WASHINGTON–If you think your color scheme and logo are what your credit union is all about, you are mistaken, according to one man who has written a book on “unmarketing.”
Similarly, if you don’t like insubordination, don’t expect to innovate, he added.
“What unmarketing means is we are marketing and branding and selling when we don’t think we are,” said Scott Stratten in remarks to CUNA’s GAC. “The branding of credit unions is not about logos and brochures. It’s about what do I think when I see your logo, when I see you.”
Stratten, who has written several books about “unmarketing” and who hosts a free podcast on the subject, told credit unions that “evoking emotion is what word of mouth is all about.”
As an example, he cited Ritz Carlton hotels, where every employee has the authority to “fix things” at a cost of up to $2,000 per guest. But the actual average cost per incident is $67.
“When you empower employees to fix things, they do,” he said. “Do you know what the opposite of value and fixing things is? ‘I have to get my manager.’”
Managing, said Stratten, is a role, while leading is a verb.
“Do people follow you optionally, of their own choice?” he asked. “Then you are a leader. The worst word in employee engagement and member satisfaction is the word ‘policy.’ And I used to be in HR. I loved the field—and then I got in it. The point is everyone with your credit union is the brand. They are the living, breathing brand.”
Big Problem
A big problem for many managers, according to Stratten, is biases, and that includes the much-discussed-in-credit-unions issue of “Millennials.”
“It’s called stereotyping. It’s ageism. When you say Millennial, you are stereotyping, and you need to stop,” he advised. “Ageism is not a good stereotype. We tell them, ‘You need to know your role and stay in your lane.’ And yet we say when we are hiring them, ‘You should show initiative.’ The only way innovation happens is through insubordination. End of discussion. Innovation by its nature is insubordination. It’s being insubordinate to an existing structure or idea. Do you know why insubordination happens outside your industry? Because you won’t let it happen inside.”
Among the other observations shared by Stratten with GAC:
- He told story of working as a teenager in a movie theater and getting into a dispute with a customer, before a manager sided with him and said, ‘I have your back.’ It changed his complete attitude at the job. “In a world where throwing people under the bus is part of the daily schedule, have their back. Have each other’s back. Your integrity is not renewable. Sometimes your job as leaders is standing out front, and sometimes it’s standing in the back. That’s leading to me.”
- People like feeling they are part of a community, which credit unions are (or can be). “People feel like they belong, that they are protected. I don’t think the customer is always right; I find they rarely are, actually. They aren’t always right, we aren’t always right, but in the middle, we’ve got something. To be great at member service you only have to be average, as everyone else sucks. That should be your theme next year. But that’s the point because we are so used to this.”
- There are three types of members: ecstatic, static and vulnerable. “The ecstatic love you and understand you. The majority of your members are in the middle; they’re static. They’re not crazy about it and they’re not angry. The vulnerable are the ones looking to leave. The most dangerous ones are the static. The vulnerables are really hard to save. Static is the F word of the credit union industry, and that word is ‘Fine.’ How is everything? Fine. Nobody is ever fine. What I want you to ask all your members and everyone who works with you is, ‘What should we stop doing. What should we start doing? And what should we continue doing? The worse type of complaint from members are the ones you do not hear. You need to hear them to fix them.”