The Competitive Edge for Credit Unions

Performance Improvement Tip

Product Mastery: What It Is and Why Your Employees Need It

Product mastery is a fun, flexible way for you to help your employees become more confident, proactive, and knowledgeable when engaging in solutions-oriented discussions with members.

Product mastery is quite different from traditional product knowledge training; it is a revolutionary learning technology that changes the way employees think about your credit union's products and services and satisfies members' needs.

Product mastery gives employees the power to use information smoothly and easily, as though it is second nature, in member conversations and problem solving. It is achieved through a unique learning system that sharpens employees' knowledge and boosts their confidence so that they can engage with members in a way that builds trust, strengthens relationships, and differentiates your credit union in the marketplace.

Product mastery is the ideal training methodology for employees who must:

• Quickly recognize, diagnose, and solve complex problems
  
• Focus on questioning, listening to, and responding to what others are saying
  
• Recall vital information not used frequently
  

Learn more about improving your credit union's performance ...

U.S. Public Seminar

Minimizing Problem Loans
A two-day, highly interactive seminar where you will learn how to effectively monitor, evaluate, and take appropriate action on potentially problematic commercial loans.

December 3-4, 2008
Orlando, Florida
More Information and to Register

Web Event Replays

International Financial Reporting Standards
Learn why IFRS is a game changer for commercial lending in the U.S.
Originally Held August 28, 2008
View Now

What Kind of Executive Coach Are You?
Learn coach-the-coach techniques you can use to drive business results.
Originally Held September 9, 2008
View Now

Sustaining Learning Beyond the Training Event
Ensure new behaviors gained in training yield greater business results for your organization.
Originally Held September 17, 2008
View Now

QuickLinks

Our Website | Our Blog | Events | Omega News | About Us | Complimentary Resources

The Competitive Edge for Banks

Credit

IFRS - Implications for Commercial Lenders

Convergence to International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) from U.S. GAAP accounting will have ramifications for the knowledge and skills required of commercial lenders and analysts. Recent trends and events appear to make this change inevitable in the U.S.

Over 100 countries now use IFRS and a significant share of global Fortune 500 firms use IFRS. What's driving this change is the desire for a uniform standard for financial statement presentation and disclosure. And, there are global trends and economic drivers including the integration of the world's capital markets that has resulted in more securities issued and owned by foreign companies.

There are several important implications for commercial lenders:

• The need to understand IFRS and the differences between it and GAAP to evaluate the impact of accounting differences.
  
• With principles-based accounting, lenders need to be sure they understand the business and the logic of the underlying business transactions as opposed to simply relying on quantitative analysis of the financial statements.
  

The long-term global impact is that within 10 years, we may have a much more universally accepted approach to business accounting. Lenders and institutions who can successfully adapt to a new mind set for financial reporting will have a competitive advantage in booking high-quality assets.

Want to learn more? View a replay of our webcast, IFRS: A Game Changer for Commercial Lending.

Learn more about improving credit performance ...

Sales & Service

Optimizing Lean Staffs Through Training

Training is often one of the first things to be cut by banks in difficult times, yet optimal employee performance continues to be the most important factor in achieving business results -- especially during economic downturns.

According to an article in American Banker, a retail bank estimated that a 10% improvement in employee engagement (customer interaction effectiveness) was worth over $1 billion a year to the bottom line.

There is a definite correlation between staff effectiveness and business results and the need for employees to be performing optimally.

So rather than eliminate training during difficult economic periods, organizations should be:

• Selective about the training in which they're investing - choose training based on its ability to develop skills and change behaviors. It should include demonstrations, activities, skill practices, and assessments that enable participants to insert the concepts of learning into the context of their jobs.
  
• Creative in the way they deliver training - taking into account not only the cost for travel and expenses, but also the coverage required for employees to be taken away from their locations for days at a time.
  
• Strategic in the way training is sustained through coaching - at no time is coaching more important than immediately following training when employees are motivated, concepts are clear, and application through skill practice and assessment has heightened confidence.
  
• Diligent about retaining staff through ongoing training support - the cost to hire and train an employee is between 50 and 200 percent of their annual salary; since there is a direct correlation between good training practices and reduced employee turnover, maintaining training protocol and frequency is critical to attrition.

Learn more about improving sales and service performance ...

Leadership

Change Management 101

Not surprisingly, people don't adapt to change easily -- and part of that is the way in which the change is communicated. Most organizations indicate why the change is being made in terms of what it will do for organization, with no expansion into what it will mean to the employees.

People don't adapt to change because of their intense desire to impact the bottom line. It is far more personal and therefore people's reactions are often manifested in ways that range from rejection to indifference to neutrality and other states in between.

Managers who address change at the micro level by dealing with one employee at a time and knowing that as the individual adapts, so does the team and subsequently the organization, are most successful at leading and sustaining change efforts.

Want to learn more? View a replay of our webcast, Leading People Through Change: Build your Change Resilience, Coach your People to Commitment, and Increase Business Results.

Learn more about improving leadership performance ...

Visit Omega's Blog Today!

Keep up with Omega's bloggers by visiting Ideas You Can Bank On, Opinions on Improving Performance in Financial Services.

Mark Faircloth's post, Manage This (Part 3 of 3) is now live.

Public Seminars

Advanced Cash Flow
A one-day, highly interactive seminar where you will learn how to effectively analyze complex commercial borrowing situations.

November 25, 2008
Abu Dhabi

November 26, 2008
Dubai

More information and to register

Coaching For Credit Quality
A one-day, highly interactive seminar where you will gain proven coaching techniques to more effectively manage the credit analysis process.

December 2, 2008
Sydney, Australia

December 4, 2008
Melbourne, Australia

More information and to register

Minimizing Problem Loans
A two-day, highly interactive seminar where you will learn how to effectively monitor, evaluate, and take appropriate action on potentially problematic commercial loans.

December 3-4, 2008
Orlando, Florida

More information and to register

Leading and Coaching Your People Through Change
A one-day, highly interactive seminar where you will gain the skills and tools needed to effectively guide your people through periods of change.

December 9, 2008
Sydney, Australia

December 12, 2008
Melbourne, Australia

More information and to register

New Articles

"When You Are Up to your Waist in Alligators it is Hard to Remember You Started Out to Drain the Swamp" or, "Remember When Real Estate Loans Made Us Lots of Money?"

It is no secret that the commercial real estate market is following the same negative trends we have seen in the residential real estate markets over the past year. It is also no secret that many financial institutions have long held to the premise that: "If you lend on dirt, you can't get hurt." We are now seeing that this long-held premise has all of the validity of an old wives tale. Download the complete article, authored by Dr. Jerry Crigger, Omega Performance's vice president and senior consultant: credit and risk.

Download Now

Knowledge Currency

Published in Mortgage & Finance Brief (Aug./Sept. 2008 issue)

Online learning offers many advantages for time-poor brokers and programs can be individually customized to suit specific education needs. Get your complimentary copy of this article, authored by Howard Cook, Omega Performance's new business and alliances manager, Australia, now.

Download Now

Quick Links ...

Our Website | Our Blog | Events | Omega News | About Omega | Complimentary Resources

The Competitive Edge for Contact Centers

Today's Tip

Product Knowledge Reference Tool Keeps the Customer King

The challenge for keeping up with product knowledge in the contact center has always been there but it is exacerbated now by shortened product life cycles, agent turnover, and an increasingly competitive marketplace. This is happening worldwide and in all industries.

For most companies, the scope and changeability of product information has meant that memorization is an unwieldy strategy for knowledge transfer. Hard copy product binders and static online product cards have proven to be inadequate to the task of keeping information up to date and readily available when needed.

What keeps the customer king is the right kind of online product knowledge reference tool. Here are some key features for you to look for:

1. Search capabilities so that agents can "drill down" to meet customer needs from many different angles.
   
2. Easy ways to compare different product features and benefits.
   
3. Authoring capabilities so that product updating can be done once, when needed, and then instantly made accessible to all.
   
4. A "dashboard" that alerts agents to important organizational communications and product changes.
   
5. Usage reporting for organizational intelligence about what products and features are being accessed. This lets you know where additional agent training may be required.

Benefits you can expect with an effective tool -- besides increased customer satisfaction -- include:

• Decreased ramp up time for new agents
  
• Decreased costs for updating information
  
• Decreased turnover among staff - a kingly reward for your organization as well!

Learn more about improving contact center performance ...

Come See Omega

ICCM Canada Conference & Expo

When: October 8, 2008
Where: Toronto, Canada
Topic: Building Corporate Capability and Cutting Training Time through Product Knowledge Reference Tool
Speakers: Caroline Gray, Omega Performance Senior Vice President, Information Technology and Technology-Based Learning and Jeff Lachenauer, EQUI-VEST Training Manager for AXA Equitable

More information and to register

Quick Links

Our Website | Events | Omega News | About Us | Complimentary Resources

The Competitive Edge for Banks

Credit

Judgment Day

Excerpted from Ideas You Can Bank On. Blog post authored by Omega Performance's Vicki Martell.

This past weekend, my husband and I were visiting friends in the San Francisco Bay Area. While we had both lived there in the past, we brought along our recently-acquired portable GPS, "just in case." These things are incredible devices. We have used ours to navigate to some pretty obscure locations. They somehow know exactly where you are, the direction you're traveling, the names of streets, intersections, points of interest and exact location of nearly every individual address in the world. I could go on and on, I'm so impressed.

As it turned out, we found ourselves driving from Oakland (east of San Francisco) to Marin County (north of SF) on Saturday night. We plugged in the GPS and punched in the address of our destination. Under normal conditions, the most direct and efficient route would be driving through San Francisco, and this is the route that the GPS plotted for us. However, what the GPS, with all of its amazing technology and databank, did not know was that these were not normal conditions.

On this particular late summer evening, there were events happening in the City that would add more cars to the already busy typical Saturday night rush - including a big ball game between the rival Giants and Dodgers. They haven't figured out how to put these kinds of traffic stoppers in the database. So, based on our experience and knowledge of the area (very low tech), we used our best judgment and decided to drive north and take an alternate route, manually overriding the GPS. We arrived at our destination in about 45 minutes, and I can easily imagine the trip taking two or even three times as long had we relied only on the technology.

The analogy is simple - the ulcer-inducing unraveling of the credit markets and collapse of venerable financial institutions might have been mitigated, if not prevented, by relying less on automated risk models and more on experience and judgment. You can't blame it all on greed or stupidity ...

Visit Ideas You Can Bank On to read Vicki's post in its entirety.

Learn more about improving credit performance ...

Sales & Service

Think "Small"

According to Barlow Research, financial institutions are placing a heightened emphasis on management of the small business customer experience, measuring client satisfaction, and developing strategies to meet the changing customer experiences.

They also find that more than 70% of small business owners have their business relationship with the same bank as their personal relationship when the branch has a strong relationship focus.

How well prepared are your business bankers with the skill set needed to capture new business, or expand the existing business and bottom line increase deposits?

To capitalize on business banking opportunities, relationship managers and business bankers have to develop a very strong, robust list that includes Centers of Influence. From here they need to know how to work with their COIs and ask them to:

1. Give referrals, and
   
2. Make the introduction

The goal is not to cold call, but to use the COIs to build a prospect list. Relationship managers and business bankers should regularly evaluate the quality of their current COI relationships, and build action steps so they have an active and excellent list to work with.

They should then work on getting referrals from the COIs and building their prospect list, and then prioritizing who to call first. Once they do this, they are prepared to call the prospect with a compelling reason to capture the appointment.

Taking these simple steps will equip relationship managers and business bankers to:

• Get in front of new business,
  
• Build a more robust pipeline, which in turn,
  
• Will capture deposits of the small business segment

Learn more about improving sales and service performance ...

Leadership

Jump Start Your Coaching Culture

Executives realize the importance of coaching because there is ample data to prove the correlation between coaching and the retention of talent and the growth of their organizations.

Realizing the value however, does not equate to implementing the plan to make it succeed. So, although research shows that 79% of organizations may be employing coaching, they're all not doing it successfully.

Here are the key components that make up a results-producing coaching culture:

• Coaching skills training for managers at all levels
  
• Advanced coaching training and coach the coach development for middle and senior managers
  
• Establishing coaching as a requirement and priority

What if your bank hasn't implemented these three required steps and is finding that coaching hasn't taken off as planned? It's not too late. Many organizations re-launch coaching activities now that they have a better understanding of what's necessary to make it work.

How is this best accomplished? Executives should take advantage of dedicated management gatherings to do the following:

• Review the value of coaching
  
• Realign its role in achieving business goals
  
• Commit to the three key components outlined above

Jump start your coaching culture with these guidelines to get you back on the road to business results.

Learn more about improving leadership performance ...

Public Seminars

Advanced Cash Flow
A one-day, highly interactive seminar where you will learn how to effectively analyze complex commercial borrowing situations.

November 25, 2008
Abu Dhabi

November 26, 2008
Dubai

More information and to register

Coaching For Credit Quality
A one-day, highly interactive seminar where you will gain proven coaching techniques to more effectively manage the credit analysis process.

December 2, 2008
Sydney, Australia

December 4, 2008
Melbourne, Australia

More information and to register

Minimizing Problem Loans
A two-day, highly interactive seminar where you will learn how to effectively monitor, evaluate, and take appropriate action on potentially problematic commercial loans.

December 3-4, 2008
Orlando, Florida

More information and to register

Leading and Coaching Your People Through Change
A one-day, highly interactive seminar where you will gain the skills and tools needed to effectively guide your people through periods of change.

December 9, 2008
Sydney, Australia

December 12, 2008
Melbourne, Australia

More information and to register

New Articles

"When You Are Up to your Waist in Alligators it is Hard to Remember You Started Out to Drain the Swamp" or, "Remember When Real Estate Loans Made Us Lots of Money?"

It is no secret that the commercial real estate market is following the same negative trends we have seen in the residential real estate markets over the past year. It is also no secret that many financial institutions have long held to the premise that: "If you lend on dirt, you can't get hurt." We are now seeing that this long-held premise has all of the validity of an old wives tale. Download the complete article, authored by Dr. Jerry Crigger, Omega Performance's vice president and senior consultant: credit and risk.

Download Now

Knowledge Currency

Published in Mortgage & Finance Brief (Aug./Sept. 2008 issue)

Online learning offers many advantages for time-poor brokers and programs can be individually customized to suit specific education needs. Get your complimentary copy of this article, authored by Howard Cook, Omega Performance's new business and alliances manager, Australia, now.

Download Now

Quick Links ...

Our Website | Our Blog | Events | Omega News | About Omega | Complimentary Resources

The Competitive Edge for Credit Unions

Performance Improvement Tip

5 Ways to Retain Members for the Long Term

Attracting and retaining members is essential to the success of your credit union.

In general, long-term members are more satisfied, more likely to refer new members to your credit union, and more likely to purchase additional products and services themselves.

Here are 5 ways to retain your credit union's members for the long term:

1. Focus most of your time on serving current members. They are already doing business with you and are likely to buy from your credit union again.
   
2. Show dependability, credibility, and trustworthiness. Treat your members with honesty, humor, and respect -- and maintain this over time.
   
3. Always do what you say you will do. If you promise to send information or get an answer to a question, do it; you will gain loyalty and trust by following through on your promises.
   
4. Make memorable member connections. Ask about their lives, financial goals, and desired outcomes; the greater the level of connection, the greater the level of member satisfaction.
   
5. Be there for the long term. Let members know you will be there long after the transaction at hand; this can help to differentiate your credit union from your competitors.
   

Learn more about improving your credit union's performance ...

U.S. Public Seminar

Minimizing Problem Loans
A two-day, highly interactive seminar where you will learn how to effectively monitor, evaluate, and take appropriate action on potentially problematic commercial loans.

December 3-4, 2008
Orlando, Florida
More Information and to Register

Web Event Replays

International Financial Reporting Standards
Learn why IFRS is a game changer for commercial lending in the U.S.
Originally Held August 28, 2008
View Now

What Kind of Executive Coach Are You?
Learn coach-the-coach techniques you can use to drive business results.
Originally Held September 9, 2008
View Now

Sustaining Learning Beyond the Training Event
Ensure new behaviors gained in training yield greater business results for your organization.
Originally Held September 17, 2008
View Now

QuickLinks

Our Website | Our Blog | Events | Omega News | About Us | Complimentary Resources