Transcription:
The Importance of Strategic Development - NOW: Strategy Still Matters

Bill Klaproth (Host):  When you’ve been searching for the right insight, advice and information on financial marketing; you know where to go, the Speakeasy, the exclusive source for financial marketing insights with a shot of human. Staring Kelly Hellickson and Hilary Reed, from EmpowerFi, Strategy infused, data driven marketing solutions for financial institutions nationwide. I’m your host Bill Klaproth. On this episode, we’ll talk about why strategy is so important and why we should take this time to refocus and rewrite our strategic plans and marketing strategies for the next 12 to 18 month time period. Kelly, why is this important?

Kelly Hellickson (Guest):  Well I think it’s important because we say that every six months you should be reassessing and reevaluating where you are at on your strategy ladder that you are supposed to have developed and if it’s not working, if it’s broken, you need to address it. So, it only makes sense, given the pandemic and all of the confusion and the insecurity and just being scared for your health, I think it makes a lot of sense that a financial institution would refocus and rewrite their strategic plan. Hil, what do you think?

Hilary Reed (Guest):  Yeah, I agree. And I think right now, more so than ever, credit unions are saying well I want to put a pause on this and not do my strategic planning this year and I think it’s the exact opposite of what we should be doing. Now is the time, even if you just wrote a strategic plan last month or two months ago, now is the time to do it all over again. And I know nobody wants to get all the board together and do that all over again, but it really is the right thing to do here because we’ve been hearing from so many credit unions and that everything that we planned has gone out the window. Now we need to shift and offer emergency loans and loans for small businesses and my question to those credit unions is what are you going to do after everybody takes a loan and we’re six to twelve months down the road and now you are completely lent out and you need to bring in cash. Do you have a plan for that?

Kelly:  And do you have a really kick butt strong very incentivized checking product? What are your CDs? What do your MMAs look like? Because you are going to need to put a pretty attractive offer in front of somebody to get that cash back in the door.

Hilary:  Yeah, absolutely. It’s something, it’s an environment that I don’t think many of us are thinking about right now because we’re all in triage mode and I think we need to take our headspace a little bit out of triage mode and think for the future. So, we’re trying to convince credit unions to do so and we’re trying to be those ones obviously we don’t have a crystal ball but we’re trying to see ahead. We survived the recession and if we could survive that, hopefully we can help credit unions come out of this on the other side more positively.

Host:  So, as customer’s needs change as you were talking about, it just seems to make sense that you would have to write your strategic plan because business as usual as we know it right now is done. Everything is changed. So, it seems like everyone would need to think about rewriting a strategic plan, certainly for the next 12 to 18 months. It just seems like that would have to come and then what would be most important in that strategic plan do you think?

Hilary:  Well I would say that making sure that the new strategic plan is fluid. I mean all strategic plans are supposed to have fluidity in them right, but this one should have a lot of fluidity to it. Because we actually don’t know how long this lending period will last. It could end tomorrow and then everybody might – part of my biggest I guess you wouldn’t call it a fear for credit unions but once this lending emergency lending period is over, that people are going to be really scared to take loans again because they are so focused on having three months of savings built up which we know, that most consumers don’t have three months of savings built up like they are supposed to and now they are finding out what happens when you don’t. So, there’s a chance that consumers down the road a year from now, 18 months from now might be really hesitant to borrow money. And they are only doing it now because it’s an emergency. So, we could see ourselves in the same situation that we were in during the recession where consumers were hesitant to borrow, and I just don’t know that credit unions are quite prepared for that.

So, I guess my suggestion would be to make sure that you have a backup plan to your strategic plan.

Kelly:  Yeah and to parlay off of that right, like so everybody has an in case of emergency right, an ICE that they have as a contact in their phone. I envision like a drawer where this emergency strategic plan is now absolutely just preserved and pristine and locked in that drawer for if and when something like this should happen again, a backup plan and that backup plan, I see that lasting, it needs to last at least nine months.

Hillary:  Yeah, I mean we all have a disaster recovery plan in place or at least all of financial institutions should have a disaster recovery plan in place and some of that disaster recovery plan has been pulled out of that drawer so, why wouldn’t you have a strategic disaster recovery strategic plan to pull out of that drawer?

Kelly:  Yeah in case of emergency. Absolutely, I think that just – that’s just smart intelligent marketing.

Host:  When you talk about strategic planning, what does that do for the marketing of the institution? How should the marketing change over the next three, six, twelve, eighteen months?

Kelly:  Let’s go over a tool. Let’s do it virtually and let’s set ourselves up for success. Let’s set our team, our players, our consumers, our members. Let’s set everybody up, go virtually so that we have this under our belt should we need to revert back to it again.

Hilary:  Yeah, and your marketers shouldn’t be marketing in the dark. They are not called darketers. That’s a really dumb joke but it just – I don’t know.

Kelly:  Yeah, well, it’s the end of a long day. I liked it.

Host:  I like it.

Hilary:  Okay, well as long as you guys like it. So, they shouldn’t be marketing in the dark. So, if you change your strategic plan or heck if you just have a strategic plan, please, please share it with your marketers. Because one thing that we are unable to do as a marketing firm for financial institutions is, we can’t properly market for you unless we know your strategic goals. Because everything that we do is backed by strategy, right, so if we don’t know what your goals are, why did you hire a marketer? So, no matter what, if you have a plan, if you are reorganizing your plan, if you are pulling that plan out of your drawer, go make a copy and give it to your marketers. So, just don’t let them market in the dark.

Kelly:  Good one.

Host:  Darketers. Write that down. Tweet it out.

Hilary:  Trademark that.

Kelly:  Right.

Host:  Make sure you give Hilary -

Kelly:  Her and her crystal ball, she’s so hip.

Host:  She’s hip. Very hip. Any last thoughts on refocusing and rewriting our strategic plans for the next twelve to eighteen month time period, final thoughts?

Kelly:  Yeah, here’s a thought. Why don’t we have fun with it? I mean this is not all doom and gloom. We have the power as strategic marketers and planners and facilitators to come to market with some pretty powerful products and incentives for our members and our bank customers. I think that we can add a little bit of lightness to it. I don’t see other industries don’t see a strategic plan as such doom and gloom, like they are excited to put one together. So, I think we should infuse some positivity, positive in, positive out.

Hilary:  And I have one thing that everybody should add to their strategic plan if they don’t already have it especially after what’s going on now with COVID, please add online account opening to your strategic plan, your strategic tasks, your priorities. Whatever it is. Build that in and if you already have it, build a strategy around using it.

Kelly:  Boom.

Host:  Boom. That makes sense.

Kelly:  Mic drop.

Host:  From the woman who gave us darketers.

Hilary:  No, I’m not going to drop the mic.

Kelly:  No, I’m serious. No, I’m serious. That’s brilliant. They have to. The ones that don’t right now are struggling and you just feel so bad for them. We want to help everybody. We’re bleeding hearts. Because we’re both credit union brats. I mean we just want to help everybody and so we’re trying to give a little bit of structure and direction so that a lot of them can kind of help themselves and set themselves up for success. We do a lot of different things like our new Friday roundtables where we get likeminded professional individuals together and let’s share their stories because it’s good, it’s cathartic to get it out. Again, we are all in the same boat, let’s just not let each other capsize.

Host:  Another good line. I think online innovations Hilary, you’re right, I think a lot of those will come out of this. So, your point is really well taken. And Kelly, you’re right, lightness and humor. We are going to be so ready, this dark cloud that we are kind of living under right now. We’re going to be ready for humor and lightheartedness so great, great points. So, thank you again for a great conversation. Again, thank you both.

Hilary:  Thank you.

Kelly:  Thanks Bill.

Host:  And to connect with Kelly or Hilary, please visit www.empowerfi.org. This is the Speakeasy Financial Marketing podcast. Thanks for listening.