By all measures – loan limits, loans, deposits, and products – seminar attendees are more profitable accounts. Clearly, the seminar program provides a mechanism to significantly increase profitability from the existing client base. These results can be leveraged into a unique and powerful business development campaign as Westpac has done in Australia, by introducing Beyond Survival in their national advertising cable TV version of Beyond Survival.

In the banking industry, the topic of small business is hot. Not surprising. Continuing and increasing competition has squeezed both the volume and margins out of many of the traditional profit centers. In a sense, small business is one of the last “segments of opportunity.” Banks are rushing to the fore in a manner similar to the frontier “land rush”.

However, beyond being the only game left, there are a number of compelling reasons that make the small business market particularly attractive. Among them:

• There are many – more than 22 million, in fact

• The segment is growing (corporate downsizing, lifestyle evolution, etc.)

• Smaller loans counter the risk of concentration (big loans gone bad)

• Small business owners tend to be high net-worth individuals (additional products and services)

Of course, every market has its own challenges, and small business is no different. From the beginning, there have been two primary challenges:

Cost and Risk

Conquer these and you have a “leg up” on the competition.

The cost issue has been addressed in several ways, most notably loan scoring to reduce the cost of the credit granting process. In addition, client segmentation is used to determine which accounts will be assigned a client manager, and which will be managed on a transaction basis. However, these are strategies that any bank can employ.

Risk is introduced because of the known failure rate of small business. This occurs not only because of the tendency toward undercapitalization, but also the lack of financial acumen of the typical small business owner.

To address these changes, Westpac chose to partner with Business Resource Services (BRS) - to design and deliver to both bank staff and customers – a unique two-day seminar that BRS has been delivering to business owners and managers in the U.S. market for over 20 years.

The bank received the same outstanding attendee evaluations that BRS has received for years; however, Westpac endeavored to go beyond anecdotal praise, and measure the impact of the program on the customer base.

The 18-month study identified key customer profitability drivers ― and then measured the difference between 2000 + seminar attendees and the small business portfolio at large. The results are summarized in the attached graph,  and they are extremely compelling.

In measuring the critical profit drivers – loan commitments, loan disbursements, deposits, and product usage – the seminar attendees dominate non-attendees. Clearly, the seminar program provides a mechanism to significantly increase profitability from the existing client base. These results can be leveraged into a unique and powerful business development campaign.

Contact us today for a no-obligation preview of our programs for bank staff and customers.