A lone spider in a swarm of flies, but no web, starves.
We had the pleasure of spending part of our week with a new client. In many of our new engagements, we start with a “Discovery Phase,” where we analyze the client’s financials, product usage, branch experience, corporate culture, competition and markets. This particular client was not uncommon.
As marketers, conventional wisdom says that it is our job to drive traffic. That’s because we are the “great communicators.” And to be honest, I can’t disagree.
But, because we are the great communicators, it is also our job to manage internal communication.
While we have a ton of data yet to collect and analyze for our new client before seeing the whole picture, it is obvious that, given their corporate culture, the focus should be on internal communication before we pursue external initiatives. In short … weave the web BEFORE we draw the flies.
Holes in the web allow prey to fly right by. Here's what you can do.
Connect the parts: Like a spider web, your corporate structure needs to be tightly woven together. If you have gaps in your branch network or between business units, you’ll miss opportunities.
Look at all of your branches. Do any of them feel forgotten or on an island? If your corporate location is the “main office,” what are the rest of your branches … minor?
Do your business units have the best interest of the entire organization at heart or are they focused on their individual goals. Do you have “mortgage customers” or “bank customers / credit union members”? There is a HUGE difference. How about referrals? Can your tellers identify a proper Wealth Management prospect, for instance? Do they know what to ask in order to qualify them? Do they want to?
I don’t care if it takes a truckload of TNT … blow up the silos! Get every corporate entity reading from the same playbook, looking out for each other’s interests and communicating. An employee doesn’t need to be proficient in every product from every business line, but they should have a basic knowledge of what each product is, who would benefit from them and who they can contact quickly to get help.
Consistency: A successful web is evenly disbursed from top to bottom. And the fly will get treated the same no matter which part they fall into.
Think about it. McDonald's didn’t become the world’s largest food chain because they are gourmet. They are successful because you know what to expect. A Big Mac tastes the same in Ohio, Florida or Florence, Italy.
The same should be said of your branches. I should get treated the same at the corporate location as I do at your smallest, most rural branch – or your largest, busiest branch.
You can accomplish this through tight, consistent hiring standards and a well communicated and demonstrated corporate culture. You can also assure consistency with ongoing training and uniform sales tools across the institution. Set service standards that become the backbone of your culture and that every employee must live up to.
Review, Repair, Rebuild: For the last month or so, I’ve been watching a spider on my back porch. Every 2-3 days, this little sucker is repairing or completely rebuilding her web.
It’s basic nature that things change. Through market conditions or internal factors, gaps may open in your web. Create a process to review the web periodically to determine if areas need to be reconnected or if changes are so great that we need to reconfigure the whole darn thing to catch the most opportunities.
If you focus on drawing flies before the web is sound, you’re going to miss a lot of opportunity and experience wasted effort, resources and budget.
First, weave the web – then draw the flies.
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MarketMatch is a marketing firm, dedicated to the credit union and community banking community. We utilize knowledge-based strategies to help you FOCUS on the right story that will generate the greatest MOMENTUM and prove the best RESULTS with our written ROI Guarantee.
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