Bank strategic plans need faces, not numbers

The Strategic Planning cycle is important to the success of a company, yet it doesn’t often feel that way. Strategic Planning exercises have all the power of Executive and Board support, but once in the middle of them, they can feel sophomoric and awkward. Maybe it’s all those grade school flip charts that end up messy with color markers and bad handwriting.

Here’s a tip from someone who has facilitated strategic planning sessions. Make it about faces. To visualize the future, a bank needs to visualize the faces of the people they wish to impress.

Simplistic? Yes. Powerful? Incredibly.

Strategic planners need to boil down all the talk, analyses, comparisons, and come to a crystal clear vision of where the company is going. Without the leap to “faces”, groups often simply extend the numbers into the future on the tables, charts, and graphs that are used to explain their current situation.

The qualitative side of the plan often ends up with accolades about how great the bank is. “Superior Customer Service,” “Rapid responses to issues,” “Deep understanding of the local market.” This is good stuff, but the sign of a good strategic plan is that it helps make decisions. What kind of mobile app should the bank have? When should the company overhaul the call center? And to what end? If they knew exactly whom they wanted to impress, these decisions would get easier.

The answer is to put a specific customer(s) out in front of the bank as a target. Be the perfect bank for that customer, now and over the next ten years. Examples:

Small Business: Instead of a plan “to be the preferred small business lender in our region”, think “to enable retail store owners to generate more business for themselves and add vitality to the community in which they operate.” The faces of that strategy are business owners. Their goal is to grow their business, not to find the “preferred” small business lender. Know them, understand their problems, solve those problems, be proactive with advice, keep them informed on economic issues, be there with ideas right when they need them. They will admire you for it, and nothing grows a bank like genuine admiration.

Retail Deposits: Instead of a plan “to grow retail deposits by 50% in 3 years,” think “to create such a compelling partnership with middle income family households that they fall in love with the bank and tell all their friends.” Granted, the term “fall in love” may not fly in some circles, but be careful not to get consumed by “strategic-eze” language that sounds good but often ends up on the shelf until the next planning cycle. Know this, if they do “love” the bank, they will bring their deposits.

Even a one sentence strategic plan with the specific customer specifically targeted, can bring a whole bank together around a tangible plan, one they can actually see, and know personally. Motivating a group to “Grow 50%”, buried amidst a deluge of charts and graphs, will get far less traction.

Photo Credit © Can Stock Photo Inc. / Kurhan