Welcome to this episode of Credit Union Conversations with Mark Ritter, where we delve into the strategies that set credit unions apart in a competitive financial landscape. Today, Mark is joined by Bill McKenna from McKenna Marketing, who brings a wealth of experience from the advertising industry to the credit union space. Together, they explore the critical importance of building strong, core relationships with members, ensuring they feel valued and connected to their credit union. This connection is essential to prevent members from seeking alternatives and to maintain their loyalty. Bill shares actionable insights on branding, the challenges credit unions face in attracting and retaining members, and the evolving needs of the credit union community. Tune in as they discuss how a well-executed vision and a focus on member relationships can propel credit unions to the forefront of the industry.

IN THIS EPISODE:

• [0:24] Mark invites the listener to check out MBFS, which is an a la carte service provider
• [1:22] Mark introduces Bill, and he shares his journey from the advertising business to the credit union space
• [6:22] Bill describes what McKenna Marketing does, and Mark and Bill discuss the evolving credit union from days gone by
• [10:29] Bill discusses four topics that will remove obstacles and make way for the growth of your credit union, and they discuss which credit unions need deposits and not loans
• [15:37] Bill outlines the problems credit unions are having in attracting new members and keeping the members they currently have
• [19:20] Discussion surrounding competition and rising to the top of the competition
• [25:04 Discussion surrounding the sales and service culture and the benefit of face-to-face consultations

KEY TAKEAWAYS: 

• The branding of your credit union is critical for recognition to your community
• A credit union must have a vision of where they are going, understand what opportunity looks like, and determine whether it can be a reality. Then, you must execute those ideas
• Building a relationship with members is the most essential thing a credit union can do. People want to know that you care about what’s important to them, so create value in your marketing message

RESOURCE LINKS

Mark Ritter Website

Mark Ritter LinkedIn

MeKenna Marketing - Website

Bill McKenna - LinkedIn

BIOGRAPHY: 

My passion is to learn more about you and your companies' goals. I'm passionate about building relationships, starting conversations, sharing ideas, and adding value to your organization. I've learned first-hand that no one person has all the answers. I'll learn from you first then we will combine our knowledge, experiences and expertise with the right partners to magnify opportunities, empower growth, and achieve results.

I've had the privilege of working with more than 500 credit unions and community banks nationwide on marketing and growth strategies. I don't know everything, but I've seen first-hand what works, and what does not. Every partner I've chosen to be part of McKenna Marketing Network brings a wealth of expertise, experience, vision and insights. It's not one size fits all - It's about identifying what works for you. 

My roles have including Art Director, Creative Director, and Vice President of Marketing and New Business Development for several marketing and advertising agencies located in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.

I'm the former President and co-founder of Marketing Partners, Inc., a nationally recognized marketing firm that worked credit unions and banks. Also was the co-founder of Integrated Facilities Solutions, a company that designed and built branded financial facilities and CU Marketers of America, a niche credit union marketing company. 

Most recently, I have served as Chief Marketing Officer for ESSA Bank & Trust, a nearly $2 billion dollar community bank with 21 branches in eastern Pennsylvania. My experience also includes the role of Vice President of Marketing for American Heritage Credit Union, a $4 billion dollar credit union located in Philadelphia.

Let's start a conversation! www.mckennanetwork.com

Mark Ritter: Hello everyone. This is Mark Ritter, your host of credit union conversations. And the CEO of MBFS, a business lending QSO headquartered in Pennsylvania. I am really exciting this year as the industry starts to rebound from the slump of 2023. We're seeing a lot of good things happening. We're seeing liquidity start to get a little bit.

So I'm, so we'd love to talk with you. Check us out mbfs.org. So, joining this week is one of my favorite people in our industry. I consider him the OG of marketing and sales. And I wasn't a very good student at Penn State. So. I was okay. And I, and I couldn't tell you the names of one of my teachers I ever had, but I had one in a marketing class, in a personal sales class.

So joining me today is some, somebody who knows in our credit union space, a lot about selling things to your members. Bill McKenna, Bill, how you doing?

Bill McKenna: I'm great, Mark. How are you today? Thanks for having me.

Mark Ritter: I am doing great. I'm having a great day as we record this. I'm looking forward to the conversation and having a little bit of fun with you.

Bill McKenna: Me as well.

Mark Ritter: So, first of all, I always like to, for those, many of you listeners probably know Bill, but for those of you who don't, give us your story on, on kind of your, how you first got into this and your, your evolutions over the year. And up till today,

My first jobs were actually in New Jersey and New York where I lived at the time in New Jersey and basically worked my way through, you know, a bunch of different agencies and doing things until I started my own design studio. In Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, by the way, I live in Allentown, Pennsylvania. So I'm in the Eastern part of PA and I started my own studio called McKenna design associates.

So I had this, this printer I worked with, and he was actually local kind of in the area. And he came in one day and said, Hey, Bill, he said, would you design for me a newsletter for a credit union? I was like, sure. And then I said, what's a credit union? Cause that was my first experience, literally with what a credit union.

We've heard that story, Mark, right? About people having no clue what a credit union is.

Bill McKenna: Exactly. And we think, you know, sometimes as much as we've advanced in the industry, people know that, but so many people still have no clue.

So it's still an educational curve.

Mark Ritter: I always like to say my kids couldn't really tell you most of the time. So, and my wife definitely not.

Bill McKenna: Yeah, there you go. So we still have that obstacle, right? So continuing onward, um, kind of worked my way through having my own firm for a while, started another, a small niche company called CU marketers of America, which I guess ran for.

So maybe seven years or so, and worked with a bunch of credit unions, started doing some things with them. And then I started a company with some friends of mine, a couple of partners called marketing partners. And, uh, we grew to about 42 employees. We had about three or 400 clients and it's been a, it's been a great ride since then.

Mark Ritter: Absolutely. One of the owners of MBFS. Yep.

Bill McKenna: There you go. So when I met Bruce years ago, Doing some work for him. I think there were 67 million in assets. We did some brochures for him and literally I'd known him for a long time. And we met long story short. He said, Bill, I need a chief marketing officer. So I said, okay, the timing was right.

Uh, enjoy a little more freedom in life, but also choose, you know, who I wanted to work with and how I want it [00:06:00] to work. So that's kind of what I'm doing right now.

Mark Ritter: Okay. And what, what are some of the, the more the areas, or if I call up McKenna marketing partners and I say, I need your help, what are some of those areas that you would generally work with a kind of a consulting basis, more product oriented, or a little bit of both?

Bill McKenna: Yeah. So, so McKenna marketing network is, is actually what we're called and the network word came because one of the things I feel like is many of us know, we know a lot of things, right? All of us know things, but not all of us know everything we need partners. We need people we can work with from the outside and, and Mark, your business has been Entirely that way, the Q.

What I call obstacles to growth from there. I've built a network of partners and those partners then help me execute whatever it might be that they need. And so the things I'm doing these days are, you know, obviously a lot of digital marketing. We're also doing brand and culture work, helping credit unions to establish a more impactful brands, helping them to understand the back end, how to execute those brands and make sure their employees know a lot about what they actually are supposed to say and what the brand means.

So, um, and then executing everything, there's all sorts of projects I'm doing web and digital and prints, direct mail and print and collateral and training. And so I have partners also in data. Data integration, boy, there's silos of data out there and we have to fix that problem. So, um, just bring those partners, align them and help, uh, credit unions figure out how to get things done.

The CEOs and management were more generalist. They did everything. They helped manage the books. They did sales. They did lending. They did work on the teller line. They managed the brand, you know, they were a jack of all trades. So you kind of. Got a little bit of everything. You might not have been an expert in everything, but you kind of knew enough about everything.

What was, tell us about the old days.

Bill McKenna: Yeah, the old days. I like the old days actually. It was so different. And, uh, you are absolutely right. I used to have that conversation with credit unions, uh, leaders wearing the multiple hats and I used to use the illustration, you know, like this hour, let's put on the HR hat and now we'll put on the data hat.

there now, the industry as a whole is drastically, dramatically improved.

Mark Ritter: Uh, yeah, I even noticed that, you know, back in the early days of business lending, you know, you hired a QSO cause nobody knew what they were doing. Um, now we work with credit unions where, who that have. Tremendous bent straight to knowledge.

So it's probably similar along the lines of marketing.

Bill McKenna: Very, very much. So, and it just depends on the crediting, but it's interesting because one of the problems I still see, so I talk about four things often when I get in these conversations about removing obstacles, and they really are four things. One is you have to have a vision of where you're going, right?

So we're accomplishing way less than we should. And the last one is execution. We have to execute those ideas. So marketing today hasn't changed that from what it was years ago. You still have to do those things, but the tools you use, the resources you use, and the way you market as trade has really changed dramatically.

And one last thought, the smaller credit unions are still struggling with many of those things, good people, but they need to be more focused and understand what they don't know. Because if they don't, if I could be honest, you know, this, the mergers are continuing and they're not going to slow down. You have to know that we don't have another five or 10 years in this industry or for a smaller credit union.

We have got to either make a move or our future has to be in question.

Um, And, and, and, and all of a sudden people didn't have money to lend. And it was very much a different message. What, what have you kind of seen in these ping pong years, particularly maybe the last two or a year to few years where, where people weren't, weren't begging for every loan to come into the books because they had to manage that balance sheet, what, what have you seen on the strategy for, for impacting the The marketing efforts and the membership.

You know, it was years ago when I was promoting eight. 8 percent CDs for credit unions. I can remember that 8 percent to get people in the door to open an account. But as we know, with the hot money in the market, where that we're in, it's getting a little better, definitely getting a little better, but, um, right now, um, we have to go after deeper relationships because that hot money.

But the point is people are looking for, um, deeper relationships and more value. And I think we have got to provide that if we really want to core deposits are so important, building, checking accounts, building core deposits and, and, and in business, that's especially important as well.

Mark Ritter: You know, we, we had for a few years there, every time we mentioned about bringing a relationship to a credit union and they wanted to bring their deposits, people were like, no, no, no.

But I always say you can't have enough friends. You can't have enough core cheap, cheap deposits. And I think we've learned that even when times of liquidity are good and everybody's flush, you can't turn away relationships that are going to bring you those core deposits. You know, the hot money, you know, the, the, the, the, the CD special, you know, that, that can come and go there.

Bill McKenna: you know, if you had asked me to come on this podcast today and say one word, and then we're done, which you're like, Ken, that might've not been a bad idea.

But, but if you asked me to do that, I would come on and I would say frequency. And I would leave, I do that in my seminars. A lot of kid people, I'm actually speaking in the middle. I jump up on a chair right in the middle of the room. And I tell them that same story. I said, if you asked me to say one word at this session today, the word would be frequency.

People don't want to be sold to anymore. They want to find valuable content. Engage with you and show that you care about what's important to them. The more we sell to them, the more we turn them off. Typically we have to use content and create value in our marketing messaging today. That's how you deepen relationships.

Does that make sense?

Mark Ritter: Yeah, absolutely. And I'll give you my, my perfect example that I've seen many, many times. Is how many times have we had people? Have you heard people complain about members who get an indirect loan and that's all they have and the story usually goes, we got a loan and, uh, They got the account.

Instead of that consistent building, the relationship offering, education offering to help out offering solutions, other than just saying you can't just anymore say. Hey, we're really nice people and we offer stuff cheap.

Bill McKenna: Yeah,

Mark Ritter: everybody does. I could go online and do that in a minute.

Bill McKenna: Yeah. Yeah. There's no real relationship there.

And that's exactly right. I mean, I just recently bought another car, a used car for my wife and we went through an indirect program of accrediting the large crediting. And, um, you know, they sent me some stuff and a couple of letters. Drop the call to me. And, but building that relationship, it's all about now creating more value, but it is difficult.

There are some really good, by the way, onboarding programs out there, digital onboarding programs and things like that, really good ones. And, and that's something that, um, we've had some success with, uh, even at American heritage when I was there, they had a good program and still do. But, but honestly, I think if we're going to get, um, deeper relationships, uh, We're going to have to use a lot more content, more frequency and keep at it.

We got to keep in front of them. They will not unsubscribe from stuff. If you're creating value, people unsubscribe when they feel like you're just sending them stuff. That's just selling to them all the time. And that's where you see your unsubscribes go up in email and other things like that.

Mark Ritter: Yeah. Yeah.

Uh, that's, that's not that necessarily the relationship of the people who have everything, but it, but it is, there's never been more competitors. So, so speaking of competitors and, uh, You mentioned your obstacles to growth, uh, you know, working with credit unions And I just wanted to pick out a couple of them because I I really like how you're working with credit unions On kind of a back to basics approach to get them to look At who they are and how they're doing things.

Let's buy pizza from the meeting. And invariably, they'll name off a couple competitors and say, Oh, these are my choices to buy pizza. But in reality. Particularly, you know, you, you, you live in Lehigh Valley, uh, very close to Northeast Pennsylvania and Philly, where there's thousands of places to buy pizza.

Uh, you can buy pizza at the grocery store. You can get it delivered. You can get, look up thousands of places to buy pizza, but it's really, you know, how do you become. On that list of where people say, this is where I could go. So give me your thoughts on when, when you talk to credit unions about competition and what it's like today.

There was lots of things. The overlaps were not there the way they are today. So credit unions are overlapping now with everyone. Right. And there's some great FinTech lenders out there, the lending clubs and the sofas, and those people are so good at what they do and they have crazy good marketing that's just out there all the time.

So they're good marketers, but competition I think has to do with, again, Looking at the niche you serve. And here's a mistake I really believe many credit unions have made. Many of them have decided to go community charters, and I'm not saying a community charter doesn't work. That's not what I'm saying because it does, but you better know how to work it.

They always start on their cell phone or online looking at stuff. If they're unfamiliar with someone. If they're looking for something they don't do often, then they're looking for options. Referrals are huge, right? Somebody telling somebody, and still, when you look at statistics, many people that join a credit union join because someone in their family has referred them or a.

You know, that answer I'm giving you is kind of long winded. But there's a lot to it if you really want to carve out a niche and you really want to grow, you can't, you can't be all things to all people. It's impossible to do that. You have to decide who are we really focusing on to grow.

Mark Ritter: Yeah, I once did a study showing that.

The loan growth of employer group based credit unions compared to community charter based credit unions was the exact opposite of what some people think. Some people think if I'm a community charter, I'm open to everybody. I'm going to have this tremendous growth, but in reality, what I found is the employer group credit unions actually have higher loan growth rates.

But, but Mark, so many people have made the mistake. I have no problem with community charters credence. I think it does expand the opportunity, especially if you have an employer group that is, you know, has less employees or the name for some reason. It's not viable anymore. If the

Mark Ritter: factory's closing and that's your

Bill McKenna: main group, that's an easy one.

You got it? That's it. So, so if you have that, but if, if you don't, you know, um, then, um, community might make sense. But understand, when you go community now, it completely changes your marketing strategy. And your marketing budget has got to get bigger. If you really wanna have an impact and you need people on the streets, you credit unions, think why do banks have people out on the streets constantly?

Mark Ritter: let's let the, well, that'll roll me into my next one. So let's think about, you know, when, when, when a sales and service culture, which years ago.

Was not was looked down upon. If you said I'm going to have a very sales oriented culture. So tell me a little bit about what you see out there in today's world and helping with credit unions, the good, bad, and ugly.

Bill McKenna: Yeah. So. I, um, we do a seminar. I have a good friend of mine, Paul Robert, who some people may know is from FI strategies.

And Paul is really great at building culture and training and all of those things. And I've done a lot of branding work, you know, rebranding with both visual branding and building out some brand deliverables and slogans and positioning statements and tying that all together. So we do a seminar called sales and marketing, the one, two punch.

What does that mean? And how do your employees and your people inside live that brand every day? What is the culture behind that brand? And does everyone understand what that is? And what I've seen is that a lot of times they don't, and they may understand sales like. I got to sell more stuff, but do they understand the entire package and is everyone on the same page?

Honestly, Mark, it's 1 of the biggest things that happens in the industry. People get focused on selling. They don't understand the culture behind selling. They haven't had the training in it. And I believe the alignment of those 2 things has to be. Really, really well done or else it's not going to work.

Mark Ritter: I'll, I, I agree with you. I agree with you a hundred percent on, on really doing it, not just selling widgets. Cause honestly, that's pretty easy, but doing it the right way that aligns with your brand on the entire company.

Bill McKenna: Yeah. And if I could add something else real quick on that. So the branch of the future is absolutely more consultative, right? Then it is transactional. We've seen the change, especially since COVID accelerated that, you know, the digital stuff. So we have less opportunities to talk to people one on one and build those relationships, which were so powerful.

But so the branch of the future is more consultative, but here's the thing. When people want to do certain things, they still want a face to face interaction. If some people aren't comfortable opening accounts online still, because it scares them because of, you know, of, uh, all the stuff going on with fraud and all of that, certainly retirement.

And that's why branches are not dead.

Mark Ritter: I always say people don't need People for a lot of things, but they want access to them when they need one. Correct. Uh, there, there, there are many credit unions from California that I can join online now today, but I don't because when I, if I need something, I don't want to go to California.

And I still think it's true today is they wanted technology. They wanted a great mobile app, a mobile banking app and technology to do business remotely quickly. But you know what? The second thing they wanted. Our branch near them.

Mark Ritter: Yep. I believe it. Yeah, I believe it. Well, Bill, we're, we're running up on time here.

So we could probably go on for hours about this. And, uh, one of these days we'll have to grab lunch and have sit around for hours catching up.

Bill McKenna: That'd be great.

Mark Ritter: So thank you. Thank you so much for joining us. podcast coming out later this year, but kind of tell people, uh, where they can contact you if they want to talk a little bit further.

So there'll be more information coming out about that. But, uh, Mark, thanks so much for the time. I really appreciate the opportunity. Great talking to you and, uh, looking forward to continuing our conversations.

Mark Ritter: Absolutely, Bill. So this is Mark Ritter, uh, CEO of MBFS and your host of Credit Union Conversations.

Please subscribe to us, uh, if you're not already, uh, we are on everybody's favorite channel. Audio networks and our episodes come out every other Tuesday. So thank you. And thank you to Bill McKenna for joining me today and have a great day.

Narrator: Thank you for listening to the credit union conversations podcast. Have a question, visit Mark Ritter. com for more information.