In our latest Nicolet Bank Business Pulse study, we looked to compare and contrast the views of current business leaders (current Pulse members) and future leaders (members of Young Professionals groups). A few of the results that interested me was when we asked current business leaders how much confidence they had in the next generation …
Continue reading “Leadership: Is the Next Generation Ready?”
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The kitchen table consensus is that greed caused the ongoing financial crisis. The universality of greed undermines the value, if not the accuracy of this diagnosis. Greed is such a broad term that it almost defies definition. Like all vice, greed is more easily detected in another person than in oneself. Greed observed in another …
Continue reading “It Takes A Village To Raise A Banker”
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As most of you know, we have agreed to purchase the four Anchor Bank branches in Brown County. We are trying to assimilate the branches in 73 days. Pretty aggressive, but doable in our opinion. As we walk through this transition, I thought it would be interesting to blog a bit about our experiences. This …
Continue reading “You Win With People”
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A while back our community saw all kinds of ‘diversity’ events and media pieces on point—all fine and some stellar—but it would have been interesting to see an entity/group do something in accordance with the blog title above. Whether people like (or are willing to admit) it, our community profile is changing, so we either …
Continue reading “Diversity IS a Business Strategy Component”
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One of our cultural mantras at Nicolet is that you don’t get fired for making mistakes, you do get fired for burying them. In good times even our bad decisions tend to turn out okay. Most of the time, a bad decision is one you merely have to undo. As country music legend Jerry Jeff Walker …
Continue reading “The Fatal Mistake”
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Read an article about banking in Inc. Magazine a while back about how to work with bankers. There are a couple of good points in it that I like to use as a reminder to my customers. The first is not to hide bad news. This is one of the most important things that I …
Continue reading “How to deal with a Banker”
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Cash flow is simply that, the flow of cash. When running a business, the saying “Cash is King” has never been more important than in the current economic slowdown. Being profitable does not necessarily mean being liquid, or having cash available. A company is not able to make payments with net profit, payments are made …
Continue reading “The Importance of Monitoring Cash Flow”
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With all the uncertainty and turbulence in the economy, we do have customers that are weathering the storm and doing well. I wanted to take a moment and share some observations on why and how I believe they are succeeding. Hopefully you can use this to help in the day-to-day battles you face in your …
Continue reading “Learn Success from Others”
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