Johnson brings retail experience to bank marketing

Northwestern Financial Review, Nov 15-Nov 30, 2004 by Bengtson, Tom

During the 1990s, someone started calling bank branches "stores," and Alisha Johnson had the experience to make the most of that development. Graduating from the University of St. Thomas in 1988, she worked for a year in retail before applying for a job at Signal Bank in West St. Paul, Mirm. The opening was in the marketing department, and the person conducting the interview told Johnson he didn't want someone with banking experience. Johnson recalled: "He said they wanted someone who knew retail." She got the job.

Johnson quickly rose to the head of the department and began implementing the basics of retail marketing. She established staff training that emphasized positive customer experiences. "We simply taught people to say please and thank you, and to smile. Not that they didn't already know all this, but the training established these basics as expectations and that was new," Johnson said. "We also put a mystery shopping program in place."

The training resulted in staffing changes, Johnson said, as tellers who discovered they weren't suited to customer contact found new roles in the back office.

In the meantime, Johnson boned up on banking, attending banking schools and seminars. Signal Bank, which grew in the 1990s from $125 million to more than $1 billion, encouraged Johnson to learn and even offered to pay for studies toward a masters degree in business administration. "The bank was growing and they allowed me to grow with it," Johnson said of the bank's management.

In 2000, the bank's senior management - Galen Pate, Chuck Dorsey and John LeMay - all were set to retire, and Johnson changed banks before Signal was sold to Associated Bank in September of 2001. Johnson joined Highland Bank of St. Paul, an institution where a decadeplus of marketing experience transferred well. Johnson is involved with the development of the bank's realtime Internet banking service, and is involved with the bank's plans to expand through branching. She said she is even working with an architect to design a new branch that will facilitate traffic flow and promote a positive customer experience.

Throughout Johnson's career, she has leveraged memberships in organizations such as the Bank Marketing Association, Financial Women International and the American Bankers Association's marketing division to develop an extensive industry network, an asset she describes as invaluable. She laments the fact that such organizations are having a tougher time maintaining membership today than they did a decade ago. Johnson noted in particular her tenure on the ABA's schools advisory board, where she worked to establish criteria for ABA's certified banker program.

"I want to be on top of my industry," Johnson said about her career goals. "Highland is a good place to be. It is a growing bank and it plans to stay independent. When I go to conferences and hear the things the best banks are doing, I often find myself saying we are already doing those things."

By Tom Bengtson