By Frank J. Diekmann
The end of the year is approaching, and that can only mean two things: 1) Dick Clarke will be resurrected yet again, and 2) time to clean out the pre-Thanksgiving leftovers in the Reporter’s Notebook.
So, in no particular order…
Finding Life at Funerals
One of the nouveau, management-speak, buzz-phrases tossed around like plastic nametag holders by speakers at credit union meetings has to do with the importance of getting outside “comfort zones.” This is a tad ironic, since many credit union execs go to pains to avoid sitting anywhere near the front of the room in order to minimize any risk of being made uncomfortable by a speaker.
It has always struck me that these “expert” speakers seem to be making a pretty comfortable living talking about how other people have gotten outside their comfort zones, without every doing so themselves. No so, Allison Clarke, who gave herself this challenge: attend 30 funerals in 60 days.
Clarke, who spoke to the Northwest CU Association earlier this year, said the idea came to her while she was sitting on a plane that “in order to fully live, she had to first be surrounded by death.” So Clarke, who runs a Portland, Ore.-based leadership training and presentation consultancy, met with a funeral director to discuss attending the funerals of “exceptional strangers and learn from their adventurous lives.” She read newspaper obits, and eventually attended funerals ranging from a basketball fan to a 104-year-old Austrian immigrant.
Out of all that came a book, appropriately titled “What Will They Say? 30 Funerals in 60 days,” which you can order on Amazon.com
“What I learned is that so many people forget the power of one person and how you impact your community, how you affect your family members and friends,” said Clarke during the NWCUA meeting.
Meanwhile, at a session she led on the importance of the first seven seconds in meeting someone, which you can read here, Clarke also:
- Asked attendees how many had a LinkedIn Profile, and most hands in the room were raised. When she asked how many of those same people liked their LinkedIn profile, two people kept their hands up.
- Asked how many people like their own voice mail, and fewer than a dozen people raised their hands.
- Polled her audience for how many use PowerPoint regularly. Again, and you may notice a consistent theme here, most in the room said they did. And who thinks PowerPoint is “effective?” Not many in the room.
- Noted that she often will attend a trade show and find some vendor giving away something like ChapStick to passers-by. “And I will ask, ‘How does this relate to your business?,’ and they will say, ‘Umm, marketing sent it to me.” If you’re gong to use a prop, use something related to your business.”
NCUA Board Meeting: Don’t Hold Your Breath, What’s ‘Local?’
While both CU trade groups and one bill coming out of Congress call for public hearings in order to provide input to NCUA on its budget, NCUA Chairman Debbie Matz isn’t having it.
“I know there are those who believe we should submit our pre-decisional budgets for public hearings,” said Matz during the November board meeting at which it voted on its budget. “But once again, let me remind stakeholders that NCUA was established by Congress as an independent regulator. The other independent federal financial institution regulators, whose operating budgets are also funded by those they regulate, do not believe it is appropriate for regulated entities to participate in the development of their budgets—and I share their sentiment.
“While credit unions are not government entities, they are cooperative membership organizations,” continued Matz. “But, credit unions do not present their budgets to their members for input, even though their budgets are directly funded by the same members who fund NCUA’s budgets. Let me be clear, however. This is not something I am advocating for credit unions, and don’t believe it is a reasonable course for regulators.”
* At that board meeting, by the way, was former NCUA Chairman Joanne Johnson, who was on hand to work with NCUA on its CUSO registry. Johnson is currently Superintendent of Credit Unions in Iowa.
* The concept of credit union “field of membership” is an interesting piece of history, but also increasingly an anachronism. “Common bonds” were once a necessity in the days when “character” was the only credit score available and pressure from coworkers and community were the best form of collections. While too many credit unions raced to throw open their doors to everyone and missed just how powerful “acting locally” can be, the last 15 or so years have dramatically changed just what constitutes a “door.”
In the e-door era, “local” no longer is dependent on geography. During the NCUA board meeting at which it voted on new FOM rules, agency staff observed that today consumers “dramatically favor” Internet banking. Staff said research shows 45% of members now use Internet banking—I’ll admit I would have thought that figure to be higher—and that the number of CUs with websites has gone from 22% in 2000 to 75% today (I’d Google those Luddite CUs without sites, but…) An even more rapid evolution: NCUA staff said smartphone access to CUs has gone from 0% in 20078 to about half of credit unions offering the access in 2015.
* NCUA Vice Chairman Rick Metsger pointed out during the meeting that about 80% of CU failures have occurred at co-ops with fewer than 5,000 members.
CUNA Mutual Discovery Conference: Kabbage & Keyboards
* One speaker pointed out that “A lot of CUs use terms like share-secured or unsecured loans, and people don’t know what that means.”
* At new CU rival Lending Club, 80% of its loans are for debt consolidation. It seems CUs are leaving a lot of business on the table.
* Two other newly emerged CU competitors, Kabbage and Karrot, have promoted loans using emojis. So I can only imagine what they must use in the collections process, maybe angry Satan face with two broken legs.
* One CUNA Mutual rep observed that in 2014, “1.5 million members started a loan app, but only 500,000 finished. If we can make that process easy to get through, we don’t need to get more people to apply for loans, we just need people to move through that process. There are a lot of small things you don’t need: The verbiage, the fields you have to fill out on a smart phone vs. what you can ask for later, etc. You need to look at what can you do with the member journey.”
* One reason so many loan apps are so labor intensive and turn borrowers off, said the CUNA Mutual rep, is they are designed to make the process nice-and-easy for the credit union, not the borrower. “One mistake we see is ‘If we ask the consumer 500 questions and get that into our system, then I’m ready to book that loan and make it easy for the credit union.’ We are trying to make it easy for the consumer. Focus on the consumer, on those “tiny keyboards,” and what data can you gather later in the process.”
Frank J. Diekmann is Cooperator in Chief at CUToday.info and can be reached at Frank@CUToday.info. He can also be found on Twitter @FrankCUToday.