So this week I had one of those just can’t win moments. You know one of those moments in which no matter how hard you try to explain your reaction you still end up looking lame. My wife and daughter had just left the house to go school supply shopping (apparently when your daughter is 15 this also includes new shoes). When suddenly my daughter came racing back into the house holding a letter in her hand.
It was a special invitation to be a student ambassador! To spend 20 days in Europe!! To visit historic old places in the Old World!!!
Now blog readers you can see where this going. One of those perfect Hollywood moments you see on some lifestyle movie of the week in which I say all the right things. Now in my defense I really do think a great deal of my daughter so my initial reaction of seeing only the words, “TWENTY DAYS IN EUROPE” sort of created a tunnel vision moment for me. So while my daughter was looking for that Hollywood picture perfect daughter father moment of “ Oh daughter, this is amazing…of course you can go” Instead she got my eyes popping out of my head and a panicked shout of, “Twenty Days…are you crazy !!!”
All of which brings me to my point. When I woke up that morning I had no intention of sending my teenager to Europe for twenty days and as such had not really planned for it. The lack of planning created a sense of panic as I suddenly found myself financially not prepared to spend that kind of money. The same thing could happen to all of us if we do not do something about it.
All of us know the day will come when we are no longer going to want to work. Notice that I said “want to work” and not “have to work”. But what is the plan to actually get there? Too often we think planning is something for the rich and famous. Yet, that is simply not true. If you actually sit down and talk to someone about what you want to accomplish (retirement, vacation, kids to college) and then work with them on creating the action steps needed you are 250 percent more likely to achieve that goal.
Practical Application:
- Have you educated your members or customers that they don’t have to start big to start?
- Are they aware that the first step of sitting down and talking to your local branch manager can start them on the path of getting in front of the right person?
- For those who don’t live close to a branch do you have an alternative delivery channel solution to help them identify practical steps regarding goals?
- Has your marketing department communicated that solution?
- What opportunities are you missing by not helping your consumers consider the perfect movie moments they could achieve by simply creating a plan?
Good questions to ask yourself and or your organization.
ReplyDeleteThanks for visiting the blog and for your feedback. I think people have such a low opinion of financial services because of BigBanks that the bar of what a "Hollywood movie moment" is has been lowered. Credit Unions have a real opportunity in front of them.
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