As you may have read here, here, here, here, and here, CUES Experience was a blast.

What struck me the most about Mark Stutrud, Summit Brewing Company’s founder and CEO, was that he knows exactly who Summit is and where it’s going. He makes no apologies, and doesn’t try and water Summit down (figuratively, but also literally….there’s no “Summit Lite”), or grow without reason to be like his larger competitors.

One of my favorite quotes by him was, “If we aren’t making some people mad a few times a year, we aren’t doing our job.”

My main takeaway, and the theme of my workshop after the tour, was to differentiate by knowing exactly who you are and pursing that as deeply as you can. Get specific. It takes businesses years and a lot of hard work to find a nitch. Credit unions come with one – its automatic! And as a result we have a built-in affinity and culture from the very beginning. So own that.

Our final question was this: What is something you can do at your credit union that is so relevant to your specific SEG and/or community, that it absolutely wouldn’t make sense somewhere else?

Also, I highly recommend Ron’s post on his Summit takeaways – “Financial Services Marketers Could Use A Beer .”

Here are the slides (a few of which make little sense without their talking points):

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Also, Summit beer is fantastic. If you can get it in your area, do it.

ps: I didn’t take any pictures, because I’m a moron. But I’ll update this post with a link to some shots from the tour as soon as a certain someone hooks it up.