Attending CUNA’s annual Governmental Affairs Conference (GAC) is always a valuable learning experience but this year’s trip gave me some unexpected insights from an unusual source: dinner at a Washington DC Chinese restaurant [...]
Powerball Fever gripped the country especially hard recently as would-be lottery winners in 47 U.S. states and territories pictured themselves winning over $565 million in the third-largest Powerball jackpot ever. From the shoulder-high snows [...]
Marketing has created a "catch culture." Don't worry too much if you aren't sure what a "catch culture" is, because I’ve just made it up. Every day we find "the catch" lurking in shadowy [...]
We may hate Black Friday and Cyber Monday (or hate ourselves for loving them) but they’ve become such established beachheads on the holiday calendar these days that we’ve added Gray Thursday, Small Business [...]
As someone who has spent his entire career in financial services, I’ll readily confess that my knowledge of what it takes to succeed in retailing has been limited to my role as a consumer. [...]
Whenever credit union credit card portfolio managers discuss their top priorities, they typically tell us that their goals center around growth, increased profitability, and—almost as an afterthought—risk minimization. It seems that many credit [...]
My mother used to say, "If you bring forth what is inside you, what you bring forth will save you." Many marketers believe that the head thinks, while the gut knows. Even when challenged by [...]
My mother used to say, “Experience is what you get when you don't get what you want.” The greatest of marketing masters will tell you they've earned their stripes by learning from their biggest mistakes. [...]
When credit union marketing departments set their growth and member service goals each quarter, they are often faced with a bewildering array of strategic options regarding the product improvements, distribution channel enhancements and campaign ideas [...]
Many credit union contact centers miss key opportunities to start sales conversations with their members because they fear that making specific product recommendations might come across negatively as "dialing for dollars." Yet member surveys tell [...]
Great credit union contact centers aren’t born, they’re made—by great managers and the teams they create to provide outstanding member service. That’s why one of the most pivotal management positions at [...]
For the past few years, credit unions and big banks have been fighting each other for new checking account business. Credit unions have relied on a winning combination of economical checking products and outstanding member [...]
Credit union contact centers are experiencing a "back to the future" moment in the contact center in which the cutting-edge power of today’s Big Data metrics has paradoxically revealed the vital role that old [...]
On Friday, January 17, 2014, attorneys representing the Federal Reserve (the Fed), retailers and retailer trade groups appeared before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia as the Fed appealed an [...]
When credit unions analyze what attracts and delights new members one of the most effective tools is also one of the most basic—checking accounts. Despite the proliferation of financial products, the checking account is [...]
