Episode 42 Answering Banker's Questions About 2024

Jack Hubbard 00:00

I've had the privilege of being in and around banking for more than 50 years. Lots of changes during that time. We've gone from Ledger's to laptops, typewriters to technology. One thing, however, remains the same. Banking is a people business. And I'll be talking with those people that make banking great here on Jack Rants With Modern Bankers.

Hello, everybody. It's Thursday. Hi, Brynne.

Brynne Tillman 00:31

Hi, Jack. Excited to be here. 

Jack Hubbard 00:34

Well, it's always good to see you. And I get to see two days in a row, which is really nice. And that's kind of the essence of today's Jack Rants with Brynne. So let's dive right into this thing. Yesterday, we had 357 sites signed up for our last webinar of the year, Heading Off 2024 Headwinds. Now, there's a lot of things we can't control but as Brynne is going to tell you today, there are a lot of things we can do based on some questions that folks posted to us yesterday. But one of the things we have to realize is there are going to be some headwinds going into 2024. And I think the customer has a longer memory than we think. 

There is going to be some anxiety over safety concerns about all banks in the United States. And one of the things that we don't do very well, is to highlight how safe we are now. We just can tell people that, but they're not going to believe that exactly. But there is an agency called the Bauer ratings, and the Bauer ratings have to do with numbers of stars. And if you're a five star Bauer bag, you are the ultimate in safety. And we need to do a better job, I think in telling people that another headwind certainly is rising interest rates, and who knows where that's going to go, you can get any percentage of people saying, well, they're going to raise rates, they're going to lower rates. 

I saw on CNBC yesterday morning, three different major banks who had all different answers as to what the Fed might do in 2024. So there's going to be some challenges there, the slowing housing market is is going to continue, and some talent challenges, keeping great people finding great associates, we did a programme called this old banker a couple of weeks ago in Britain was traveling last week, I guess, and things I talked about is a banker, with a board a banker board in his office. And when they do meetings, the bankers are required to talk about the great bankers that they heard about on calls this week. And they hear about them by asking the question, Who are some of the other great bankers calling on you? 

We need to continue to have a talent pool going on. And one of the responsibilities of executive management is to continue to find those people. So that's going to be a challenge going forward. loan demand, I saw a study by our friends at Barlow research, that would indicate that in the second half of 2023, only 19% of small businesses plan to borrow, I don't see that increasing a lot in 2024, because there's a lot of concerns deposit diminishment in the June report by the FDIC deposits were down by 4%. That's the first time in history, the deposits in banks actually diminished. And that's going to continue to be a challenge. And then shrinking net interest margins. 

Now, the fact is that we can't control any of those factors. But what we can control is our activities and the kinds of things that we do on behalf and with the customer. And that's what I want to talk about today because yesterday, we had a rousing webinar for lots of people there. And they asked lots of questions. So let's just dive right into this. You're the expert. And I know you have some answers. Here's question number one. How can I help my bankers use LinkedIn to target their market and their business development efforts in a challenging marketplace?

Brynne Tillman 04:11

Well, so a few things. Some of it is making sure that you have, you're visible in your marketplace, right? People will still need banks. And while there may be less activity, we want to make sure when there is activity, we're the ones they're thinking about. So we have to stay top of mind and that's engaging, sharing content, amplifying the bank's content and voice and making sure that we are staying in front of our network. So that's number one. 

Number two, and by the way, in no particular order. We've got to continue to grow our network so that we are in front of more and more people. And I believe in today's marketplace, we You need to be out at physical networking meetings, again, talking with people in the community, most Chambers of Commerce are having in person events, they may have, you know, a holiday luncheon coming up or right to take a look at what's going on in the community, some of us got a little bit comfortable networking solely digitally, solely online. And in today's market, we've got to deepen those relationships. And I believe if you are working in a particular community, you've got to be out in it. 

Now, connect with all of those folks that you meet annually on LinkedIn. So that when you are sharing that content, you are staying top of mind. Take inventory of your network, maybe people that you've been connected to, for years have new jobs or new companies, the average CFO has a five year tenure at a company. So that means 20% of your network. They're changing roles every year. And if you haven't taken inventory in a while, there could be a lot of those CFOs and new roles and new conversations. And lastly, make sure that you are taking it in. I don't like taking advantage of you by leveraging your social proximity. Who do your clients know that you want to meet? Who are who, what networking partners are open to making some mutual introductions for one another. 

I said Lastly, but I have a Lastly, lastly, which is, you know, you have six weeks before the busy season for CPAs. This is the time to reach out to them and be top of mind and give them a few triggers that they can listen for when they are talking with all of their clients in the first three months of the year. That would get them to think hey, maybe a line of credit might make sense. So really help them if they're busy, they're overwhelmed, but say hey, look, if you're talking with a client, and they're struggling to fulfill orders because of inventory control, we can help with a line of credit or whatever that is, right? But you've got to help that CPA, listen for the triggers that make sense that will help their clients grow their business, right? So or individuals, whatever that might be. 

Your job now in the next six weeks is to have as many conversations with CPAs. So they are teed up to refer you. And ultimately I know so many bankers have said to me, Well, they're not thinking of me and q1 they're too busy. But they are talking to all their clients and their goal for their clients is to do what's best for them financially. That is their fiduciary responsibility as a CPA. So when you can help them do even a better job when it comes to cash flow or whatever that might be. You know, you are that resource for the CPA so they can do their job even better. Okay, that was my rant, Jack.

Jack Hubbard 08:18

I think it's a great rant and a couple of points on it. First of all, let's go back to our friends at Vertical IQ. If you are going to network with CPAs. Let's just think about this for a second. CPAs know their business, so sending an article to them about current CPA issues might be fun, but go to their website and find out some of the industries that they work in. So maybe they do some things vertically in the timber industry or medical or whatever, go to Article IQ, find an article about pediatricians and send that to the COI, the CPA. So you know, I know you work with a lot of doctors, I thought this article might be of interest based on five things that pediatricians are thinking about 2024. 

So thinking about this a little differently is helpful, number one, number two, you made a really good point about face to face networking. And I always say to people, if you're going to go to a chamber of commerce dinner, or a business meeting, you should be on the podium, you should be speaking, because when you do that really enhances your personal brand, which can carry over into the LinkedIn brand. You've been out to Las Vegas, you were in Atlanta Orlando last week. And I'm jealous because I'm usually on a lot of airplanes too. And you were out speaking you must have had hundreds of people that saw you. That's powerful.

Brynne Tillman 09:49

It is and it's exciting. And I was in San Francisco and I was actually in Vegas and Orlando twice. So yeah, and it is and what happened INSS it raises your credibility, quite honestly, can whether it's, I'm in front of an audience here, I'm in front of an audience live, it always turns into deeper conversations and opportunities because you spark curiosity, often you're talking about things they haven't even thought thought about. So yesterday when we talked about the scoring, we talked with the CPAs. Now, I had a couple bankers go, Oh my gosh, that's brilliant. I didn't think of that. Right. So when you are giving me insights to the companies, and they go, That's brilliant, I didn't think of that. They're coming to you. 

So, you know, I think that is essential. Now, local chambers are typically always looking for speakers, you don't even realize that if you just reach out to them and say, Hey, I've got some ideas about how companies can leverage banking products to get through some of the sticky times in 2024. I'd be happy to present to the chamber if you're interested. And often they will fill that room for you. So don't think because you haven't done it before, that you can't do it. Now, a lot of these folks are looking for content.

Jack Hubbard 11:24

No doubt. Well, you know, Beth Siebert is a good friend. She's a tremendous student, tremendous learner, director of marketing for a bank in Indiana, but a $500 million bank. And she had a great question yesterday. And we promised that we would give her credit for this because it was such a good question. She said something to the effect that my budgets are shrinking. How can I use LinkedIn to minimize the cost and maximize visibility? And one of the things I thought about Brynne, I'm sure you have other answers, is using LinkedIn to create dynamic lists that are free that you can that LinkedIn actually adds to that you can go out and connect with people and message them provide value. That's one thing I thought of when Beth talked about her budgets. Yeah,

Brynne Tillman 12:13

So there's a lot that we can do. One of them is making sure that your bankers are amplifying the bank's value proposition. It's amplifying your brand. And the first place to do this is with profiles. So whether your marketing department supports you on that. And if you have any questions, feel free to join our library and pop that question in a community in our community, you can ask questions for free, and we'll answer them. But making sure that if you have 80 people on LinkedIn for your bank, those are at microsites branding opportunities that you might be missing. And that's free. That's number one. 

Number two, your company page can put out events digitally or in person polls. And then you can ask your team to amplify and reshare engagements on that content that's free, right there. There are a lot of things. The next thing is to start collaborating, right? So your CFO or your CFO may know lots and lots of people, that your commercial bankers or your branch managers don't even know that there is a one degree separation. So open up your C level and your board member connections to your business development team, and say, hey, look through my connections, if I know being the CFO, or the CEO, or the board member, anyone that you would like to talk to let me know and I will make that introduction. So now we're going to start introductions with a high level of credibility, it's of benefit to the entire organization, there's a much higher chance that if there is a need, they're not going to shop, right? They're going to come to you as a bank. 

And at the end of the day, I think that leveraging your social proximity internally is a fabulous way to fill those, that pipeline of opportunities for free. So there's so much that you can do and, you know, really, if you have questions on this, I'm going to, I can't stress enough, join our library, the modern banker.com/public library. Not enough people are taking advantage of this jack. Go in and ask your questions. It's free to ask your questions. It's free to join the library and our insights are free for you in the community. So please take advantage of that. So for folks, you know, like Beth or anyone else that's looking to figure out, you know, I have shrinking budgets, what can I do? You know, we want to help, we really are committed to making sure that banks not just survive in 2024, but thrive.

Jack Hubbard15:19

And you made a really interesting point, early on, when you talked about making more connections, bankers, again, when we look at their, their, the top of their, their profile, and we look and see how many connections they haven't done something with. It's really sad. The other part of that is being proactive. You know, a lot of people say to me, Well, I don't need as many connections as you have. Well, yes, you do. And here's why. goes exactly to this point. Yesterday, we had 357 sites, we did very, very little marketing, other than my one to one messaging on LinkedIn. And I did that by doing CPR by downloading my connections, and using the URLs that LinkedIn provides to click on every single one of them, and messaging them about the webinar, and we have a lot of people. 

My point is, if you have very limited budget, so to wait for God sakes, you know, if you've got a limited budget, doing webinars, conducting events, like we're doing here, can really benefit you not only in the short run, but you can clip some of these snippets, you can turn it into a blog post. And there's an awful lot of things that you can do on a shoestring budget, which a lot of community bank marketers have? Well, one way to help yourself through this, is to understand that about 80% of your business from next year will come from current clients. So one question that came up, Brynne  was a really good one. How can I deepen my current client and COI relationships?

Brynne Tillman 17:04

So I love this question. Well, the first thing is talk to them, like, talk to them. But there are a few things that we could do. Based on your relationship, I'm just going to kind of rapid fire a few at the lowest level, you can endorse them for skill or give them a kudos that they've been great to work with, a little bit higher might be write a recommendation for them around how great they were to work with the next level up is send them a little video message, maybe with some kind of value, maybe through vertical IQ, you found some great content that is either about their industry or the industry of their clients. 

The next level up is you know, I noticed this is happening, you know, you merge and acquire a new hire, you know, that's very personal. And you can actually incorporate that into the video message, video, video video. That's how you're going to connect. And even in a video message, you can ask them hey, it's been a while since we last talked looks like I noticed this and this love to share some insights with you about what's coming down the pike in 2024 economically, and find out how I can support you how I can be of benefit. If you're interested. Let me know your preferred way to schedule if it happens to be the calendar link. I'm gonna post mine below this video, right? 

So you need to get into conversations. I am a big fan right now of getting out into the community to have coffee meetings. I mean, we used to do this all the time where I would get a payroll person, a tax attorney, a CPA, maybe an external mortgage lender, who would refer business back and forth. And we meet once a week. Once a month, we would meet at the Hilton Garden Inn and Plymouth Meeting around a big table, we'd have coffee and breakfast, we would talk and we would create relationships. And then the next month I'd invite a different CPA, new group, different CPA, a different payroll person. 

And then every once in a while someone who was a great refer would come back into the group, but generally every month, I was a Community Relations Officer at the local bank and my job was to create community. So doing this was really very powerful. And we had an enormous amount of referral partners. And so how do we do that? You can do that with your referral partners. You can also do this with your clients. Do you have clients that should know each other that Could do business with one another, take them to lunch, right? This one you pay for, but you take them to lunch, you are the connector of the two right now, you're not gonna do this with everyone. But, you know, start taking inventory of your existing clients and ask them, what are the types of companies that you'd like to meet, you're going to find synergies. And you're going to deepen relationships. 

The last thing is, and we use LinkedIn for this, you could depending on how big is look at all the other people inside of the company inside of the company inside of your client that you should be having conversations with, if you were single threading to the CFO, we just found out or we know that there's a 20% turnover, right, you can't have one champion inside of a client, you need to get to know the CFO, the CEO, the VP of Finance, like get in even HR because they know who they're hiring Next, when there is turnover. But you need to like socially, surround your customer, and make sure you understand all of their initiatives. You may have procurement that's going to, you know, that has different needs than your champion that you're working with today. And sometimes we work with a banker, and they find out, Oh, they're working with two other banks, why? Let's bring it all in. You know, let's, let's hope, you know, cover them holistically. But you're not going to know that by only talking with your one champion, you're going to know that by having conversations with other people inside the organization.

Jack Hubbard 21:43

And I would tell you, that a lot of bankers and I used to teach this, a lot of bankers do something called a relationship review, where they will actually go out with the client, review the relationship and bring a treasury management person, international, whatever, you do the same thing, a social relationship review, all you have to do is to go to the homepage of the company. And you'll see, okay, I'm connected with one person, go down and start looking at those people that you think would be helpful to you and you can be helpful to them and use your first degree connection, I don't mean use in a bad way. But use that first degree connection to get deeper into that company. I think it's the only way to do it. 

Single service households in banking are nowhere, single service connections in LinkedIn are absolutely nowhere as well. And I want to make one other point. You talked about going out into the community, you know, and putting buyers and sellers together. That was the mantra of an old bank in Chicago that was a great bank called LaSalle bank. And that was the whole marketing essence of it, somebody sitting next to each other at the Bulls game. So you take somebody that bolts game, somebody sitting next to you, this person does concrete, you are putting together, you know, some kind of a building that needs concrete, the bankers job is to put buyers and sellers together, you can do that on LinkedIn as well. It's certainly better, I think, face to face. And I always try to make a point. LinkedIn is part of the sales process. It's not the only process. It's a key component of it. So that was a great answer. 

Brynne Tillman 23:32

Can I do a Yes and real quick on that. So if you have an appointment inside of a company, and you're meeting with the CFO, socially surround, connect with other folks, let them know you're gonna have, you know, on January 7, I have a meeting with your CFO, I thought I cannot and leave it at that. But now when you're with the CFO, you've got names. So you can say, hey, Jane, you know, I'm connected to four other folks inside of your company here on LinkedIn. I don't know if it's possible, but I'd love to poke my head into their office and say, Hello. So simple. There's no threat. There's no she's trying to go over my head or behind my back. Right. But it's all authentic. And then, you know, you might get one or two hellos. And now you're starting to grow that relationship. 

Jack Hubbard 24:24

No doubt. One of the other questions that we had, I think we have time for maybe two more. But one of the other questions we had is a lament of a lot of people on LinkedIn, because there's a billion people on LinkedIn right now. And about I think it's last I heard somewhere between 22 and 23% are active every day. So that's a lot of people. But a lot of content is being posted on LinkedIn. Some of it's relevant, some of it more Facebook-like, some of it's completely irrelevant, but there's a lot of content out there and everybody's feed.

The question is, how do I get people to view my content? How do I get more engagement, and I'll kind of take this and then pan it over.I'm in the middle of something called Jack Rants, hashtag Jack Rants 30, which is a 30 days of content. So to my right, which I love to do, I am doing a poll every week for four weeks. Every Friday, I'm highlighting a book that you might want to consider. So it's all different, the weekends are going to be a little more light. So yeah, I post on the weekends. So what I do Brynne and maybe this is just my analytical banking nature. I've put together a spreadsheet, and I'm looking at the beginning of every day, how many followers, how many new connections do I have? And what's the level of engagement and I'm gauging my social selling index around that. Now, I'm not suggesting that people do that. But I am suggesting that one thing that people can do on content engagement, getting your peak, your content seen more is to have a level of consistency. And I know you have some other ideas on it too Brynne.

Brynne Tillman 26:09

Well, one of them is to make sure that your content is engageable. Right? That the content that you're putting out there is not a new product, or a new feature, it's got to be something. And if it is a new product, you've got to create text to make that engageable. So typically, social selling engageable look like this. It resonates with the buyer. So for us and often say bankers in the first line because you know, okay, I'm a banker. This is for me, it needs to create curiosity. Right. So AI in banking, now I'm leaning in and going lightened thinking banks would embrace AI, right? Talking about Chris Nichols posts, obviously. But so number three, it has to teach them something new that gets them thinking differently about the way they're doing things. And then we have to create a compelling moment, that compelling woman moves them from Lurker to engage her. So if you know, ask them their thoughts in the comments. 

And then I saw one post, I'm going to borrow this idea where it had the image, it said, thumbs up, if it's like a different kind of poll instead of a poll. Thumbs up, if you think this, celebrate clap, if you think this lat you know, so they had the emojis and the amount of engagement was insane, right. So I'm gonna play with that idea. But we have to ask them to engage. The other thing is on every post, depending on what version of LinkedIn you have, right now, there is either a paper airplane or an arrow at the bottom right of every post, when you click on that, you can send up to 50 people blind copies. So if you've taken inventory, and you know the people that you'd like to engage with, you can invite them to engage on content. And that's a great way to start to amplify that content

Jack Hubbard 28:15

No doubt. And to take it one step further, if you've downloaded your connections, put it over to an Excel spreadsheet, you can actually sort it by title. So if there's certain titles you want to send a particular piece of content to that can be important as well, I'd add one thing to this, you know, I've seen a lot of people that take photos at the American Bankers Small Business Conference. And I think that's great. But I think the body of that content should also be something to the effect of, I just heard Chris Nichols at the American Bankers Small Business Conference. And he brought up a couple of really interesting points, one, two, and three. What are your thoughts on that? So instead of just a photo where people would like it, or I'm jealous that I wasn't there, which I am? They could say, oh, that's really interesting. What I found is this, and now your post has a lot more levels of engagement to it Brynne.

Brynne Tillman 29:14

Fabulous ideas. 

Jack Hubbard 29:18

All right, last one. And we could go on, and you could go to our public library and see an actual show that where we talked about a day in the life of a social banker, but what can I do Brynn on a daily basis, and I know we're running out of time so short, but what can I do on a daily basis? What's the best use of my time when I'm on LinkedIn here?

Brynne Tillman 29:39

So there's some fundamental things that are not daily that you have to get in place, including your profile, because all roads lead back to your profile. So you can do lots of things on a daily basis. But if your profile is set up as a resume, not a resource, you're going to lose opportunities. So foundationally what should you do? Number one to engage five to seven times, I think we said three to five, I'm adding more to this. Because I think the more that we engage, the better. And who are you engaging with your prospects your clients engaging is quick, it's a comment and a reaction. That's it. And you can move on, if you can get on the radar of five to seven people a day, that shared content, and you're engaging you matter to them. So every day I engage, I love the idea of reposting content. 

If your bank or credit union puts out a lot of content, curate that content and put in your insights in that text, try to do something maybe two to five times a week, if you can. That's it. But that consistency, no more than once a day, though. Generally. You should every I look at your calendar for the week and look at every networking partner and client you're meeting and have a little list of who they know that you might want an introduction to. So if the conversation comes up, and it's appropriate, you can ask for referrals. And that's easy to do, even in the free LinkedIn. And we have a little bookmarking trick. 

So all you have to do is like one quick click, and you can get back to that person's list. And if you're in Sales Navigator, it's just as easy or easier but it's inside of Sales Navigator, you can save those lists. But be prepared, there's a little bit of upfront work that will fill that pipeline, you know, or funnel or whatever, you know, those top off of the funnel opportunities, we can these, these tips help you get to Hello faster. That's the bottom line. And if you are concerned about what 2024 is going to look like, the more hellos you have, the better. And the more success you're going to have. 

I mean, I hate saying it's a numbers game, I want to say that it's a combination of a warm market, strong brand, and a numbers game, right. And so we need to have more conversations with the right people. But we need to come in at a higher level of credibility. So that if there is an opportunity, we're the only ones that are looking at.

Jack Hubbard 32:29

Yeah the Texas Rangers won the world’s series because they had a lot of times at bat and when they were at bat they got more hits. So you gotta get out of the dug out if you’re gonna be able to do this. The last thing I would suggest to you is that Joe Carol, a good friend of mine for many years, put out a question and talked about intentionality. How do I get my team to be more intentional and so one of the things I talk about a lot and I have a passion for it and I rant about it is the whole idea of Social Leadership.

If you want your team to be successful you’ve got to model away. You have to know as much about LinkedIn as they do in order to be able to talk about it. I’ve seen too many leaders that say “Ahh, LinkedIn, it isn’t worth it” Then it’s not worth it to me, if it’s not worth it to you. Either we do something together on LinkedIn every team meeting. Talk about this during your one-on-one, understanding what’s good and not good behavior and providing some coaching and some level of measurement where you can see the activities and behaviors that I’ve done is going to reap some rewards.

So that’s a great show that was fun. I like recaps. I think recaps are terrific. Do you have anything to add before we hit the road here?

 Brynne Tillman 33:53

If you go watch the webinar, we have a special offer for webinar participants. So if you go and sign up to themodernbanker.com/publiclibrary and you visit you’re gonna see, you’re gonna have a dashboard with your library, you go do “On Demand Videos” it’s the first video. If you watch that you’ll be blown away at the special offer that we have to be part of our premium community.

Jack Hubbard 34:38

Well great! I hope a lot of people participate. We’re hearing some great stories from bankers generating a lot of business as a result of using the program and that’s a lot of credit due to you and your tremendous knowledge.

Well thanks again, thanks for joining us. Thanks Brynne.

Outro 34:59

Thanks for joining us for Jack Rants with Brynne brought to you by our good friends at Vertical IQ and RelPro. We're live on LinkedIn every Thursday at noon Eastern time helping bankers turn connections into conversations. Don't miss an episode, visit themodernbanker.com/tmbpodcast. Leave us a review if you would. You can also listen to this program and the new Jack Rants with Modern Bankers on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Google Play and I Heart Radio. We're on YouTube as well. Subscribe at https://www.youtube.com/@TheModernBanker. Finally, don't forget, make today and every day a great client day!