Episode 40 This Old Banker

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. 

Well, it's Thursday. And Brynne isn't here. Have you ever heard that? Remember that Cheech and Chong movie? Probably you don't, and record back in the 1970s. And there was a knock at the door, and somebody wanted Dave, and they kept saying Dave isn't here. That's Brynne. Brynne isn't here. Today. She's with clients. But I'm really happy to be able to share some ideas not around LinkedIn, as we usually do, but around sales. So I call this, this old banker. 

Now, before we get started, let's talk about old. I'm using this in a kind of a fun context, because this old house was a great TV series. So I'm not suggesting I'm old. You know, I have retired from all my banking schools, but I haven't retired from banking, nor sales training. And so here we go with this old banker. So I wanted to share a few insights that I've learned over the past 50 plus years and it really does start with a couple of things about the customer.

First of all, I've always suggested and I got this from, so I can be very transparent. I got this from a book that a woman named Sharon Drew Morgan wrote many, many years ago. And I've kind of twisted it a little bit. But it's really true that the buyer has every answer that you need. And we as bankers need to do a better job with questions. So that's the first thing we're going to talk about today a little bit about some very specific questions that you might want to ask your prospects, clients and COIs. 

The second thing is, it's better to be interested than interesting. You know, we go to a lot of networking events as bankers, and there used to be a thing called elevator speech that's outmoded. There used to be something called work the room, I don't understand what that means. What do you do to back somebody into a corner and say, Do you want to buy something from me? The fact is this, the bankers that are prepared with two or three really good questions, that they customize their personal capability statement based on the event that they're going to, and they really actively listen, they're gonna have a lot more people around them than if they talked about themselves and the bank, it's better to be interested than interesting. 

The third thing is people don't care how much you know, until they know how much you care. You know, we've talked for years about being client centric. What does that really mean being client centric? Well, it means to focus on the client, put the client in the center of your conversations, your products are always going to be there. But unless you do a good job for the client, the client may not. The next thing is we look for a fit. So there's a fit going on on both sides of the room here. Your prospect is wondering, do I see myself banking with this banker? You're wondering, is this a fit for my culture? Is this a fit for my profile? Well, this client, well, this prospect when they become a client really fit in for me. 

So it's all about a fit. I always used to say to bankers, that a couple of years ago, Greenwich did a study. And they found that bankers got into prospects the second time, only 17% of the time, that second call, well, why is that? Because they want to talk about themselves and their products and their bankers, and then they leave behind all kinds of stuff that really isn't valuable to the buyer. So I say to bankers, when I teach them, you may not win the business on the first call, but you may in fact, lose it. 

The last thing I wanted to talk about is that value is in the eye of the receiver. Resource Managers deliver that promise, and we're going to talk about what a resource manager is today. Well, here's the fact. Banking goes through lots of ups and downs, and it goes in cycles, typically Get some of this, you know, back in 1980, the highest prime rate in December of 1980 in history went to 21 and a half percent those of us that got mortgages back then know that 7%, or seven and a half percent mortgage isn't all that bad in context. 

Now, certainly compared to two or two and a half or two and three quarters, it's not great. But we have to put this all into perspective. And then it was 1986 and 1043, savings and loans went out of business between 1986 and 1989. Why? Because they got all kinds of new powers when we deregulated the financial services industry. And they really didn't know how to handle it. They got a lot of commercial powers, commercial checking accounts, commercial now accounts, commercial lending, and they went bonkers, and came out with some unbelievably ridiculous rates. And it really didn't help them. Other bankers copied the other savings and loans. And that didn't tend to work either. 

Then in 1987, Black Monday, the market went down 22.6% in one day, that was a real challenge. And we call that in banking, the real estate crisis. And then in 2008, the subprime mortgage mortgage kind of crisis came about. And then of course, we all remember 2020, the pandemic. And earlier in 2023, a couple of banks failed pretty high profile organizations that really cast a paler around the trust that bankers need if we're going to be successful. So let's talk about our clients again, a little bit. What we know about our client makes what we know about our product valuable. 

Take a look at some of these statistics. From Barlow research from our friends at Barlow research, they asked questions, a small bit, they talked about a small business contact at their primary bank who often fails to understand their small business customers. How important is it that the company of the bank understands the company's objectives? It's very important, but we as bankers don't do very well with it. And you can keep going down the list proactive and suggesting solutions knowledgeable about our industry. This is where vertical IQ can make you really shine and understand the company's cash flow, look at the significant difference between what the client really wants, and what we're giving them. 

That's something we can work on in 2024. Well, let's talk about some success practices, some ideas, you know, I promised you when I invited you to this programme, or if you're looking at the replay that, in fact that would provide some practical ideas. So let's dive right into that. We know a bank that is doing a terrific job of finding bankers, Bob St. Meyer, when we started our company, St. Meyer and Hubbard many years ago, talked about we needed to have as many planes as possible circling O'Hare so that when we had a need to hire facilitator, or an associate or a support person, we knew who those people were, too often what happens is, bankers lose a banker banker goes to a new bank, they move out of town, they retire and we panic, we divide up the relationships and or we make sure we hire somebody that can fog a mirror at a particular point. Not that they might be all that experienced or we promote someone that may not be a fit for that particular client or may not be a salesperson at all. 

Well, one bank that we know has done this a little bit differently. In the regional manager's office, there is a whiteboard, and on that whiteboard are the names of great bankers that are calling in that particular market. So how do they find out this? Well, each week, the bankers when they make calls, have to ask this question, who are the great bankers, in addition to myself, perhaps, that are calling on you? Now a lot of bankers when they started this, they really wanted to do that, because they were a little worried about their jobs. What's happened, however, is that the tides float all boats, right. And when the bankers are getting better bankers on the row, everybody is winning. So the banker asks the questions. 

Then, during the pipeline strategy meeting, not liars, poker meeting, the bank manager goes over at the beginning of every meeting, who are the bank, great bankers that you're hearing about this particular week, and the names go on that whiteboard. And then what is the regional manager? Do you think so? They look at LinkedIn? They talk to other bankers, they talk to people inside the bank, who do you know, who do you know, Mary Johnson, have you heard of Mary Johnson, et cetera. And they're getting a lot of great bankers. Now, let's be fair, they don't hire every single banker, but the regional banker does go out and make a call on that banker to have lunch with them, breakfast with them, whatever, because they want to keep that pipeline of great human capital going. I mentioned earlier about resource managers. And it's kind of interesting. I've always had this concept, that relationship management was fine. But it tends to be a little passive. And I think the client wants something a little more proactive. 

So one day, I'm flying down to Dallas. And I'm sitting in this first class seat, and a gentleman next to me seems to want to talk. So I'll talk to him. I cannot talk to people when I'm on the airplane. But he wanted to talk. So I said, Well, tell me a little bit about your company. And he said, you know, we're having a great year, doing really, really well. I said, Tell me where your company is located, if you don't mind, and he gave me the city I was flying from Chicago down to Dallas. So it's a Chicago area company. And I said, Well, that's terrific that you're doing really well. I said, if you don't mind, tell me a little bit about your bakery. So you know what I tell everybody about my banker, you know, every Monday, I get something from my banker right away. When I get to the office, she sends me articles about my industries and white papers. And she even sends me leads from time to time. And now that I'm using LinkedIn a lot more, she sends me some podcasts or webinar replays that I might benefit from, as a business. 

Now, when she started out with me and prospected me, she started out by providing me a lot of value. She sent me all kinds of stuff. First of all, she started out with a very unique letter. Then she followed up with something of value white paper, and then she called me the following week. And I let it go to voicemail and the voicemail was phenomenal. In fact, I had everybody in my company listen to it. And then I got an appointment and at the end of the first meeting, I said, you know, this has been a great meeting. But tell me a little bit about what you cost. And she says, without any hesitation, that I'm going to be if you think about the most expensive banker you've ever worked with, and double that, that's about what I will cost you. But then she said immediately, and I'm worth it. And he said to me, you know, I can get banking services from anybody. And at a much lower price. 

My banker is a real trusted partner. She's a resource manager. And I said to the guy, what a fascinating banker, I said, you know, do you mind telling me where you bank? And he said, No, give me the banker. And I said, Oh, so you're in this community, and you bank at this bank? I said, I can tell you who your banker is. And he said, That's not possible. I said, Tell you what, let's spend $100 to your favorite charity versus mine. I said, I'll tell you the name of your banker. It's Lisa. And he said, manage over $100. He said that's exactly right. So he said, How did you know that? I said, Because I taught Lisa how to do all of this. But it's not the training that matters. It's after the training. It's the culture of the bank. Lisa goes to a team meeting. It's a strategic meeting. 

The bank manager doesn't ask Lisa, what did you sell? After she comes back from every call? He says, talk to me about how the call went compared to how you planned it. Lisa? What kind of follow up strategies do you plan to do? What kind of value do you tend to provide? So there are a lot of leases of the world out there that want to do the right thing for the customer? What's the manager doing in our organization to make sure that works? Well, I mentioned prospecting and I kind of believe there's a couple of ways that you can prospect. I call it the pillars of prospecting. And we'll dive into a little bit of this today. Certainly LinkedIn is one way and you hear Brent Tillman and I talk about LinkedIn all the time. And you know how obsessed I am with the power of LinkedIn when it comes to value education and networking. But there's a number of other things that you can do. 

So for example, you could do some net sharing, you can go out into the community and go to events. Now, I don't like to call it networking because it's worth work to me. But I like to share, I like to go out and when I'm in a community event, I like to ask a lot of questions and share a tonne of value. And then there's this whole idea around CLI as a referral source. And then of course, there is power prospecting, a way that I taught Lisa, and how to get in the door up to 80% of the time with totally cold prospects. Removing all cold calling right Moving the ridiculousness of blitzes and focusing on the buyer, that's power prospecting. Well, there's another power. Since we're rounding November around Veterans Day. I know a couple of banks that are doing this, and they've done it for a number of years. They call it logo day. Here's how this works. Now, let's be fair, this is not prospecting. This is sourcing. The Community Bank president came to me a number of years ago, in the Midwest and said, you know, my Baker's just don't have enough prospects. And I'm tired of buying and lists, I need them to be more proactive. 

So we kind of talked back and forth, and we put together this programme, called logo day, here's how this works. The bankers from about October 1 till November 1, work on their own to select 15 prospects that they would be proud to bank the following year, they have a plain white piece of paper, and they go to the the website of the prospect that they pick, and right click and copy the logo and put it on their piece of paper. And that's one of the things they're going to bring with them to logo day. When the logos are all set around November 1, the bank president says, Okay, we've got our annual Veterans Day Training, let's do logo day. So bring in about 40 or 50 people. And typically, what I'll do is, I'll remind them a few things at the beginning, maybe an hour, just to kind of get them warmed up and have a little fun with them. And then they go and post their logo sheets on the wall. 

And now there's a trade show happening and people walk around and look at everybody else's logo sheets. And what they're looking for is did I forget anybody that maybe is a good prospect for me? Or is there a duplication, et cetera, and that, that runs for a while, and then they pull down their lower sheets and back to the tables they go to? And the goal here now is to eliminate prospects so that everybody walks out of the room with 12 prospects. And it's a tedious process. So I'll say, Well, Lisa, tell me about your first prospect. And she said, Well, it's ABC Company, and I looked around the room. And does anybody else have ABC Company, and nobody does. And so Lisa gets it. The second one, maybe XYZ company, is when two or three bankers raise their hand, they have that as well. And so we have to work through the process to see who would be the best banker to call on X, Y, Z company. If it's not Lisa, Lisa will eliminate that. And now she has 14 prospects. And that's good, because we're getting down to 12. So at the end of the day, everybody walks out with 12 prospects. 

The next thing is they prioritize them, based on the type of company they are, the time of year that they want to call on them, etc, from one through 12. Then the managers get involved, every banker goes to their manager, and looks at their 12 prospects, and works with the manager to determine the best way to reach out because remember, this is sourcing, not prospecting. So what's the best way to reach out to those particular prospects? And then during the year, the manager keeps shining a light on those prospects, because at the end of every pipeline meeting, the manager will have the bankers drag out their logo sheets, and how they're doing on those particular prospects. 

So it's a little bit old school, they don't have a CRM system, they do this on Excel spreadsheets and paper. But it is powerful because it holds bankers accountable to do their prospecting in the law of small numbers, not hundreds of prospects, but just a few. And they use vertical IQ and RelPro to get at some of these prospects. And then the manager holds the bankers accountable, because they hold themselves accountable. Because during those pipeline meetings, the manager is shining a light on those particular prospects logo day doesn't work. Last year, the bank put $61 million in the pipeline on the loan side as part of logo day, and they closed 40%. So the average close rate is around 40% on prospects. So they did a very, very, very good job. Let's talk about SEO wise. You know, if you have a referral from someone, you're 82% likely to get a first appointment. But here's the problem with a lot of this. We don't do a very good job of nurturing our CLI guys. And we don't do a very good job when we talk to COI guys. What do we say to them at the beginning isn't it fascinating that when a banker picks up the phone, they'll talk all around the referral source. And they won't say their name until maybe later in the call. And maybe then it's too late. 

Don't bury the headline, if you're going to call a referral from some CLI that you've got their name from, say their first and last name, and the relationship to the buyer right away. Mary Johnson, your CPA suggested I give you a call, you're 82% likely to get an appointment. But where are you going to find those people? You know, we've got some, some bankers who do a very good job with clients, and they do something called the Good Neighbour call. So they're calling out a client. At the end of the call, they'll say, you know, Mary, you said I was really happy with our organization, we appreciate that. That's my job is to make people happy. Are there others in this area who you know, that I may make happy, like, I've made you happy? So instead of Do you have any referrals for me, we're trying to get a little bit more specific. So that's clients. I'm big on the board making referrals. And certainly that advisory board situation is important because their job is to make referrals. 

Don't forget about your internal partners. So I talked to a banker the other day, and he said, you know, our branch managers do a pretty good job of referring things out, but they aren't getting a lot of reciprocity. So we need to have that reciprocity internally, and make that happen. And then we've got the norm CPAs, attorneys, real estate companies, title companies, that the typical ones, and then there's Monty Python. I know a lot of people on this programme, don't know who Monty Python is. But Monty Python was an old English comedy troupe. And their whole mantra was now for something completely different. Think about COI eyes that are a little bit different than the norm, because those norms will give you referrals, but they're also going to give them to other bankers. But what about others, for example, I've got a banker who works in the food service. And her number one referral source is a supermarket store manager. I've got a banker who does a lot of work and food service as well. And he'll go with his wife to go out to dinner. And they'll ask to have the chef come out and others and talk about the cutlery and the steaks, and where they get them et cetera, et cetera. 

So don't forget that the normal COI channels are really important. But also don't forget those unique ones, those Monty Python's now the question is, why don't people want to give you referrals? Well, they don't know who your targets are. They may give you referrals, but they may be all the wrong ones. They don't know you well enough. This is really true on the board level, as well. We want our boards to give referrals. But we board members need to know our bankers. I know of a couple of banks that do what's called banker buddies, where the banker and a board member go out and make calls quarterly. And that way the board member gets to know the banker a little bit. Your COI doesn't have any mindshare when they're talking to their clients, or people say, you know, I'm nearly not happy with my current bank, it's not top of mind, we're not providing enough value to them. And keeping top of mind, they don't know how to do it. That's pretty simple. Just sit down with your CLI and the setup process could be a text, could be a phone call, could be an event, whatever the case might be, and then you don't understand what they want. 

We always talk about the fact that CEOs want reciprocity. But reciprocity doesn't necessarily mean that you are having to give them a lead when they give you a lead. It could be tickets to a ballgame. It could be lunch every once in a while. It could be golf, whatever the case might be. So don't forget about those COI guys. They're very, very important. So let's talk about picking up the phone and talking to people. And a lot of people asked me, What about voicemail? Is voicemail good? You know, I love voicemail. I think voicemail is absolutely fantastic. I also think that messaging with your first degree connections via video on your phone on LinkedIn is also a really good thing they get returned as well. But voicemails aren't returned very much from a bank business perspective in terms of prospecting. It's about an 8% return rate, which is incredibly low. 

How can you change this? Well first, you make the message 20 seconds or less. You make it quick and to the point, you put their name first and you may use some social proof. Three of the top medical practitioners in the XYZ community are working with us. Good diction timbre pace. And one of the things that's fascinating to me is how bankers don't understand their voicemail process. Do you know that most voicemail systems when you call out if you just hit pound, pound will allow you to re record? listen back to it at cetera, if you don't like it just re-record it. Holland is your friend, always remember that. And if you want to get a call back, put your name, the name of the bank, and your phone number at the end of the message and not the beginning. And of course, let them know that if they don't call you back, hold them accountable, that you'll call them back. 

Practice, practice, practice, practice voicemail on yourself, managers, if you're listening to this, have your team practice at a sales meeting, and have them listen to each other's voicemails. I'm not talking about being scripted here. I hate scripts. But I do want you to practice. What would you say to a buyer? If the gatekeeper says would you like to go into their voicemail? What would you say at that particular point? To get them interested and curious enough to return your call? Well, they have returned your call. And you've gotten an appointment? Lots of questions that you can ask because you know, from hearing the I like, where have you been where you know where you going? But I'm always interested in what happens toward the end of the call? How do you know if this might be a great opportunity? How do you know the timeframe? How do you know all those things? Well, I like to call this the first call six. 

Sometime during the call, I want to ask these questions because of their time management questions, their strategy questions and their knowledge questions that can help you help the client buy from you. So what are those questions? Well, I want to know the timeframe. Because that's for your own time management when you're thinking about doing this particular initiative. If it's three months from now, it's as if it's three years from now, it might be a C and somewhere in between? What's the decision process? You know, a lot of people say, Well, I got to ask who the decision maker is? Well, it's really true, based on a couple of books that I've read about the Challenger customer, written a number of years ago, but it's still true. The average buyer with 50 employees or more, there are 5.2 decision makers around financial services, and the average banker is talking to two. 

So I want to know what the decision processes are, how who, inside the organization, maybe outside the organization? Who should I be talking to, to make sure that I make my plea in the best possible way, so that you buy from me? Who's my competition? If you can find out who it is, think, listen, if the person says, you know, I've been talking to my banker the other day about X, Y, and Z, ask the competition question. You mentioned a banker, do you mind telling me who you do business with? And are you doing business with anybody else in banks and outside of banks? Who are your trusted advisors? Who has earned that title from you? And how did they earn that? What criteria or factors are you going to use to determine ultimately, which bank you use over? Another very important question? And are there political issues? Are there reasons why you could not do business with me? And don't say you're on the board of directors, don't say there's a loan covenant? Because those are all doable. 

But what about if I've had a tee time with the president of my bank for the past 12 years, every Saturday? That could be a real issue. I want to know that ahead of time, so that I know if I have a real challenge. And I have an opportunity to be able to do this. Well, selling is kind of interesting. We've, you know, during the pandemic, everybody went to zoom. And now everybody's thinking, Well, I'm making face to face calls. And that's really good, but statistically, about 82% of people say I at least like to have one call virtually. So in my mind, virtual remains reality. And here are some really interesting statistics. 83% of buyers suggest they will continue to partially work from home forever. 23% of bankers believe they're equally effective at leading face to face and virtual meetings, but only 26% of buyers believe they're very good. Virtually 70% of bankers and recent bank executives in a recent study that I saw, have not provided any tools or enough tools to help the banker work. 

Virtually only 57.7% of bankers have received any remote sales training and only 32 and a half percent of every received any call Watching training. So we need to understand, there may never be another pandemic in our lifetime. Let's hope so. But there will be snow storms, power will go out, people will go to their vacation home, but they're still working. So how do we as bankers in New Jersey, when somebody has a lake home in Maryland? How do I get a hold of them? How do I get seven doctors together for this actual situation that happened? How do I get seven doctors together on a zoom call, and really be effective at working the whiteboard? As asking lots of good questions, and earning business without ever making a sales call? How do I go about doing that? We need to be thinking about how to do that more effectively.

So the buyer has bought from us, we've taken this journey kind of through prospecting and sales calls, and now they buy from us. Do you know that only about 8% of banks in America actually have an onboarding process for business banking, that's consistent and measured and managed. And that's very, very sad. Be the buyer. They're brand new to your bank, they have no idea what's going on. And they don't know where the bodies are buried. They don't know the politics of this. They didn't know how to get work done. They do know that you're a resource manager. And that's great. But what about the rest of your team? Well, I know a couple of banks that have done something called T boarding 1631. 

Here's how this works. First of all, we want to mitigate buyer's remorse, we want to create referral and cross-solving the cross selling opportunities. So the first thing is we do a new client orientation at the loan closing or the deposit opening to gain the permission of the new buyer to actually do business with us. And then we set up the team boarding process. One week after the loan closing or the deposit opening, the resource manager puts their team together on a zoom call with the new buyer, their client assistant, their treasury management partner, a branch manager, maybe their sales leader, and others, it's a very short call, everybody introduces themselves their role in the client relationship, and they share their contact information. And they, of course, want to connect with the buyer on LinkedIn. 

So that is one week, that's the one, six weeks after this, the buyer is going to get their first statement, that statement is going to look a little different from their previous bank. So the client assistant has gained permission and scheduled a call with the buyer and their team, the new client and their team, and they want to know how things are going. Do you have any questions about your statement? What's the client experience been so far? And then they ask the question. Now remember, these are young people, men and women, they may not have a lot of experience in banking, and you don't want them necessarily to be salespeople, but you do want them to uncover opportunities. So here's the question that the assistant asks during the 1631 process. Mr. Johnson before I let you go, do you mind if you ask me a question? No, no, no problem. Mr. Counsel, what initiatives might be on your plate, say over the next three to six months? And how can our bank be a partner in your success? 

Now, the buyer hears that, and they may have nothing. But when the question is asked what initiatives might be on your plate over the next three to six months? And how can our bank be a partner in your success? They may say, you know, what are other companies I know, I might be thinking about buying, you know, my son has a and all those things can come right into the client assistant, who can immediately refer them out over to the resource manager. Remember, you don't want your client assistant to be pitching products, you do want them to potentially uncover opportunities, the 90 day experience. So now we're at one six weeks three is three months, the banker, the resource manager and the sales manager go out and make a cross solving call. They make a client experience call, they may take the buyer to lunch, and they want that buyer to know how important they are to the bank. And then one. Here's where the marketing folks get engaged. 

The marketing department puts together a blind embossed anniversary card signed by the highest level of leader at the bank possible to arrive on the desk one year to the day on that desk of the buyer 1631 You need to make sure that you have a way to to monitor this measure this track this keep track of all these kinds of things. But I can tell you that if you're a buyer, and you buy A new phone or a new car, or even go to a hotel, they'll orient you from the room to the car to the phone. But in banking many times, what we do is we leave the buyer alone thinking that we don't want to bother them. In fact, what the buyer is thinking is now what do I do? Think about team boarding? What about value? How can I continue to provide ongoing value to these people? Well, one thing one bank does that I know is something called Three before eight, three things to arrive at the inbox of people before 8am.So they're right at the top of the list, this could be a lead, a podcast feed, an article that somebody found on LinkedIn, or white paper, a video message, it could be anything. And it could be gone to two prospects and a client today, three clients tomorrow to CEOs and a prospect on Wednesday, it's all over the place, but they're all different. They're all different. And you've got lots of opportunities here. But three before is incredibly powerful. 

Now there's a couple of secrets to this. First of all, the CRM is your friend, put what you sent into the record of the buyer. So that six months from now, if you're going to send another something, you know what you said previously? Number two, there's plenty of great content on vertical IQ, as well as rel Pro and others. Let's do some math here. Let's say you did three touches a day, you work 240 days a year. That's 720 annual touches. The bank that I'm talking about has 20 bankers that's 14,400 value touches on an annual basis. And all by the way, they don't pick up the phone right afterwards and say, Do you want to buy something from me? What they do is let it go. And they're getting tons of business, lots of referrals, because they're doing the right thing from a selfless and a trust based selling perspective. Oh, I know what you're thinking. We're very busy. I don't have time to do three a day. What about one? What if you didn't want a day and you weren't consistent with it, and you found your clients find value in it. 

That's what you need to think about? Well, as we wrap this up this jack rants without Brynn I wanted to share with you just a couple of other things that some banks are doing very, very creatively out in Groton, Connecticut, the home of the submarine or the electric boat, as they call it out there, there is a bank called Chelsea Groton bank, they have done a phenomenal job by migrating their bankers over into educational centers. So they have 14 branches. And this is what some of them might look like. I don't know if all of them have transitioned, but they're going to transition all of them. 

My friend Laurie Dufficy, out at Chelsea Grant, would no doubt be happy to talk to you about what they've done. And how they've done it. You notice that it's a branch where people can go and open new accounts. then there's a back room, their knowledge centers, and they launched this in 2014. They have about 300 classes a day. They do book clubs, Chelsea University for students, they do marketing seminars for business owners, and they do caregiving seminars for aging parents. This is the essence of community banks. This is what makes community banks stand out versus larger banks. This is what makes a 14 branch organization really stand out in their community. It's powerful. Well, what if I'm not that big? What if I'm smaller? Well, here's the agility bank. 

My friend Lauren Sparks started agility bank just a couple of years ago, it's a 60% Women owned bank. They have about $100 million in assets now. And what they've done is two very interesting things. They develop thanks to Lauren's leadership, something called generational dream teams. They pair a young Baker with a veteran banker, and they work together as mentor and mentee. And what Lauren would tell you is that the older bankers are actually learning a lot more from the younger bankers than vice versa. But that's working out really well. They also have put together and are continuing to do this, something called Agility achievement, which educates women entrepreneurs. And this is an incredibly powerful, powerful process. For women. It's a women owned bank, and they focus on women entrepreneurs, they do a lot with technology. And I'm sure Lauren sparks would be happy to talk to you about that. 

And then there's my friend Neil Stevens, I believe they have about seven branches at Oconee. State Bank, about a $700 million bank and what Neil has done there and Neil's kind of in the sportcoat sitting on the couch He has put together in one of his branches wasn't terribly costly. The remarkable bank studio because they are a remarkable bank, and they bring in prospects, they do a podcast every week they bring in prospects as guests. How honored would you be if a bank president said, Hey, I'd love to have you, have you come and talk about your business so that we can share that with the community? How powerful is that? Neal Stevens is very open, I'm sure talking to you about that. He's the president, CEO of Oconee. State Bank down in Georgia. 

Well, last couple of slides, you know, people know that I am a very active reader and I get calls all the time about some books that you should be reading. Here are three that I think are absolutely at the top of my list for 2023. The first one is in the middle, the unsold mindset Colin Coggins, and Garrett Brown wrote this amazing book, and it came out around February and I've interviewed them and they're wonderful guys. And the message is all very selfless and all trust based, and that's critical. In the summer, I met a guy named Phil Simon who wrote a book. And one of his books is called the nine. The Nine is an outstanding book. And it has to do with tectonic changes and forces shaping the workplace. He talks about fractional employment, talks about work from home. There's a lot of different things that Phil goes into that I think you should know. And the most recent book is from Allison Netzer, Allison in 2020. 

True, wrote a book called Think Like a Brand, not a bank was a very, very successful best seller. And this is her newest one a year of thinking differently. 51 chapters, all very unique, all with a terrific message. So those are three books. Oh, wait. There's one more. One of the guests that I've had on Jack rants with modern bankers. One of my favorite guests is Tom Morris. Tom is an American philosopher, introduced to me by my good friend, Ned Miller. And Tom has written 30 best selling books, he's just come out with a silver anniversary of this amazing book, The Art of achievement, the seven C's of success in business of life. I've read his book before. The seven seas are phenomenal. And I've just ordered this book today as I record this, so that I can get it and start to read it. So those are a couple of things. 

Now let's wrap this up, I want to give you a couple of other things. Number one, every Wednesday I interview a guest on Jack rants with modern bankers, it's on Wednesday at noon, Eastern Time, they're all recorded. On Thursday, I typically do a live show with Brynn Tillman Jack rants with Brynn those are in podcast form now. They're on Apple, podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Google Play, and I'm a YouTube sensation. I'm on YouTube now. So go sign up for the YouTube channel. And all of those things are very, very important. So those are a couple of things that I wanted you to know. value that you spent some time with me today. I miss Bryn, but this was kind of fun. You want to get a hold of me. I'm on LinkedIn all the time. It's LinkedIn that slash Jack rants. So you can find me there or just go to LinkedIn Jack Hubbard, I'll certainly reach back out to you and connect with you if you want. My email is [email protected] and I'm at 847-903-4152 happy to talk to you about any of these very important challenges and opportunities as we head into 2024. Thanks so much for being with me today on this old banker Jack Rants without Brynne and next week, we'll do it all again live. And again, thank you for this opportunity to share these ideas and we appreciate your time

Bob Woods  44:09

We are thrilled that you have joined us for Jack Rants with Brynne. We are here live on LinkedIn every Thursday at noon Eastern time. We'd like to thank our amazing sponsors, RelPro and Vertical IQ. Two vital platforms that all modern bankers should be leveraging to start more trust based conversations without being salesy. If you found value in today's program, please subscribe, review, like, comment and share with your peers. And lastly, be sure to sign up for a free public library at themodernbanker.com/publiclibrary. Again, that's themodernbanker.com/publiclibrary. Here's to your continued growth.