Dave Martin is an executive vice president and chief training consultant at NCBS, a SunTrust Banks Inc. subsidiary that offers consulting, training, design and construction services for retail banking programs.

Get Rid of Outdated Tasks That Waste Bankers’ Time
January 30, 2012 Bank managers are far more willing to add things requiring their teams' time and attention than to ever eliminate entrenched...

Recruit Frontline Hires from 'Hamburger University'
January 3, 2012 Over the years, I've asked scores of bank managers about their best employees. As often as not, the most productive were folks...

If Waiters Can Make Personal Connections, So Can Bankers
November 29, 2011 In our increasingly detached world, where folks spend more time staring at little screens in their hands than interacting with...

'Everyone's Doing It' Is a Weak Retail Banking Strategy
November 1, 2011 As bankers, we will face similar industry challenges, but we must deal with them in our own and (at least somewhat) unique...

Don't Let Bank-Bashers Hurt Your Team's Morale
October 4, 2011 Frontline employees and branch managers I've spoken to seem genuinely surprised and sometimes downright emotional to hear...

Train Everyone in Sales — From the Top Down
August 30, 2011 If you are going to be in banking in the future, you are going to be "in sales."

Bring the Brick and Mortar to Life
August 2, 2011 Old-school "open houses" and "meet-and-greet" events help us leverage our physical locations and our most valuable assets, our...

One Big Lesson for Banks from the Four Seasons
July 5, 2011 The "luxury" experience at a recent Four Seasons hotel stay was not produced by facilities. It was produced by human...

Good Loan Officers Listen to Plumbers
June 1, 2011 I've found that one of the great things about being in the banking industry is that it gives us both opportunity and reason to...

Boot Camp: Hand-to-Hand Marketing
May 4, 2011 The customer who would usually avoid taking a marketing piece will readily accept recipes and coloring pages for children...