Jeff Stephens

The Difference Between Banks and Credit Unions

// January 29th, 2010 // 11 Comments » // Banking, Banks, Credit Union, Jeff Stephens

I had an interesting thought today, sparked by several tweets, blog posts, and a conversation with a potential client.  It was about the common discussion in our industry:  the differences between banks and credit unions.

We all know, there is indeed a difference.  It’s not that one is inherently better than the other, but there are differences for sure:  legal charters, ownership structures, regulatory differences, etc. There are thousands of websites (like this one from CUNA) with information about how credit unions are different. Still, people don’t widely understand these differences, and frequently make mistakes about them.  Most consumers confuse the two, and the media clearly confuses them routine–they often call credit unions “banks” in news stories.

So here’s the interesting question:

Why is it only credit unions who get pissed about this misunderstanding and confusion between banks and credit unions?

Shouldn’t the banks get just as angry? After all, lumping the two together is a mixup that adds just as much confusion about what banks really are, as it does to what credit unions really are.

Sure, I understand that credit unions are called banks more frequently than banks are called credit unions. But think about it: both banks and credit unions alike have every reason to be aggravated by this continued and frequent mixup. So why don’t we hear more uproar from banks? How come there are no chants about “the bank difference” like there are for “the CU difference”? Shouldn’t both sides be equally interested in clarifying their qualitative differences and arming consumers with accurate information?

In other words, why aren’t banks offended when credit unions are lumped in with them?

(BTW, I honestly don’t have an opinion I’m trying to sell you, on this topic. I just find it extremely interesting and would love to hear your theories.)

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Entrepreneurial New Year’s Resolutions

// January 6th, 2010 // No Comments » // Being an entrepreneur, Entrepreneurial Lessons, Jeff Stephens, Life Lessons, Social Media

As I look at 2010, I’m extremely optimistic.  I think our country and economy is gaining momentum.  And in my world, my companies are gaining momentum as well.  Perhaps most importantly for me personally, I feel a sense of clarity and focus.  All of these things lead to my believe that 2010 will be a prosperous year.  To start with a bang, I’ve written a few resolutions for myself, which I thought I’d share with you:

Post More Often. Not just writing more posts here at www.jeff-stephens.com, but I mean truly being totally engaged in all my social communities.  2009 really showed me that social media is not an optional marketing channel, it is just another required part of doing business successfully.  Just like a phone or email, it’s a tool we can no longer live without.

Live the Getting Things Done Lifestyle. If you haven’t read Getting Things Done, by David Allen, you need to.  He’s the master of personal productivity.  GTD is brilliantly simple but truly transformative…if you give yourself to it.  So far I’ve dabbled heavily in GTD, but haven’t completely given myself to it like I want to and need to.  My current tool of choice for GTD software is OmniFocus, so my goal is to really lean on it as hard as I can and make it part of my lifestyle.  This leads me to…

Start Each Week, and Each Day, With Focus.  I have said before that I believe that each day, the world conspires against you to prevent you from getting the stuff done that you want to get done.  More realistically, though, I think it’s that we don’t start each day with the level of focus and clarity we really need.  I will start each day and week not with a list of “to-do” items, but with a list of accomplishments I want to achieve.

Get Coached. I’m proud to say I am pretty much always learning new things, but it’s usually mostly on my own.  This year I’m reaching out for help that will provide structure, accountability and a fresh perspective.  I’ve started working with Mark Shapiro from Emergent Business, am attending a seminar through David Baker’s ReCourses, am signing up for guitar lessons and am even considering a personal trainer to help whip me into better physical shape.  Plus, of course I’ll continue my both-feet-in participation in EO.

What are your resolutions?  I’d love to hear.  Plus, if you put them on the Internet like I did, you have to follow through or else the whole world will know!

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5 Great #Entrepreneur Tweeps I’m Digging

// December 2nd, 2009 // No Comments » // Being an entrepreneur, Jeff Stephens, Social Media

Twitter is so vast.  I’m constantly amazed by how much great stuff there is out there:  great people to follow, great brands and campaigns to track, and great links and posts to read.  It’s downright overwhelming!  As I was reading Six Pixels of Separation recently, I was struck by the comment: “welcome to the era of snackable content.”  How true, how true. You can’t possibly keep up with it all these days, so you just have to settle for doing your best to consume what content you can.

I thought I’d share a few of my favorite #entrepreneur people/companies I’m following on Twitter.  You might want to check these out:

@EconomyHeroes:  ”Tweets for our Economy’s Heroes – entrepreneurs and executives of emerging businesses and those that advise them.”

@Unstrappd:  ”How Gen-Y Does Business. Quoted as Mashable meets Entrepreneur magazine”

@IncMagazine:  ”The magazine for entrepreneurs. Broadcasting live from New York City.”

@JaredOToole: “Stop doing sh*t you hate!”

@WhenGrowthStall: “CEO, BusinessWeek.com columnist, and author of When Growth Stalls: How It Happens, Why You’re Stuck, and What to Do About It.”

Enjoy these great Tweeps…but good luck keeping up with all their content.

// E4RQ7ZDRGTQ2

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Affiliate Marketing in Banking

// November 18th, 2009 // No Comments » // Banking, Innovation, Jeff Stephens, New banking ideas

As I was reading something businessy lately, a question popped up in my mind:  why isn’t there affiliate marketing in banking?

Maybe there is, in a few cases, on a B2B level—you might argue LendingTree is affiliate marketing for lenders.  But that’s not what I mean.  There’s not, to my knowledge, any affiliate marketing program that could leverage the millions of retail customers out there. For instance, how many Bank of America customers have blogs or websites? Probably millions. Why not take a page from Amazon.com’s book (pun intended) and set up a killer affiliate program to drive traffic to the bank and kick back a reward to the referring site for accounts opened online?

I think I know why.

Because that’s not what bankers do.

Because that’s not how banking works.

And because, likely, nobody has ever really thought about it.

If you can’t tell already from my first few posts on this blog, one of my big pet peeves is that bankers don’t tend to look at business concepts (like affiliate marketing) and try to figure out how it might apply in their industry.

In my opinion, the best and most important activity any entrepreneurial banker can do, is this:

Look at other industries, see what’s successful, and then ask, “how can I apply this to banking?”

I’m not here to tell you affiliate marketing should be the future of banking.  I don’t have an opinion at this point, because I haven’t given it much thought.  Maybe I can think it over and write another post about that.  But I do know this:  at least I remembered to ask myself “how can this apply to banking?”  The answer to that question is less important than the fact that it was asked in the first place.  That’s how innovation happens.

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What are you reading?

// November 11th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Books I'm reading, Jeff Stephens

Besides the Twilight series, what are you reading right now? If you’re a banker, are you reading books about banking? Or are you reading books about business, entrepreneurship and social phenomena? I hope it’s the latter.

I’m a firm believer that real entrepreneurs learn what other industries are doing, and then ask one important question: “how can I apply this to my business?”  I do that repeatedly, and it’s literally changed my life.

I plan to have “what are you reading” as a recurring feature of my blog. Why? Because the best new ideas come from places that have nothing to do with the business you’re in?

So let’s start now. Here’s what I’m reading today:  Six Pixels of Separation, by Mitch Joel.  I recently got done reading Gary Vaynerchuk’s book, Crush It!, and was inspired to keep reading more about social media and how people like, well, me, can really harness it.

I’ll let you know how it is. And most importantly, what I’m learning from it.

Last but not least, do you use GoodReads? Friend me up.

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Richard Branson: Finally an Entrepreneur in Banking

// November 8th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Banking, Being an entrepreneur, Richard Branson

One of the things you should know about me early-on is that Richard Branson (Virgin Group) is my entrepreneurial hero.  I am more or less obsessed with studying his career, his moves, and perhaps most importantly, his outlook and attitude toward business.  He wrote a book, whose title I really relate to:  Screw It, Let’s Do It.

Branson and Virgin have already been in the banking space to a certain extent with Virgin Money (in the US, Virgin Money helps formalize lending between friends and family; in the UK and a couple other regions, it provides broader financial services).  Now, Virgin has applied for a full banking license, to become a complete full-service banking company.

Watch out bankers.  There’s finally a real entrepreneur in banking.  That should make you very nervous.

That’s because entrepreneurs don’t think like bankers.  Bankers think like bankers.  But entrepreneurs think about applying business principles and scrappiness to creating and building businesses. They don’t focus on running businesses–that’s for managers.  Entrepreneurs, instead, focus on starting and growing…architecting dynamic organizations that shake things up from the traditional.

You can bet I’ll be following Sir Richard’s efforts very closely…and cheering them on.

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Hi. It’s me. Jeff. Jeff Stephens.

// October 25th, 2009 // No Comments » // Banking, Being an entrepreneur, Brand and Branding, Innovation, Jeff Stephens

Um, hi.  Nice of you to stop by here.  If you can’t tell, this is my first post on my brand new blog. I’m excited to start this thing–I’ve been considering it for a while and decided it’s finally time to put some Jeff-think out there.  The wheels of my mind are turning all the time, much of the time about my family, friends and life, but also much of the time about business.  Here’s what we’ll be talking about in this blog:

• being an entrepreneur
• business philosophies
• banking
• “innovation”
• making people give a damn about what you do
• many combinations of the above, and surely a few random ingredients tossed in for good measure

Specifically, if I had to state the the thesis of this blog, it would be this.

I get fired up about injecting some entrepreneurialism and business thinking into banking.  Today’s banks are run by bankers, not business people or entrepreneurs–and the industry needs a dose of outside, ballsy business thinking worse than anything else.

You may disagree with me already.  I kinda hope so–now you’ve got a reason to keep reading.

Just so you know, in case you follow my other endeavors at all, this blog will not be redundant to the blogs run by my companies (http://creative-brand.com/thestory and http://psstmarketing.wordpress.com).  This blog will be broader, more personal and more, well, me.

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