper for processing, closing activities

– Some banks will elect to have credit input changes/conditions to loan approval directly into system to control closing and funding
E-signatures will become more accepted and mature as part of new workflow systems
Systems act as controls versus operations staff

#6 The Persistent “Work Items” Screen

Improved coordination between front office and back office creates efficiency
Everyone in the deal process must view and work off the same checklist
This is “MySpace” for loan professionals

#7 A Doc Engine Tied to the Workflow Engine

Industry is addicted to the “LaserPro” assumption

– Strong doc engine capabilities

– Separate technology can be cumbersome to integrate

– Some competition would be nice!
Banks are beginning to explore the trade-off between compliance guarantees and technological/navigational integration
Commercial origination providers may make more aggressive moves on integrated loan documents and/or banks may freelance

#8 Imaging Integration and Content Management

The electronic loan file is becoming more of a reality each year

#9 B2B as Far as the Eyes Can See

Mortgage industry is proving the value of standards-based, business-to-business information exchange
Commercial origination systems will maintain “connectors” to credit, title, UCC, D&B, appraisal sources in the future
Banks want vendors with a wide variety of proven connectors
When this network matures, banks may choose to outsource some functions

#10 The Funding and Closing Screen

It’s sad, but most banks still have fairly sizable functions called “loan boarding”

– Manual review of loan file for compliance/policy and manual input into core servicing system

– Improving interfaces for general ledger entries and the capturing of important management reporting information (e.g., FICO, LTV, industry code) are high priorities

– Banks need a final screen that adds critical loan and funding information that was not needed for the credit approval process

– Core vendors will help to improve interfaces with published application programming interfaces (APIs)

#11 Commercial Experts to Drive Development

Successfully executing process improvement will be a greater challenge than deploying new workflow systems

– Loan officers
Struggle with sales/calling information
Challenge standard credit memo structures

– Loan assistants
Need to be weaned off paper checklists and e-mail tracking
Need to move from physical storage to e-storage

– Loan committee/credit
Must embrace their role in automated workflow

– Loan operations
May abuse workflow systems for excess control
May still do redundant manual checks

#12 A Thriving Peer Community

Workflow systems put more power (and risk) in the hands of bankers vs. vendors
Banks have a strong need to collaborate on “how” different companies are organizing and leveraging new technology
Successful vendors don’t control the dialogue–they will fuel the chatter and learn from it

Industry Intelligence and the Relationship Management Process

By Bobby Martin, President and Co-Founder
First Research, Inc.

Industry intelligence is one key step toward becoming a trusted advisor with your clients. You can gain the advantage by using industry intelligence at five points in your customer relationship cycle:

You can enhance strategic planning and improve your marketing with industry-specific content for collateral, websites, industry newsletters, and presentations.
At the beginning of the relationship management cycle, you can shorten the research process, cut pre-call planning time, and create client-focused letters and e-mails to engage key prospects.
In the middle of the cycle, you can engage decision-makers and give your team a thorough understanding of client needs with accurate, up-to-date industry information.
At the end of the sales cycle, you can show differentiated value with client-centric pitchbooks, industry-specific best practices, and targeted presentations.
Throughout the management of your relationships, you can maintain meaningful contact, stay on top of critical trends, and identify cross-sell opportunities.

Industry intelligence is a very effective tool to engage “c-level” decision-makers at any point in the relationship management cycle. For existing clients, an annual strategic review is recommended. Rather than pitch products, those discussions can include: the client’s goals for next year, changes which may affect business, industry issues and challenges facing the business. This discussion often leads, of course, to financial solutions.

What return can you expect for your investment in industry intelligence?

Trust built between the banker and the client
Time savings when the banker calls on clients in the same industry
Increased confidence to ask more in depth questions
Greater overall client satisfaction which improves retention and referral opportunities

Best in breed bankers incorporate industry intelligence as part of ALL relationship management processes.

Survey of Business Banking Issue

In January, many bankers took our unscientific survey about issues they faced in retail banking. This month we would like to know some things about your Business Banking environment. Click on the link below and you’ll be whisked to a short questionnaire which is quick and easy to complete. Results will be featured in the October Conversation Signposts.

2006 Strategic Business Banking Study

Last Call to Participate in Retail Banking White Paper

Finally this month, an offer to any bank that wishes to participate in our exclusive Retail Banking White Paper project to contact Julie Ruffolo. We will not be publishing results to anyone that has not completed our telephone survey. We will not sell, distribute, or otherwise mass market the information. We’ve had tremendous response and the surveys will be completed on September 30, 2006. If you are interested in learning what some of America’s finest retail sales banks are doing, facing, and planning, call Julie at 630-541-6519 or e-mail her at jruffolo@stmeyerandhubbard.com.

Register for Conversation Signposts

Starting to think about 2007? We are too and the ideas in Conversation Signposts create your 2007 mojo. Bankers tell us the tips they find in Conversation Signposts have contributed to some significant wins on behalf of their clients and pre-clients. If someone else at your bank could benefit from Conversation Signposts, forward this edition and have them click on the hyperlink below to register: it’s FREE and you’ll not find anything about our products and services here. Why aren’t all newsletters like that?

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 in the wrong e-mail bucket. To make sure you receive every issue, why not put us on your “approved sender” list?

StMeyerandHubbard@lb.bcentral.com
newsletter@stmeyerandhubbard.com

		October Preview: Value Integration Prospecting–The VIP Approach to Reaching Pre-Clients We get many questions from bankers about the most effective ways to prospect. Do cold calls work any more? Is building a COI network worth the effort? What company should I buy my lists from? In the October edition of Conversation Signposts, we begin a three-part series following one bank in its effort to execute on a systematic and value-focused method of reaching pre-clients. In part one, we explore the strategic markets this bank was attempting to penetrate, how it planned to source opportunities, and the training their people experienced. Don’t miss this one.




		Baker Hill Client Summit: Best of the Best For nearly 15 years, Baker Hill has been exceeding the technology needs of financial services clients. In 2006 Experian purchased Baker Hill. The Experian resources add to an already best-in-breed cadre of operations, lending, and sales-related tools. Recently, Baker Hill hosted its annual Solutions Summit in San Antonio. Nearly 275 bankers attended the program, representing 150 banks–the greatest turnout ever. Bob St. Meyer & Jack Hubbard met Prince Varma, Practice Manager and one of Baker Hill’s Senior Consultants, over 10 years ago. If you are looking for someone to help with the many nuances of CRM, ERM, SFA, and lots of other initials, Prince is your guy. 36 education sessions were held at the Summit. Here’s a recap of the top four: The Customer Experience in the New Millennium Eight Steps to Better Loan Pricing The Future of the Commercial Desktop Industry Intelligence and the Relationship Management Process The Customer Experience in the New Millennium By Ted Olson, Business Development Manager US Banking Service, Microsoft Financial Services The banking industry has migrated from the service economy to the experience economy. The customer experience differentiates the brand. Jet Blue Airways and Starbucks have become masters in operating within the experience economy. Consequently, Jet Blue has had 16 consecutive profitable quarters despite the impact of 9/11. It is among the top in seats filled, operating margin, and on-time performance. It is a leader in technology and offers no frills, except leather seats and satellite TV. The company’s customers and its employees love the experience of interacting with Jet Blue. Starbucks has enjoyed a stock appreciation of 4,000% since 1992. The company has engineered process improvements that allow baristas to shave valuable seconds off order delivery–the average wait of three minutes is down 30 seconds over five years. There is no credit card signature if the order is under $15 and floaters take orders during busy periods. At Starbucks, as at Jet Blue, customer and employee loyalty is very high. What are some of the rules of the experience economy? Know what business you are in Everything and everyone is a commodity Time is the currency of experience Here are some innovative experiences for the banking brand: Smart phone/PDA which issue alerts GPS showing the location of the nearest branch Keychain fob used to pay cab fare RFID tracking when customer enters branch Personalized video touch screen Wireless hand-held devise allowing loan officer to automatically download information Pen-based OCR that enables wireless transfer of customer information Remote video conferencing to a financial advisor sitting on a bench The keys to a robust experience banking vision and strategy include the customer experience, the employee experience, and the operations experience. Three steps to a changed customer experience include: standardized infrastructure, integrated productivity and service departments, and differentiating your brand. People drive business success, so work to amplify their impact and you improve business results. Develop and strengthen profitable customer relationships. Create innovative products and services. Streamline operations to reduce costs. Build high-value connections with partners and suppliers. Discover, decide, collaborate, act. Eight Steps to Better Loan Pricing By John Barrickman, President New Horizons Financial Group Step 1: Know what you have to get Do you know your pre-tax objective on earning assets? Your income is based on rate, fees, and balances, of course. Your expenses are based on cost of funds, direct product costs, administrative overhead, and risk premium. Cost of funds alternatives include: average, marginal, weighted average of marginals, match funding, and pool of funds. Direct product costs include: interest paid on deposits, account administration and services, and reserves. Allocation of general overhead should consider: size of transaction/usage, per transaction, risk, monitoring, and matrix. Differential capital allocations must include: expected versus unexpected losses, measuring capital risk, and allocating capital. Profit objectives explore: return on revenue, return on assets, return on equity, return on risk-adjusted capital, and economic value-added. Are each of these measured at your institution? Step 2: Price for risk Risk components include: credit, interest rate, term, operations, compliance, and options. When pricing for risk consider: risk premiums (default and loss), risk mitigants (collateral, guarantees, covenants), differential capital allocations (line of business, industry/type of ag/property type). Step 3: Price the transaction When pricing the transaction, consider: tenor (cost of funds), administrative burden (commitment, usage, risk, monitoring), terms (collateral, guarantee, covenants). Each transaction is unique as to risk and risk-adjusted return on capital. Performance-based pricing should include review of financial statements, financial leverage, liquidity, cash-flow coverage, and management efficiency/effectiveness. Step 4: Recognize the value of the relationship Think income, not rate! Pricing alternatives are: rate; spread over index (cost of funds, treasuries, LIBOR, prime); rate and fee; rate and credit for deposit balances; relationship pricing. Step 5: Present benefits, not costs Alternative value propositions include: best total cost (“faster, better, cheaper”), best product, or best total solution. Step 6: Sell the value of the banking and personal relationship Examine tenure, prior assistance, experience/knowledge, reciprocal business, and personal rapport. “What is the worth of the privilege of doing business with me?” Step 7: Establish a walk-away point As you are examining this, consider alternative investments, marginal costs, and future relationship. Step 8: Plant, nurture, and prune Are you clear about the lifetime value potential of this borrower? Segment your clients and implement retention strategies based on the profitability of each relationship. In other words, highly profitable clients who have a high lifetime value should be retained and cross-sold. Those with high profitability and low lifetime potential should be retained and costs reduced around those relationships. Those with a low profitability and high lifetime potential should be migrated, upsold. Those with low profitability and low lifetime potential should be repriced or divested. The Future of the Commercial Desktop By Steve Williams, Principal Cornerstone Advisors, Inc. Workflow and process improvement in commercial lending will be one of the banking industry’s highest priorities in the next five years. Technology has finally matured to do the things bankers have talked about for 15 years. Heated competition will emerge in the vendor market. Lenders will need to plan how loan processes/systems fit into their overall vision of sales and relationship management. History and evolution of commercial automation: The analysis phase (mid ’80s): Stand-alone, PC-based credit analysis The compliance phase (late ’80s): Loan document preparation automation The back-office phase (mid ’90s): Exception tracking becomes automated; specialized commercial loan systems grow The sales phase (late ’90s): Sales Force Automation arrives in earnest The next phase involves putting it all together. #1 Origination Rolls into Relationship Management Commercial origination is becoming more standardized as a process, like consumer and mortgage origination Data collection is “cumulative” and event-driven in the origination process Constant renewals mean origination data should be stored and easily updated for renewal purposes #2 Sales and Pipeline Reporting Simplified and Integrated Most officer calling, pipeline and sales tracking reports have been over-engineered by management Next generation systems have simple calling screens for input of basic customer information Most of the more extensive “profiling” data will only be added if it is done post-deal and by a loan assistant, not a loan officer A clear purpose needs to be defined for profiling data before it is collected #3 A Tiered Approach to Scoring Analysis Small business scoring and deeper credit analysis have grown up as separate systems or applications Banks seek a “continuum” approach, where analysis is added based upon deal type and size, but with a common origination system in place Banks want to burn into the origination process different types of analysis templates with controls/context help #4 Stages and Work Cues Defined by the Bank Banks will be actively seeking improved workflow capabilities in their commercial systems over the next five years Banks want the ability to define each “stage” in the origination process: – Sales – Analysis/underwriting – Approval – Processing – Closing – Funding – Servicing #5 Credit Approval is Burned into Data Flow The approval and loan committee process often happens outside of automated workflow today: – Can be very paper and manual labor intensive – “Version control” of credit memorandums becoming an issue – Consistency among credit memos, loan checklists, loan documents, and booked loan information can be a problem Loan approval should be an automated stage in the system that acts as the gatekeeper for processing, closing activities – Some banks will elect to have credit input changes/conditions to loan approval directly into system to control closing and funding E-signatures will become more accepted and mature as part of new workflow systems Systems act as controls versus operations staff #6 The Persistent “Work Items” Screen Improved coordination between front office and back office creates efficiency Everyone in the deal process must view and work off the same checklist This is “MySpace” for loan professionals #7 A Doc Engine Tied to the Workflow Engine Industry is addicted to the “LaserPro” assumption – Strong doc engine capabilities – Separate technology can be cumbersome to integrate – Some competition would be nice! Banks are beginning to explore the trade-off between compliance guarantees and technological/navigational integration Commercial origination providers may make more aggressive moves on integrated loan documents and/or banks may freelance #8 Imaging Integration and Content Management The electronic loan file is becoming more of a reality each year #9 B2B as Far as the Eyes Can See Mortgage industry is proving the value of standards-based, business-to-business information exchange Commercial origination systems will maintain “connectors” to credit, title, UCC, D&B, appraisal sources in the future Banks want vendors with a wide variety of proven connectors When this network matures, banks may choose to outsource some functions #10 The Funding and Closing Screen It’s sad, but most banks still have fairly sizable functions called “loan boarding” – Manual review of loan file for compliance/policy and manual input into core servicing system – Improving interfaces for general ledger entries and the capturing of important management reporting information (e.g., FICO, LTV, industry code) are high priorities – Banks need a final screen that adds critical loan and funding information that was not needed for the credit approval process – Core vendors will help to improve interfaces with published application programming interfaces (APIs) #11 Commercial Experts to Drive Development Successfully executing process improvement will be a greater challenge than deploying new workflow systems – Loan officers Struggle with sales/calling information Challenge standard credit memo structures – Loan assistants Need to be weaned off paper checklists and e-mail tracking Need to move from physical storage to e-storage – Loan committee/credit Must embrace their role in automated workflow – Loan operations May abuse workflow systems for excess control May still do redundant manual checks #12 A Thriving Peer Community Workflow systems put more power (and risk) in the hands of bankers vs. vendors Banks have a strong need to collaborate on “how” different companies are organizing and leveraging new technology Successful vendors don’t control the dialogue–they will fuel the chatter and learn from it Industry Intelligence and the Relationship Management Process By Bobby Martin, President and Co-Founder First Research, Inc. Industry intelligence is one key step toward becoming a trusted advisor with your clients. You can gain the advantage by using industry intelligence at five points in your customer relationship cycle: You can enhance strategic planning and improve your marketing with industry-specific content for collateral, websites, industry newsletters, and presentations. At the beginning of the relationship management cycle, you can shorten the research process, cut pre-call planning time, and create client-focused letters and e-mails to engage key prospects. In the middle of the cycle, you can engage decision-makers and give your team a thorough understanding of client needs with accurate, up-to-date industry information. At the end of the sales cycle, you can show differentiated value with client-centric pitchbooks, industry-specific best practices, and targeted presentations. Throughout the management of your relationships, you can maintain meaningful contact, stay on top of critical trends, and identify cross-sell opportunities. Industry intelligence is a very effective tool to engage “c-level” decision-makers at any point in the relationship management cycle. For existing clients, an annual strategic review is recommended. Rather than pitch products, those discussions can include: the client’s goals for next year, changes which may affect business, industry issues and challenges facing the business. This discussion often leads, of course, to financial solutions. What return can you expect for your investment in industry intelligence? Trust built between the banker and the client Time savings when the banker calls on clients in the same industry Increased confidence to ask more in depth questions Greater overall client satisfaction which improves retention and referral opportunities Best in breed bankers incorporate industry intelligence as part of ALL relationship management processes.




		Survey of Business Banking Issue In January, many bankers took our unscientific survey about issues they faced in retail banking. This month we would like to know some things about your Business Banking environment. Click on the link below and you’ll be whisked to a short questionnaire which is quick and easy to complete. Results will be featured in the October Conversation Signposts. 2006 Strategic Business Banking Study

		Last Call to Participate in Retail Banking White Paper Finally this month, an offer to any bank that wishes to participate in our exclusive Retail Banking White Paper project to contact Julie Ruffolo. We will not be publishing results to anyone that has not completed our telephone survey. We will not sell, distribute, or otherwise mass market the information. We’ve had tremendous response and the surveys will be completed on September 30, 2006. If you are interested in learning what some of America’s finest retail sales banks are doing, facing, and planning, call Julie at 630-541-6519 or e-mail her at jruffolo@stmeyerandhubbard.com.

		Register for Conversation Signposts Starting to think about 2007? We are too and the ideas in Conversation Signposts create your 2007 mojo. Bankers tell us the tips they find in Conversation Signposts have contributed to some significant wins on behalf of their clients and pre-clients. If someone else at your bank could benefit from Conversation Signposts, forward this edition and have them click on the hyperlink below to register: it’s FREE and you’ll not find anything about our products and services here. Why aren’t all newsletters like that? 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 in the wrong e-mail bucket. To make sure you receive every issue, why not put us on your “approved sender” list? StMeyerandHubbard@lb.bcentral.com newsletter@stmeyerandhubbard.com