Branch and Lending Teams Are Leaving Faster Than You Can Train Them
Community banks and credit unions are losing tellers, lenders, and back-office staff to employers who never used to compete for them. Chris Sund speaks about the retention and development work that holds a team together when you cannot win on pay alone.
What Your Members Take Back
Banking has a specific version of the workforce problem: front-line roles with real responsibility, modest pay bands, and a customer relationship that only works when the same face is there next year. Chris speaks to what a branch manager or regional lead actually controls — which turns out to be most of the reason people stay.
- Keeping front-line staff when retail and logistics are paying more
- Developing lenders and managers from inside rather than recruiting them
- Why customer relationships suffer most from turnover nobody tracked
- Recognition that works within fixed compensation structures
- Original research: 92% believe they are capable of more than they are doing now
Popular Programs for Financial Institutions
Every session is customized to your institution, members, and format.
People Quit People, Not Companies
Retention as a teachable skill for branch and department managers.
You Are Capable of a Better Culture
Five research-backed drivers of a workplace people do not leave.
How to Handle Objections
For lenders and business development teams selling in a rate-sensitive market.
You Are Capable of More
The signature keynote — strong fit for an annual meeting or convention.
Sales Culture, Lending and Business Development
When a bank wants more loans, deposits and treasury relationships, the session turns to sales, taught as service done well rather than pressure. Branch staff learn the one extra question that uncovers what a customer needs. Commercial lenders, mortgage teams and business development officers learn LAARC (Listen, Acknowledge, Ask, Respond, Confirm) for “your rate is higher” and “we’re happy with our current bank,” and LOCKS for relationships that stall.
Bank Sales Culture
Service-to-sales for branches, commercial lenders and treasury teams, without pressure tactics.
Mortgage & Lending Sales
Loan officer meetings and mortgage kickoffs: rate objections, referral partners and pipeline discipline.
You Are Capable of More: Sales
The sales keynote: consistency, rejection resilience and ownership of the number.
Sales Training Keynote
A keynote or breakout, in person or virtual, where lenders practice LAARC and LOCKS on real conversations.
Sales Kickoffs
Opening or closing keynote for a lending or business development kickoff.
How to Handle Price Objections
What to say when the rate is the objection. Also: How to Close More Deals and How to Increase Sales.
Proof: Chris delivered You Are Capable of More: Sales at the Definitive Healthcare sales kickoff in Boston for 800+ sales professionals, and teaches handling objections to business owners and professionals at the emPower Breakfast, including as featured speaker in Lincoln in October 2026. See all sales speaking.
Financial Services Audiences
Related pages: AI for Banks & Credit Unions · Association Conference Speaker · Employee Retention Speaker · Sales Keynote Speaker · Bank Sales Culture Speaker · Mortgage & Lending Sales Speaker · Credit Union Keynote Speaker · Real Estate Keynote Speaker · Insurance Keynote Speaker
What Planners Ask
Does he have banking experience?
No, and he says so. His subject is workforce and leadership, not lending or compliance. What he asks for beforehand is enough detail about your members that the examples land rather than float.
Will it work for a mixed room of executives and front-line staff?
Yes. The material is behavioral, so branch staff take away what they control and executives take away the systems view.
Annual meeting or leadership program?
Both, and they are different sessions. An annual meeting wants a keynote the whole membership feels; a leadership program wants a working session managers can act on.
Can he speak on sales culture for branches and commercial lenders?
Yes. He teaches service-to-sales without pressure tactics for branch staff, and the LAARC objection method and LOCKS deal framework for commercial lenders, mortgage teams and business development officers. He taught the same frameworks to 800+ sales professionals at the Definitive Healthcare sales kickoff. See bank sales culture.
Can he tailor to community institutions specifically?
Yes, and that is the better fit. Competing for people against larger employers is a smaller-institution problem more than a national-bank one.
Where Chris Has Spoken to Association and Business Audiences
Conferences, associations, and organizations where Chris has taken the stage.
You Are Capable of More
The bestselling book behind the keynotes — ten principles for closing the gap between what a team is producing and what it is actually capable of.
Associations and institutions often pair a keynote with copies for attendees or branch leadership. Bulk pricing and signed editions are available.
He Runs a People Business Too
Chris is President & COO of Uniti Med, GQR Healthcare and Nebula. Staffing lives or dies on the same things banking does — trust built over time, front-line people who represent the whole institution, and turnover that costs far more than the requisition suggests.
He took Uniti Med from startup to one of the largest healthcare staffing firms in the country, earning a Fortune Best Workplaces award and world-class employee NPS during 10x growth.
He is a bestselling author, a Maxwell Leadership Certified coach, an Inc. contributor, a Forbes Business Council member, and lives in Fremont, Nebraska.
As Seen & Heard
Television, national business press, and the podcasts where Chris talks workforce, retention, and growth.
Bring Chris to Your Banking Event
Tell Chris about your institution or membership and what the room needs. You’ll get a fast, straight answer on fit and availability.
Check Availability & FeesResponse within one business day · Speaker kit, bio & headshots