Episode 30 Bankers- Start Trust-Based Conversations and Create Content

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. 

Hello, everybody. Hi, Brynne!

Brynne Tillman  00:31

Hi, Jack. So good to see you. So I’ve been on the road a lot. 

Jack Hubbard  00:37

Yes, you have been traveling and honored and well deserved. And it's good to see you.

Brynne Tillman  00:44

And you've been traveling and honored, well deserved. Good to see you.

Jack Hubbard  00:48

Well, it's been fun. You know, I started my Banking Schools career in 1984. And I've had the privilege of working in 13 different schools, whether they're national or state, or whatever. And I'm here at the Sales and Marketing School for graduate school banking. And I announced yesterday and it was all over LinkedIn. And it was just a tremendous honor. That I'm retiring from my Banking Schools after 39 years. I'm going to really focus my energies on the modern banker and some other things but it was amazing. They had a great, great celebration, they all wear T-shirts, thanks to my good friend, Tom Hershberger, that I know Jack all across. And everybody surprised me with that. So it was great. 

And I've had a chance to see my friend Lindsey Green, Mike Weir and the amazing Amber Farley. And we've got Eric Cook here this afternoon. So it's been a wonderful week. Brynne and I've, you know, you know, me, I'm kind of a humble guy. It was a little overwhelming for me, but I really enjoyed it. I know today, we're going to talk about books, but I have two books that I'm reading that I thought would be of great benefit to our audience. The first one is buyer first. And you know Carol Mahoney? Well, she's written an amazing book. It's absolutely wonderful. And I'm sure you've read it to Brynne and the second one is the power of consistency by Weldon long. And I heard about this book and I saw Weldon on Larry Levine's selling from the heart podcast. 

So I always kind of like to give a few extras as you do before we start a program. And we have a great audience here today. So I want to get started with our program. And speaking of books, the topic today is ebook content, and how to use ebooks to start conversations. So let's  start there. Brynne. I know you do a lot of ebooks, and I'm still trying to understand it but maybe we start at the foundational level, what's an eBook?

Brynne Tillman  02:57

So an eBook is typically a list of insights based on a topic. So you have a topic, and then you know, 10 ways to seven mistakes right? And so it's a quick read, it should do a few things, it should absolutely highlight challenges and mistakes. And it should provide insights where people can start to learn new things, that gets them thinking a little differently about their current situation, and then it will lead to a solution. It's typically not a pitch book, right? It's not, hey, we help people do this but here's some thoughts. And so traditionally, you and I might collaborate and do one or maybe you do one on your own but rarely do we go out into the world and use this ebook in a way to start trust based conversations. 

And so this is what we're really going to talk about today. I don't want to go too far ahead but an eBook, it's usually very colorful. It's different from a white paper, which is very stale and factual. This usually has personality to it. It creates page turners, like I want to see the next thing. And ultimately, when we're choosing the topic, we have to be careful. We don't want to choose a topic that we want to talk about. We want to choose a topic that they know that our buyers care about, that our customers care about. And you know, I'm just going to share a quick example of a wealth manager that I spoke with yesterday. In and she focuses on the LGBTQ plus community. 

And we started to talk. Okay, so what are some of the things that your buyers care about? And she said, tax strategies and long term care. And I got no, what do they really care about? Forget what you do. What do they really care about? She said, investing in eco friendly retirement products, making sure that their money is in funding a company that's anti LGBTQ. Right? And I said, Okay, now you're talking. So when we do content, it's not going to be around tax strategies. When we do an eBook, it's going to be five ways to determine if what you're invested in aligns with your values. Okay, then all of a sudden, there's a moment of, oh, they'll care about that. That's the difference and leading with our solution, which is tax strategies, that long term leads to our solution. So I was a little Brynne Rants, you're robbing off, Jack.

Jack Hubbard  06:17

I love it. I love it. And if you really think about this, you mentioned a white paper. So there's an infographic, which is a kind of one pager that has a lot of graphics to it with a few facts, you get to a white paper that, as you mentioned, is a little stale. It's kind of bland many, many times it's about one particular topic with a lot of research. And then I go on the fire spectrum to an actual book that we talked about. That takes a long time to write. But this is a really timely kind of thing, Bryn, and I got a I got to do a shout out to our team for putting together the modern banker public library, where there are tons and tons of eBooks about the kinds of things that you're talking about here, Brynne, but you've talked about topics. So let's get right to the banking side of this. What are some topics that you believe bankers should consider writing about? In their ebook?

Brynne Tillman  07:19

Ah, yeah, so I'm gonna say that it really depends on your audience. So if you are a commercial banker who works with automotive manufacturers in the Detroit area, you have to find out, what do they care about? What do they have insights about? Maybe it's around inventory control, maybe it's around making sure they don't have too much cash invested in their inventory, and it's sitting, and they have access to inventory quickly when they get a big order. I don't know I'm throwing that out there, like randomly, right? But each banker needs to step back. So the banker may say, Well, my prospect cares about a line of credit. They don't care about what that line of credit will do for their business. So we need to make sure that if we want them to engage, that we go that one step deeper, the money only matters when it brings us a solution. Right. So we need to talk about what they care about, which you may think is the money but it's really the solution.

Jack Hubbard  08:42

That's a very hard concept for bankers to really accept and think about, because they have their solutions. They know their solutions, and they have goals. But we do need to kind of step back and put the product behind us when we do these ebooks. One of the things I'd love to know is what goes into an initial ebook that the prospects can maybe even add to.

Brynne Tillman  09:09

So what you just said is magic, right? We've got this eBook, and it's great content. But we really want to start these trust based conversations. We can do it by posting an ebook, or we can do it with an ebook. So now, I'm gonna stick with the banker in Detroit, right? The banker now creates this ebook, five ways to ensure that you have the right inventory for your cash flow. I don't know what that is, right? And you know, that you and or you know, that you optimize inventory for cash flow, and they go through and maybe some of it is, you know, are you renting too much space? Is that the overhead to keep your inventory right there, you know, I don't know this world, I really picked a subject. I don't know that well. The banker side, it's the manufacturer side that I'm not that familiar with, but you get the concept. 

So now you have these five things. Okay, now I can publish this and send this to manufacturers, and they're gonna say thank you but it's not necessarily going to start the conversation today. However, if you go out to your top 20 prospects, maybe you go to the CEO of these manufacturing companies, and we say, Hey, we're putting out a ebook, we're reaching out to the top 10 manufacturing CEOs of car parts in Detroit, asking them, What are they doing to help to optimize inventory control? You know, so that they can help our audience with their insights. If you're open, let me know, I'm happy to send a 50 a link for 15 minute conversation. Now capture some of your insights, I'm sure it will bring great value to the community. Half of them will schedule really, could you have gotten half of those CEOs on a call in any other way? Probably not. But CEOs have two things. 

Number one, they want to provide value for their community. And number two, they want exposure. Right? So this is a win win. So now we get them on a call. And I'm like Jack, Mr. CEO of manufacturing company A in Detroit, Michigan, I'd love to run through this ebook with you. There are five points. Once we run through it, let me know which point would you like to add value to or if you have another one, I'm open to that as well. So now we've positioned this and they're going, Oh, my gosh, I'm not doing that. You know, I do have a line of credit. But I'm not tapping it for inventory. This is interesting. And oh, we do this really, really well. Now, do not bait and switch them you are getting the discovery you are getting, make sure you're taking great notes. Maybe you know what you're putting in your CRM. After the book is published, we're going to follow up and we'll talk about what that looks like in a minute. But we had this great conversation with them. 

We now pull from the transcript, whether it's Microsoft Teams resume, or maybe you're using something like a note taker like Sybil to take these notes, if you're allowed to use chat GPT to distill it down fine. Otherwise, come through the transcript, it won't take long to get that quote, send it to them for approval. Thank you so much for the time. This is the quote that I'd like to use. If you'd like any changes, please let me know. We put the 10 people in the eBook, and we now publish this ebook. We send it to them to promote to their world. And here's the kicker, that CEO, they may not be our primary buyer. There may be a CFO that we're working with, or maybe there's even procurement that we're working with. Okay. 

So then we take this to say, Ms. CFO, your CEO, was quoted in our ebook, the tip, the strategy that he talks about is absolutely phenomenal. And I'm confident that I can bring enormous value to our network. If you're interested, let me know. I'm happy to send that to you. So what are those two? Does the CFO ever say no. Oh, they want to see the book. Maybe they'll say oh, CFO CEO already sent it to me. It's fabulous. That's great, too. Now they have this ebook, and guess what they're gonna do, they're gonna read it because their boss is quoted in it. Guess what that also does, that creates credibility. In their eyes. Their boss vetted us as a bank. They're working with us, even if it's not our bank. Obviously, our CEO has a relationship with this bank, if he's willing to spend time and put a quote in and get that exposure. So when we reach out to that CFO a week or two later, we are much more likely to get a conversation. Now, last thing I know I'm going on and on. I love this check so much. 

So the last thing is now we have all of these interesting insights that we got from the discussion. And we reach back out to the CEO, Jack, thank you so much for the time that you put in. Your strategy that's included in the eBook is going to bring enormous value to my network or to the community. I think communities are better than my network, but to the community. I hope you don't mind when we were chatting, I heard you say this. And I've been thinking about it. And I have a couple of ideas, I'd love to run by you. If you're open, let's set up another call. And now we didn't breach any trust, we didn't bait and switch. It's, you know, I've been thinking about our conversation. And I'm asking permission, if you're open, I'd love to kind of throw some of these ideas at you. And all you have now built that credibility that trust the rapport. And you're like, wow, she's been thinking about me about that challenge that I happened to briefly mention. Imagine if I banked with her, how much she'd spent thinking about me? And my challenge.

Jack Hubbard  16:13

Yeah, and why isn't my bank doing this kind of thing for me. So it really does open a lot of doors? Well, you gave me lots of thought and fodder for conversations with you and questions today. So here I am at the Sales and Marketing School. And one of the things that marketers always want to do is to get to the C suite. And one of the ways for them to do that is to do things like this to collaborate with their commercial officers. Because one of the things that I'm going to ask you a question about this a little bit later, is about the graphics, because you do the interviews, and then you have to have somebody lay it out? Well, to me, that's where marketing can be a great partner. Now you've brought up a couple of really good ideas. Let me add to that. So a couple of days ago, the June Federal Reserve numbers came out. For the first time in history, since they've been doing this quarterly deposits declined in banks 4.8%. In the large banks, they went down 30%. Every bank is looking for deposits. Now you could go out to every business in your community and say, Do you have some deposits for me? Well, that's not gonna work. What if you did some interviews with the CEOs and CFOs? And you said, I'm doing some interviews about how businesses are managing their cash more effectively, in these last couple of years. And so now you go in through that door? And what does that do? It opens an opportunity for your treasury management specialist. And it does all the same things that Brian talked about. 

Now, two more things. So let's get creative here. I love going to CEOs and CFOs. But in a lot of businesses, the gatekeeper controls everything. So how about you call five to 10 gatekeepers prospects and say, you know, I'm thinking about doing an ebook, about five things gatekeepers to can do to manage their boss more effectively manage the office more efficiently, would you mind now, when was the last time a gatekeeper got a call from a banker, asking them to be honored in this way? So that's great. So now you do all the same things. One more, if I'm in a vertical, if I do a vertical, we have some bankers at school. And I work with a lot of bankers that are in verticals. So not for profits, distribution, and one is medical. So it could be veterinarians, it could be chiropractors, doctors, etc. Who runs those offices, the office manager does. So how about you call the office managers and say, I'm writing an ebook for office managers in the medical space about how to manage the office more effectively? Would you be interested in an interview now, again, like the gatekeepers, these people are silent heroes, and now you're going to honor them by doing this brand? I can't imagine anybody saying no. And number one, not you've that's number one. And number two, you've created a bond with that with a gatekeeper slash office manager. That's going to open doors for you forever.

Brynne Tillman  19:29

Jack, you're a genius. That's amazing. Bankers Listen, listen to the man. He knows what he's talking about. Oh my gosh.

Jack Hubbard  19:44

Absolutely amazing. 31 years of doing this and experience and, and, you know, I think it's really helped me that I was a marketing director at a bank and I teach at a lot of schools and things like that. So I do get a lot of ideas from my clients. Well, I love this interview. Roche Brin fifth sounds like 15 minutes pretty short on Zoom. But count helped me, you introduced me to a new tool that you're using called Sybil. Because one of the things that I know we're going to hear from bankers is, I don't have time to do this. I don't have time to do the interview, let alone listen back to it and get the quotes. Sybill can help. Brynne, it sounds like it's a fairly new tool.

Brynne Tillman  20:27

Oh my gosh, I will tell you, it's absolutely incredibly magic. And if anyone's interested in trying it, reach out to me, I can get you two weeks for free. But it's a tool that comes into your Microsoft Teams meeting, or your Zoom meeting. And it's a note taker, right. So we've seen a lot of those note takers. Otter has one. What I love, there's few things I love about Sybil. One of them is it gives you the full transcript, but it also will recap. And it has been 100% accurate in the recap, which absolutely blows my mind, bringing Jack's next steps. But it will also give you the video outside, even if you didn't record on Zoom or Microsoft Teams, it's recording the video, it tells you when they're smiling or nodding or when they're talking. So you can quickly go to the section. You're like, okay, that's, that's a good, that was good. You can clip the video and get the transcript just from that clip. Like it just makes it so simple. And it's searchable. So if you're like, Okay, when he said this word, where is it in the transcript? 

So you don't have to take a ton of notes. And quite honestly, I don't think there's anything more powerful right now. You could do zoom and transcript and have to download. This literally is right there. You just log in and you have a dashboard, you click on it. It's all there. And it's searchable. And I'm just blown away by this tool. So we've just recently signed up, I did my two weeks free, Jack and I decided today we're going all in, right. And I'm just really excited because I think this is a tool that can help bankers in lots of different ways. The last thing I want to mention is when there's a button that you click on, and it recaps and creates an email. So it'll say, Jack, I enjoyed talking with you today about X, Y, and Z. Below is a recap of our conversation. If there's anything I missed, please let me know. Recap, send it right from there. It's just magic. Well,

Jack Hubbard  22:51

I love conversation recaps and I've taught it for years. But it's always a challenge to transfer the notes. Now remember, this is when you do this virtually. And, and one of the really neat things about this is it does allow you to go back and look at certain sections around this. And it doesn't sound like a cost very much at all. So if you want some more information on that talk to Brynne, I want to go back to the eBooks, because I want to talk about what you do so well when we want to put eBooks together. And that's using Canvas for graphics because I think one of the powers of the ebook is that it's short in terms of copy but it's powerful with these quotes that we're talking about but there's also some graphics around it that makes it easier for people to manipulate through.

Brynne Tillman  23:45

Yeah, so Canva you know, it's one of our jobs to go to every day, I mean, we have a full time graphics person working for us that just does this all day long for us and for our clients. And Canva makes it simple. So you can actually create one template, or have marketing create one template that everyone can use, that has brands or you know, there are tons of templates that you can choose from, and then just change it to your bank colors. Whatever it is, what's amazing is it is a drag and drop tool, you do not need to be very good at anything to actually use this. Now. Jack, you're great at technology, but on Canva our team set up a couple of templates that all you have to do is every week go in and add another quote. And it's done. The templates are done. It's a modern bank, girl raised. Yeah, you know, right. And so it's just simple for you to go in and do that. So and that's what I mean, like marketing can set up templates for ebooks for content that make it very simple for bankers to use this particular outreach project, either your marketing team can help. Or if you're like, my marketing doesn't support this kind of work, we do this for our clients. So feel free to reach out to Jack or myself.

Jack Hubbard  25:15

We really can. Let's, let's wrap this up by talking about the final step here. And you've kind of alluded to it a little bit. But let's get very specific. So now I've got the book, I've done my interviews, I've worked with marketing and put together it really looks nice graphically. And now I want to get it out there. Talk about how to get it out there. And then what to do with it.

Brynne Tillman  25:37

Yeah, so there's a few ways, obviously, we want to post it and you can post it on all your social media sites, it doesn't just have to be LinkedIn, I recommend that you post it alongside of a den your website, right like so that you can capture leads from it. If you have Sales Navigator, as a bank, have each of your reps uploaded into a Smart Link, and then share that with, you know, with strategic people both inside of your prospects company, and even other folks that value from the insights that are inside of this eBook. And then Smart Links will tell you who's looking at it, who's downloading it. 

We had one situation a little while ago, but it was pretty awesome. When we sent out a small proposal for a company, they kind of ghosted me for a little while. And then about six months later, all of a sudden, three or four people inside of the company were looking at the proposal that we sent. So if it's an eBook, maybe they won't look at it today but maybe in six months, they're like, Hey, we're having inventory problems, I want to take a look. And so these are triggers that it's time to start a conversation with them. 

I just think smart links are an incredibly powerful tool. Again, if you're, if you have Sales Navigator as a bank, and you're not leveraging Smart Links, reach out to us, we're happy to walk you through 15 minutes, it'll change your prospecting forever but getting it in the inbox, right? Like that's really important, too. So now I reached out to the 10 people that were not quoted, because they didn't respond. And I say, you know, Fred, I had mentioned a couple months back that we're putting together an ebook. I'm sorry, you weren't able to enter the country. However, we are doing another one next quarter. If you're interested, let me know. We'd love to get your insights. In the meantime, I thought I'd offer if you want to see the book. I'm happy to send that to you.

Jack Hubbard  27:57

Absolutely. And I think one of the fewest, one of the poorest uses when you put a post together is the send button. Because when you have the send button, you can send this off to your first degree connection. So let's say you have other manufacturing CEOs or CFOs, that you didn't reach through your post, you can send them a personalized message along with that ebook. And just let it lay there. This is not pitching. This is just letting it lay there. And let's see what happens. I got a question yesterday, about well, how long before I should follow up and ask them if they want to do coffee? My answer is, look, let it lay there for a little while, then maybe you invite him to an economic forum or you send them something on a podcast, give him a few shots, soften him up. And then there might be a time when you can reach out and do this.

Brynne Tillman  28:56

Vote on a poll, that's always a one click easy one. Absolutely. And then. So if you have an economic forum coming up, create a poll around the topic. Ask them what is your number one priority when it comes to work? Are your number one concerns when it comes to 2024? And banking, whatever that is, right? Just make sure it aligns with the economic forum? And whatever they answer doesn't matter. I noticed this was important to you. This is going to be covered in our economic forum. If you're interested. Let me know. I'm happy to have you come as my guest. 

So you know, it's some and banks and bankers will say, Oh, that's a lot of work . Cold calling 50 companies a day is a lot more work. And you're coming in at a very low level of credibility. When we build rapport and relationships this way. We're starting trust based conversations with a high level of credibility and a likelihood that they will want to come to the forum and they will take our call when the time is right. 

Jack Hubbard  30:07

And this is all about slowing down your outreach to speed up your partnerships. And if you are a desperate banker that has nothing in the pipeline, this is probably not going to work for you. But if you've got current clients, you have some referrals coming in, and you're just looking to top this off and help a few more clients. This is a great long term strategy to do. And by the way, as we as we end and I know you have a couple of final comments, this has got to be a long term thing. This can't be I'm going to do one eBook and go away. Once you start this, it can create a tremendous flywheel. So don't start and stop. It's not a direct mail piece. It's not a sales contest. This is a lifestyle change. And when you do it, you'll find it'll work for you long term, Brynne.

Brynne Tillman  31:03

I love this. Yeah, I mean, we have some clients that do one a month, every month. Right? Because, you know, I'm working on something we haven't done yet. But we're working on an ebook where all the salespeople, all the business development people are going out and getting quotes for one ebook. So it's, it's, well, we'll see if it's just too many quotes. We're going to play with it. But what's nice is you can have one ebook, and have your hire team lead content to start competent prospects.

Jack Hubbard  31:41

Awesome. Great program today. Brynne. I know you're traveling next week, and we're probably going to do some recording or best stuff. But in a couple of weeks. We'll be back live. Great show today. And if I don't see you safe travels next week to Arizona and to Florida. 

Brynne Tillman  31:59

Yeah, thank you so much. I'm looking forward to that but I will miss you. Great to see you. Thanks so much. Thanks, everyone. We really enjoy having you join us Jack Rants with Brynne and Jack Rants with the Modern Bankers. So we are everywhere now. We're on iHeartRadio on Apple and Spotify. 

Jack Hubbard  32:24

YouTube channel now Brynne. So that's kind of cool. Yeah!

Brynne Tillman  32:28

Yeah, go follow us everywhere. We would love to have you subscribe. So until next time, thanks, Jack.

Jack Hubbard  32:42

Thanks for joining us for Jack Rants with Brynne brought to you by our good friends at Vertical IQ and RelPro. We're live on LinkedIn every Thursday at noon Eastern time helping bankers turn connections into conversations. 

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