Episode 39: Susan Bell

Jack Hubbard  00:01

I've had the privilege of being in and around banking for more than 50 years. Lots of changes during that time. We've gone from Ledger's to laptops, typewriters to technology. One thing, however, remains the same. Banking is a people business. And I'll be talking with those people that make banking great here on Jack Rants With Modern bankers. 

Welcome to Jack Rants With Modern Bankers brought to you by RelPro, and Vertical IQ. Each week I feature top voices in financial services from bankers and consultants, to best selling authors and many more. The goal of this program is simple, to provide insights, success practices and to bring new ideas to the table that you can use to maximize your results. 

My guest today is Susan Bell. Susan is co-founder and chief sales officer at Vertical IQ. I met Susan along with Bobby Martin more than 20 years ago, when each were executives at first research. Susan was a senior leader, Premier banker and branch manager. And that experience has really served her well in her consulting careers. Susan earned a BA in communications at the University of Delaware and over the years, she's become a great friend. And we value Vertical IQ sponsorship of this program very much. I use critical IQ often if you want to provide value to the marketplace. So should you associate your organization, it's Susan Bell, on Jack grants with modern bankers. Here we go. 

So Susan Bell, one of my good friends in the industry. And I told you all about her in the in the preamble, but I just love working with Susan and Bobby Martin and David Buffalo and their team at Vertical IQ. It's grown so much and so well. And, you all do such great work for banking. But as you know, Susan, when I start out, every program I like to talk about tells me something good. So go ahead.

Susan Bell  02:07

I appreciate it. Jack. So great to be here. Yeah, I have something good that's personal and something good that's professional. Something good personal as of this last year, we had our first grandchild, Penelope. And so that is something that's been fantastic. Watching her grow. So she's just a little over a year old now. And that's been a joy. So fantastic. Something good there. And professionally, it has been good to get out and go to conferences and see people face to face this past year. And that's been just a joy, again, to see folks I haven't seen in a long time and just reconnect and learn and be in community. Again, not only in banking, but as you know, in other industries that we're that we serve as well. So that's been fantastic. I work from home, I'm two hours away from our main office. So I'm often in my little box and bubble here. So anytime I get to go out and see people, it's fantastic. So that's something great to me. 

Jack Hubbard  03:07

I agree. And I see you and your partners at RelPro out at so many events. And it's just wonderful that you can get out. And it's nice to be able to have a team that you have confidence in that you've built over the last few years to be able to be able to represent you as well. So you don't have to be at every single event as well. So let's take a trip back in history. It's 2010 Nick Miller, and Bobby Martin and Bill Walker are at a restaurant. And when they got up they got a piece of paper well napkin. And this is pretty typical, by the way, how great companies actually started. How LinkedIn started, how Wintrust started, how a lot of good companies. And you're talking about they're talking about well, what do we do here? We got some ideas. Talk about the catalyst for the start of Vertical IQ.

Susan Bell  04:01

Yeah, there were a couple of things. But the big catalyst was Nick Miller had a few customers of his and Bobby had a few ex-clients, you know, from our first research days that came to them and said, “Hey, would you do that again? Would you consider doing this again? Creating a company that looked at industry intelligence for bankers, but this time, maybe bring it into a new decade? Offer it you know, how it's delivered a little differently and focus on cash flow?” And that's really what started it. Yeah.

Jack Hubbard  04:34

And I love that I was shown this recently at a banker group, and I was showing them the cash flow, and they were just blown away by that, especially people who don't have a lot of experience with how people get paid and how they pay. I think this is really positive. Well, I've kind of talked around this a little bit. But you know, I tried to describe Vertical IQ as best I can, but I can't do it justice. Talk about Vertical IQ and what you do,

Susan Bell  04:59

Ohh sure Yeah, I don't know if I'll do it justice in a few minutes. But it's, we are a bunch of former bankers. And we have this platform that we've put together for a purpose. Initially, it was the purpose of call preparation, because bankers who are better informed not only on the company, and the person that they're calling on, but also the industry, the big picture of how things work the ins and outs of doing business, within an industry as well as the buyer supplier relationships, the more often the banker wins the business, honestly. And the faster the sales cycle is. So we put together a platform from experience, Bobby and I were actually calling officers together in the 90s, in Wilmington, North Carolina, where I still sit today. And found there was a banker, named Sam, I'll just say that, and he worked for one of our competitor banks and Sam was winning business left and right. 

And Bobby finally asked one of our prospects, why did you go with Sam and his bank, and they said three things. One, he's really smart, too, he asks really good questions. And three, he knows a lot about steel, it happened to be a steel company, and Bobby’s brains behind first research. And then Vertical IQ said, you know, there's something here, I'm going to put together some cheat sheets, and we worked for a bank at the time that you had to make a, you know, an interoffice request, to get the research team to send you about, you know, big stack of research about a specific industry but it would take five days to get to you. But then your call was over. 

He said, Now I'm going to make these cheat sheets, they're going to be a page or two long. And it's going to have challenges, trends, and a couple questions to ask. So you can get really specific about the industry. Everybody in our office loved it. They all wanted the convenience store and the dental practice and the you know, the engineering company, industry. And he said, You know, there's something here and that was kind of the catalyst for our first iteration of this, it really was to be better prepared to have a better conversation, ask better questions, and really look smart. And you are smart, if you understand the ins and outs of how they do business in these industries. But that's really how it started. And what it's about.

Jack Hubbard  07:09

And you mentioned three things that are near and dear to me, especially as I work with Vertical IQ and and recommend you as I often do to bankers, the questions, the questions in each profile are really outstanding, and they're targeted to a particular industry, I love the planning sheets, may be my favorite thing, because that's I'm just obsessed with value. Are the articles that you have in each profile. And we'll probably get into that a little bit more. But you've grown so much. So you jumped on the rope. Now you knew Bobby for a long time, and you worked with him at first research and all the rest of it. But you jumped on the rope in 2011. And you say okay, I'm with you, Bobby. Let's rock and roll. Since 2011, you've seen a ton of changes in your company. Susan, what are a few that stand out to you?

Susan Bell  08:04

Yeah, just growth in so many ways. One is when I came on board, it was because we finally had 50 or 70 industries that we could sell so I could have something to sell. So the number of industries has grown tremendously. We've added to our product, you know, just outside of industry more about local economies and the local picture for bankers, we've added a customer success team that really does a great job in training, onboarding and holding the hands of folks as they use this. So it would seem like a no brainer, I'm going to use this, it's going to help me. But it does take a team of people to really make sure it gets adopted and it's successful. 

So we've seen that grow for a little while Bobby and I, you know, we sent out in usage reports, we did the training, we sold it, we would set you know, we did all of that. And so we've seen the team grow, partnerships have grown. So now not only do we sell access to and provide access to our platform, but also some of our content. So we have partners that use some of our content and their products and services. Or they use part of Vertical IQ as an integration into their LMS system CRMs that sort of thing. So that's a big growth for us as well as so many other things but the deliverability of it, the way we can kind of be nimble and make changes as the market changes. That's been a fantastic growth area for us as well.

Jack Hubbard  09:37

And you gotta be nimble, you have to have a lot of changes and one of the changes that you're seeing, you know, bank consolidations, etc, etc. You've taken a little bit of a leap into as you mentioned other industries. I looked, I saw a recent post y'all did about ADP and ADP joined you and that's a huge win for you. What other industries besides baking, Susan, are you involved in?

Susan Bell  10:05

You know, accounting is a big industry, for us really anybody in an advisory role can benefit from Vertical IQ accountants have not only, you know, you may know this already, they do your taxes they audit is a compliance issue for that or area for them. But they also have what they call an outcast practice, client advisory services, where they do fractional CFO, they do lots of other advisory type services, where they're doing value pricing versus billable hours, they're providing value in a different way. They're basically an extension of a company. So they use work like you to understand the industries that they're serving. They do business valuation, litigation support. So that's a big area. Insurance, they're advisory as well. So a lot of producers get an edge by using Vertical IQ over someone else who's selling similar products. So that's a big industry for us. And of course, the ADP is of the world, the business process, outsourcing payroll services. People really, honestly Jack, anybody in an advisory role, but anybody that sells to multiple industries would benefit from Vertical IQ. But those are the main industries we serve right now.

Jack Hubbard  11:14

Yeah, and no doubt. And so I plan to talk about this, but I need to give you some props. So I've been to a banker the other day, who uses Vertical IQ. And I said, we'll talk to you about how you use the program. And he said, Well, I said, you know, you taught me how to do this. And he said, you know, what I do is I'll go to a CPA firm, that I don't get any referrals from. And I look and see what kind of Verticals they work in, then I'll print out an article from Vertical IQ about a particular Vertical that they work in timber fishing, whatever the case might be. And I'll just staple my car to the upper left hand corner of the article, and just go to the gatekeeper and say, which would you mind? Given this, the managing partner Smith said, I've gotten so many referrals, just doing that little thing. 

And so the power of Vertical IQ is really in the person, you've got the technology, you have the tool, but it's all about people wanting to make sure that they use it effectively. And those people have got to be sales leaders. And I think one of the biggest challenges that we're seeing in mastering LinkedIn for bankers, is that some of the sales leaders on the teams that we have subscribed with, aren't fostering this, they're not putting it into sales meetings. I'm curious, if you've got clients, you certainly don't want to name them. But client banks who purchase Vertical IQ, and then really get into it and have sales leaders really nurture and coach this process. Absolutely.

Susan Bell  12:45

And one thing we've done recently, that it does make all the difference, and you can see it in the usage, if they don't adopt early, and that there's implications there. But if they adopt early, they're going to be more successful. Sometimes it takes a little while to get going. And it's still successful. But one of the things we've done recently, Jack is not only train the end users, the people who are the feet on the street, but we have a certification program for the managers so that they certify in Vertical IQ. So they understand what the usage report looks like? What does it cover? How do I know my people are getting in here and using it? What are each of the sections? What are the benefits of each of the sections and they go through, it's about 90 minutes. And this is offered free. It's something that we've done in the last couple of years, Nicole Deleasa, our Director of Training has put together a wonderful program that makes a big difference as well. 

When the manager buys in, get certified and Vertical IQ and can drive adoption internally. 

We can do the best we can as Vertical IQ to train users, but it's that manager that needs to be able to step in and you know, in the gap there and make sure they're calling them to a one on one meeting with Okay, who are we calling on this week, give me the name of a prospect and a current customer, bring a news article bring the current conditions from Vertical IQ for that particular industry. Bring me you know, whatever it might be, what your favorite piece of verbal IQ is, and let's sit down and make a call plan. Maybe it's the prep sheets, maybe it's some other piece of a local economic profile. You know, that's one of the best practices that we see from a few of our banks. Jack is not only getting certified and doing all the training that you need to do but also creating a contact strategy. Use Vertical IQ. Each chapter can be its own mini white paper and drip with folks. 

You can do it in person, staple your card, you can send it as an email. One big benefit that we have not to just put a commercial here but is the shareability a lot of our competitors don't allow you to share their content with their clients. That's a best practice for us. If you were to go into mentioned timber, a timber company, that business owner is so busy they don't often have time to put together information about their own industry. A banker might say, well, they know it's their own industry. Sometimes they don't, they don't have peer benchmarking content ready at their fingertips. That type of thing is super valuable. And they see their banker, not only as a trusted advisor, I have a friend named Amy Vetter that works in the accounting world. She calls accountants a cherished advisor, they cherish that advisor, because they can't do without them. You have to trust your banker, right? They should be trusted, but they also should be cherished, which we fit hand in glove with. So that was a long answer to your question  but yeah!

Jack Hubbard  15:40

It's great. And I'm thrilled. I'm thrilled about the training that you're doing for leaders, I want to come back to the training you're doing for producers. But this reporting is so vital, Susan, I'd love to have you describe it. But I want to talk about a bank that I work with, whose president is with Vertical IQ. I refer them over as I do often. And the president's getting these reports. And he's looking at him. He goes, he calls me one day and says, you know, I get these reports. But I'm not really sure what I'm looking at? Well, here's what he should have been looking at that his of the 50 people, perhaps on Vertical IQ. Half of them were in the loan underwriting area, they were using it very extensively. 

And that's really good, because that's really how first research got started. And in a lot of ways, and thinking about the back shot. But the other 25 people weren't using it hardly at all, they may have looked up one profile or something like that. And so when we started to dive into the numbers and look at the metrics that matter, he said, Oh my God, I've got to have my managers do some team meetings around what we need to be doing here. And you've described that extremely well. Talk about the reporting, how often do they get it sort of what does it look like? When did you start doing that?

Susan Bell  17:05

We've always done reporting. So you, we've always had what we call usage reports, they have morphed for sure, because used to be just a spreadsheet. Now you get your spreadsheet with all the details of every user, how many times they've been on the site, etc, how long they're in there. But in addition to that, we do sort of send a PDF, which is a summary. So you can see growth from this quarter to the next quarter. And it really does give you a good picture of time over time, what does usage look like? So you can kind of get your ROI. Okay, these folks are in it. Are they producing? Are they closing deals? Is this helping them move the needle? So that's really the use of the use case for usage reporting. However, you asked, How often do we do it? When you first onboard with us the first six months with Vertical IQ, you get a usage report every month, and then it goes to a quarterly basis. Unless you request that it stays on a monthly basis, we do the monthly right away just so you can really keep an eye on what's happening. And then most of the time quarterly is fine. 

Once that six months is up, then you have what we call a mid year review. You talk about okay, what's on well, how can we jump in with additional 2.0 training? Who are the folks? The big picture is we want to try to make your A players even stronger. Take your B players, make them a player, and sometimes yours, it's a rule of thirds, sometimes the C players become B, sometimes they don't. It's just like any CRM tool, any tool. Sometimes people just don't use it. But the ROI is if one banker, typically, one banker makes one when it pays for itself in a whole year. And hopefully if you've got more than one banker using it and finding wins with it, you can attribute at least part of it to Vertical IQ. But the reporting is so important if you don't know who's in it, what they're looking at, how long and how much time is spent even on their mobile phone because there's a mobile app, it's important to know that so you can tie that to the ROI.

Vertical IQ: 19:03

made by bankers, for bankers. Vertical IQ is your trusted source for reliable, convenient and focused industry intelligence, helping your team save time, boost sales and gain a competitive edge. Learn more at Verticaliq.com.

Jack Hubbard  19:19

And speaking of ROI, I am very sure that when you talk to a bank CEO or head of commercial or whoever you sell to that one of the questions they're gonna ask is, well, what's the ROI of this money that I'm investing? So they asked me, Well, what kind of ROI am I going to get from the training and I told them a story. And they say there was a stone cutter in ancient times. Two people walk by the stone cutter. He had a big block of stone and he struck the first blow. They went on. a year later they came back and he struck the last blow in the stone split. And the question they asked of the stonecutter was which of the blows we broke the stone? And the answer is yes. 

ROI is a function of lots of things. Just because you have Vertical IQ doesn't mean that you're going to generate record results, but are linked to LinkedIn, and ReLPro, all of them. But it's all about the leaders, it's all about the culture, who takes all of these tools and tries to put them together to make a culture. 

And then the ROI happens, because of all of those of all of those things. Just fascinating. I want to come back to training because you know, this is near and dear to me. And the things that you all did when you started the company is to realize that you just can't sell software, you sell a partnership, and you started to do some training, and I'm sure that's morphed over time. Let's say that I buy Vertical IQ, I become a subscriber to Vertical IQ, walk me through the producer training a little bit, what do I get? 

Susan Bell  20:59

Sure. So initially, it's navigational, right, the very first training is you have to know what you just bought, and how to get around the site. So that is an initial training. But in addition to that, not only do we offer special custom training, because for example, an underwriter is going to use Vertical IQ in a very different manner than a business banker or a treasury management associate. So we split up by job function. And really focus on this is how we would have a business banker use Vertical IQ, we have options, so management can say I want them to learn. We call it the strategic five, the five chapters that make the most sense to prepare for a call, quickly walk out the door and be successful.

Or it might be, I want to learn how to create a content strategy. I want to learn how to use this when I go to networking events. So we have options for all of that. And we also have a resource center on our site with recorded training. So it's open to every one of our users, you can go in and learn anything you want at any time. In addition to that twice a twice a month, it depends on the industry and what's being offered. But several times a month, I'll say that we offer VIQ flash and spark training, flashes just a quick five minutes usually of a new enhancement, here's how you would use it. But spark training are interesting because you get an option to learn some best practices of using Vertical IQ in depth. Anybody can join those, we send out an invitation, you're anonymous in the group. So it's not specific to your bank or your institution, but you're muted, and it doesn't matter. 

But those are neat, because you get to hear from our customers what some best practices are. So you learn, oh, an anonymous banker did this. And this was the result. We recently did want to co host a panel of bankers who we call power users. Our friend Jerry Pirzada was there from Cambridge trust as well as several other bankers from other banks. And they would tell us, I did this specific thing. And this was the result. And I think there's so much power in that hearing, not from us. We're a bunch of former bankers, but we sell and train on this product. So, you know, take that for what it's worth, but maybe hearing a peer say, yeah, it's worth every penny. And this is why some very specific actions and results has really made a difference. And we have part two of that coming up in a couple of weeks. And those are great to listen to. 

In addition to that, we bring in folks like David Nicholson who does his company is credit training, Inc, he will come in and do a three part how to use industry intelligence, when you're doing credit, underwriting, and be very specific and give you a little bit of his secret sauce of what he does in training. So that's in addition to here's how to use Vertical IQ, but here's how to put it into practice in this particular manner, in credit training, etc. We do webinars where you can join and learn. In addition to that you've done those for us as well, Jack. So training is just, it's a cornerstone of what makes Vertical IQ successful. A lot of times people will say, there are other companies that do what you do that makes you different. And a lot of times our customers will look at the product itself, products very similar. It's written from layman's terms, it's easy to digest and share with a business owner, they would want to read it. But more than that, I think it's our team. People really like to deal with our trainers with our customer success, people that get quick answers from our research team. So yeah, that's another long answer for each.

Jack Hubbard  24:38

Oh, it's great. Oh, no, it's terrific. And you mentioned, how do others do it or your competitors? One of the things I really love about Vertical IQ is that you update your profiles quite often. Now. You know, I'll talk to bankers and say, Look, we can't do it every day, things change, obviously and you have to do a little bit of additional research. But how often are you updating the profile? Susan? And what's that methodology? How do you do it?

Vertical IQ  25:06

Yeah, it's very, very organized, I will say, sometimes you'll buy a product. And it might update some sections, this amount other sections, it's not a regular, a regular schedule. Ours is very regular, you know, because we tell you, there's a date of the last update in each chapter and your source data, that's very, very important. So we know our forecast data, for example, comes out twice a year. Now, our current conditions are written on a monthly basis. But our news articles, you might get three news articles in a month. So it's different depending on the section. We like to say we update at least on a monthly basis, because the current conditions in recent developments are updated about every four or five weeks. 

So that is very, very current. And we have researchers, human beings that are doing those updates. We're not web scraping. This is what's happening. It's curated information, it can be shared, and it's documented with what the sources are so monthly, I would say some data, you know, Census Bureau data doesn't get updated all that often. So if you see the Census Bureau, you know, it's not going to be but every couple of years sometimes or the Bureau of labor statistics we tell you is monthly. So it's listed. And it's good to know that it's good because it's defensible. It's, you can record it, you're able to speak to this if the latest data are available. So there are human beings doing it. But we also use API's to pull in some of the data for our charts and graphs as well as go through a quality control process. And those are available as quickly as it's available from the source. Yeah,

Jack Hubbard  26:45

so it's very, very current. What are the other things that you've done fairly recently is this and you alluded to it before the the my local economy tab, I showed that at a recent banking program, and people just went nuts. And they kept saying, Can I can I see mine? Can I see mine? Can I see mine? I would think that would be of tremendous value to the receiver. And it's so easy for the banker to do that. Talk about the my local economy. How did that all come about? Yeah,

Susan Bell  27:17

I mean, we've had that for a couple of years on the site. We've put it there, because we find that bankers especially are seen as some, you know, many economists, they're supposed to get asked a lot of questions when they go out and talk with their customers and their prospects about what's happening locally. So our content historically, or traditionally has been about North American data right about across the US for the industry, the local economic data, we're now covering 3400 counties, and all of the metro areas in the United States, and you're getting information like Job, Job data, unemployment data, you can see openings and exits by industry in your local area, you get information about rent prices, and home prices, the increases what's historically happened, and then even the forecast. That's our relationship with Ingo Windsor and his company, Local Market Monitor, which we acquired Local Market Monitor earlier this year. And the good news is we've always had that local economic data out there with several chapters that's very, very important to share with your customers and your prospects right now. But we have something coming soon. I can't talk too much about it, but more localized data, with more of the industry involved too. So coming shortly. By the time we see this, it may actually be out there. So I won't say too much more. 

Vertical IQ: 28:44

Made by bankers, for bankers. Vertical IQ is your trusted source for reliable, convenient and focused industry intelligence, helping your team save time, boost sales and gain a competitive edge, Learn more at Verticaliq.com.

Jack Hubbard  28:59

That's great. And me if I'm a CEO, and I'm going on a joint call with a banker, one of the things that prospect or client or COI wants to know is, hey, CEO of the bank, what do you see what's out there in the local economy? The CEO could talk a little bit about this. And the banker could then say at the end of the call, by the way, you mentioned the local economy. I wanted to leave this with you, because there's a lot of data here that we've talked about. And by the way, since we've been talking on our call, I've highlighted a couple of things that are really of interest to you. You could do it on a call. You could send it , you could copy the link and send it. I've done that before. It's just truly outstanding. And so I'm looking forward to hearing more about what's next and I do want to talk about that a little bit. You know, here we are in December. We're in the holiday season. Everybody starting to think about 2024 and wringing their hands are getting excited. Up to the extent of the UK, what else is on the horizon for Vertical IQ? What's next?

Susan Bell  30:05

Yeah, a lot of integrations, partnerships we're so excited to be. I mean, I've mentioned some here. But our partnership, of course, with your other sponsor RelPro, we have partnerships with S&P global with Abrigo LLS, and more and more of those are coming for us in the coming year. That's an exciting thing for us to be wherever your banker's eyes are, hopefully, Vertical IQ, either the platform or some of our content is also there. That's big news for us, as well as our localized data that's coming soon. And a few other things that I again, can't talk about, but a lot of the hot topics that you hear these days, we're integrating some of that into our product as well. Can I jump back to my local economies for one second, because that's practice, I want to stop you. But I've had a couple of bankers, not just one say that sharing local, a local economic profile, does a couple of things. 

Sometimes it's like, oh, this is great, I'll read it later. Or sometimes business owners' eyes get large and you find out more information like I was looking to other areas where we might expand, or I'm looking to buy another business in this area, do you have Denver or Baltimore or wherever it is, and you can pull that up and provide your adding value right away. But you've also uncovered the fact that they're growing or expanding in a manner that you might not have before it's happened multiple times. And I just get so excited and jazzed about that, when you can use something like that to uncover something you might not have known otherwise. So it's a good thing. 

Jack Hubbard  31:46

And see, I liked this for branch managers who use Vertical IQ, certainly for everybody. But a branch manager goes out on a sales call. And they're, you know, they're generalists. And they are really afraid many times of the kind of questions they might get. But if they can use this as a leave behind instead of an annual report or a brochure or something like that, it may indeed open up some additional opportunities. That's very, very exciting. Well, you mentioned the sponsorship of this program that we're on today. You know, we Britt, and I really thought very hard about even asking you, because we're, you know, we've never done that. I've never done this before, and certainly never had sponsors before. What was the impetus? Why did you decide to sponsor this show?

Susan Bell  32:37

Our relationship has gone. I mean, we've known each other for 20 years, probably. And we get you, you get us and it makes sense. And it just goes hand in glove with each other. But even more than that, the fact that it's LinkedIn and Brin and a new way to use Vertical IQ and see that I really felt like that was something I wanted to bring to our leadership team to do the sponsorship. Because people share content and share information differently than they did years ago. And we kind of are moving in the same direction. You talk. Brynne is great at talking about using our content, and creating thought leadership. And you're teaching bankers how to do that. And we're right there with you going yes, this is a great best practice it just like I said, it just goes hand in hand. And we've enjoyed relationships and are of like mind, we think the same way. Most of the time, not exactly the same. But you know what I mean, we think the same way, it just seems we have similar ways of going about our business. And it just seems like a no brainer for us. And we really appreciate the relationship.

Jack Hubbard  33:43

Well, I do too. And it's a real friendship. You know, I saw Susan and Bobby for dinner. Oh, gosh, about a year ago. And some things weren't going so well. For me. I've gone fishing with Bobby. And it's just a wonderful partnership. And that the other nice thing about it is you have partnered with people that I really trust and value in the industry. You mentioned Nick Miller. And he and I went back a long time. We always call ourselves cooperators, because, you know, we're competitors, but we cooperate and help each other out. And Ned Miller is the same way. And so you've got a lot of great people in the industry, who like you and trust you and know you and respect what you have done. And that certainly includes me. Well, thank you for this time. I got to ask you before you go. So I've watched the show. And the CEO of a bank or maybe a credit union or an accounting firm, say wow, this sounds really interesting. Walk me through how to get in touch with y'all.

Susan Bell  34:47

Absolutely Easiest way is to go to Vertical iq.com and click learn more. We can help you right there. We chatted. You can chat with Kelly who's on our team if you want to get connected. Then where you can reach out to me directly is bell at Vertical iq.com Happy to answer any questions and I love talking with folks. So as you can tell, reach out to me. I'm happy to chat with you anytime.

Jack Hubbard  35:13

Great. Well thank you Susan. Happy Holidays and all the best to you and your family for a great 2024 and thank you for your partnership. We truly value it. Thanks,

Susan Bell  35:23

Jack. Same here. Happy holidays everyone.

Jack Hubbard  35:27

Thanks for listening to this episode of Jack Rants with Modern Bankers with my guest Susan Bell. This in every program is brought to you by our friends at RelPro and Vertical IQ. Join us next time for more special guests bringing you marketing sales and leadership insights, as well as lots of ideas that will provide your bank or credit union that competitive edge you need to succeed. 

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