Bank Shorts: Sales Culture Gone Wild

When I was a branch manager, I fondly recall competing with a friend and fellow branch manager for the quarterly sales title. My bank, First National Bank of Maryland, had a very transparent incentive compensation system. I could calculate my own and my team's quarterly bonuses to the penny. It was called RAISE... Recognizing Achievement In Sales Excellence.

The challenge was that it was a sales incentive system. So we sold. This may have motivated us to focus on the product de jour rather than customer needs. I think my friend and I were conscientious enough leaders to mitigate this risk. But it did cause us to focus on the types of customers likely to "buy" promoted products and not focus on the bank's strategy.

Enjoy the Bank Short below. If your incentive system revolves around sales versus profitability, then don't be surprised if this is going on in your branches.

Bank Shorts: Sales culture gone wild.
by: jeffmarsico

Bank Shorts: Schmidlap National Bank Exit Interview

A client lost his temper with his regulator after one of the more youthful examiners threatened to force the bank to write down the entire consumer loan portfolio based on the information that was given to him. The result, an informal enforcement action. There is a lot of tension between examiners and the examined these days, and I thought this would make an appropriate time to launch an animated series, Bank Shorts.

We shouldn't lose our temper with regulators. Below is my perception of how a difficult exit interview between a fictitious banker and examiner in charge would go. Notice the composure maintained by the banker. I was impressed with his performance. Also note who is sitting in the desk chair versus the visitors chair.

Hats off to Bryan Allain, at http://www.bryanallain.com/ for giving me the idea regarding these shorts. He has created movies at his blog. He is a witty guy and you should visit his blog, in spite of him being a Red Sox fan.

Enjoy.

~ Jeff