In the late 1990s, as a banker in Wilmington, North Carolina, one of my best customers maintained a huge DDA account, borrowed a cool million each year to expand, used treasury services, kept healthy balance sheet, earned solid profits, and had an experienced management team. This customer was a convenience store chain.

Your bank leadership is telling you that you need to be using Vertical IQ to prepare for every client or prospect call. And…maybe you’ve even popped into it to see what the big deal is.

”Centers of influence”(COIs) are a select group of people who can help to increase your access to and credibility with your target market by providing their referrals, testimonials, and word-of-mouth endorsement. Professionals such as realtors, insurance agents, and of course bankers had figured out that having a steady stream of...

Now that we are in full swing with the new year, it’s a perfect time to think about your sales approach and ways to increase your performance for 2018.

We all remember the ghostly voice from Field of Dreams telling Ray (Kevin Costner), “If you build it, they will come” as he walked through his Iowa cornfield. This same encouraging message applies to your bank’s use of the Vertical IQ tool. If management supports and encourages business bankers to incorporate industry research using...

There’s no doubt about it: Americans LOVE to eat! And we have the restaurants to prove it. There are approximately 364,000 restaurants in the U.S., which include everything from full-service restaurants, to quick-service restaurants (fast food, snack, and non-alcoholic beverage bars), fast-casual restaurants, grills, buffets, and...

Members of the Vertical IQ team recently attended the American Banker Small Business Banking Conference in Austin. The agenda for the three-day conference included outstanding expert panels, workshops, and keynote presentations. Here are some of the highlights.

As cold and flu season kicks into high gear around the holidays, a lot of folks find themselves in doctors’ offices. But perhaps you should consider making an appointment to call on these practices to win their banking business! With over 210,000 physician practices operating in the U.S., this may be a “healthy” niche industry for you to...

Look around your office: Every chair, lamp, pen, and coffee mug likely was made using machines. There are around 18,600 machine shops in the U.S. that process various materials from metal to plastic to composites, or that produce custom parts. Some of these companies specialize in a particular process—such as lathing—or in a specific...

Are you a beer aficionado? There’s no doubt that people in the U.S. enjoy knocking back a good brewski with their friends…just watch the ads during any sporting event! But while beer remains the most popular alcoholic drink in the country—accounting for about half of all alcohol sales—it is facing “stiff” competition from wine and liquor.