Bryce Roth

tOSU and their Helmet Stickers

Posted on October 15, 2017October 16, 2017 by Bryce Roth

There’s a popular commercial running these days about why The Ohio State University has kept their helmets the same for decades. The commercial explains the logic (in short) behind how and why their student-athletes earn buckeye leaf stickers to be placed on their helmets.

If you were to look up symbolism in the dictionary or online you will learn that symbolism is defined as:

“the use of symbols to represent ideas or qualities.”

Qualities. Ideas. Symbols.

Symbols can be very powerful. If you have any doubt about their importance, look no further than how popular emojis, avatars and bitmojis are. Symbols are incredibly persuasive because they take complex ideas and simplify them. In the world we live in, I believe we all are looking for more simplicity.

How can we apply this to our businesses? It’s easy. Stop trying to put your mission, vision, and values into words and think about its essence. If you cannot define what you aim to do and why you exist by creating a symbol, there is a very real possibility that your teammates and consumers of your products/services have no idea why you exist.

Let’s be honest with ourselves, can you recite your organization’s Mission Statement? Can you recall your vision without looking it up? When you make your organization’s purpose easy to understand, you create a common language. You create opportunities for your brand ambassadors to understand your purpose, but you also allow them to express your purpose in their own unique way.

People do not buy products. People buy relationships. People buy “stuff” that they can relate to. Even if everyone within your organization did memorize your Mission Statement, would it resonate with your target market? My guess is that it would for some, but it wouldn’t for most.

Simplify your messaging. Empower your teammates and watch the results. You will be amazed. There IS some value in “doing things the way we have always done them” if what you are doing is truly meaningful and memorable.

Just my thoughts. What are yours?

Without wax,

Bryce

Redefining ROI

Posted on April 13, 2014 by Bryce Roth

Return on investment (ROI). Every business person is familiar with this term and if you are a marketer, like me, it’s kind of a big deal. No matter the nature of your business, marketers spend money to make more money. It’s a pretty simple concept to grasp, but I’m not convinced that all of us really understand everything that needs to be involved to deliver firm numbers and report results. So, now that I’ve put my credit union hat on, let’s talk about some of the issues I’ve encountered personally and heard from other people over the years.

Planning

It’s astonishing to me how many times I hear that marketers do not have a strategy or plan for the year about what they will be advertising, why they will be doing so at a certain time and how much of their budget will be allocated to a specific campaign. If tracking is a big problem, this one is even bigger. If you don’t have a plan, it’s impossible to track. If you don’t have a plan, you become reactionary instead of proactive. If you don’t have a plan, your message has a greater chance of getting lost in all the other advertising that is going on around you and your members. There is certainly no shortage of financial institutions in any market, so, if you don’t know how you are going to deliver your message and why you’ve chosen a certain way, good luck standing out.

Execution

If you have a plan in place it is much easier to execute (no brainer, right?), but planning doesn’t mean you have to stay rigid. Rates change daily and financial marketers are constantly playing a balancing act of gaining deposits or lending money out. When you have a plan, you know what an ideal year would look like, but you also know where you can reallocate funds should you need to focus more on deposits or loan growth. I can’t stress enough how these things should be interrelated, but often they are not.

Tracking

A lot of people aren’t tracking their total marketing spend! This blows me away, but it’s a bit more complicated than it sounds. The biggest here is that a lot of credit union folks don’t spend the time to calculate their allocations to each delivery channel and they don’t work close enough with their accounting teams to crunch the numbers before going live to determine what a “win” looks like. A win isn’t just making more money than you spend, but providing a real value to all of the people who take advantage of what you’re selling. Great product + significant income = win. I’m not saying that I am the world’s best “tracker”, but if we all don’t continue to try to improve, we are doing ourselves and our members a great disservice.

The above are only three key aspects of calculating ROI, but let’s get into the whole redefining idea. You need to generate a return. Regardless if you are not-for-profit, non-profit or for profit, we all need to make money. In the case of cooperatives (credit unions are cooperatives, btw), we need to make money so we can re-invest in our members and our communities. So, the standard ROI is a given. What I believe cooperative marketers need to really focus on in addition is Return on Involvement (ROI2). To me, ROI2 is a function of our obligation to practice the Cooperative Principles, manly Concern for Community (#7).

Consider this example:

A local high school submits a proposal for you to run an advertisement in their Fall Sports Program. You get to place your logo and a sentence or two about your business. The cost is $200.

Sure, supporting schools is a great thing to do, but when was the last time you (or anyone else) bought a sports program to peruse the advertisers? probably never. Where is the ROI2? You’ve done your part, but what did your institution or your members get in return? Could you not have been a little more creative and received better exposure for the same dollar amount and still supported the school(s)? Furthermore, if you sponsor one school in your field of membership then you probably have to do the same for everyone else. $200 can quickly turn into $1,000 or more. No good.

Don’t get me wrong, sometimes “feel good marketing” is a necessary evil, but it doesn’t have to stay that way. The key here is looking for opportunities to generate ROI and ROI2. Most of the time, you will have to have a presence at things that your sponsor or endorse. It’s as simple as having team members at the ready to thank current members for their loyalty or to tell your story in a compelling way that you could never do in a sentence or two in black and white ink. Use the Cooperative Principles as the filter in which all decisions are made. If a proposal for sponsorship doesn’t meet at least two requirements, you probably should pass.

The formula for calculating ROI is pretty straight froward and the same could be said for ROI2. For starters, we can figure out how many people will our marketing spend (sponsorship) reach or directly impact? Is it hundreds of people or thousands? What does the business get in return for our spend (how does it help them maintain a program or provide more programming?) How does this spend benefit the cooperative as a whole and not just our business needs (would our members be comfortable with us spending their money on this?)

So much more could or should be said, but you’ve spent enough of your time reading this far. What are you thoughts? Does ROI2 really exist? Is the idea too much or a purist ideal? What can we do to make sure we are creating ROI2 (assuming it exists)?

Without wax,

Bryce

In Memoriam of Butch Roth: One of a Kind

Posted on March 6, 2014March 7, 2014 by Bryce Roth

Thirteen years. Thirteen years ago the Roth family lost a patriarch. Dale “Butch” Roth left us after a long battle with illness, but his life ended much how he took on every single day; with a fight.

I wrote briefly on it two weeks ago when it would have been his birthday and last week, the Roth and Link families suffered two more losses. My heart and prayers continue to go out to all of those who still grieve because, it’s been thirteen years for me and I still think about my “gramps”.

I could type a novel about all of my great memories at gram ( Eileen) and gramps house, but I won’t. Instead, I will reflect on a few things that have really stuck with me and continue to drive me today.

1. Gramps understood the vital role of family. Raising eight children in a three bedroom house, he worked his ass off to send all eight of them to St. Mary’s Central Catholic School. If family was important, the only thing that was more important was his faith. Faith and family are two things that keep families together, but even more importantly, they help family members grow in faith and in love. I hope I can set the same example some day.

2. Gramps was funny. Now, humor is relative, but all of the Roth men have the same sense of humor. I think the adjective that best describes it is ridiculous. Regardless, he was always ready with a joke or a funny song and some might say he had his own vocabulary. Some of my cousins have even honored him by naming some of their homebrew beers after his “made up” words. Laughter is a gift and gramps gave of it freely and often.

3. Gramps was a fighter. All of us grand children knew that our grandpa had served in the Navy and some of us knew he won the Most Handsome Sailor award while serving, but I don’t think too many of us knew how he fought a different battle ever single day of his life until after he passed. This is probably one of the things I thought about the most when we lost him. What a guy. To overcome what he did, raise eight amazing children and create such a long lasting legacy is quite a feat and he did a hell of a job.

Lastly, and I don’t think I need a number for this one; Gramps left this world for the next fighting the entire time. Thirteen years ago was a particularly important day for the Roth/Opfer family as my cousins were in the Ohio State Wrestling Finals. One was going for his fourth State Title which had only been done ten times before (I think that’s right) and the other was wrestling immediately after his brother and going for his first.

Now, it was no mystery that gramps was sick because in all of his years, this was the first State Wrestling Tournament he had missed that he had a child or relative competing in. He was there when my uncle made it and he was there when my dad ( Jude Roth ) won it. He was there for Jared Opfer’s first title and he was so sick in 1999 that he couldn’t be there when Jared and Drew Opfer won it together.

Can you imagine it? Two brothers winning state titles together? We were extremely proud of Jared and Drew, for many of us, it was like we won the title. A ton of our family was in Columbus to witness the event and there probably wasn’t a dry eye among any of us after Drew’s hand was raised. Tears of joy, hugs, pats on the back, years of hard work realized and complete happiness. Now, if you know anything about the State Wrestling Tournament, once you win in the Finals, you are escorted all over the place for interviews and pictures and award ceremonies and then you finally get to come to see your fans. When the brothers and their parents made their way to the SMCC section, half of us were crying tears of joy and a handful were huddled together in prayer and shedding tears of grief.

The message traveled through our family, but it was through my aunt Julie, uncle Ed and father who received the news first. I can’t even imagine the emotional rollercoaster the Opfer’s went through in a 15 minute time period, but I know it couldn’t have been easy. My sister, mother and I soon learned the news and our tears of joy quickly transformed.

While we were stricken by our grief, but we quickly realized that while something terrible had just occurred, something as equally amazing had also happened. My grandpa’s official time of death occurred shortly after Drew’s hand was raised as a State Champion of Ohio. Grandpa Roth went out with a fight. I won’t pretend to know how he knew that Drew and Jared had both achieved their dreams of winning State Championships together, but what happened that day was more than a coincidence. Dale “Butch” Roth fought for every second to make sure he was on this earth when that moment happened and now, when I look back thirteen years later, I smile as I type this sentence.

Grandpa, I hope they have WordPress in Heaven, because I want you to know how many people’s lives you touched. I want you to know how proud I am to bear your namesake. I want you to know how many other people will read this blog and will feel some of the same things I feel. You were one of a kind and all of those you left behind were left with an example of what it takes and means to be a man. You left us with memories and you left us with a blueprint for how to live a life fulfilled.

Thank you.

Your grandson,

Bryce

The Energy Equation

Posted on January 16, 2014 by Bryce Roth

This title makes me sound like I am a physicist or something. I assure you that I am not. However, I am quite in-tune with human emotions and behavior. While I’m now in marketing, my first love has always been psychology and sociology. What makes people do the things that they do? Why do certain groups form? How and why do people choose to interact the way that they do?

I think that we all should question ourselves occasionally. Why are we putting in extra hours? Why do we love (hopefully) what we call work? What is the source of our motivation? What are we trying to accomplish? It’s cliché to say stop and smell the roses, but it’s human nature to get caught up in all of the projects and responsibilities that we have. It’s not human nature (at least not mine) to actually take time to be a part of our everyday experiences. I’m still working on this myself, so, please do not assume that I am speaking from an enlightened state. Nope. This is more of a philosophical blog.

I suppose what I’m getting at is that our lives are made up of a never-ending (well it does end at sometime) series of moments and like the saying, “You learn more from your loses than you do from your victories” speaks to, at every moment of our lives, we are either winning or losing the moment. Since no one that I know of is “winning” at every moment (with the exception of Charlie Sheen), I think it makes sense to reflect on our experiences. Here’s the kicker. You can’t reflect on something if you haven’t truly experienced it.

Maybe we don’t want to question ourselves. Maybe we’re afraid of the answers we might find. I’m sure that I wouldn’t be completely satisfied with all of my responses, but if you don’t uncover areas you can improve on, you’ll never reach your full potential. The lesson here is that in all aspects of your life (faith, family, social, work) we should all be striving to improve. Personally, I’d like to be a better teammate at work. I’m pretty sure most of us would agree that being liked is nice and being respected is even better, but how many times are we actively assessing our interactions with others? How can we create a rapport with people if we aren’t honest with ourselves about how we are treating or leading others.

So, the question is this: How much energy are we putting into “doing” compared to the amount we put into the assessment of the things we do? My guess is that for myself and many others, there is an imbalance in favor of the former compared to the latter. What do you think? Do you have any tips or tricks? How can we better assess ourselves? Let me know by leaving a comment.

Without wax,

Bryce

Storytelling: So Easy, Even a Caveman Can Do It.

Posted on January 10, 2014 by Bryce Roth

ORIGINALLY POSTED ON CHATTERYAK.COM

Content marketing has been around for ages, and it has been a hot topic around the marketing and advertising world for the last several years. Now, it appears that credit union marketers are taking note (as they should) and that makes us happy. If you’re not sure what content marketing is, you’re in the right place. In this blog, we’ll be sharing what we know and we’ll also include some helpful information from other thought-leaders on the subject.

So, let’s get the definition stuff out of the way first. According to the leaders in the industry, The Content Marketing Institute, content marketing is defined as:

“a marketing technique of creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience – with the objective of driving profitable customer action.”

Sounds a lot like social media, right? Sort of. Social media is a great delivery channel for your content, but content marketing is so much more than simple tweets and Facebook/Google+ posts. When it comes to credit unions, content marketing is all about solving the problems of your members. Now, this seems like a very simple concept to grasp, but solving your members problems is much more complex than the following line of thinking:

“Members have a lot of credit card debt on high-interest credit cards and our credit card has a lower rate. Therefore, we should scream our {low} rate from the rooftops.”

The above is what most credit unions have reduced their marketing and advertising messages to. Your credit union is so much more than a purveyor of loan rate loans and minimal fees. You see, content marketing is all about telling a story that people actually want to hear. If we continue to compete only on rates and service, we will continue to lose out to other financial institutions and here’s why: Your members care less about you and more about what you can do for them.

From the beginning of time, people have been telling stories. From cavemen (and cavewomen) to the Egyptians, the world is covered (literally) in stories. Bringing things a bit closer to modern times, the first true form of content marketing was created by a little tractor company known as John Deere. In 1895, the company produced and distributed “The Furrow” a magazine designed to help farmers find solutions to the problems they faced on a daily basis. The magazine was not littered with ads for tractors and guess what, it’s still being produced today! (Joe Pullizi tells the story way better here.)

So what does this mean for credit unions? We think it means our industry needs to start worrying more about what our members want and less about what we wish our members would do. In the end, it boils down to basic psychology. If you want someone to perform a specific behavior, you need to give them a reason or motivation. Motivation can be internal or external. Here is an example of each:

External: If you become a member at ABC credit union, we will give you $25.

Internal: A person is so compelled by your credit union’s story or branding that they want to become a member.

While building a strong and impactful brand is much more difficult than doling out $25 for each new person who walks through the door, an externally motivated member’s affinity toward your brand will be much weaker than someone who saw/heard what your credit union has been doing and sought out membership on their own. Taking things a step further, if you build the foundation of your membership on externally motivated individuals, it will be much harder for your credit union to get those members to understand the cooperative mindset and you will likely remain in the rut of competing on price rather than value.

In 2014, choose to build value! Rediscover your credit union’s story and tell it from a perspective that resonates with people (members or not). Maybe even checkout 6th Story to see how they can help you with your credit union’s story. Remember that people don’t want to hear from organizations that consistently talk about how great they are. Get into the practice of demonstrating the value you offer and create compelling stories (content) that you can share via social channels, on your website or in your newsletter (if you still do one of those). Think about what your credit union does every single day and repurpose that information.

What are your thoughts?

Without wax,

Bryce

The Next Top Credit Union Executive: Takeaways

Posted on November 8, 2013November 8, 2013 by Bryce Roth

“I’ve got a pretty good idea what children are, and we’re not children. Children can lose sometimes, and nobody cares.”
― Orson Scott Card, Enders Game

First of all this is not a blog about losing. Please do not let the quote fool you. I just saw Enders Game (one of my favorite books of all time) in the theatre last week as it has now been made into a movie. This blog is really about learning.

Most of you reading this know that I was blessed enough to take part in a competition that started with 141 candidates and I made it to the Final 5. Things didn’t shake out the way I wanted them to, but in the end, the credit union industry has gained another driven, progressive and energetic leader and Next Top Credit Union Executive 2013 in Amanda Brenneman from Maps Credit Union. I was fortunate enough to spend several days with Amanda, Chad Huseby (@HUSE59), Zac King and Rob Carabelli (@MHFCURob) this past week and I can tell you with 100% certainty that we all share the passion and desire to make an impact in the lives of the members we serve and the industry we love.

I would be lying to all of you and myself if I said I wasn’t disappointed when I left San Diego, but the saying goes, “You learn more from your loses than your victories.” After 24+ hours, now I need to focus on what I can learn and how I can become a better credit union advocate, young professional and leader. The Next Top Credit Union Executive Competition has taught me countless lessons about time management, presentation skills, networking and working hard while also completing my daily responsibilities. I’d like to thank the Credit Union Executives Society (CUES), DDJ Myers and Currency Marketing for making this opportunity available to young credit union leaders.

I’ve learned a ton about myself and one thing I can’t help but reflect on is how much amateur and high school wrestling has taught me about being a successful young professional and good person (my own opinion) in general. The only way to make it to the Final 5 is to have self-discipline and that is most certainly required of anyone who has wrestled, had to cut weight and complete their studies while depriving themselves of their favorite meals. In this case, it wasn’t about not eating delicious food, but I had to really pick and choose when I was able to participate in leisure activities and when I needed to write a blog, brainstorm for videos (Thanks to Jordan Destree for his professional video editing skills) or practice my presentation (58 live run-throughs, btw).

One on one. When you wrestle, you compete to help your team score points, but essentially you are out there on the mat and whether your hand gets raised or someone else’s does, well, that’s all on you. I think the same goes for public speaking. When you’re on that stage, it’s your job to perform, present your message and “win” the crowd. There are plenty of other similarities, but I think that you get the gist.

Last and certainly not least, I couldn’t finish this blog without thanking everyone who has supported me through the entire process. I will undoubtedly leave someone out (not on purpose) but here goes. I need to thank Jane Anderson for thinking enough of me to send in my first nomination. Jane, you’re faith in my abilities and my project has meant the world. Kevin Ralofsky, my friend, mentor and colleague also deserves special acknowledgement. Kevin took a chance on me a little over 3 and a half years ago and to this day, we work together as a team and I learn something new from him every single day. Kevin and his family have become a part of my family and I think that it is safe to say that I have become a part of his. I’m not sure about what gave him the inclination to take a chance and hire a twenty-something with no knowledge of credit unions, but I am thankful that he did.

My parents. My parents have always been a driving force in my life. I think most children are always seeking ways to make their parents proud, so, I’m really no different than anyone, but not all children are fortunate enough to have parents who raised them to understand the importance of working hard for the things that you want, being respectful and willing to learn from anyone you can and being open to “losing”, but at the same time never making excuses. I don’t really believe in luck and some people will say, “The harder you work, the luckier you get.”, but I believe that everyone should work hard at everything they do and the better person you are, or, said differently, the more you give of yourself, the more blessings you will find come your way.

Friends and family. My friends and family have been amazing. For the last several weeks, I have been the most annoying Facebook “friend” and Twitter users that ever existed, yet people have rallied behind me. People have spent their own time sharing things about me and doing their best to promote my efforts for the Next Top Credit Union Executive title and I can’t help but think, “Why?” Their (your) efforts and the time you gave benefitted them (you) in no way and yet they (you) did it anyways.

I thank you all for what you have done for me. Please know that I am grateful beyond any words I could possibly comprehend or type. I intend to push forward and make this project successful and continue to develop new ideas. Thank you for the outpouring of support and love.

Best regards and without wax,

Bryce

Next Top Credit Union Executive Competition 2013

Posted on October 28, 2013 by Bryce Roth

If you’re reading this, thank you! For those of you who do not know me and are still reading this, thank you!

So here’s the story: Back in May of this year, I was fortunate enough to be nominated by a kind soul, Jane Anderson, for the Credit Union Executives Society (CUES) Next Top Credit Union Executive (NTCUE) Competition. This is an international competition and there were over 30 initial nominees. Nominees were asked to create a video describing a project they are working on or developing in order to move the credit union industry forward. You can see my first video here. I was blessed enough to make the next round which narrowed the nominees into a field of 15 finalists. Those of us who made the Final 15 were asked to submit a blog post (if you’re bored you can read mine here). Based on our first video and blog posts, the judges of the competition selected 5 Finalist. As a finalist, we were all asked to submit a final video describing the progress of our project (here is my final video.)

At this point, all I can say is that I am extremely blessed to have been given this opportunity. Making it to the Final 5 is an even bigger blessing.

So, one week from today (Monday, October 28, 2013) I will have 7 minutes to present my program, Next Gen Outreach (super cool website here). The judging shakes out like this:

1. 40% judging panel scores

2. 20% Live audience votes

3. 20% Online voting

4. 20% social actions (comments, likes and tweets – on the two videos and one blog post)

Voting begins November 4 at Noon (Pacific) and ends on the 5th. Not sure of the exact URL right now, but it will likely be here: VOTE

The first two are within my control. I promise to do my best to represent CitizensFirst Credit Union, all of my teammates, our members and the entire Next Gen group, but I REALLY need your help on items 3 & 4. If you have the time, please check out the videos and blog (I hyperlinked them above) and if you think I deserve your like, comment or vote, I would really appreciate it! In addition, you can help by sharing the links to the blog and videos on Facebook and Twitter. If you use the hashtag #NTCUE and mention me @bryceroth all of that social chatter will help me with number 4 above.

I can’t thank all of you enough for your support. This has been a great experience and has afforded me an opportunity to grow professionally and personally. I look forward to presenting to the audience next week in San Diego and I will be sure to Tweet and Facebook the URL where you can watch the live streaming of all of the presentations.

Thanks again!

Without wax,

Bryce

Wrestling and Business

Posted on September 6, 2013September 6, 2013 by Bryce Roth

If you’ve read any of my blogs in the past, you are aware that I am a former wrestler and my love for the sport did not die when my high school career ended. I learned a lot from hanging around the wrestling room and actually being on the mat. from time to time, I like to write about how the lessons I learned apply to what I do today. My blogs are probably mostly a cathartic exercise for myself, but I’d like to think that there might be a lesson or two (alright one lesson) mixed in there.

I’m young-ish and I know I have a lot to learn about my field of work (marketing and advertising), but there are quite a few things that have become quite obvious in my not so tenured professional existence. In this blog I will talk about a few of them and those of you who couldn’t care less about wrestling can just skip over those parts. Deal?

I’m a tactical person. Maybe even to a fault. I have the beginnings of a strategic mindset, but it still needs to be developed. When you haven’t full developed a skill, you (me at least) tend to fall back on the things that you know that you’re good at and the things that need to be further developed get pushed aside.

What I’ve learned is this: You cannot continue to fallback to your comfort zone and you need to find ways to get the job done well, but push yourself to think about things differently.

A Story:

When I was younger, I was quite obvious that I would rarely be the stronger person in a wrestling match. This was partly because I was too lazy to do the work I needed to do to gain strength. Lesson learned. Anyhow, because I wasn’t the strongest, I built my wrestling style so that I could use my leverage and hips to score a takedown every once in a while. This worked on most opponents, but when it came to the big matches, I simply did not have the skills to win.

Lesson:

Sure, you can be successful by being good at a few things, but if you really want to be the best at your job, you have to evolve and you have to keep adding to your skill sets.

The outcome of your efforts has much more to do with your desire to finish a job well than it does with all of the events that lead up to the defining moment.

A Story:

Ask any amateur wrestler what practice was like and they will likely respond, “It was hell.” Besides being “hell”, most practices are pretty much the same. You drill takedowns, bottom position, top position, you go live and then you run. Drilling is redundant and tedious, but it’s essential. They say you perform how you practice and I would agree. the problem with this is that practice and competition (performance as it relates to business) are two completely different mindsets. One is a safe environment and the other can be terrifying. When it’s one man against another in the middle of a gymnasium, you either love it or hate it. It’s probably a healthy mix of both for most people, if it wasn’t why would they do the sport? Anyhow, I used to practice and drill and drill and drill some more, but when it came to competition, I had a tough time finishing my takedowns.

Lesson:

Practice and preparation are key to opening up the door to opportunity. The problem with opportunity is that you usually only have one chance to capitalize on it. There are hundreds of setup moves in wrestling and a handful of ways to shoot a single leg, but if you aren’t willing to finish (see the job through), well, all of your efforts are for naught. Whenever you take on a new project, make sure that you’re prepared for everything the project might present and be aware of the things that might occur out of nowhere.

All the preparation is the world will never make up for a lack of desire to see a project through to the end.

There are plenty more “stories”, but this is long enough. Leave a comment and let me know what else you think is important in order to build a foundation for success.

Without wax,

Bryce

Author: Bryce Roth