by Sean McDonald
This blog has featured several dozen posts that deal with the growing discipline of credit union business development. As these posts seem to get the most attention, click-thrus, shares, etc., I thought that another business development post around the Holidays couldn’t hurt.
It has always been my belief that credit union business development is the fastest-growing discipline in the industry – please note that I do not consider mobile banking or remote deposit capture to be “disciplines” in this sense. Business development takes a certain skill set, persistence, and system to work properly and to achieve results. Indeed, business development must gobeyond the handshake.
In our industry, the professionals that are charged with business development are tasked with creating, cultivating, maintaining, and expanding mutually beneficial relationships with centers of influence in the communities served by the credit union.This takes a lot more than attending an after-hours “meet and greet” at the local Chamber of Commerce. In addition, so-called “speed networking” events are not the best option for a credit union business development professional. Indeed, Credit union BD professionals must transcend and redefine the usual characterization of “networking” by placing enormous emphasis and painstaking effort on building relationships.
