Here are five good ways to do it.

By Sarah Snell Cooke

Recent poll numbers are not looking good for President Biden and the Democrats. This is fact and not a political statement. Previously, President Trump was voted into office – with Senator Bernie Sanders, a self-proclaimed socialist, as a finalist for the Dems – on an anti-establishment wave.

President Biden won election for several reasons, but in part President Trump may have been a bit too anti-establishment. American politics swung back to the old white guy who’d been in Washington via Scranton (yeah, sure) for, well, ever. The country has never been so politically chaotic because of the pendulum of American sentiment is acting more like a terrifying carnival ride than a grandfather clock. Average Americans are caught in the middle.

Meanwhile credit unions have remained a constant as the original anti-establishment force in financial services. As the tides are forever changing, credit unions must grab this one and hang ten for their lives!

Here’s how you do it.

1.  Members first in all things, and that means your communications with them, too. Credit union marketing typically screams: Rates, Rates, Rates! Why? Because the establishment has sucked you into this theme. Of course, it’s important to have competitive rates, but someone can always out-price you.

What they cannot do is understand your members better. What do you know about your membership? Are they primarily married white collar families seeking a reliable sedan or SUV? Are they millennials who value experiences over possessions? Whatever the case may be, your credit union’s marketing should reflect it. Make sure yours doesn’t look the same as everyone else’s – Rates! Rates! Rates!

As Your Marketing Co. adroitly points out, “Almost all people hate to be sold, but they love to buy.” So, why are you featuring rates rather than a harried mom loading up kids for soccer practice, or a group of young adults heading out to concert with the loan or credit card you can provide them? Can’t credit unions do that, represent that, live that better than mainstream financial services?

2.  Focus on accountability.  APL FCU CEO David Woodruff told me once, our efficiencies are how we serve members, and it’s really stuck with me. Duh Sarah, right? But it was then that I really started thinking about it more strategically – not just as being cheap. Efficiencies are critical to the bottom line, and those savings are repurposed across the credit union and the membership.

Take Civic Federal Credit Union for example. President Dwayne Naylor is a huge proponent of values-based banking and the triple bottom line: People, Planet, Prosperity. It’s clearly outlined in the credit union’s strategic plan and on Civic FCU’s website for the world to see. How’s that for accountability?

The Planet piece is where I’ll focus right now – not only is the credit union helping to clean up the preserve the environment (which is of high importance to North Carolinians) with its LEED Gold-certified headquarters and recently achieving carbon-neutral status, but after initial investments will save the credit union in energy efficiencies over time.

In addition, Civic FCU is a near-digital-only credit union with the technology and offerings to back that up, meaning members aren’t driving down to the credit union all the time to check their balances or make a deposit. And members benefit with 5% cash back on its rewards card and ATM fee reimbursement, among other things. Here’s more on how you can members be a part of the green movement. How’s that for anti-establishment?

3. Partner with fans and true believers. There are organizations out there that believe in what you do: that credit unions are the best damn thing for consumer banking since sliced bread, that the planet is worth saving, that people of every shape and form should be treated with equal dignity, that equity applies to everyone.

As you’re selecting your business partners of course you want the best member bang for your buck, but credit unions are about more than that. We have a philosophy and a belief in the general good in people, your members, and that they should be invested in with time and money.

You should look for no less in your business partners, so include in your due diligence research on the company’s beliefs. For example, GreenProfit Solutions’ website reads:

Mission: We believe in providing tools to help credit union leaders balance mission and profitability, marrying credit union philosophy with the business of banking for improved member service and sustainability.

Vision: Financially empowering credit unions’ communities by serving the triple bottom line: People, Planet, Prosperity

You might wonder – so, what do they even sell? That’s the point. The company execs don’t see themselves as simply a conduit to end-to-end auto buying services. They are people who believe in the credit union mission and they are enthusiasts of the natural world who want to make it a better place. Audit your service providers on how they support your mission beyond dollars and cents through your vendor due diligence. Are there better options outside of the established 800-pound gorillas?

4. Innovate internally and externally. With all the excitement around upgrading member services – and that’s very much necessary – we may lose sight of innovating to improve credit unions’ internal experience.

Royal Credit Union has worked with LemonadeLXP to gamify training for its credit union team, which has actually seen their employees re-taking some of the training for fun! One of Royal CU’s frontline team members shared a story when it helped to serve a member IRL after just a few months! Check out the interview with CU Broadcast’s Mike Lawson, Royal Credit Union’s Tessa Maki and LemonadeLXP CEO John Findlay here.

Gesa Credit Union used robotic process automation to maintain pace with the crazy mortgage application volume it was receiving. Hiring people to do that job proved difficult because every lender in the area was facing the same issue, so now the credit union leverages bot technology to handle all the basics better and more efficiently without adding any staff, and no need to lay off employees should the volume die down. Gesa CU simply turns off the bot. Gesa Credit Union worked with the RPA strategy experts at Digital Align to make this happen. Now aren’t these examples very innovative, member- and employee-friendly, efficient and anti-establishment?

5. Tell a story that differentiates your credit union from everyone one else’s! Don’t market on rates, find efficiencies that help you better serve members, research to partner with the right organizations and innovate. It all comes down to this: CREDIT UNIONS ARE DIFFERENT. CREDIT UNIONS ARE A BETTER CHOICE FOR CONSUMERS. CREDIT UNIONS DON’T SHARE THAT STORY.

Yes, I’m yelling.

It drives me bananas that the overall credit union community does not do well as storytelling, nor sharing its many wonderful stories. I wrote about this recently in the post, “It’s time to shine, dammit!”

If each credit union did its small part, a certain trade association wouldn’t have to spend $100M of your members’ dollars on an awareness campaign that has not amounted to much. As Frank Diekmann highlighted in CUToday.info, “in the 27 states where the Open Your Eyes campaign is currently running, credit union membership has actually declined in approximately half of those states over the past year.” The way politics play into efforts like “Open Your Eyes” – which is completely condescending and putting the onus on the very people credit unions are trying to attract and educate – waters down the message. Credit unions have so many amazing things to say about how they help members and communities, just like this one in which Orange County’s Credit Union opened an account for a victim of identity theft who’d been forced into using predatory lenders. To paraphrase Shakespeare, these are the stuff that credit unions are made of. Can’t get much more anti-establishment than that.

In closing

Credit unions are unique. They were molded from the average American who couldn’t get banking services from banks. They still serve that purpose. Credit unions save families and lives – not just money. Own it. Be anti-establishment to stand out and stand up for your communities. People crave it, and in turn, they’ll crave your credit union.