Sterling Miller

We engaged Sterling Miller on two occasions, both to increase our penetration of fixed rate home equity loans in our CRA area. By utilizing a highly targeted list of non-customers and a special offering, we were quickly able to attract the high volume of loans we were looking for. Sterling Miller’s staff is experienced and well-trained, working in concert with our in-house staff as a team focused on the common goal.

The direct marketing approach works well for community banks competing with regional financial institutions that typically have greater market exposure. Additionally, the Sterling Miller programs are easily tracked in terms of marketing dollars spent vs. return.

They deliver!

Our institution faces many challenges, not the least of which is its market presence and single office, located in a populated area with regional competition coupled with economic challenges.

We needed a personalized direct marketing approach to help us bring our competitive products to the attention of our market area. We hired Sterling Miller to help us achieve these goals. They conducted the market research we needed to review our current offerings, developed a direct marketing strategy, implemented that strategy, and kicked off a program that brought us more loan business than we had ever experienced before.

Using this approach, they actually sold our products on our behalf, but worked closely with our staff to insure a seamless sale. Their staff markets only financial products, and their soft-sell approach is very effective. Karen Miller is a former bank executive and brings her many years of experience to the table, offering insight and advice during the project. She and her staff keep up to date on current market conditions to insure the success of our program. Unlike other approaches, if changes are needed along the way, they are easily achieved.

For a small institution, we feel that this is one of the most efficient ways to invest our marketing budget, as the actual results are easily tracked, and the cost of the program is easily earned back with the ongoing interest income. This program is helping us grow.

One of our primary goals to insure profitability has been to significantly increase the credit union’s variable rate asset portfolio. Sterling Miller’s direct marketing programs, coupled with our competitive home equity offering and streamlined processing area, enabled us to achieve our goals quickly. During our two engagements, which lasted a total of eight years, this partnership was able to attract close to $200 million in home equity line and loan applications.

Sterling Miller’s highly trained staff guarantees that member and non-member contact is of the highest quality. They became an extension of our staff to insure success on an ongoing basis. The personalized and targeted approach promoted by Sterling Miller enabled us to compete effectively with the regional high-profile institutions, and maximize the return on our marketing budget.

The enhancement of our variable rate portfolio has paid for the program over and over again. Equally important is the value of the new member relationship, and the cross-sell opportunities, which we would not have otherwise.

Sterling Miller’s direct marketing programs produce results.

We contacted Sterling Miller after the Bank committed to an aggressive growth goal for our Home Equity Loan program. From the first meeting, where Sterling Miller executives laid out the program, we were impressed. They were friendly, but focused on the task.

All the details we needed in order to check out the company and its promised results were provided, including a list of banks to call. We called all of them. Each had a positive experience to relate. However, most of them warned us that we should be ready to handle volume of business that Sterling Miller would generate…a nice problem to have, but a problem nonetheless.

Members of our management team were invited to visit the Call Center and did so after being assured that we would see a realistic picture of how their staff operates. Our people were favorably impressed; they felt that the Sterling Miller staff was very professional on the telephone and in full compliance with all federal and state regulations.

As part of our preparation, Sterling Miller worked with us on our profitability model for the program and offered suggestions for introducing our staff to the program. In addition, we focused on being fully prepared (from management, procedural and staffing-level perspectives) for the start of the program. It was fortunate that we did, because the program did produce the volume of quality applications that Sterling Miller had told us it would. We had a strong and committed management team in charge of the program, assuring timely communication with the customers and fast turnaround of the applications, and the program worked well for us.

Sterling Miller delivered exactly as they promised. I would absolutely use their services again.

We hired Sterling Miller to help us grow our home equity line product line. The first order of business was to create the right product to maximize the business available in our marketplace. Sterling Miller conducted in-depth research of all the home equity programs available from the competition, making recommendations based on that research and on the historical results achieved in neighboring markets for their other clients.

Once we went to market with that product using the personal marketing approach developed by Sterling Miller, we were able to make the significant increase in our outstandings we were looking for, and managed a very healthy pipeline all through the campaign. We brought our monthly closings from a trickle to a high volume quickly.

We have been very pleased with the comprehensive approach to marketing and selling that Sterling Miller has developed. They not only help plan and manage the campaign, but they are hands-on when it comes to getting the sale, and that is the bottom line from our perspective; marketing dollars spent need to show a return, and this approach has worked well in that regard.

I recommend Sterling Miller to community banks that need to sell or cross-sell their products and services in a reliable, consistent manner with measurable results.