From time to time I am invited as public speaker – and at the beginning of this year I was invited to the „new year“ event of the Sparkasse Worms-Alzey-Ried. I spoke in front of 400 bankers (with ties) about our digital classical music magazine VAN and how it transforms media of the past (age old classical music) to todays digital reading, listening and reception habits. There are similiarities to the Sparkasse, because it’s quite an old german bank – the first one was founded in 1778 in Hamburg and with their core business model (being a public-near institute) hasn’t changed much ever since. So they ask themselves how their brand should conduct a change (or more an adaption to new habits and needs), but also the core business model is at stake, due to shrinking interest rates together with rising labour cost.
As Sparkasse traditionally is a very regional (and personal) bank my advice was to be the central, personal partner, regarding everything money: this includes crowdfunding for regional projects, all in one API for everything online, and a „genius / sales“ approach: Have a „product genius“ help you with everything you need, but you do „sales and business“ with a different guy. This eases the tension of having bankers, trying to sell you something.
Thanks very much for the organizers for having me – it was really exciting getting an inside view of their business and needs.