Knowing What to Do Means Knowing Who You Are

This was one of the four takeaways offered by Ron Shevlin, the host of this year’s Partnership Symposium, at the end of the conference. And it’s a concept that is closely linked to the premise behind owning your market: successful companies know their brands and know their target markets.

Knowing what to do (having a cohesive market strategy) certainly requires that you know who you are – but it also means that you know where your opportunities are. Additionally, knowing who you are means knowing your brand. In today’s marketplace, examples of financial institutions that really know who they are, and know what to do are unfortunately few and far between.

During the conference, Jeff Stephens and William Azaroff gave presentations that did highlight institutions that know who they are and what to do: Cascade Community Credit Union and VanCity Savings Credit Union, respectfully. And both of these financial institutions are positioned to own their markets.

Content from these presentations can be seen here:

Presentation by Jeff Stephens

Presentation by William Azaroff

Authenticity is One of the Keys to Market Domination

At the recent ABA Bank Marketing Conference, I was impressed to see that ABA had recruited author Joseph Pine to be the opening keynote presenter.  He’s written a few books that are important for bankers to read and understand, not the least of which is The Experience Economy. Joe did a good job of explaining his perspective:  that America has evolved from a commodity economy to a goods economy to a service economy, and now to an experience economy.  We’re no longer providing services, we’re staging experiences.

In his discussion, Joe talked a lot about authenticity.  Owning your market requires understanding your brand strengths in addition to market opportunities, and a big part of tapping into your brand strengths relies on your ability to be authentic.  I believe authenticity is something that’s really lacking in bank and credit union brands these days.

Joe laid out three important and easy-to-understand points I wanted to share with you:

1.  If you are authentic, you don’t have to say you’re authentic

2.  If you say you’re authentic, you better be authentic

3.  It’s easier to be authentic if you don’t say you’re authentic

I thought these were great points and simple tests to see if your bank or credit union is truly authentic.  I’ll add a couple of my own tips for authenticity to the discussion for you to ponder:

–Just be yourself.  You can’t be what everyone else wants you to be.

AND

–Realize you’re not for everyone.  As soon as you start being distinct enough that you TURN OFF people who are not right for you, the better.