The key to putting a profit plan into place that will work is the quality of information and thought that goes into the plan. Based on the information that you have gathered in Steps 1 to 3, and the specific i ssues that we will discuss in this step, you willbe on your way to success. Some of the specific issues we will discuss include the concept of a customer bill of rights and a plan to manage expenses.

The plan should be as simple as possible, its execution as detailed as possible. For example, the essence of your plan might be summarized in one word, "service," but its execution will involve doing many different and interrelated things well. The detail forces you to think about situations that you might otherwise not encounter until you have a problem with executing it. Problems thought about in advance can often be avoided, minimized or turned into opportunities. For example, returned checks can be turned into a service that prevents bounced checks.

Discuss your plan with other people. Most people see problems, not opportunities. So make sure that you see a mixture of people that permits a comprehensive analysis and solution. Make sure that one of the people who you talk to is your boss. If after discussing it with your boss, you cannot get his/her backing, you better go back to the drawing board.

Also, use your plan as a dynamic working tool. Change it as you get new information that warrants a change, and use it as a vehicle to keep everyone who is concerned informed.

Make a list of the people with whom you want to discuss your plan when it is prepared. If you don't know all of their names, list their function.

Now/ if you can turn a problem into an opportunity, just think of what you can do with an opportunity in a neutral setting.

In thinking about opportunities, you must also think about making a profit. You may be able to create an opportunity from a problem where the incremental investment is effectively nil (e.g_v motivating your branch). That maybe a good starting point But you should be searching for a niche where the return on your investment is extraordinary, and you can start by thinking of your branch as your own business.

Take a moment and list the things in your branch that you would do differently if it were your own business.

STEP 4 PUTTING A PROFIT PLAN IN PLACE

It is not enough to have a gleam in your eye. After you have seen the Comstock lode/ you have to figure out a way to mine it safely, efficiently, and methodically. Thafs what Step 4 is all about. If you really know the job at hand, know how your branch works, and have defined the branch's opportunities, then putting together a profit plan will not be that difficult.

The plan that we will discuss, and the plan that you will develop, Includes the following:

Introduction

Customers

Competition

Vision and Strategy

Tactics

Financial^

Issues Next Steps

asked for and no more. You generate profit in the service business by adding value to the customers.

Another important element in building and motivating a team is supporting them with the right tools. For example, if sales are important/ you must assure them that there is an effective sales system in place. This includes both processing and information systems. This, in turn, means knowing as much as you can about your customers and having a means to analyze results. This has been addressed in Step 2, "Making Sure the Branch Works," but double-check it every time you start a new sales campaign. You know when you have built and motivated a team when each player thinks the branch is his/her own business and acts accord­ingly. But make no mistake. Motivation is an invisible problem. You will need to be both discerning and intuitive to successfully manage it.

The five steps we just discussed will help you to successfully manage a branch, but you must make them your own. As you go through the book, tailor it to your situation and to your strengths and weaknesses. Remember: Successful people focus on their strengths.

STEP 5 BUILDING AND MOTIVATING A TEAM

Robert Townsend said it and it is worth repeating, "You can't moti­vate people. That door is locked from inside. You can create a climate in which most people will motivate themselves to help the [branch] reach its objectives."¹

Motivating people involves doing many things well but they are generally simple. Dale Carnegie talked about the power of using a person's name when you address that person. He said that it was the sweetest sound in the world—to them. In fact success is often just doing simple things well e.g., understanding what motivates each team mem­ber and then managing him/her accordingly. This is a very simple concept. But many times a manager makes no attempt to determine what will motivate people, and merely assumes what will motivate them. Certain people are self-motivated. For them, your opportunity is :o be a cheerleader. The vast majority of people can be motivated, and that's your opportunity. Your job is to figure out how, and this chapter tells you.

The process of motivation starts with a conversation with each staff member to determine what they want and what you want. Then some r.egotiating takes place. Bypassing the negotiation stage leaves you without direction in terms of how to maximize your team's potential.

a person really likes being in operations, putting him/her in a cus­tomer contact role serves no one's interest. It does not serve yours, theirs, the customer's, or the shareholders.

The secret is knowing how to treat the people who are in the wrong

jbs. If you don't work with them, they will become a business casualty,

and you will never gain the trust of the entire team. And if your team

san't trust you, the customer probably won't trust you either — or

anyone on your team.

One bank I knew was always reorganizing, laying people off/ and

.ring new ones. It resulted in employees worrying about their jobs, not

:. -ir customers. In most cases, the customers received just what they

^! Robert Townsend. Further Up the Organization, NY: Knopf, 1984, p. 170.

STEP 2 MAKING SURE THE BRANCH WORKS

Before you seek additional business for your branch, make sure you personally understand how the branch works. Understand its capacity and its potential risks.

There may be a tendency to skip this seemingly obvious step, but resist the temptation for three reasons. First, it may prevent a failure — yours. If your branch has operational problems, pushing more volume through may cause it to explode. Second, it can give you needed information to develop a plan. You may discover that training is really a major issue. Third, you will be able to coach and motivate your staff. A big part of your job is your role as a player/coach. It's hard to be one if you don't know the jobs.

This can best be done by actually doing each job in the branch. By doing each job, you will understand how each job links internally in the branch and externally with your support system. You will identify the support departments you depend on. If you don't do each job honestly and meticulously, you will never be comfortable when selling the real potential of the branch, because there will always be portions that you don't understand or will overlook. The successful person in any busi­ness understands the business inside and out. At the end of this step you will better understand the foundation that you can build on and you will also have gained the respect of your employees. There is nothing quite as effective as gaining someone's commitment by your personal ex­ample. You don't want to do their job, but you do want to understand it and to be able to help them do a better job. However, always remember one last thing: Nothing in this world is perfect Don't expect to develop the perfect branch. Understand it, recognize what needs to be done, and keep making it better. Eventually, you will know the branch works when you want to be a customer in it yourself.

STEP 3 DEFINING THE OPPORTUNITIES

Discerning opportunities and crafting profitable solutions is the successful manager's job. The opportunities can vary on a branch-bv-branch or on a market-by-market basis, but you have to look for ail of them. Discerning opportunities is an acquired skill. Most people see

problems, but few people see opportunities. For instance, one time when Sir Claude Dansey, the British spymaster for the first half of this century, found that his spy network in a major city had been discovered by the enemy, he merely put a second network into place. Then left the first one in place as a decoy. Dansey was a practitioner of turning problems into opportunities.

How can one develop this skill? There are two important things you can do. First, you can view each business situation you encounter in a neutral fashion. Don't, for example, prejudge the issues, the partici­pants, or the solutions. Have the information drive the thought pro­cess. What does the information suggest about the problem or the op­portunity? Second, force yourself to see a situation from several points of view. For example, think of the situation and of your feelings if you were your customer, your boss, your stockholders, and your banking regulators. Dansey apparently did these things very well, and they facilitated the creation in his mind of a solution. In any business there is a group of classic opportunities (i.e., those that are normally present and normally an important victory). In this step we will discuss the oppor­tunities; they include cross-sell, expenses, managing the customer you lose, and creating an entrepreneurial culture.

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Take a problem you have had in a branch and describe it in its simplest terms:

Now write down a way you could have turned that into an oppor­tunity: