SANTA CLARA, Calif. — The Great Recession forced many small CUs to fold or merge. Those that survived, such as Mission City FCU, figured out how to redefine opportunities.
In Mission City's case, the $75-million asset CU created a booming loan portfolio over the past year. "Effects of the past recession were apparent in many of our financial metrics, and our culture was so service-oriented that sales only happened when a member asked us for something," said Mission City Marketing Director Dan Racimo.
Back in 2011 this philosophy — members asking for services — was not deemed proactive. A change needed to happen, which occurred when Mission City FCU's welcomed new CEO, David Waterman. He executed a flattened management style that allowed employees to openly communicate with top level management.
"If you're not able to develop your people, you're not management material," said Waterman.
Racimo explained the 4,100-member CU wanted to develop a pro-lending, sales-oriented culture, but didn't want to jeopardize the institution's long-standing reputation for quality member service. So Mission City decided to hire to a consultant.
"After a long and thorough search we found Rory Rowland whose sales training methods were perfectly suited to our situational needs," said Racimo. "It was immediately apparent in our first conversations with Mr. Rowland that what he calls 'Service-Sales Culture' was going to put a sales culture in place, without reducing the quality of our member's experience."
A past president of two financial institutions, Rowland explained his "52 sales games" made the process different and unique for employees. He added that Mission City was successful because it developed extensive goals. "They had consistent and ongoing coaching sessions with the employees on how to have meaningful conversations with the members."
Since incorporating "Service-Sales" methods into its culture early in 2014, which has included training an one-on-one staff meetings, Racimo, and Operations Manager Mary Sunseri, have realized the benefit of matching products and services with members' needs. "Setbacks are going to come to every organization — economic downturns, retail data breaches, and other curveballs — but the most important thing is to keep moving forward," said Sunseri. "We have adopted the keep-pushing-forward' mindset and it has proven to be extremely effective."
According to NCUA Financial Performance Report, Ratio Analysis Mission City FCU's annualized loan growth in March 2014 was 33.04% and in June it increased to 36.47%.
According to the California and Nevada Credit Union League, Quarterly Performance Report for the second quarter of 2014, when it came to percentage of loan growth, Mission City FCU ranked second among California CUs with asset sizes of $50 million to $100 million, and eighth among all Golden State CUs "After all that we have done to change and develop, and having all of it pay off, we now approach challenges and goals fearlessly — with ambition, motivation and confidence," said Racimo.
