By Frank J. Diekmann
Here’s a how-to list for you that answers five critical, must know questions: How to rethink whether credit unions have it backward with Millennials. How to find big lessons in small stories.
How to respond to a stupid question. How to get an audience excited and talking. And how to strike an audience dumb!
How to Rethink Your Strategy With Millennials
I don’t care who your core processor is, not solution can calculate all the talk and money and time that credit unions have invested in chasing Millennials. And yet despite all that, I think credit unions may have it backward when it comes to what is now the largest generational market. The credit union strategy has been to tout technology as a bridge to the credit union, thus the big investments in mobile and social media. But I think it’s time this entire approach is flipped on its head. You really need to think of the “credit union” in its most literal sense, a union of people extending credit to one another, as the bridge to the technology.
Even in cases where the technology is new, think about how old the acquisition model is: dangle products and services (usually sold using rate), promote online banking or mobile as a means of accessing those products and services, and then, if someone joins, throw in an after-the-fact mention that hey, we’re a credit union.
With a new generation of consumers, that’s backward, as the two perspectives below illustrate.
First, an observation from author and consultant Michael Parrish Dudell, an authority on the Millennial market (and a living example of the change his generation embodies, as he shared his own memory from first grade of watching the card catalogs being carried out and the new computers being carried in).
Even though CUs often seem confounded by Millennials, Dudell had some good news for credit unions when speaking earlier this year to PSCU’s MoPRO meeting.
“Millennials are a very loyal generation,” he said. “But you have to give them a reason to be loyal. Forty-four percent are willing to promote the companies they believe in. This generation doesn’t believe business is just about making money. Yes, you have to make money, but 75% say companies should act for the social good. They want a deeply authentic, 360-degree brand experience that anticipates our needs, respects our differences, and celebrates our individuality. This isn’t just about marketshare, it’s about mindshare. That’s the future. What’s my emotional response to you?”
You can find the full story here.
Now consider this observation by Daniel Weickenand, CEO of Orion FCU in Memphis. “A lot of kids today want to save the world and they believe in the things we’re going,” he told NAFCU’s recent annual meeting. “They want to be involved in organizations that give back.”
The “how to” lesson here for attracting Millennials is to reverse how you’re approaching that market; it’s not marketshare the creates mindshare, but the inverse. Sell the credit union concept first, then the products and services that concept makes possible, and then the technology for accessing them. Because all financial services providers have the technology, but…
How to Answer a Stupid Question
An actual conversation from the New Orleans airport:
TSA Agent Speaking to Man in Front of Me Who Was Wearing A Hat: You’ll need to remove the hat, sir.
The man did so.
TSA Agent: You may put that hat back on, sir.
Man: On my head?
TSA Agent: No sir, put it on your foot and dance around.
How To Learn A Zero-Based Lesson About CUs
Riding in a cab in St. Louis recently I was privileged to get a first-hand account of one person’s extraordinary journey to America.
My driver had been born in Somalia, but strife there eventually forced him into a refugee camp in Kenya, where he lived for 12 very difficult years. With no formal school and no work to be had, he earned the little money he had by letting other kids ride the bike he had found and repaired, and by giving lessons in how to ride that bike. The meal he and his sister had each day was completely dependent on those bike rides and riding lessons.
Life was grinding and tough, but then as a teen he essentially won the Great Human Condition Lottery when he was plucked from the misery and allowed to emigrate to the United States. He landed in a strange land of new foods, no friends, and cold weather. While life was considerably better, he struggled in his new home, especially in school.
“I was zero,” he said. “Zero.”
I finally figured out he meant he had been overwhelmed by school in America and had grasped little of the curriculum. “Two years in school. I wasn’t catching anything.” Oblivious to the irony, he meant “learning” anything.
For the past few years he has been sending $150 a month to an aunt in Somalia to help her escape that lawless, desperate country. In a cruel twist, the aunt used the money to escape to, of all places, Yemen. Now he’s trying to get her the money to get out of Yemen, but money is getting tighter here. He told me Uber is hurting his income as a cab driver, and that he would love to drive for Uber but doesn’t own a car himself.
I asked the man if he had ever heard of a credit union. He said no. That’s too bad, because it isn’t just him, but entire communities of people just like him, who very much need one to help them become more than just a zero.
How To Really Fire Up An Audience
We’ve all watched either painfully or relished with secret schadenfreude as conference speakers and chapter presenters have struggled to get their audiences to participate in any way. Not Keith Hughley. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen the kind of enthusiasm Hughley sparked in his audience. Heck, he couldn’t get them to shut up.
Hughley’s strategy? At a breakout session of the League of Southeastern Credit Unions’ meeting he simply asked this: “What are the attributes of bad bosses?
Suddenly it was noisier than sorority girls at an auction. His audience started madly throwing out words and phrases like it was Pictionary game and the last grain of sand was about to plunge into the bottom of the glass. They lie, someone called out. They’re reactive, said another. No, over-reactive. They micromanage. Take credit for other’s work. Are out for themselves. Don’t comprehend the job. They lay blame. No praise, just criticism. It’s about the team, except for them.
I heard one person behind me snarkily observe, “No way we get though all this in just this session.”
Hughley finally had to cut off the feedback, but one got the impression that if he hadn’t we would have sat there for the next hour in a group-vent over the attributes of bad bosses.
While it was all slightly amusing, it was also not hard to notice the irony, too. It’s typically managers and senior management you find at conferences, which means that everyone in that room was almost certainly someone else’s boss. Maybe a lot of someone else’s. You had to wonder what their own direct-reports would say about them.
And if you’re wondering, yes, Hughley did also ask about the attributes of good bosses, although the crowd responded with not nearly the same enthusiasm.
What do good bosses do? Some of the words and phrases tossed out included lead by example; train; delegate; listen; mentor; encourage; trust; are humble; pay you well; are transparent; show confidence in you; share credit, and, very popular, “pick up the lunch check.”
But who wants to talk about that?
How to Strike an Audience Dumb
How do you accomplish the opposite and get 1,000-plus credit union people in the same room to sit as quietly as the napkins on their tables? Borrow this (unintended) tactic from Jeremy Gutsche, the founder and CEO of TrendHunter.com.
In an opening keynote session at NAFCU’s annual meeting in Montreal, Gutsche asked this question: “Name your favorite rappers.”
Drumroll, sorry, beatbox, please… Nervously adjust necktie. Hey, I know you’re out there, I can hear ya breathin’.
Perhaps the bright stage lights had prevented Gutsche from seeing who was in the audience, which was three-quarters CU volunteers and, as I’m not sure you’ve noticed, are absolutely no one’s idea of having Hip Hop Nation in da house.
Not that there wasn’t at least one response. I’m pretty sure I heard one woman near me finally respond with, “Saran Wrap?”
Frank J. Diekmann is Cooperator in Chief at CUToday.info. He can be reached at Frank@CUToday.info