MEET RAY ADLER, AUTHOR OF THE EVOLUTIONARY BANKER
Instead of simply telling his bank clients they must change to survive and prosper, Ray Adler, Founder and CEO of BTI Growth Advisors, breaks the mold by teaching them how to change. With more than 25 years of senior-level consulting experience, Ray helps regional, business and community banks identify and implement the right strategic changes they need to evolve, hone and grow to the next level.
Recent Articles
- Your Pipeline Report
- Is Your Bank Ready For Predictive Sales Management?
- To Grow Loans In 2021 (And Preserve NIM), You’ll Need “Blue Ocean” Sales Strategies
- It Takes More Than Deposits To Create A Banking “Relationship” With PPP Customers
- Three Things Your Bank Can Do To Convert PPP Customers Into Full Banking Relationships
Contact
BTI GROWTH ADVISORS
2588 El Camino Real, #131
Carlsbad, CA 92008
Office: 760-445-4980
Email: ray@btigrowthadvisors.com
Your Pipeline Report
/0 Comments/in Business Development, Media /by Ray AdlerThree Reasons Your Pipeline Report Is A Poor Sales Management Tool
If you’re still using a pipeline report as the sole sales management tool, then your bank’s sales culture is stuck in the 20th century and is in desperate need of modernization. In this blog, I’ll provide three reasons why it’s imperative to address modernizing your sales culture in 2021. Read more
Is Your Bank Ready For Predictive Sales Management?
/0 Comments/in Business Development, Media /by Ray AdlerHow Sales Managers Can Better Assist Commercial Lenders To Achieve Their Annual Sales Goals
On January 1st of every year, we in sales face the same dilemma, how are we going to meet or exceed our sales goals for the year? It all comes down to how are we going to invest our time and which path will provide the most direct route to sales goal attainment? It’s easy to become unfocused as we look for and pursue various sales opportunities. This point is reinforced by the following data: Read more
To Grow Loans In 2021 (And Preserve NIM), You’ll Need “Blue Ocean” Sales Strategies
/0 Comments/in Business Development /by Ray AdlerWhich would you prefer ─ to compete against 3 to 5 other financial institutions or compete against only one other bank?
Now it’s not a trick question. But why do commercial lenders consistently put themselves in an unenviable position of having to compete against 3 to 5 other institutions to close a transaction? Why do commercial lenders consistently pursue sales opportunities where at best they are positioned as a commodity where rates are a primary differentiator? Read more
It Takes More Than Deposits To Create A Banking “Relationship” With PPP Customers
/0 Comments/in Business Development /by Ray AdlerIf I’ve heard it once, I’ve heard it hundreds of times. Over the recent months, when discussing a bank’s experience facilitating PPP loans, the banking executive I’d be talking to would say, “when we made a PPP loan to a non-customer, we required them to bring over their deposits.” And what was so interesting about this very predictable reoccurring response was the tone each banker used when saying the words “we required them to bring over their deposits.” There was almost a victorious tone to their communication as if to say, “we achieved the goal of creating a banking relationship”.
Read more
Three Things Your Bank Can Do To Convert PPP Customers Into Full Banking Relationships
/0 Comments/in Business Development /by Ray AdlerIf your bank is like a lot of banks, you did more business in a few weeks, than you did in the past 5 to 10 years because of the SBA’s Paycheck Protection Program. Congratulations, the value proposition of being a community bank has never been stronger! Hundreds of thousands of smaller businesses learned very quickly that having a relationship with a banker who cares about them has real value.
So now what? Successfully on-boarded PPP customers offer an excellent opportunity to improve bank performance on several levels. Read more
Driving Efficiency Throughout Your Sales Process
/0 Comments/in Business Development, Sales /by Ray AdlerBy Ray Adler, CEO BTI Growth Advisors, Inc. This blog shines a light not just on the inefficiencies in your bank’s sales efforts but also why banks are having such difficulties evolving with the times. To better understand the difficulty banks are experiencing in their efforts to evolve and improve performance, we don’t need to […]
The Secret of the Top 10% of Sales Reps
/0 Comments/in Business Development, Sales /by Ray AdlerWhat separates the top 10% of sales personnel from the bottom 90%?
They are diligent about how they spend their time.
In banking, and likely many other fields, there is always something to do to take care of your customer. When you place your focus on always serving, the marketing function doesn’t happen. And when you stop marketing, your pipeline flatlines! I don’t know about you, but I hate waking up a 3 a.m., staring at the ceiling, wondering where my next deal is coming from. Read more
How Pruning Your Traditional COIs Spurs Growth
/0 Comments/in Business Development, Sales /by Ray AdlerBanking landscapes for the last twenty-five years have been extremely favorable for the industry. The economy has been strong and vital. The stock market has reached highs never experienced before, and interest rates have been at historical lows.
It’s safe to say that the financial services industry has benefited from a tailwind. We’ve enjoyed a good run.
And yet… Read more
Coaching Employees Is A Far Less Costly (and More Effective) Solution Than Replacing Them
/0 Comments/in Leadership /by Ray AdlerTom Brady is arguably one of the greatest quarterbacks to ever play the game of football; however, Tom Brady strives continuously to improve his performance by working with a coach – namely the Patriots tight-end coach Nick Caley, who also serves as Tom Brady’s “broken-play” coach.
Banking isn’t much different than football. There are always broken-plays to adjust to, and a bank’s sales team needs to be receptive to coaching or it’s all for naught. If a seasoned veteran like Tom Brady is receptive to coaching and making small improvements, there’s no reason why bankers of any tenure shouldn’t be open to refining and honing their strategies, processes and behaviors. Read more
Building a High-Functioning Culture Takes Planning
/0 Comments/in Leadership /by Ray AdlerTony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos, famously said, “If you get the culture right, most of the other stuff will just take care of itself.” It’s apparent that they’ve gotten something right.
Recently, Eric Chester, who is described as “The Expert on Finding, Engaging, and Keeping Great Employees” visited Zappos headquarters in downtown Las Vegas. Here’s what he discovered –– aside from what he describes as an atmosphere that “radiates individuality and personality with a spattering of controlled chaos thrown in for good measure,” which he wrote in his blog “I Got Zapped! 3 Surprising Facts About the Culture of Zappos.”
Chester says, “It’s what you do for your people that goes beyond what they expect that ultimately determines the level of their engagement. Great cultures never stop evolving.”
Essentially, it takes an intentional leader to create a strong culture –– one with vision and the ability to share that vision across the board –– and one who is always willing to change what needs to be changed. Read more