Ten ways to avoid becoming a mediocre financial institution (part one)

Mediocrity. The very word is detestable. No one wants it. And if you’re a Dallas Cowboys fan like I am you are faced with it every football season. 8-8. Not good enough to make the playoffs. Not bad enough to have a high draft pick. Just “blah.”

Does that also describe your bank or credit union? In a Credit Union Insight piece, I wrote about Five Signs Your Credit Union Is Heading Into Mediocrity. While recognizing what those signs are, it’s also equally important to know how to avoid becoming a mediocre financial institution.

There are 10 ways to avoid that slide to mediocre. Below are five of the 10 (I’ll share the remaining five in an upcoming post):

(1)   Conduct strategic planning on a regular basis—If the last time your credit union or bank conducted a strategic planning session was Y2K, then you are probably behind with your planning. One of the keys with strategic planning is consistency. For example, I asked one of my most successful clients why they did strategic planning every single year (their growth was strong, their key ratios were solid, etc.—did they really need to do planning this particular year). One of their board members said the reason for their success was that they committed many years ago to always do a strategic planning session (during good times and bad times).

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