I was recently asked what I think credit union marketers and business development people should rethink and do differently. While I'm known for being full of answers to that question, the truth of the matter is that many credit union marketers actually do a lot of things very well.

I'm always impressed by their ability to output a lot of marketing with finite resources, be consistent across several media, and genuinely care about helping members. Those things count a great deal.

But where I think credit union marketers and business development people have the biggest opportunity for improvement is much more fundamental to the credit union's very core than to the cosmetic outputs of the marketing program. In fact, it is so fundamental that responsibility for it cannot be owned solely by the marketing and business development team. However, it can be championed by them.