There are an estimated 3.2 billion word-of-mouth conversations on the Internet each day! Are any of them about your bank? Probably not, since commercial banking is pretty much a niche market. But there are plenty of conversations on the Internet that are of interest to your existing and potential borrowing clients. Are you listening to those conversations and learning what’s top of mind for your potential customers? Can you provide any valuable information to potential clients about those topics?

Do you want to understand this social media ‘thing’ but don’t know how to begin? Well, you can have the answer in just two short weeks at 30 minutes a day. TSG, Inc. has created a two-week guided program that mentors you through understanding the framework of this thing called Web 2.0 and Social Media. It provides simple hands on exercises that take you no more than 30 minutes each day, and includes a discussion of that particular tool with a TSG principal. On the last day of the program, we meet with you to review the entire program and help you make an evaluation of Web 2.0/Social Media to your bank. To see the program outline or to talk with us about, just contact prem.sundaram@tsg.la or robert.hess@tsg.la. You’ll be glad you did.

TSG Comment
We’ve recently been receiving many questions about value of Internet-based technologies like Facebook, LinkedIn, and others (termed social media) to community banking. At the center of these technologies is the simple concept of ‘community,’ people interacting with each other, not only about social events, but about business issues as well. The following article provides some very interesting insights into how Harley-Davidson resurrected itself and became a modern day American icon. As you read, think about how you could create a “BIG”* group for your bank’s clients. We can help you along that path.

(*BIG - Business Improvement Group)

Can Harley Davidson's Secret Weapon Revitalise Your Marketing?
Sean D’Souza, Psychotactics

Imagine yourself in a helicopter over Milwaukee, USA, on the
shiny morning of June 13, 1998.

You look down casually on the crisscrossing tangle of roads on Interstate 94, and then do a double take. You can't believe your eyes.

It seems like there are hundreds of moving objects on the highway below. Maybe even thousands. You watch in horror as a veritable sea of black advances like warrior ants into downtown Milwaukee.

You hastily reach for your binoculars and your heart goes thump, thump, thump. Thousands upon thousands of Harley bikers, swathed in trademark leather and shining chrome bikes seem to be almost invading the city.

What should you do? Maybe you should call the newspaper. The police perhaps. Surely Milwaukee needs some sort of warning.

But it's too late. The bikers are already in the city.

Then you see the fluttering flags

The roads of Milwaukee seem to be lined with cheering people. Flags flutter in the sunshine. The roar of the crowd seems to drown the chucka, chucka, chucka sound of the helicopter you're in.

Down at street level, 50,000 proud Harleys roar through the city. You don't know it yet, but among those riders are senior executives, CEOs, employees and long-time owners of Harleys. It's a heck of a parade and over 125,000 owners turn up for Harley's big 95th Come Home' birthday.

Wouldn't it surprise you, even appall you, to know that in the spring of 1984, just 14 years earlier, only twenty eight bikers showed up?

28 to 365,000 members: What changed in 14 years?

It's called HOG. Short for Harley Owners Group.

Harley had dug a deep financial hole for themselves in 1983. Money for advertising was kinda non-existent. Saddled with this Catch 22 situation, Harley Davidson set about creating the first HOG chapter.

Using newsletters and club magazines they built their subscriber base one member at a time. From one solitary chapter, the HOG has mushroomed to an astounding 940 chapters around the world.

Working on an advertising budget of 10 cents or less

In 1997, Harley Davidson spent just $1 million on advertising. Before you say "Oh, I don't have a million," -- look at Harley's
advertising budget for 1996, 1995, 1994, 1993, 1992...all the way to 1984.

Zero.

A big fat zero.

All their money, squillions of dollars, went into creating an absolutely top-notch product. And then creating a community that would buy into the brand.

You were expecting some big secret, weren't you?

It's called community. Yeah, that's the big secret. Creating community among your clients. Harley does it. Sting does it. Apple does it. So why don't you do it?

It's way too much trouble, huh?

Well let's jump back to Harley Davidson's profit line. Think jackets, boots, gloves, t-shirts, bike accessories, baseball caps. Then do the math. Don't you think each HOG member is going to spend at least $10 to keep up his/her Harley image?

What's $10 profit x 350,000 members? You got it. $3.5 million.

Now let's look at actual figures In 1996, Harley took home $100 million. Up from $20 million, just eight years before in 1988. Mind boggling, huh?

And we're not even counting the profits from the sales of the
Harley bikes!

So how can you do a Harley?

Let's face it. You work too damn hard in your business

Yes, you know you've got to sell time and again to a customer.
And yes you know the real profit lies in your existing customer
coming back time and again. And that customers talk to customers and it helps to build sales.

But where the heck are you going to get the time to do all of this
community business?

If Katrina can do it, you can

Katrina runs a little dress store in a town that boasts of less than
15,000 residents. Business can be cut-throat, specially with the
big megastores within 'small business gobbling distance.'

Yet Katrina's done a 'Harley.'

Every month, Katrina heads out for coffee. And she's not alone.
In the quaint little cafe down the road, there's a hubbub of excitement. Katrina's customers are having a whale of a time. They're laughing, chatting and tucking into cheesecake -- while Katrina picks up the tab month after month.

Do you see the word advertising anywhere?

Printing of glossy brochures? Hundreds of dollars of publicity?

All it costs is $2.50 for a coffee. Per customer. Per month.

That's all it takes. And Katrina's community builds one customer at a time. Customers bring friends, friends bring friends and the dresses fly out of Katrina's dress store.

Why community is the most powerful secret of all

1) The competition doesn't have a clue While conventional advertising and publicity is great, it costs serious moolah. And everyone, including competitors, can see exactly what you're doing. Once they get their grubby hands on your plans, they can outspend you, outsmart you and send your business into outer Mongolia.

With community, you can see who's coming through the door. And you're the doorkeeper. It gives you the chance to create Super Glue loyalty, long before your competition wises up.

2) Communities give specific and vital feedback Ja, ja. They may complain good-naturedly at times. But mostly they'll be giving you valuable feedback. They'll tell you what they
want and what is passe. They'll bond with you. Trust you and your judgement with each meeting.

You will no longer have to guess what your customers want. They'll tell you even without your asking. What more could you ask for?

3) No man is an island. You've heard that phrase before. No man or woman likes to be an isolated case. Psychologically, we all like to be part of a group, a society, a country or a community of some sort. Give your clients something to cling to and watch how leaders and volunteers form within the community, dramatically lessening your workload.

Bankers call it compound interest

Invest in an account now and put away a little bit every day Suddenly before you know it, you've got gazillions in the bank. Building community is no different. You'll have to put the pieces together, one evangelist at a time.

Ladies and gentlemen, rev up your engines. Hit the road and start building your community. And you'll find as Harley has found with HOG.

That yes, communities do bring home the 'bacon.' ;)

Click here to read the original article.

TSG Comment
We, the “leading generation,” are still having difficulties coming to grips with Web 2.0, the Social Media trend. But the recent study by Cisco cited below shows that social media is very important for retail bankers in connecting with Gen Y (1974 - 1980). We would expect that the same interest would apply for commercial bankers dealing with Gen Y business owners. As any sort of banker, you should be asking yourself how you can leverage Web 2.0 to better communicate and collaborate with your current and potential clients.

Cisco Study Finds Social Media is Key to Winning Over Gen Y

Banks can expect to achieve revenue gains of up to 10 percent over the long term by catering to the online and social media tastes of Generation Y, according to a survey report released today by Cisco's Internet Business Solutions Group.

These younger consumers, over half of whom have Webcams and log on to YouTube five times a day, say they are eager to use banks' online tools for budgeting and savings. Though not yet high earners, Gen Y'ers are professing high levels of trust in financial institutions that deliver professional advice in areas like debt reduction and long-term savings, and do so through interactive or social media.

"They are interested in and are coordinating quite frequently with friends, family, and peers using different types of social media," said Jorgen Ericsson, global lead for Cisco IBSG's financial services practice that provides technology consulting to executives of global Fortune 500 companies.

"For the specific question — how do I shape my financial future — they really want to get professional advice" through social media. But other than pilot projects in online personal financial management, most banks are still not adequately speaking to Gen Y'ers through the channels they use. More than 33 percent of younger consumers, for example, would be willing to have a "completely" virtual relationship with their bank by interacting with advisors through online video, according to the Cisco survey, which polled 1,055 consumers across all age groups in the fall. That trend is at odds with "the general perception of many established bankers who believe that video is unappealing to customers and not mature technology," said Philip Farah, the director of the financial services practice at Cisco IBSG. Prior to the survey, Cisco IBSG officials were skeptical that banks, particularly large national institutions, would score well with younger consumers.

"We assumed they would be very distrustful of banks," for two reasons, Farah said: banks are not well connected with Gen Y's communication outlets, "and because of everything that has happened with banks in the role of the current economic crisis." But instead, 85 percent of consumers under 30 gave large financial institutions high marks as trustworthy outlets for offering financial advice, guidance and planning tools to manage debt and build savings. Cisco IBSG found that more than one-third of Gen Y'ers polled last fall feels a greater need for financial advice, compared to less than one-fifth of boomers and seniors. Farah noted that brand recognition played a strong role in favorable views. While young consumers want more financial guidance in a relationship, they aren't likely to wait around for a slow-moving bank to provide it. Twenty-six percent of Gen Y'ers said they'd be willing to switch banks to get these tools.

The survey also found that: 40 percent of younger consumers use personal financial management tools, ones primarily offered by their banks, to manage expenses, reduce debt and maximize savings; and Gen Y consumers are four times more likely than boomers to post a question about financial matters to a blog or online forum.

Click Here for Original Article at USBanker

It’s always a challenge to generate a meaningful dialogue with your customers. Most often, the customer “touch” happens with your most junior staff; for banks, think teller or receptionist. A recent blog post at BankInnovation notes that young consumers are expecting to interact with their financial institution through these tools, and many banks - and more every day - are using simple tools such as FaceBook fan pages to establish that connection.

If you haven’t already done so, set aside some time to match your business strategy over the next 12 to 18 months against both your key client target list and the social media tools most used by their respective psychographic profile. You may find that it’s time to develop and implement a “starter” social media strategy.

TSG are working on our second social media project for the US Government and we would be happy to share with you our thoughts and experiences about this important issue. Absolutely free. Robert.Hess@TSG.LA or Prem.Sundaram@TSG.LA.

I’m going to be making a documentary about prostate cancer survivors and their families during this summer’s Tour de USA. The city schedule (46 cities) is posted on the event site. If you would like to be interviewed and tell your story, just visit the website, join the mailing list and send us email. This is a story that really needs to be told.

Social Media was all the rage in 2009, and it appears the 2010 will see it really come of age. But, does it matter to your bank?

We think it does. While TSG and the TrakPointe team do not claim to be Social Media gurus, we are extremely good at Information Technology, and that skill set has landed us our second Department of Defense contract to develop Social Media IT architectures to help mitigate extremism around the world. Needlessly to say, we are very happy and excited to be part of these projects.

Developing the IT backend for this initiative, of course, means that we are developing quite a good understanding of Social Media and why it matters - and to whom.

So, here are a few reasons we believe Social Media matters to our banking clients:

Your Brand Value and Differentiation
Most community banks base their differentiation on personal service to clients and this works if you are delivering great service and your clients are talking positively about you. Monitoring Social Media will allow you to understand the overall sentiment associated with your bank’s reputation, your brand. If you have an issue and you work to correct it, sentiment analysis will show the improvement.

Do You Have Any “Influencers” Engaged with Your Bank?
Influencers within a certain space can wield an immense amount of weight. They generally post frequently, have a large number of followers, and their posts can appear on the first page of a Google search. Knowing who these people are and the issues that concern them can help companies improve service where it really matters. To see how dicey things can get, just visit http://www.bankofamericasucks.com/.

The Expressed Need
On the positive side, Social Media can help you identify new products and product improvements. The best way to identify these needs is to look for keywords that describe these needs, and then evaluate your product and service portfolio. If your bank has made the investment to engage your client base through Social Media, be certain to include the results in your annual strategic planning process.

TrakPointe and Social Media
You already know that our TrakPointe solution can be used to track and manage your marketing program. TrakPointe can easily be adapted to monitor and manage your Social Media program. We would be happy to talk with you for a few minutes about how TrakPointe can help with your Social Media program, or just about Social Media in general. If you contact us, there will be no hard sell. We promise!

We often are asked about the Internet, particularly about social media and the practical value of the Internet. Time Magazine recently published their list of the 50 Best Websites of 2009. Take 10 minutes while you drink your morning coffee - or tea - and do a quick visit to these sites. There’s a wealth of information out there. One of my favorites is Academic Earth, which makes lectures from top professors at our best universities available for free. Once you’ve made this foray, grab a twenty or thirty something and ask them about their favorite Internet tools. I promise you it will be interesting and fun.

I recently ran across an article in BusinessFinance Magazine that referenced the term “Human Process Management (HPM),” which is very much a topic TSG has been working on and writing about for the past three years. In fact, TSG’s TrakPointe™ solution is a direct result of our effort to reduce human process risk within community bank operations.

The article noted that ‘in today’s business environment most internal processes of any complexity are essentially “tacit,” or human-to-human, interactions that take place using standard office technology, such as email and various sorts of documents - Excel, Word. This cluttered exchange of information, using overloaded email systems and hit-and-miss personal interactions, leads to friction (slowness) in the system, quality issues, and missed opportunities for improvement.’

Employing human process management provides companies a system of record of the current status of any process. It collects and aggregates all of the data needed so that its human processes can be analyzed and improved.

TSG’s TrakPointe™ provides a robust but simple to use human process management system tailored to the business culture and technology skill level of each using organization. TrakPointe™ enables banks to create and implement process descriptions, benchmarks, measurements, follow-up, and reminders with complete self-activating management visibility. Bank managers are able to implement their own best practices in a simple, flexible solution that can be easily modified. Managers and staff have the ability to know the status of any process at anytime and the ability to retrieve historical information about process execution and outcomes.

We would happy to talk with you informally about this innovative solution. Contact robert.hess@tsg.la or prem.sundaram@tsg.la to arrange for a 10 minute Quick Insight.

Two years ago TSG implemented a survey for the Community Bankers of California dealing with the never ending community bank challenge of finding qualified staff. The survey results can be summed up as follows:

• Finding qualified staff is always an issue


• It used to be possible to hire people trained by larger banks, but those training programs no longer exist


• We don’t have time to train people, so we try and poach staff from other banks, even though this inflates our personnel costs


• We don’t use personality testing prior to hiring to ensure the new hire fits our culture and the position they will fill

Recent research by the Center for Work-Life Policy indicates that Gen Y, people born between 1982 and 1995, are less focused on actual salary and more interested in having a somewhat flexible work schedule, such as telecommuting one afternoon per week, or working longer days in order to leave work at 3 p.m. on a Friday afternoon. They also are more interested in giving back to the community (they still are in the idealistic period that we all went through) and are very technologically savvy.

I learned about the value of apprenticeship programs during the 10 years I spent in Germany and France as part of my Army career. In Europe, university attendance is much more restricted than in the US, so young people go into trades and learn their skills directly in the workplace. They receive a lower salary during their training and qualification period, moving to full salary once they “graduate.”

The current economic situation provides community banks with an ideal opportunity to reach out to Gen Y’ers and find, train, and hire talented young people with the technological skills community banks need to leverage Web 2.0 tools.

Training time and costs for these new “apprentices” can be reduced significantly by starting them on processes that have been implemented in the TrakPointe solution from TSG. TrakPointe provides a guide on what to do for each process, while providing managers an easy tool to monitor performance and provide additional training and guidance where needed.

There are simple personality assessments that can (and should) be used to ensure your new apprentice will fit the position.

We would happy to talk with you informally about this innovative idea. Contact robert.hess@tsg.la to arrange for a 10 minute Quick Insight.

I'm speaking on a panel on social media next Thursday (October 29th) at the Luxe Hotel Sunset Boulevard (http://www.socalbio.org/)

It promises to be a great panel and a great networking opportunity. If connecting with bioscience companies is part of your business plan, you should attend this event.

For details, contact SoCalBio.