Plansmith Blog

Don’t Just Budget, Control Your Results

Posted by Craig Hartman on 10/2/23 12:35 PM

Are you really planning, or are you just budgeting?

By this I mean, are you filling out the numbers on a spreadsheet or planning the actions needed to make it a reality?

It’s always gratifying when all the numbers come together in a neat package showing expected growth and earnings for next year. And, there were likely many contributors who verbally expressed their goals and plans on how they are going to reach them. The compiled financial targets are then presented to and accepted by the board, and your monthly comparisons begin. Budget “predictions” are compared to reality. Variances from “budget” are explained, and business continues as usual. In essence, that’s budgeting.

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My Budget Is Done, Now What?

Posted by Bill Smith on 8/17/20 2:30 PM

Most of us hate planning. So why would I want to start now, when I could wait until the usual time next year?

Actually, there are two great reasons to plan early and often:

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5 Simple Tweaks to Build a Better Strategic Plan

Posted by Megan Plis on 7/20/18 3:23 PM

Only part of a successful strategic plan lies in the plan itself. A good plan, just like a recipe, is important. But any good chef will tell you, choosing the right ingredients is only half the challenge. The rest lies in executing the recipe properly.

So, how can your bank or credit union make a better strategic plan?

Here are some simple tweaks to the ingredients and execution of your strategic planning recipe.

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How We Improved Strategic Planning at Plansmith

Posted by Craig Hartman & Christine Lake on 6/12/18 11:19 AM

As a company passionate about the value of planning, we have our own strategic plan. Like most, we would gather for a few days every year to review our mission and vision, discuss our market opportunities, develop objectives, determine action plans, and assign responsibilities. But, I am ashamed to admit, just like many companies we never really executed as well as we should for a number of reasons.

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Forgotten Components of Interest Rate Risk at Community Banks

Posted by Craig Hartman on 9/26/17 6:30 PM
It is standard operating procedure for community banks to measure interest rate risk by shocking the balance sheet. The percentage change in the Net Interest Margin over several shock levels as an indicator of the severity of risk. While it can provide a clue to the potential loss in the margin, it by no means measures the true risk. The true risk is Equity loss. Equity doesn’t come from NIM but from retained earnings. So to truly measure risk to equity, we must use the entire P&L, not just net interest income.
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The Community Bank Strategic Planning Experiment: Using Your Model To Prepare for Rising Interest Rates

Posted by Sue West on 5/10/17 10:00 AM
Q: What makes an experiment successful?

A: Its failures.

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Planning to Build Trust in Your Bank

Posted by Craig Hartman on 3/1/17 8:02 AM

Virtually every business prepares a budget and calls it planning. Some actually develop strategic plans every couple of years to go through an exercise in search of new ideas and approaches. Very few, if any, reap or even appreciate the benefits of planning outside of the financial benefit they hope to realize. While the intentional outcome of these efforts is profit-based, the other powerful benefits are often overlooked. This includes building the necessary buy-in and trust within the organization to achieve the financial goals. For many organizations, this is the missing key that’s needed to support effective execution of the plan. It’s the lack of genuine buy-in that confines the plan to the top shelf of a bookcase somewhere.

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Run Your Meeting Like a Sales Pro: The Up-Front Contract

Posted by Tom Parsons on 2/22/17 8:29 AM

When I made the leap to marketing after years of sales, I immediately rewound the last 25 years and watched a virtual VHS tape (yes, that old - click this if you don't remember) in search of what I learned. You see, I didn't have the luxury of learning on the job this time, I had to apply what I already knew and apply it fast.

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Answered: Bankers' 5 Most Painful Questions about Backtesting

Posted by Dave Wicklund on 1/23/17 8:18 AM

Backtesting can be a painful topic for bankers. In this post, I'll answer the top 5 most common questions I hear about backtesting. I'll reference my first post, Independent Review, Model Validation, and Backtesting: Same Thing, Only Different, so you might want to revisit it before reading on. In that blog, we looked at the interrelationship of these three items and brought up a few questions on backtesting.

Specifically, we questioned 5 things: who should do it, how often should it be done, what period should be covered, do you need to backtest model results and assumptions, and why even bother if market rates really aren’t changing.

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Another Reason to do Strategic Planning

Posted by Tom Parsons on 11/18/16 3:46 PM

I’ll Take BOSS for $1,000, Alex

Answer: “Because the OCC says so.”

What is “Why should I care about strategic planning?”

More specifically, Thomas J. Curry, Comptroller of the Currency says so. 

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