Signals from the Field

Last Month at the Financial Brand Conference (April 2025), Sean Payant, Chief Strategy Officer at Haberfeld, delivered a powerful challenge to credit union leaders: Stop letting outdated assumptions limit your growth potential.

His session, "Overcoming Strategic Contradictions in the Banking C-Suite", exposed several internal beliefs that sound smart on the surface, but in reality, hold credit unions back from achieving sustainable, meaningful growth.

One of the most impactful sessions at the Financial Brand Conference (April 2025) was led by Sean Payant, Chief Strategy Officer at Haberfeld. His session, Overcoming Strategic Contradictions in the Banking C-Suite, zeroed in on a critical growth opportunity for credit unions: earning and growing the Primary Financial Institution (PFI) relationship.

Here’s why that matters more than ever and how your credit union can win that spot.

The Financial Brand Conference (April 2025) provided powerful insights into the evolving definition of "community" and its implications for credit unions today.

One session that really stood out was, "What Will Save Community Banking?" led by Jean-Pierre Lacroix, President of SLD (Shikatani Lacroix Design). He offered research-backed guidance that every credit union leader needs to hear.

Here's what we learned, and why credit unions are uniquely positioned to thrive.

Does your manufacturing company rely on sales team activity to drive revenue? You’ve likely heard about HubSpot as a CRM but do you wonder if it can really add enough value to the sales process to justify the expense? You may already use Salesforce or another CRM so think there’s no need to use HubSpot as well. 

Setting goals is paramount for a salesperson's success. identifying a target in the beginning of the year, and monitoring your progress throughout creates an awareness that is necessary for the always on-the-go sales professional.  Performance-based goals, if set incorrectly, can be a hindrance and defeating if not attained.  The goal becomes demoralizing and threatens success. 

On our recent Facebook Live broadcast, we discussed some of the many ways that marketing automation workflows can be employed to accelerate sales cycles, re-engage cold leads, retain customers and more.

Marketing automation is not a brand new concept, and some research shows that up to half of all businesses are using some form of marketing automation. While that sounds high, it speaks to the variety of options available for companies ranging from quite small to very large. 

So what exactly is marketing automation, and why should you care?

The 2017 State of Inbound report is here, and it delivers some insights that may change the way organizations align sales and marketing.