Posts by Brian Wringer
Dreams and decisions
Ultra-blogger Seth Godin points out that people are astonishingly bad at making decisions about money. For most of us, that’s hardly news. But is it, where you work? If you’re working at a credit union, you’re probably pretty good with dollars and cents. And you’re likely surrounded by people who are also pretty good with…
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Are blasts from the past holding you back?
As a Wordsmith (that’s the official title I put on my business cards, anyway), I’m a big fan of new words. I recently ran across a doozy: skeuomorph, an object or element of design that serves no real purpose, but only echoes some past object. For example, many calendar applications on modern-day computers and mobile…
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Are you selling COLOR TV?
As any motorcyclist knows, the best roads and scenery are far away from population centers. In fact, I’ve become a connoisseur of the inexpensive, “independent” lodgings you’ll find hours from the nearest Holiday Inn. There’s a certain quirky charm in the nonstandard, family-owned places, and I always seem to sleep better when my bike is…
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People are squirrels and CUs are nuts
Back in 1957, an informal study tried to find out whether squirrels preferred “wild” food or human food. The researchers went to Central Park and put out several morsels at once (natural fare like hazelnuts and acorns, along with human food like peanuts, popcorn, and Cracker Jack) and recorded which ones were taken first. The…
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The Marketspeak Menace
–As an advertising copy writer, I’m a failure. I’m incapable of writing fluff, and I’m not much of a spin doctor. I doubt I’ll ever get rich writing gushy catalog copy or political doubletalk. In short, I just can’t spew marketspeak worth a hoot. It’s a good thing I ended up in credit union marketing. At the…
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Are you buying talent or paper clips?
There’s a big difference between buying services based on talent and buying services from a vendor. To get the best results, your working relationship with someone selling talent (an artist) must be very different than with a vendor selling paper clips or bathroom remodeling. And since you are in charge of that relationship, here are…
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It’s time for your mid-year marketing review
No, not your employee review, although if you flunk this one, you may need to be worried about that. Take a little time right now to go through a Mid-Year Marketing Review Where do you and your credit union stand right now with regards to your strategic goals in these areas? Loan Growth Membership Growth…
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Solve the right problems
One of the first things you learn as an aspiring engineer is that if you first carefully define a problem, you’re halfway to solving it.* But all too often, we’re defining and then solving the wrong problem, not the real problem. For example, try bringing a decent sized bottle of shampoo onto an airplane –…
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Search success starts with usefulness
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) still sounds like a complicated and arduous technical task to some. But it really comes down to basic communication principles – skills marketers already have. Maybe it would help to put it in simpler terms. Build a useful web site, and the world will use it. Note that “useful” means that…
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Motor madness
As you can probably guess, I’m a motorcycle nut. In fact, motorcycles are my primary transportation — I ride one of my bikes to work every day it’s not snowing too hard. Recently on a large online forum, the topic of financing motorcycles came up. I was very happy to see that several people recommended…
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