Problems › How Do We Get More Customers? › Banks & Financial Services
More customers is an outcome. The decision is which route to them you can afford to repeat. This page works through it for banks and financial services firms specifically — including an unedited excerpt from a real analysis of a bank.
More customers is an outcome. The decision is which route to them you can afford to repeat. Banks and financial services firms carry a specific bind here — the branch network is simultaneously the deposit moat and the cost problem — and the relationship knowledge sits in six people close to retirement. Until that is priced, efficiency ratio will keep moving for reasons nobody can attribute, and the debate about CAC by channel will stay a matter of opinion.
Almost every business can name several ways to get customers and few can say which one pays back. That is the actual constraint: not a shortage of tactics, but no evidence about which tactic to do more of.
The productive framing is route economics. For each plausible route — outbound, referral, partners, search, events, channel — what does it cost to acquire one customer, how long until they pay that back, and can it be repeated without the cost rising as you scale it.
Most routes fail the third test. They work at small volume because they depend on the founder's network or attention, and quietly stop when either runs out.
These three together are the signature. One on its own usually points somewhere else.
✓ Growth depends on one person's relationships
✓ Cost per customer is unknown or known only in aggregate
✓ Every channel is being tried a little and none is being tested properly
The move that usually makes it worse. Running several channels at sub-scale simultaneously, which produces no conclusive result on any of them and costs more than testing one properly.
It is for you if you run or finance a bank and growth depends on one person's relationships. It is the situation where the numbers are available but nobody has put them in an order that produces a decision.
It is not for you if Percision is the wrong tool if you already know the answer and only need execution capacity, or if the business is pre-revenue — then the constraint is evidence about the market, not analysis of your own figures. Percision is not a lawyer, tax advisor, auditor, licensed appraiser, clinical or regulatory filer, or an AI implementation shop. It does not do HR casework, creative-only brand work, or impersonate a named consulting firm. It is a strategy analysis engine — not a template library. Also wrong if you need facilitation, politics, or someone to sit with a lender or buyer. Those are human jobs.
Percision is not a lawyer, tax advisor, auditor, licensed appraiser, clinical or regulatory filer, or an AI implementation shop. It does not do HR casework, creative-only brand work, or impersonate a named consulting firm. It is a strategy analysis engine — not a template library.
Below is an excerpt from a real run of this analysis on a bank. It is a sample profile rather than a customer, and it is unedited engine output — this is the format you get, on your own numbers.
The subject is Harborline Financial Group, a sample company profile used for testing rather than a customer — $3.1B commercial lending book, $410M of deposits.
Excerpt from a real Percision run · Pricing Strategy · sample company profile
The move. Turn 11 cost centers holding $410M cheap deposits into fee-generating treasury/wealth hubs without new branches or external capital.
| Investment required | $4–6M total over 18 months, fully funded from $25–30M three-year retained-earnings capacity; no external capital required. |
| Expected return | Incremental $2.5–4M annual treasury fees by Year 3 on $148M base revenue; 42–67% incremental fee-income lift on the 18% baseline. |
| Revenue, year 1 | $148M–$149M |
| Revenue, year 2 | $150M–$152M |
| Revenue, year 3 | $152M–$158M |
| Exit criteria | Strategy should be reversed if, within 18 months, (a) treasury fee income run-rate has not reached $500K annualized from pilot branches, OR (b) commercial loan-to-deposit overlap has fallen below 60% for two consecutive quarters, OR (c) any single loss-making branch shows contribution margin. |
This is one move out of a full analysis. Read a complete report — every page, no email required.
This question routes to Go-to-Market & Commercial Strategy, one of 29 engagements the platform runs. For banks and financial services firms it works through efficiency ratio, cost of funds, origination per banker and deposit concentration, then produces the sequence rather than a list of options — which move first, what it funds, and the observation that would say the sequence is wrong.
You watch the analysis get built before paying anything. Read a complete report here if you would rather see the depth first.
The one where your buyer already is and where you can pay back the acquisition cost within a period you can finance. That is business-specific, and the general answer is worth very little.
One that works, then a second. Running four at a quarter of the necessary budget reliably produces four inconclusive results and the belief that nothing works.
Your sales cycle plus one payback period, with enough volume to distinguish the result from noise. Setting that number in advance is what stops the decision being made by whoever is most persuasive.
Materially, yes. The branch network is simultaneously the deposit moat and the cost problem — and the relationship knowledge sits in six people close to retirement — which changes both the diagnosis and the order of the fixes. The metrics that decide it here are efficiency ratio, cost of funds, origination per banker, and an answer built on industry-general benchmarks will usually point at the wrong one first.
Less than most people expect. Your last twelve months of revenue and cost split the way you already split it, plus whatever you hold on efficiency ratio and cost of funds. The analysis is explicit about what it is assuming where your data stops, which is more useful than waiting for numbers you may never have.
Percision is the wrong tool if you already know the answer and only need execution capacity, or if the business is pre-revenue — then the constraint is evidence about the market, not analysis of your own figures. Percision is not a lawyer, tax advisor, auditor, licensed appraiser, clinical or regulatory filer, or an AI implementation shop. It does not do HR casework, creative-only brand work, or impersonate a named consulting firm. It is a strategy analysis engine — not a template library. Also wrong if you need facilitation, politics, or someone to sit with a lender or buyer. Those are human jobs.
Percision is not a lawyer, tax advisor, auditor, licensed appraiser, clinical or regulatory filer, or an AI implementation shop. It does not do HR casework, creative-only brand work, or impersonate a named consulting firm. It is a strategy analysis engine — not a template library.
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