BID® Daily Newsletter
May 4, 2011

BID® Daily Newsletter

May 4, 2011

PINK FLAMINGOS AND POSITIONING BANK PRODUCTS


You may not have known it but there are more plastic flamingos in the US than real ones. This majestic creature was designed in 1957 out of molded clay and its designer actually won the Nobel Prize for Art in 1996. The good thing about these birds is that they are relatively quiet, they don't eat much and they are comfortable enough to stand for hours in your front lawn in pairs. People all over America love the plastic flamingo and neighbors appreciate the quiet of their morning song (some say only dogs can hear it). We bring this up because much as the pink flamingo inventor, bankers never know what will catch on when setting out to position your products and services.
While finding the next pink flamingo craze isn't likely to occur in banking, there are some concrete steps you can take to incrementally improve your performance when it comes to positioning your services. Research has found different people respond to different stimuli, so understanding this can help drive more business into your bank and down to your bottom line.
To begin this process, you have to start by understanding your marketplace. Ask yourself whether customers see your services as highly commoditized and hard to differentiate from other banks. If that is the case, consider (as many community bankers do) adding a high quality service to go along with the product. Research finds this combination boosts sales.
Another question to ask your sales team is whether the customer walking in the door sees the problem they are trying to solve as complex or straightforward. If the problem is deemed complex by the customer, one of the best ways to land and keep the business is to design a flexible, customized solution. Talk to these clients, get to know them, understand the issue they are trying to solve and then work with them to create a customized solution. Use this approach with this type of customer and the research shows you should once again see better bottom line results (an added benefit is that this also increases customer switching costs to a competitor).
A third consideration is whether to talk to your customers about your services first or your product offerings. While this may sound like it does not matter, understanding the customer viewpoint may improve performance. For instance, if customers are most interested in what type of service goes with a given product, you might want to start there. In the alternative, if they seek out a given product first and then back-fill with added service, you can position that way. Understanding how the customer views your suite of products and services, questioning them to gain insight into their specific viewpoint and then offering solutions that fit that need is one of the best ways to increase sales opportunities.
One more consideration for bankers comes in the form of process, or what we like to call around here "highest and best use." Asking whether a given product or service can be centrally administered, remotely supported, or delivered via an online channel is a continual effort. Continually seek out and discuss whether it makes sense to scale things or shift personnel to another area/product to leverage them to their highest and best use is an ongoing challenge. Finding the proper balance can improve bank performance, as both employee and customer satisfaction and performance rise.
Whether you decide to give away pink flamingos in the branch at your next "Summer Splash" event or not, focusing on the fundamentals of positioning products and services should help drive consistently better earnings performance.
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