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Approaching Community Banking Through First Principles · Leaders in Lending

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You are listening to Leaders in Lending from Upstart, a podcast dedicated to helping
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consumer lenders grow their programs and improve their product offerings. Each week, here,
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decision makers in the finance industry offer insights into the future of the lending
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industry, best practices around digital transformation, and more. Let's get into the
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show. Welcome to Leaders in Lending. I'm your host, Jeff Keltner.
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This week's episode features my conversation with Daryl Kaffey, SVP of Retail at Webster
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five. I think it's really interesting conversation. We delve into his different approach
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to management, coming from a JD background versus a more traditional finance or business
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background, how he thinks that leads him to approach things differently. We talked
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about what he calls a shift to a larger lender mentality within the context of
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a smaller bank, how you can execute that strategy both at a people and
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a technology level, and what that really means to think and act like a
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larger lender, maybe one a little bit more resource We talked a lot about
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how you make smart decisions, how you think about balancing expertise and history and
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knowledge internally with data and insight that might be coming from data and build the
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infrastructure to enable sound databased decisions. He's got a fun story for the best
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career advice. So this was a really fun conversation. I hope you enjoy
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it as much as I did. This is my conversation with Daryl Caffey.
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Daryl, welcome to the podcast, and thanks for making the time to join
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us today. Yeah, thank you, Jeff, really appreciate the invite.
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Looking forward to it. Yeah. I like to start all my interviews off
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with the kind of question about like, talk to me about the your history
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and how you got to wear your acts. I feel like everybody has their
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own winding paths, usually not a straight line to the banking industry and then
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in the lending space. So talk to me a little bit about how you
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got here. Yeah, sure thing. Well, you know, it's funny.
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I graduated law school in twenty twelve, which at the time was in
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the midst of a recession. So I remember getting out of school looking for
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law jobs, and what was so tough was at that time most of the
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law jobs out there were no longer for people waiting for bar results. They
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wanted people who had already passed the bare so I had a whole time landing
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an internship, got a few offers, but nothing that was really that attractive,
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and I ended up spreading out my job search, so I started looking
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at the medical profession, the banking profession, really industries that at that time
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are doing fairly well. So I figured I kind of dipped my toe in
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both. Oddly enough, I got two job offers, probably a week or
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two after I really started looking outside of just the legal space, one in
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insurance sales and the other one at a slightly discounted salary to get into a
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post closing at a bank that specialized in mortgages. So I weighed the two
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options, and I'm thinking, you know, I see some of the insurance
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sales guys, and a lot of them that are really happy and excited.
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There's a lot of them that looked pretty sad. I looked at the bankers,
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and I kind of decided that it was probably a better choice up front
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to get into banking, especially because I thought there were more legal opportunities down
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the road. And that's where I started. You know, I got that
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opportunity as a post closer and the mortgage business, and I was happy to
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get my start there. That's fascinating. I love the description of looking at
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the people. I remember my dad said he was choosing business schools and he
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looked at an East Coast school and everybody's in like coast suits and ties.
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Looked at the West Coast school, every reason shorts and polos, and went
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that one looks good. I like doing. Those people look happy over there.
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We're gonna do that. Yeah, Well, you know what's funny about
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that. As I navigated my career, I started getting doing a little bit
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of legal work, doing a little bit of banking work, and which you
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really start to notice is at a higher level the bankers didn't have a lot
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of fun. A lot of the attorneys man the older they get, and
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as they kind of navigated those early years in the profession, I saw the
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look on those phaces too, And that's why I'm still in banking. You
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could say I always look at one of these things, right, I talked
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to people. I won't comment on legal or banking professions specifically, but Kassa,
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would you want your kids to do what you do? You ask a
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doctor, he asked a lawyer, you ask a banker, and the people
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who say no, you go, that's probably a that's a pretty sure sign
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that it's not a great spot to be the people. Yeah, I love
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for my kids to do this. You Okay, it's probably pretty good.
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They're pretty happy. They liked the life they got surprising where people got a
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good wind and look at it. You know, I wouldn't want my kids
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to go into what I'm doing. Oh, I mean, these deals have
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all changed. It's not like they made necessarily decisions, but they turned out
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different. How do you mean the JD path in is really interesting that maybe
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the more typical path into banking is the NBA Finance accounting degree kind of area.
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How do you think you approach the space differently coming from a you know
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the background of having a law degree and a legal kind of mind and approach
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versus what you see for a more traditional like you know, MBA's in the
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banking space. Yeah, that's a really good question. You know what's interesting
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is, you know, I'll focus on just my own background for a moment
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here. Having a j D has given me perspective of really all all sides,
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all angles, you know, So a lot of times when I'm faced
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with an issue, I have a pretty easy view of both the pros and
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cons of either side of the argument. So when you get into like a
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loan level discussion, whether it's an underwriter debating something over an issue with a
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loan officer, I tend to immediately have that other person's perspective in mind.
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And I found that for not only decision making, but for staff development and
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training purposes. It's really been useful for me to just understand both the perspective
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against someone's opinion, the perspective for someone's opinion, and then ultimately try to
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make a decision that makes the most sense for both parties. From my experience
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in banking, and to your point, a lot of people who have the
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MORGE over that NBA background, they tend to probably make really sound business decisions
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in a vacuum. And I say that obviously no slide on anyone with the
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NBA, but the mentality tends to be this is the right business decision.
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We're doing this, and we're doing this right now, and sometimes that has
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a detrimental impact on staff, on decision making and perspective. So I personally
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thought that I had a different approach, an approach that sometimes still frustrates people.
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Right because the last thing someone wants to hear when they bring an issue
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to me is the other side of the argument. But ultimately, I really
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like how it's helps me kind of make decisions and kind of guide my path
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I like that. That's really interesting. I do think this. You know,
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one of the underappreciated skills is the ability to really see the perspective of
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the others. So so many of us are wose are listening with the intent
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to respond with versus listening with the intent to understand. So you're kind of
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just already gone. I hear what you're saying, but all I'm doing is
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calculating, like how do I I commence to You're wrong? You should think
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what I think in my head is supposed to going. Let me really understand
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where you're coming from, really get the full you know, by you know,
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for a minute, buy and mentally that argument and see and then like
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understandable. Bit. It's a it's a really interesting comment. I think it's
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a it's an underappreciated skill I think in the business world. Yeah, I
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couldn't agree more. Now. One of the things we talked about when you
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and I chatted earlier was this kind of like you described it as being in
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a smaller bank but shifting to a larger lender mentality, and I thought it
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was a really interesting phase. I wrote it down in my note. So
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tell me what does it mean to you to shift to a larger lender mentality,
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bigger lender. I think it's what you actually said, But you know,
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what does that What do you mean when you think that or say that.
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Yeah, it's a really good or at least interesting topic. When you
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look at how banking is usually done across community banks, it's usually the same.
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You know, a heavy instas song commercial lending. Sumer lending typically gets
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a little less infrastructure, less technology investments. Into a point when you really
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want to compete at a larger scale, you can't afford to do that.
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So when you look at some of the bigger players, you know, the
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quick ends of the world, those different types of organizations, the reality is
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their technology is built so strong, it's built internal and they can easily pivot.
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So for a community bank, if you want to really attract the client
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of the future, which sadly is really the client of today now, you
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have to be at the forefront of technology that also bleeds to recruiting. You
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know, if you want to bring on new loan o virginators, especially from
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either millennial generation of gen Z, their perspective is going to be, hey,
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we've got to leave with technology and service and let that kind of carry
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the way too long. I think a lot of community banks have sat down,
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looked at their balance sheet, realize that the majority of their client basis
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some of the older generations, and then just focused on them because the reality
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is, if I look at the deposit of the bank, I bet they
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hold the majority of them. But when you've got to start to think through
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is well, how do I get to those future deposits, those future relationships,
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Especially as our business becomes so transactional, you really have to have the
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technolog oology and the ability to pivot that you oftentimes see with large institutions that
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may have a whole staff dedicated to technology. Not when I think of large
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banks, the ability to pivot is not the first phrase that comes to us,
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at least for a large five. Maybe some the large fintet lender is
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the more the quickens of the rockets, but most banks, I don't think
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it would be how do you think about building the ability to do. That
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means that a technical infrastructure is that a team approach is at a management style,
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this kind of ability to iterate, to change, to adapt to changing
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circumstances. Where do you think that comes from? And how does one go
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about building that capacity within an organization? Yeah, you know, I think
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it's almost a layered approach. Always starts with the people, you know,
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don't. I'm a big believer that no matter what you're trying to do,
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the biggest variable that leads to either success or any kind of unpredictable outcome tends
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to be the individuals working on it. So at a high level in any
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organization, the mindset has to be we want to see this business line grow.
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We want to leverage the most or the best or whatever intertwine mixed between
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a technology possible. And that's usually the foundation, Right, we actually want
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to do this, and we want to do this this way. We want
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to be innovative. I think a lot of people check off that box because
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innovation is such a buzzword now that everyone kind of thinks. With that,
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the next step becomes, all right, let's actually get the technology, at
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least try to get the technology that allows for that innovation that's usually when most
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people get hit with reality for the first time. So I mentioned those big
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banks ability to pivot. The reality is they just have the ability to fund
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the opportunity should they arise, right, and when you look at a smaller
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organization, that really becomes that first chile. Of course we want to innovate.
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Well, what happens when we see what the bottom line of innovation looks
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like? Can we actually do it? So then you try to have that
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technology, you try to get it, and let's just say for whatever example,
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that it ultimately works out and you're able to get that technology. That
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last piece of the milestone goes back to the people again, right, not
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only people who implement that technology, but having to buy in an organization level
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to really really run with it and start to integrate it into what you do
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as a bank. So to me begins with the people. Then the next
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chund is actually getting that technology. And then that third piece is actually making
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sure the technology is working to its full capabuilding and then with it is work
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and then you still have the support of people to kind of take it to
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the next level, because the last thing you want to do is just get
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technology. Say you're done and assume it'll just all work out. It doesn't
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always work that way, never works that way in my experience, battle plan
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ever survives first contact with it. I want to say customer, not intimate,
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but that you know, like the deployment never goes the way you think.
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I'm curious how you build the culture or incentives around that particular piece that
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kind of like it goes out the door. We got it done, great,
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now we're lying to go. It didn't quite work the way we thought.
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You know, many places that's like, okay, Darrel, you had
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this project and it failed, like black Mark in the book next to you
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in the HR system, it didn't work out, and other organizations go,
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hey, it was a good idea. It's still a good idea. We
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gotta like, we gotta iterate, like kudos to you for getting it out
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the door, and now here's your chance to go and iterate and get it
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to a successful place, which often takes a little bit of like, you
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know, the market didn't react quite the way we thought, so we'll do
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this, and the customers had these issues, and we're going to do that,
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and you kind of iterate your way to it. How do you think
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about building a culture that's supportive of that kind of iteration, because I think
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so, I think it's really hard to do that, right, the incentives,
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this history of the organization to run the other way. Yeah. Well,
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you know what's interesting. I'm a big believer in creativity and the power
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that it comes with, and to a degree, a lot of people tend
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to separate business from that creative thought process. Now, so a lot of
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times when I'm working in technology, one of the most important things I try
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to instill and at least the project team, is that we have to be
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as creative as possible. We've got to assume that this technology should let us
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do anything that we can imagine it can do, and then let the technology
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ultimately tell us it can right. So, to me, step one is
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really kind of building that mentality of we can do anything. I feel like
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I'm like in front of an elementary school class, but really that's the thought
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process. We can do anything, the technology can do anything. And when
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you have that mentality, sure you're gonna hit roadbumps, you always do.
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But if your baseline is telling you, hey, we can overcome this roadblock,
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and this vision I have long term can be achieved. I think you
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can kind of fight through some of that initial backlash that comes with any failure.
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So I'm a big believer in kind of emphasizing creativity, making sure the
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team knows, let's have a vision for what we want to do. What
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I'm not a big proponent of is being placed in confines up front. So
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I worked on products in the past where no day one, they say,
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you know what, we're going to limit who gets to see the back end
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functionality on day one. To me, when you make those decisions, while
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oftentimes the safer decision, it prevents you from reaping the benefits of that one
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person's bright idea that just needed to know something could have been a possibility.
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So to me, kind of going back to your question all about creativity,
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I'm making sure that management knows up front how important that is. I mean,
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the staff is actually executing knows how important that is. And then once
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you launch, everyone in between is going to think the same way. If
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you do not like something, or think something is working in a way that
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feels less efficient, it's a good chance we're just not leveraging the technology the
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right way. Bring up those topics, let's have those conversations and see what
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we discover from it. A lot of times you discuss or that it's a
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problem that can be easily solved, and maybe it can be harder to solve,
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but even in those cases you can start to build that roadmap to solve.
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It's such a great point and I always reminded that so often people who
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aren't as deep in the technology can have this intuition about which problems are hard
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or easy for technology to solve, and they're often completely backwards. They'll go,
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we probably that's probably really hard, and the tech guys go, that's
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actually very easy. We can do that, no problem. And sometimes it's
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the opposite. We go, this seems like it should be a really easy
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fixed in text. I guess, yeah, I know it does. But
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it's but that the ability to bring it up and the willingness to engage in
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that discussion can be so critical because sometimes you go, hey, it would
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really be awesome if just this, but I'm sure it's like too hard to
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do, and you not even difficult, like we'll do it this afternoon,
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and that that's far. It can be really interesting and powerful. Yeah it's
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not easy, and you know, buying into two sharing ideas seems simple,
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but I actually think it's always been one of the most challenging things. I
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think there's always that inclination that, hey, my idea is and good people
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are going to think I'm not smarter, I don't have ideas, so people
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tend to hold back. So I'm really trying to fool that out of people.
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Sometimes there's always a challenge, But yeah, I'm a big believer that
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you've got to try to there any particular technique plactics you used to pull out
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those creative ideas pull people's get them, you know, into more of what
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a comfort zones the wrong way, but getting them more comfortable to share that
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the crazy Because you're right, we all have the like self critical guy in
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the back of our head on, I don't say that they're gonna laugh at
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you. I have the same thing with questions. Don't ask that question.
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I could think you're idiot and I go, uh, you know, so
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you don't like ask the question that you don't understand something because you just don't
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want to look like you didn't know. I think the same is true and
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creativity. Don't want to you get that same same voice your head go on,
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I don't know man, I don't don't ask that when don't say that?
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When I said, maybe, how do you get people out of that?
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What's your like just tactically, how do you how do you like in
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a meeting or in a conversation, like, how do you get people out
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of that? Zune? Yeah, we do a big picture. I'm a
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believer and I tend to say this a lot to my team. If you've
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been doing something for two years, probably outdating right, so to a point,
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I tend to try to drive home that concept of what are we doing.
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Let's not assume that because the person who trained the person who trained me
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did it this way, it's the best way. There's a high likelihood that
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that was a task or a product that lacked innovation throughout that time period.
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So really being critical of what you're doing, asking yourself if you really envisioned
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how you would do it, And honestly, Jeff, it's all conversation,
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you know. I was talking to one of my team members a few weeks
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ago, maybe a month ago, and we were talking about innovation and the
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biggest challenge that I tended to actually with innovation or creativity, however you want
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to do it is experience and knowledge. Right, You know, if you
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could somehow just suspend what you know about this topic, banking, mortgage,
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lending, whatever it's going to be for a moment, then just ask yourself,
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how would you do it? My guess is you would probably do it
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differently than it's being done today. I think the same thing could be said
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for just about anyone. If I pulled someone off the street, be it
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a doctor or a teacher, whomever, and said, hey, let's close
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a mortage today, how do you want to do it? The chance of
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them drawing a set up death that issues this closures and a processor and then
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an underwriter like, there's no way they're going to draw that as that process,
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So to a point, you almost got to suspend the knowledge that you've
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carried the things that lead you to think you're gonna ask a stupid question.
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Hey, I've been around long enough to know you don't say stuff like this.
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Well, what if you weren't around that long? Would you have just
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said it? Then? So, to a point, suspend the knowledge,
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try to get away from what we feel as our comfort zone or our specialty,
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and then just start looking at things with a fresh set of eyes and
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saying, hey, how would I do this? Is it necessary that two
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people are working in tandem like this? Does this really require this mix of
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operations and sales? And honestly, Jeff, most of the time the answer
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is yes. But once in a blue moon you tend to come up with
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a no, and then you really start to kind of peel back the layers
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of that onion and you can find some really really special things, very cool.
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You talked a lot in your enablement section about like technology, like you
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know, people, and then your second kind of layer was like getting the
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right technology. And I think if there's anything I hear from smaller institutions about
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competing, it's like, why don't have the technology, but I can't hire
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the people I don't have the money. And so that's kind of like,
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how do I either build or buy or partner to get the right set of
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technologies and figure out whether I should build it in a house, whether I
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should partner, which is the right partner? That becomes critical. How do
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you think about the challenge of finding and deploying the right technology, because that
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feels like where people feel like they're really at a disadvantage versus the big guys
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who have like, Yeah, you look at the City Bank Technology Bunch or
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whatever. It looks like Google's revenue or something ridiculous, Like it's just this
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huge number, and you go, how do I possibly compete with that?
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So I'm curious how you think about, you know, winning in technology without
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having the resource of you know, one of the larger banks. Yeah,
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it's difficult, you know. I will say. The starting point is always
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the money, right, like, how am I going to fund this project?
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How am I going to make it make sense from a complete ROI standpoint?
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But if you can suspend that for a moment, Step one to me
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is always just knowing what's out there. You know. I've always looked back
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at this one task I was given a long time ago, where you know,
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one of my managers pulled me aside and said, hey, look at
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this cool CRM project or tool. I need to figure out who has this
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tool available. And I'll tell you, Jeff, I must have went back
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to my desk and spent weeks just scouring through the internet, articles, blogs,
18:11
everything I can to find this one particular tool. Then I ended up
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finding it, and the craziest thing happened. I want to say, you
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know, probably a month prior to me actually starting to do this search,
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I ended up getting one of these normal you know, banking tech magazine sent
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to me. And you know how it goes. You get all these magazines
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all the time, you flipped through them, you look for interesting articles,
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you cast at the side. I flipped the thing over and on one of
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the last pages was an ad from the company. Right. So I'm sitting
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here and thinking like I've been searching for this company for weeks now, and
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the whole time I had a magazine on my desk with an ad from the
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company in the magazine. So you know the point of the story, it's
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really not know on what's out there, right, So whether it's going to
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trade shows, reading the magazines, reading books, watching podcasts, whatever you
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do, you've got to consume as much information about the business as possible because
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you start to get a picture for what's out there, what's being worked on,
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and what the future looks like. So the baseline has to be I've
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got to know what's out there. Once you know what's out there, then
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you can start to devise a plan that allows you to achieve those technology goals.
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For us here, one of the things that I did at the advice
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of the salesperson I met throughout my journey, was actually to focus on tools
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that helped our sales team build business. First. Typically in lending, Yeah,
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typically in lending, people focus on the loan origination system. You know,
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what am I going to do to process my loans in the most efficient
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manner? And honestly, it makes all the sense in the world, right
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because you've got to close loan as you want to do it the best way
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possible and as compliant as possible. What I found was that by focusing on
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technology that helped my sales team, I not only attracted salespeople that felt like
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they needed that technology, but we began to actually generate the business we needed
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to pay for the more expensive back end technology. So we took a lead
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that focused heavily on you know, CRM, on pricing, on POS gave
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those to my sales team. That way, they had those resources out there
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to really kind of make their job more efficient. A lot of things that
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we done in the back end was manual, so it was a little harder
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and we most certainly didn't have the best integration with those systems. It's a
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lot of exploiting spreadsheets and importing data. But the reality is we be allowed
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that to give us the propellers we needed to kind of grow and it worked
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out really well for us here. I love that for two reasons. I
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mean, in my mind, two lessons I've learned about technology plants. One
20:29
being add value quickly how you like, you know, not let the big
20:33
project in the way of delivering something that's kind of higue that you can take
20:34
advantage of. And secondly, kind of not letting the perfect stand in the
20:37
way of the possible. They kind of like we gotta do a little manual
20:41
for now. We know that's like that's not where we want to be,
20:44
but it gets us to that value more quickly and then shows us we can
20:48
build the case much where like, hey, we got we get this amount
20:49
of value to this if we just do this extra piece, here's what we
20:52
can do, and we can actually get to that better place more easily and
20:56
build support for it over time. I find that those like getting to value
20:59
quickly and doing some things maybe that aren't the right final solution, but that
21:00
gets you there faster can be really powerful tools and kind of building internal support
21:07
and getting projects out the door, and you know, actually providing value of
21:11
the organization, and you learn a lot. You know, I hate to
21:14
say it, but you know, I go back to the things I learned,
21:17
you know, when I first started this business, Like that's how I
21:18
learned to navigate different POS systems, LOS systems. You know, some of
21:22
the manual calculations. You don't love doing it, but you still have to
21:26
know how it works. And then there's also just a general kind of baseline
21:29
of how technology interacts with data that you start to appreciate when you have to
21:32
look at the Excel spreadsheet and pulled it into the system and then you don't
21:34
see the fields map and appropriately you most certainly get an appreciation from middleware.
21:38
But the understanding that I was able to allow me to develop, I think
21:42
is carried with me a long way throughout my career. Fascinating. I agree.
21:47
I want to ask you maybe one more area, which is how do
21:49
you think about decision make You kind of talked about not letting your knowledge of
21:53
the space get in the way of being creative or thinking kind of with fresh
21:56
eyes, But how do you think about like the value of experts in history
22:00
versus data in making decisions about what to invest in or how to move forward
22:04
the project because it feels like those can be you know, whether we're reliance
22:07
some intuition or some history or some data. And how do we actually get
22:11
the right data in structure and how do you think about, you know,
22:12
leveraging those two kind of different assets, disparate assets when you're making decisions.
22:17
Yeah, you know, I'm a huge data guy. You know, I'm
22:19
a huge data nerd. There's no other way to tell it, you know,
22:23
I tell people one of the you know, I had someone asked me
22:26
once before how I have gotten to the point where I am with consuming data?
22:30
And the reality is like, I don't have I'm a big sports phantom,
22:34
and I don't have time to watch every game, but I read every
22:37
game's box score every single night, and I probably have since I was a
22:41
little kid. So, you know, sadly, I consume so much data
22:45
that looking at data for work is almost like a byproduct of what I do
22:49
for fun in my free time. So to answer your question, I'm huge
22:52
into the data analytics. I think it usually helps guide decisions and truth be
22:56
told. When I first got into the job i'm in now, the very
23:00
first thing I focused on was building the right data driven tools to allow me
23:04
to make data driven decisions. And then the next mix I layer onto that
23:08
always becomes the people. So to go to your question there, I usually
23:12
leave with the data and then rely on my knowledge afterwards and the knowledge of
23:18
others afterwards. And that's obviously no slight on that knowledge. But the data
23:22
should tell you the answer. What people tell you is how it actually plays
23:26
out, right, you know. So it's one of those funny things where
23:30
you obviously have to have an appreciation for history because the data can tell you
23:33
anything at once, but the reality is someone who's lived it and seen it
23:37
is going to be able to tell you how these things play out no matter
23:41
what that data may imply. So for me, I leave with data,
23:44
then immediately go to the people. Go to the people with knowledge, get
23:47
their input from what they've seen throughout their careers, and allow that to kind
23:49
of guide me to that decision point. Interesting, how do you think about
23:53
having you know that you talk about then big data. Guess, so there's
23:56
two things you said that I really want to understood it thinking about the box
24:00
score examples that you're kind of finding a way to summarize the day there's like
24:03
watching the game. There's a lot of data that you miss if you look
24:07
at the box score. But you're watching the game, but you've got the
24:08
like the thing you wanted, which like the score, is the basic the
24:11
basic comings and goings. Right, you didn't see like who swing looked good
24:15
and who looked tired and which picture was thrown, which you don't get at
24:18
all. Right, you'll lose some nuance, but you get you can consume
24:21
way more information, Like you can actually look the box scores for dozens of
24:23
games. Without you could never watch dozens of games in a day, but
24:26
you can might pull up the paper. Are there similar things you do for
24:30
industry news or internal news where you're saying, how do I go from the
24:33
big set of possible data to the summary review that gives me what I need
24:36
to see quickly, so I can have a larger scope of the kinds of
24:40
data that I'm looking at, because that's the value, right as all of
24:41
sudden, you're you're looking at a much broader field than you would if you
24:45
were looking at a much more detailed look. Yep, I agree with you,
24:48
you know, from from my perspective. One of the things that I
24:51
think is really important is anything that could be automated to me. I have
24:55
to get automated to me. So there's obviously articles and news blurbs or you
24:59
know blogs I'm sorry that you just sign up for and they just show up
25:03
in your inbox first thing in the morning. To me, that's usually my
25:04
starting point because you know, going back to what you said, you do
25:07
have to kind of consume that high level information. So if I'm at least
25:11
tuned in to get delivered the most and hobviously goes across the whole board,
25:15
you know, whether it's a technology driven you know, article or magazine,
25:18
whether it's some of the regulatory blasts from the CSPBA, anything that I can
25:22
get automatically just sent to my inbox, I must have because to a point,
25:26
that again goes almost to the same thing I said about the technology.
25:29
It keys you in on what's going on around you. So I need those
25:32
keys to say, like, hey, this is what we're talking about over
25:33
here, because this is a hot button issue. And then once you start
25:37
digging into that top play you can say, okay, I know a little
25:40
bit about this, I know nothing about that. I need to go dig
25:41
more into that so to a point, I use it kind of clue me
25:45
in. So I'm huge on some of the automated blogs that come out,
25:49
anything that can just go on a regular you know, like I said,
25:52
the regulatory news blurbs that come out, and you know, we've got some
25:55
compliance intens that do the same thing. Love consuming all that information and then
25:59
obviously digging deeper anytime that I see something that I'm either completely in the dark
26:02
of or just don't know enough about, and I'll just use it to kind
26:04
of guide me. Got it. I love that. So I'm like,
26:07
I started signing up for newsletters and I tend to like sign up for a
26:11
bunch and then remove the ones that aren't Like there's like a winnowing. There's
26:14
a curating process for industry news or get a lot of AI news letters coming
26:18
to me now, and then I try and find the same thing I think
26:21
them say it would be the time spent on building the right dashboards with the
26:25
right data to make decisions internally that can kind of give the summary view on
26:29
the regular. Actually, this time really well spent. You can surface that
26:30
data. So I want to ask you on this too, how do you
26:33
think about investing in data infrastructure because I often hear from organizations, Yeah I
26:37
love to make database decisions, but like it takes six weeks or you know,
26:41
I call the analytics team like, oh, yeah we could, we
26:42
could pull that number four. You will take us, you know, five
26:45
days or seven days to pull it, and then you go out. I
26:48
can't. I can't have every question I asked pack seven days to get an
26:51
answer back from an analytics team because it's in four databases and wherever. So
26:55
are there approaches you have or insight you've got on how you like, get
26:57
the infrastructure available, have data ready to use in that decision making processes?
27:03
That seems like sometimes just getting to the answer to what seemed like simple questions
27:07
can be the the roadblock to using data effectively. You can't like I would
27:10
use the data, but I can't get the answer to my question, So
27:11
then I want to go on intuition instead. Yeah, you know, honestly,
27:15
it all depends on where you're at. So as tricky and there's a
27:18
big non answer for me personally, I looked at my circumstance on day one
27:23
and said, what data do I have available to me right now that I
27:26
can leverage and that goes for everyone in every situation. So whether you're a
27:30
small community bank that has an all likelihoods siloed data information or bigger institution that
27:36
likely has a centralized data team and warehouse, you've got to navigate your particular
27:41
situation. Going back to my experience, my first thing I wanted to do
27:45
is take what was available to me and then start to leverage it. And
27:48
you know, the first thing I learned, Jeff, people aren't putting the
27:51
data in the right fields right. So day one I build the reports,
27:55
I pull up and there's nothing right. So then what I ultimately realized is
27:59
I need to use those reports that we're supposed to have the data as a
28:02
tool to manage whether we're even inputting the data. So that required me to
28:06
start spending time with my staff saying, hey, you know we funded this
28:08
loan, why isn't the funding date here? And you start to kind of
28:11
work through these things where you start to let people know how important certain data
28:15
fields are. So it started with actually trying to make reports, realizing that
28:19
they weren't going to work because I was missing key data points. Then working
28:22
with the team to kind of make those data points the norm and then from
28:26
there you always have the long term goal. So short term consume what I
28:30
have available, make reports that can allow me to determine how is my team
28:34
moving and progressing, what is the best decision for the circumstance, And then
28:38
at an enterprise wide level, it's all got to speak to each other.
28:42
Right, So when you're at a small community bank, typically you find yourself
28:45
in a situation where it's a long term goal to have one centralized data repository
28:52
that's pulling in retail banking data, commercial lending data, residential lending and consumer
28:56
lending data, putting them all in one place, and then getting to make
29:00
those decisions that ultimately allow each business line to work at this optimal capacity.
29:04
The challenge that takes so long, right, not only does it take long,
29:08
but the biggest challenge that community banks typically faces. You know, you've
29:12
got finite resources, both financially and from an employee standpoint, You've got priorities
29:18
that obviously differ. Right, So as much as I want to go onto
29:19
that database on day one and have reports made from my team, I'm sure
29:22
the same way is felt by the retail banking team, and I'm sure the
29:26
commercial lending team feels the same way. So now you have to start weighing
29:29
like, okay, well, what's the market look like, what's driving revenue
29:32
across the organization? And honestly, you've got to prioritize what makes the most
29:36
sense and I get that. So to me a short term you've got to
29:38
take what you have and make sure it's working as well as possible, and
29:41
that requires you to spend some time making sure you're getting the right data.
29:44
You got to do it. And then long term, as an organization,
29:47
you've got to focus on getting it into one centralized place and then finding a
29:49
way to get that information out to the different business lines in the most efficient
29:53
manner where you can reap the gains from it. And just take it one
29:56
day at a time. It's easy to be intimidated day one and just turn
30:00
your back to data, but if you invest on day one, you will
30:03
reap those rewards just a matter of time. Well, Chinese setting right,
30:06
the best time to plan a trede was twenty years ago. On the second
30:08
best time, you gotta do it. Got I gotta start planning a tree
30:14
for hopefully not twenty years. In the data infrastructure or play but you know,
30:17
like some number of years down the road when you read the full benefits,
30:22
all right, now, that was that was fantastic advice. I think
30:25
that's the end of my my prepared questions. But I have three questions I
30:27
love to ask everybody at the end of these episodes, which I find are
30:32
really insightful. So if you're ready, here we go. Let's do it.
30:36
First question, what's the best career advice you've ever gotten? That is
30:38
a good question, and I am going to tell you the truth. You
30:41
know, I had an instance in my career early on where you know,
30:45
I had had gutten sick and ironically, I was talking to one of my
30:51
managers at the time and I didn't know what to do as far as how
30:52
I should be communicating it throughout the organization. And you know, he told
30:56
me something that was brutally honest that I really appreciate it. And he told
31:02
me, in a nutshell that while me and him cared a lot, I'd
31:06
find out that a lot of other people wouldn't really care. And as crazy
31:10
as that sounds from an advice standpoint, what it reminded me of was that
31:15
everyone's got things going on in their life and having an appreciation for the fact
31:18
that everyone's got things going on is really really important. How we handle those
31:23
things can ultimately define who we become and who we are. So what he
31:26
really taught me in that moment was who do you want to be? Control
31:30
what you can control in those moments, and the things that you can't control,
31:34
your best to not turn to those around you and try to have them
31:37
either understand you can't do it and boost up. Although you know, obviously
31:41
having a strong support system's really important, but the key is always saying,
31:45
hey, I've got this in front of me, this challenge, this obstacle
31:48
to overcome, and I'm going to go overcome it. And then once I'm
31:52
done overcoming it, then perhaps we can talk about those challenges that may have
31:56
gotten in my way. But don't let those challenges stop me from trying.
32:00
Interesting. That's a fascinating story. My second question is always what's the best
32:05
piece of advice about the banking industry? You've gotten the best piece about the
32:09
banking industry. You can make a little narrower consumer banking lending, but you
32:14
know, kind of like industry specific advice or perspective. Yeah, that's a
32:20
hard question. The best piece of advice I've done in the banking industry.
32:23
Yeah, you know, one of the things that someone told me that I've
32:29
kind of always kind of clung to was to stay close to the customer.
32:34
And what's interesting is it's usually said in the scale of you know, you're
32:39
a salesperson, right, and a lot of times people who work in sales
32:42
get scared that, well, if I work in sales, I don't want
32:45
to become a sales manager because I'm no longer working with the customers. Not
32:46
working with the customers, I'm no longer going to have the value I used
32:50
to have. That lodge makes all the sense in the world For someone like
32:52
me who's worked in operations. What it reminds me of is that what I
32:58
do, whether it was post closing on day one, or you know,
33:01
the processing or the underwriting, whatever else happens throughout the land process, it's
33:06
still all about the customer, right, Does the customer enjoy this experience?
33:09
Depending on you know what you can and can't control. Obviously, some underwriting
33:13
things you just have to do. I always try to ask myself, is
33:15
a customer gonna be happy with this? And if you lean with that customer
33:20
first mentality. I found through my experiences that you tend to find yourself on
33:23
the right side of history. So to me, it's all about the customer.
33:29
Try to stay close to them. If you can't stay close from pure
33:30
sales perspective, stay close from an experience perspective, and then things usually work
33:35
out that way. Stay close to the customer and put them in the middle
33:37
eight. I love that because it's it's so easy, particularly in a finance
33:42
business, to like get caught up in the numbers and forget the you know,
33:45
the individuals, the customer at the end of the get your approval rates
33:47
and your funding rates and your default rates, and you can just look like
33:52
a big spreadsheet and there's just there's people and customers at the end of it,
33:54
and they really do drive the business at the end of the day.
33:57
And understanding where they're coming from, the putting their needs first really powerful.
34:00
All Right, They're all one last question, the hardest of the bunch.
34:04
What's one bold prediction for the future. This is the if I bring you
34:07
back in a year, can we can? We can? We hold your
34:09
feet to to fire And if you've made a made a good call here or
34:12
not goodness gracious, this is the yeah, the good old crystal ball question.
34:17
I don't know, this is lose lose too. Like, Ultimately,
34:20
if I say a great prediction, don't do it myself, I'm going to
34:22
be the guy who decided not to pull the trigger on the great idea for
34:25
this way off. You know, with this business, I think we're we're
34:30
in a place now where consumer lending is very transactional. I think a lot
34:35
of people are looking at technology as being the driver in removing some of sales
34:42
from the process. So if I were to make one prediction from now,
34:45
it's going to be a lot of people are going to think technology will take
34:50
sales people out of morgage lending. I'll argue technology is going to end up
34:54
making sales people even more important to the sales process, because now we're going
34:58
to find ourselves in a place where services your differentiator. If someone were to
35:02
tell me that I've got technology that can take me from application of closing today,
35:08
Quicken's got the exact same thing. Well, now the only differentiator is
35:12
going to be the person that picks up the phone and just says, hey,
35:14
how are you doing so to me, I'm a big believer that is
35:16
technology grows, whether it's blockchain or whatever else, it makes the processing,
35:21
underwriting, closing process easier. If you decide to exclude salespeople from that process,
35:25
I feel you're gonna end up on the wrong side of history here.
35:29
I think they're going to and again I stole it from someone else, They're
35:31
going to be become what I call the champagne and the process the champagne the
35:37
champagne. You've got the same experience and two sides of the bucket. But
35:40
on one side there's going to be a person sitting there with their champagne,
35:44
cheering with someone else. On the other side, there's just gonna be someone
35:45
sitting down with nothing. Do you want to be doing the champagne toast or
35:49
the group with no champagne the champagne toast? I like it excellent that you
35:53
did good job of the bold prediction. Now you gotta keep yourself and the
35:57
sales seems gonna be happy. Don't know that you're not trying to make them
35:59
unemployed with atom everybody wins. Well, darl this is a fascinating conversation.
36:04
I appreciate your making the time to join us today and sharing your perspectives.
36:07
Thanks Jeff, really appreciate the opportunity. It was really fun. Upstart partners
36:12
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