5 Key Areas Where Your Credit Union Needs Consistency

Consistency is the key to success for credit union growth when it's applied to five specific areas.

Any exercise trainer will tell you if you workout one day for 12 hours, you're going to be really sore. But if you work out 30 minutes a day for 30 days, you're going to be really fit. Why? Because consistency trumps intensity.

In a recent LinkedIn post, I noted that I'm often asked, what is the key to success for credit union growth? The one-word answer: Consistency. But not just random consistency. For credit unions it's consistency in five critical areas: Messaging, marketing, staff, sales and training.

Below is a breakdown of each of those areas along with a quick hack to ensure your credit union is bringing more consistency to them.

Messaging

Change is good. But not when it comes to your core messaging. You want items like your vision and tagline to remain consistent. The challenge with some credit unions is that they update their core messaging too frequently. Maybe they get tired of saying the same things. But repetition is often king.

Research suggests that consumers need to see information between five to seven times for it to transition to memory. Most marketing sources use the Rule of Seven: It takes exposing your message at least seven times before someone can recall it.

While your individual campaign concepts (think loan and deposit product promotions) certainly need creativity, it's your brand messaging that needs consistency. Consistently tell your stories and relate those stories back to your brand vision. Remember, one of the three "Cs" to a strong brand is consistency. The strongest brands today rarely deviate from their central message and themes.

Messaging Consistency Hack: Develop a brand plan and communicate to your niches. A brand plan details your core message and target audiences. It's hard to have a consistent message without a brand plan.

Marketing

Inconsistent marketing never works. Yet too many credit unions are guilty of this practice. We only market CDs and checking accounts when we need deposits. We need loans so we drop our auto rates and quickly put together a member email with a landing page talking about how great our auto loans are.

Marketing is not like a faucet that you can turn on and off when the mood strikes. It is much more like a soaker hose: You need a continual drip.

This is especially important in emails, social media and online efforts. The credit unions that have the most success in their digital marketing are the ones that consistently use SEO, PPC, geotargeting and online ad buys. The ones that struggle are the ones who fluctuate their spending.

Marketing Consistency Hack: Hire an outside partner to help fill in your consistency gaps. Consistency takes time and sometimes our marketing bandwidth is stretched thin. Having a partner that serves as your marketing arm leverages your resources.

Staff

One of the biggest areas credit unions struggle with when it comes to consistency is staff service. In some credit unions, a member won't get the answer they want from one particular branch, and they will drive clear across town to the same credit union but different branch hoping to get a different answer.

We see this when conducting mystery shops for our clients across the country. One branch will deliver an over-the-top engaging experience. Then another branch of the same credit union will completely bomb. Why? Because there is no consistency.

If your staff gives great service every now and then or only when they feel like it, then that is a lack of consistency. It's not enough to give a great member experience once. You need to do it every time.

Staff Consistency Hack: Create a journey map and brand service standards. Detail how you expect staff to treat members at every delivery channel (branch, phone, chat, etc.). In other words, operationalize your brand.

Sales

Leadership expert John Maxwell writes, "Small disciplines repeated with consistency every day lead to great achievements gained slowly over time." Nowhere do credit unions need more discipline than when it comes to sales. Even though some credit unions may shy away from the "S" word, the truth is everyone is in sales.

But sales takes consistency – monthly, weekly and daily consistency. Practical sales techniques your employees should use include writing handwritten thank-you notes, recognizing members on their birthdays, asking where else members have other financial products (the average consumer has 10 financial products spread over four different financial institutions), conducting outbound phone calls and discussing product benefits rather than features.

Sales Consistency Hack: Create a follow-up system. Whether it's a complex CRM system or a simple Post-it note reminder, creating a way to consistently reach out to directly to members improves your sales. As networking expert Keith Ferrazzi says in his book "Never Eat Alone", "Follow-up is the key to success in any business."

Training

One trap many credit unions fall into is a "one and done" training approach. A one-time employee orientation. A one-day brand event. An annual employee rally. While all those are good, they often don't move the needle as much as you'd like. Why? Because training takes consistency and repetition.

Even the late great motivational speaker Zig Ziglar noted, "Repetition is the mother of learning, the father of action, which makes it the architect of accomplishment." If you want your employees to accomplish more, you have to train them more.

"We've found the credit unions that have the most employee engagement are the ones who invest in their experience training at least monthly," Laura Loy, experience director for On the Mark Strategies, said. "It's the consistent reminders that move the needle."

Training Consistency Hack: Conduct micro training, which are short but regular bursts of tips, tricks and learning. These could include 30-minute Zoom sessions, a short video or even quick, guided reads.

Dwayne (The Rock) Johnson doesn't work out 12 hours a day. But he does workout every day. He also notes, "Success isn't always about greatness. It's about consistency. Consistent hard work leads to success. Greatness will come."

And great growth success will come to your credit union when you bring more consistency to your messaging, marketing, staff, sales and training.

Mark Arnold is founder and president of On the Mark Strategies, a Dallas, Texas-based consulting firm specializing in branding and strategic planning for credit unions.

The Shrinking Pool of Small Credit Unions: Why It Matters & What We Can Do About It. - Henry Meier, Esq.

Henry Meier, Esq. Henry Meier is the former General Counsel of the New York Credit Union Association, where he authored the popular New York State of Mind blog. He now provides legal advice to credit unions on a broad range of legal, regulatory and legislative issues. He can be reached at (518) 223-5126 or via email at henrymeieresq@outlook.com . For as long as I’ve been around the industry, I’ve heard concerns about the demise of the small credit union. But I’ve come to realize it’s a lot like the weather: Everyone talks about it, but no one does anything about it. This is unfortunate. We need credit unions of all shapes and sizes to survive, and if we don’t take action soon, it will be too late. Fortunately, there are steps the industry can take to potentially decrease the rate at which small credit unions are disappearing by making it viable for credit unions to survive by getting larger credit unions interested in making the necessary investments to keep the sma...

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