Latest / Big Talk About Small Business / Ep. 69 - Banking for Success: Why Relationships Matter

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Ep. 69 - Banking for Success: Why Relationships Matter · Big Talk About Small Business

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey everybody, we are back again in the studio today with a very special guest, whom I will introduce momentarily.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: I'm also here with my partner, eric Howerton, and this is another episode of Big Talk About Small.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: Business.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: What do you think about that intro, Gary?
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: I love that.
• 0:30
  Speaker 3: I know all about small business.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: That's right you do.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: We've got Gary Head here with us today, who is the chairman and founder of Signature Bank of Arkansas.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: He's a good friend of mine.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: I've known Gary now basically since he started the bank 20 years.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: This should be about our 20-year anniversary.
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: Signature's at 20 years.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's awesome, man.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: Congrats.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: Thank you, it's a big deal.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: And Gary is well-known here in northwest Arkansas.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: For those of you who are outside of our area, he's like a rock star.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: No, he is, he's a movie star.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: We don't say rock star, forget that he had a face for radio.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: No, he's a movie star of our area.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: Everybody knows Gary Celebrity stars.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: He knows everybody else.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: Yes, it's been a big part of his success.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: I know Gary's big on relationships and I was thinking about that as I was driving up here this morning about how I mean Gary, you're going to get a chance to tell us some of your story.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: But I mean you worked with Sam Walton, jb Hunt, don Tyson.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: You had the greatest country singer alive, merle Haggard.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: Jb Hunt, don Tyson.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: You had the greatest country singer alive, merle Haggard as your client.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: That's legit.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: You got Eric as your client.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: Big talk about small business hosts Exactly.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: Greatest damn show on the internet.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: What do you think I mean?
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: Honestly?
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: What is the secret to how you've been able to make so many friendships?
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: I know that you got some good advice from our former athletic director years and years ago.
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: Well, I think probably it starts a little earlier than that.
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: I have to give a little credit there to my father.
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: My father was a real mail carrier and he drove around a lot.
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: He didn't have anybody to talk to.
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: So when he found someone to talk to, he got you.
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: And I remember when I was young, I got a little full of myself, as most of us always do, and I thought I was pretty special.
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: And he said let me just tell you something the worst drunk in this town can drink more than you.
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: That does not make you better than him.
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: You will treat everyone as with respect as far as their ability.
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: You don't have to condone it, you don't have to, but you, yes, don't get to judge what people are, and so I've spent my entire life trying to make sure I live up to that.
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: Fact is, everyone's got something they're good at, and some people have demons, you know, and so you try to drive around the people with demons and you deal with all the other people because, hey, you know, everybody has something to contribute.
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: You know some at higher levels than others, but it doesn't make the person that walks in tomorrow trying to start their business less important than a guy that's been very successful like you two guys.
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, thanks well, I remember a uh, you know I was when I knew you're coming on the show.
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: I can remember specifically in my mind when I was starting up one of my businesses back in the day.
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: I mean I had nothing, I was just grinding right and I, working with signature bank, and gary would come out and shake my hand as I was in the drop through trying to make a last minute deposit.
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: You know, come see us checks.
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: You wrote not exactly, but I mean but, but.
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: But that meant a lot to me.
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, right at that time is really encouraging.
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: I mean it still does, obviously, if you still shake my hand, yeah, and then drop through.
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: But I mean, but I mean like it's that that meant a world to me, you know, because I didn't.
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: I felt like that, hey man, I mean like it's that that meant a world to me, you know, because I didn't.
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: I felt like that, hey man, I mean I noticed and appreciated.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, His office was right off the lobby, Yep, and you would see people when you come in and then he would jump out and go talk to him, and you know it's.
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: I always like to tell the story, you know the one about where I was trying to get some information on a building for part of a business plan that I was doing and I had Bank of America, and let's just say it was a nightmare.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: There was no way I could get any info out of them.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: I couldn't get any sense of how much down payment I need for a commercial building without filling out an application for credit Okay which is absurd.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: I had seven figures in the bank of Bank of America at that time, without filling out an application for credit Okay, which is absurd.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: I had seven figures in the bank Bank of America at that time, and the building was $170,000.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: Just trying to do this business plan and two of my friends said call Gary Head.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: I called the guy.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: He's at Tyson's Condo in Cabo.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: He answers the phone and talks to me for 25, 30 minutes, gives me everything I need, and that was it.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: Most people are not that accessible.
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: How do you do that?
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: I mean honestly, you must get like a zillion phone calls and texts and emails.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: How do you manage all that?
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: My phone number is fairly well known, yeah, and you know I have.
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: I'm not very smart, so I have to take those calls because I can't remember if I just done so.
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: I try to handle every single thing as fast as I can because, you know, in business let's talk about business.
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: Small business, yes, is not small to the guy who's got that business, so we can define it.
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: If you want small business, if it's your business, it is the most important part of your day.
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: It's true.
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: When you have to make a decision as a business person, male or female, you need that information as quickly as possible.
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: Yes, so speed sometimes is better than you know.
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: Know, there are a lot of my competitors.
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: That take forever, I tell you.
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: And the truth is, is if I don't really like what you're showing me, I should say, hey, eric man, I'm never going to get comfortable with that, you know so.
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: So the way you're designing that is not going to be something I'm probably going to ever like.
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: So let's either talk about a different way to do it.
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: Or there's 30 banks in northwest Arkansas.
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: Somebody may like that, but most people appreciate the fact that you're just honest from the beginning.
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: But if it's really something you know.
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: I mean, like in your case, how many times have I said write the check and bring me the title?
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: You have done that and I appreciate that greatly.
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: It's like I know your business, I know you, I know your financials.
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: What you're asking me to do is right in the middle of where you're supposed to be, and if we have to have a board meeting to bless it later, we'll do that.
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: But having the guts to run a business is not an easy deal, and that goes for bankers and that goes for people in any other business.
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: So if you have a great relationship with your banker, your lawyer, your accountant, you're in a better shape than someone that doesn't know any of the three.
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: That's right, amen.
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: Those three are always going to be really important, sure, in any business that we're in, because how's it going to affect me from a tax standpoint?
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: Can I do it legally without getting in trouble?
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: Do I have infringements?
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: Do I have all kinds of things that go down the legal deal?
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: And then, is my banker going to support me when I get ready to go borrow some money to go down this path right?
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: And so speed is of the essence, I believe, and I think that's what we're the best at, to be honest with you.
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: I do think it's a huge differentiator for you.
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: It's accessibility, yeah, and speed, and you have passed that down through the organization.
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean you know, my son-in-law, will gladden, runs the bank of fable and he's you guys both dealt with will.
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: He's great guy answers his phone.
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, it's sense of urgency.
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: That and here's what you want to teach people and sense of urgency is the reason a lot of businesses are successful because they act quickly to fix if they have a problem.
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: Yep, and you know many people under you know, I know a lot of people that say you know, I'm never going to take a phone call.
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: My friend runs Arkansas business right Northeast Arkansas guy.
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: My old friends in Little Rock used to say don't you ever talk to those newspaper people because you know they're going to write something bad about you.
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: Well, they're going to write something bad about you.
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: Well, they're going to write whatever they want.
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: You should as well have friendships with them.
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: So at least they're going to go.
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: I'm mad at you and you know so.
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: So I call george walden back every time he calls me or answer his phone.
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: I know that's who it is and sometimes it's you know.
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: Hey, we've had a bad quarter.
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: I would rather tell it than him exactly, hey, yeah, what happened?
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: We got in the middle of a deal.
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: It didn't work and you know what?
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: We're going to keep plowing and I have an opportunity to say hey, you know what?
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: It is not the end of the world, but nobody likes to lose.
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: Occasionally you do.
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: It's like being a football coach around here right now, right, always, sometimes.
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: And when you do, what are you going to do about it, right?
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: Well, we go get some better players.
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: That's what we're going to do, and the ones we got have been pretty good at that.
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: And so you know, sometimes you just have to believe.
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: Yep, right, and that's a key integral part of any business person's mind is if you don't believe that, I'm not going to believe you.
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: Right, you have to believe in what you're selling, what you're making, what you're doing at the highest level.
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: Everybody else comes second right, and I know my business, I know what we do.
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: No one else can do it, and I know that.
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: And you say you know, that's the thing about your business.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: I've always been fascinated with mature industries where there's a zillion players and you know how many banks do we have in freaking northwest Arkansas, gary?
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: You personally know.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: I mean I get 30 different brands, different brand and 100 outlets, or more.
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: You didn't count the chase that just got here, and if you, I mean everybody wants to be here now everybody's here.
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: It's a highly regulated industry, right, you've got people don't understand there's a lot of guardrails around what you can and can't do.
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: You may want to do something, but if you can't justify that within the scheme of the the guardrails, then you can't do it.
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: And yet how you have differentiated yourself in this market and been able to come in and grow this bank, aside from the responsiveness and speed which I have always told my students, if they just do that, they're going to be more successful what else has allowed you to build this differentiated business in this mature industry?
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: Great teammates, okay.
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: Well, that starts with.
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: You know, no one person can do very much without running into problems, so you have to have a lot of people that can do similar skills and, as I mentioned, I'm not really good at a lot of things, but I'm really good at getting a lot of really smart people to work with me.
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: So we have people that have been with me.
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: I'm thinking you know, nightwise has worked with me his entire adult life, graduated from college working for me, never left, been been the president of our bank in springdale.
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: You know we have a great team of people.
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: Then we like each other.
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: We got one rule get along, or you get along and it we and it's always been.
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: And you know no business needs to have a better rule than that, because you know, I mean, if you can't come in here and and be a teammate, yeah, go somewhere else.
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: That's it you know.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: And so cynics and the critics, I got no use for them.
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: Well, life's too short to go to work, and have to fight.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: But what would you say to the quote outside management expert who would say oh Gary, you want everybody to toe the line.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: You can't tolerate any disagreement and discourse.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: I'll give you a great example.
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: What do you say to that, the FDIC?
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: When all the banks in the world were in trouble, they put us under an order.
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: They wrote most banks were under like 08, 09 somewhere, and so they required me to get a management um study of our team.
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: Well, I was a graduate of the best banking schools in the country and the very best person to do that happened to work for that company and I happened to know him.
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: So I used that company and the FDIC is going oh, how did you get them to do that?
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: Well, because he was a friend of mine, let's start down that road.
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: So he turns our bank upside down, as was his challenge and his responsibility, and he takes that very seriously.
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: So he does that.
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: We go to the exit interview.
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: I've got it somewhere.
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: And he said I've got to be honest with you.
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: I don't know why they asked me to come do this.
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: He said the only thing I can find is I think you're paying your security guy too much money, swear to God.
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: And I said to him well, my security guard doesn't just do security, he does this, he does that, he does this, he does this.
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: Stop, that's all I needed.
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: That's what the report said.
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: So I know how that feels to be scrutinized in a very demeaning way.
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: This lady at the FDIC told me I was the worst banker she ever met in her life, to my face, wow, yes, well, that made me better.
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: You know what I mean.
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: I should probably go find her and hug her neck, even though I probably won't, but her strength is, it made me work a lot harder to make sure that I could prove she was wrong.
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: That's right, and we had a lot of teammates that don't like losing, and I've never met anybody that is a good winner that likes losing right, so that means you'll work harder.
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: I get up earlier.
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: I'll stay up later.
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: I'll answer phone calls at nine o'clock at night, yes, you know.
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: But but think about this I I grew up in northwest arkansas with some of the greatest business people that have ever been on this planet, and you guys talked about a few, but you forget about Jim Lindsay, my gosh.
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: Jim Lindsay was my guy, he was my mentor, he was.
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: I tried to do everything he did because he was really good at it and he cared, you know, and he probably has as much to do mold in my life as anybody that I ever dealt with.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: He was a very disciplined guy, wasn't he?
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: He was really big on returning calls too dealt.
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: He was a very disciplined guy, wasn't he?
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: He was really big on returning calls too.
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: He.
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: I remember a time or two I'd go by his office and he drove a, a wagoneer, paneled wagoneer, and I, if that was there, he was there, so I'd stop.
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: If it wasn't there, it didn't stop.
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: So and I've known every secretary he ever had in his life, so I'd walk in no appointment, just look in there and he's.
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: He didn't ever have a desk, he had a couch and he had a phone.
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: And I knew jim lindsey before cell phones because I gave him his first like right back.
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: So so I'd peek in there and he'd either go come on in he never quit talking, or he, or he'd just do that and I knew it was go on, he's doing something.
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: He didn't need me in the middle of.
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so I would go in and sit down and he and karen at the time was his secretary these were the old days where you had pink notes and you had that spike.
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: You'd stick them on that spike.
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: That spike would be that high.
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: This would be 8 o'clock at night and I would go and sit down and he says I return every single phone call on this before I go home.
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I was a Sam Walton, real too.
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but look at that, jim Lindsey did not learn that from sam walton.
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: He had that innate, I believe.
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: And so he said most of the time they don't even answer the phone because it's 8 30 at night and it maybe it's a business.
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: But when they say to me you didn't call me back, I can say, yes, I called you back, I call everybody back.
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: So I thought man jim lindsey calls everybody back.
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: Who in the world's gary head?
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: He better darn sure, call everybody back.
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: It's a sign of respect.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: It is, I think, and that's so fundamental in your relationships with people, which you have been a rock star or movie star in creating and maintaining.
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: What else do you think is the key to that, though?
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: Maintain, you know, because everybody goes.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: Relationships are great.
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: It's important to do this.
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: To that, though, maintain, you know, because everybody goes.
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: Relationships are great, well, but I think my biggest job today and 208 employees and 10 locations, um is to make sure that our culture stays the same.
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: You know, because you bring in all those people and you get somebody that doesn't get the culture and you can have a festering problem.
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: That is my fault if it happens, because I should have avoided it, right?
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: You know, I am blessed to have people that get it on the culture thing, and all of our commanders, and that's what I think they are.
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: They're running these markets.
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: They get it, man.
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: They know what our culture is.
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: They know, I think the other day in Jonesboro, you're all down they call us the alternative bank, and that's cool to me.
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: That's the coolest thing you've ever called me.
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, because you know what that means.
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: I'm not the normal old boy, we're just right.
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I am the alternative bank.
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: Well, you know, in Harrison, arkansas, the young lady that runs that bank, she started working in college at the lobby at Signature Bank and Fable, she's now president of the bank in her hometown.
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: Now you tell me what's cooler than that.
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: I don't know what's cooler than that Exactly.
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: You know, will Gladden was a teller behind that line in Fayetteville, arkansas.
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: He's president of that bank.
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: That's the kind of stories that everybody doesn't really understand.
• 16:56
  Speaker 3: You can't make someone be proud.
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they have to have that internally.
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: So if you find people that have done things that they should be proud of and put them in areas of responsibility, it's amazing what happens.
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: Yep, that's very true, and every business has those people that need to be turned loose to go hey, what can you do on your own?
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: You ran a business, you ran a business.
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: You can't run all that business.
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: Oh, no, well, no.
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: Not even get close to it.
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: I mean, he's got it.
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: You have to have that team.
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: I think that one thing you were talking about earlier about calling people back.
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: You know, I think that I've been guilty of this to where I start seeing it as more of a job or a responsibility versus continuing that passion of calling those to that humility, like you were talking about in the very beginning, from your dad.
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: Right, like you're really.
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: Like you're talking about the very beginning, from your dad, right, yeah, like you're you're really.
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: When you start slipping into this is a business and I have to do things for the business versus I'm really helping people be successful.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: I think it's critical and key in, with your 20 years at the bank and all you've done in your career, how do you maintain that type of vision like that to to stay connected with really the value that you're bringing.
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: Well, you have to like it.
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: When you don't, you should quit.
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the only way I can tell you is that I mean, I got a lot of friends I'm 64.
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: I got a lot of friends that are retiring.
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, because they're done with it.
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they don't love it, I love it.
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: They're like when are you going to retire?
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: I go when you read the obituary column you're gonna stay.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: I like I'm out carry me out on a stretcher baby, but until then, uh you know, one of my oldest friends turns 88 next tuesday.
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: Uh mort flusher he run, he he was chairman last of store capital, which was the largest real estate read in the united states turns 88 yesterday.
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: Call me to wish me happy holidays.
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: And he's an old jewish fellow that I became friends with 25 years ago and we've remained friends all these years.
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: I'm on the board of his uh flusher scholars and and and I enjoy calling him and I I mean so.
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: We've kept a relationship, had dinner with him two months ago in phoenix.
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: He lives in scottsdale and and you know, to me all of us need those people, that sort of check your math.
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know what I'm saying.
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: Make you sit up a little straighter, make you think a little differently, right, and you can't if they're politically opposite of you.
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: That makes them bad, mm-hmm.
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: That's the problem in the country today.
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: Yes, we all need you know it's not all.
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: Vanilla ice cream, yeah, there's chocolate strawberry, there's sprinkles.
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: Right, vanilla ice cream, there's chocolate strawberry, there's sprinkles.
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: Everybody brings something to the table.
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: It doesn't make me right and you wrong.
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: I might not agree with everything you say, but at the end of the day I'm proud to know you, because you know some stuff I don't know, and I wish everyone thought about that this morning.
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: I agree.
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: Because it is really, I'd be like like there is a level of energy in this room right now, as entrepreneurs, right, that we honestly have that a lot of folks can't get to.
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: But I think that when we're talking about folks trying to be entrepreneurs, they want to be entrepreneurs, they're thinking about the product and all these kind of strategic, tactical things that have to happen.
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: But there is something core in this room that's instinctual, that's emotional, that where you're talking about connecting with other people, improving yourself, learning from them, being mentored, mentoring others.
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: That's really special, I think, in our hearts, right, because I agree, we want to be loved, want to be loved, want to be loved, we want to love.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we want to be loved, exactly, you know, I think you're right about that, but not to change the subject again, but you are, but I will.
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: I was getting somewhere in this.
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: I'm needing counseling and you block.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: This is our normal, terrible, terrible.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: We have to counsel each other here.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: I want to go back to Signature Bank and it's sort of aligned with something that you said, gary.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: You have started this Banko C, yes, which is, I think, is a.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: It just was brilliant.
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: I mean, the moment you told me about that.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: I'm like there's an idea that's going to work.
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: And you know, tell us about this.
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: So Banco C is 100% Hispanic-run organizations in downtown Rogers and downtown Springdale.
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: My entire team are all Latino-Latina.
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: Thank you for not calling them Latinx.
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: They speak English better than I do.
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: I am on my 838th day of Duolingo Espanol, trying to make sure that I know when they talk bad about me.
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: They think that's funny.
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: I am El Patron because we have a president, so they love calling me El Patron.
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: They write all my speeches and I can read it.
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: And here's what I do know is that we have a couple of hundred thousand Latino Latinas living in Northwest Arkansas that were being underbanked, exactly.
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: So I didn't do anything other than you know go try to serve a market that was already here.
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: Sure, I didn't create that market.
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: I didn't, and I think the interesting thing that you guys would probably.
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: You know you still have to have help.
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: You know, because I don't speak Spanish very well and I'm learning.
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: But so I go to Dr Adam Arroyos, who is an incredible human, and I had lunch with him at Meiji and I said look, here's what happened one time when I was behind that line as president of the bank in Fayetteville.
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: So I watched some guy come up there and he was standing there at the teller line when all of the other people were casting their checks and I'm like what a nice guy.
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: I can't believe he's like interpreting because we didn't have anybody, probably, who could speak any.
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: I come to find out later that he told them that we were going to cheat them out of their money and so he was charging them a buck apiece to cast their checks.
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh Infuriated Wow.
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: Infuriated, no kidding.
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: It's terrible.
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: Hey, liars, right.
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: And so I just.
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: It took me a while because we went through what all the banks went through.
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: And so, finally, I was telling the story and I said you know, I want a bank that anyone who speaks Spanish as a first language or strongly as their first language can walk in and not have one question about what are they getting into?
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: What am I buying?
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: What am I selling?
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: What is the financial repercussions?
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: There is a lack of trust.
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: What am I trying to do?
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: And we know why.
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: Because no one cares.
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: Sure, I care.
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: So here's what happens is Dr Arroyo says to me I still have to take my mother to the bank.
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: She is not comfortable in there without me.
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: And I said, adam, you help me build a bank that your mother will go in by herself.
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: And she did.
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: Now, that's success.
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: And so, you know, is there a Banco C everywhere?
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: There's probably an office of Banco C inside of the rest of our banks, but the biggest two populations are Rogers and Springdale.
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: We're going to start there and see if we can make a difference.
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we are dedicated to it.
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: Our board loves it, you know.
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's brilliant.
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: There's a lot of education involved, because there's a lot of those Hispanic people that have never they've been taught not to trust a bank.
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so we have to start over with the wait minute.
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: You know, eddie ramos is a really good guy.
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: He graduated from springdale high school, but his family's from mexico.
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: He's a really good guy.
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: Go talk to eddie and let him help you be successful.
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: And there's 1800 1800 members of latin xna, which adam's company has, of small business in northwest arkansas.
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, 1800, sure, hopefully somebody needs to do this with their Spanish, right?
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: No, no, absolutely you need to.
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: No.
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: And those people will have an opportunity to be more successful if they have more access to finances.
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: Of course, yes, and so what's in it for me?
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: Duh, I want to be the guy that loans in the money, right, right, right.
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: And I get to make money when I loan money.
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: But at the same time, today they're operating.
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: Hey, you know what?
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: I'm building a house.
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: More than half of the people building that house for me are hispanic.
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: That's right, you know, I go to every one of them when I give them a bike to see that I go get your tail over there.
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, yeah, sure, make sure you know what's availed to you.
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: You don't have have to do anything.
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: I just want you to be informationally educated about what you have the opportunity to do.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: Yep, you know it's such a great idea.
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: It's amazing that nobody else thought of that.
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: I mean, it didn't.
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: Well, and if you see any of the population.
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: It's just.
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: The population is going to be a huge part of all of our future, you know, not to mention the percentage of self-employment and business ownership has got to be higher than it is for Caucasians, right?
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: More Hispanic businesses are started every day than anything.
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah exactly, and we'll continue to be on that rise.
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: Sure, and you know, all of them laugh when I screw up my conversations in Spanish, but they appreciate the fact that I'm Italian, right?
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: Yes, I mean, I can barely speak English, I went to your spring high school.
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: Give me a break, and they know that they're like.
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: He can barely speak English too.
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: El Patron, el Patron, yeah, hey, I'd hate to rewind it back, but what he's talking about is compassion.
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: It is no, it is.
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: I mean it really is right.
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: It is no, it is, I mean it really is right.
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, if people don't have that core, then you're going to wind out of energy, you're going to lose the focus of why you do the things that you do.
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: That is the difference between what Signature Bank brings and it's coming from you right in that founding moment.
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: Gary's a people person.
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: I mean really, yeah, he's a people person Even though you're in that founding moment, like gary's, a people person, people, I mean, he really is the people person.
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: Even though you're in a quantitative business I just think that we complicate business so much I know I really it's the driven passion behind that person.
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: I was reading something this morning, uh, or I was watching a video this morning right on on linkedin and it was a founder of a really successful company and he was talking about how really smart folks that go through education right, they build these expectations because you graduate with really smart people, you're around really smart people, and then you go out in the real world and you have this expectation get this big corporate job.
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: But when you're an entrepreneur, what these people are missing is resilience because their expectations.
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: So when they go to those things where you have to suffer, they're like, well, am I suffering?
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: I'm too smart to suffer?
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: Well, but it's the resilience that's the entrepreneur and the resilience is coming from a vision of compassion or something you're trying to obtain and you go through the freaking suffering.
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: I got to tell you this story because this is my favorite.
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: This is old, this was from my friend.
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: My friend's in Little Rock ran First Commercial Bank, very successful bank, and Charlie Murphy was his lead stockholder in the day and Murphy Oil Company.
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: And sure, charlie was a salty old guy and he used to put a cigar in his mouth and chew it through the board meetings and he had some really cool things.
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: Occasionally you go, we're going to count the vote away it meaning I own more.
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: We're going to do what I tell you.
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: And he would.
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: They had this big thick white carpet and and uh, on their boardroom and he'd chew that cigar, spit and then drove the chairman out of his mind.
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: Barnett, grace, he's spitting on the floor.
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: You know, oh my gosh, yeah, he didn't care, he paid, he paid for it, so so.
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: So they had this big conversation one time at first commercial about and three of my friends were in it about we're just not smart enough.
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: We've got to go hire some Stanford and some Horton and all of this stuff because we're just not smart enough.
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: And so this guy, charlie's so good, he spit his cigar out, he goes.
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: Let me just tell y'all he said we did the same thing down there at Murphy Oil Company.
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: We hired all these smart guys.
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: You know what smart guys know how to do?
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: Make everybody else work.
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: They don't work.
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: They sit around and figure out how not to work.
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: He said I fired every one of them.
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: He said I went up there at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville and I asked two questions.
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: First is did you work while you were in college?
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: If the answer was no, I said thank you very much, yes.
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: Second question is did you graduate with a C or better?
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: And if it was yes, I hired him.
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: We've never made more money.
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: And the term is so true, that is so true.
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: You know, I was just saying teach him to work.
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: That was his point.
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: But see, I think all of us and a lot of successful people I know who are real entrepreneurs, they did a lot of crappy jobs, oh my God, okay.
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: The first question on an interview was what's the hardest job you ever had and what?
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: made it difficult and that makes you more empathetic with the working man and the plight of the person who's out there doing whatever your business does.
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and if you haven't had that experience, you can't relate how I went.
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: I went through tirades with hr people in my life, and especially when I worked at harvest, because they were really worried about it.
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: But I'd always go where are you from?
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: We can't ask that why?
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: Well, you know, I mean, you're redlining or, yeah, some rule.
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: I don't even know what it is.
• 29:52
  Speaker 3: Well, wait a minute, what if I know, like half the people that you know?
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: Why would I not want to know?
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: Of course you grow up because where you grew up says a lot about you.
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: True, it defines all of us.
• 30:02
  Speaker 3: Where did you grow up?
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: What kind of life did you have?
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: Because in life you want to try to fit people together that are congruent.
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: Of course, if you know where everybody's from and you know how you were raised and how I was raised, then you have a lot better chance of making everybody happy than if you're trying to discover that later by finding out you know, hey, I've never had a real job, you know, yeah.
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: So anyway, I've always asked that question when are you from?
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: And you know it's a small world.
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: Of course it is.
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a small world.
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: Hey, all you got to do is do 23andMe and you'll find out who you're related to.
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: That you didn't even know, I know.
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: Okay, I found out.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: One of the largest developers around here is actually a cousin of mine.
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, I mean it's like how does that happen?
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: But no, gary, though.
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: Back on what we're talking about.
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: One of the things I think is great about banking and why I encourage some of my entrepreneurial students to look at banking, which you would think isn't entrepreneurial.
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: Right, right, you got these rules, you got these guidelines.
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: You know there's a lot of them out there, whatever, but it's the education that you get as a banker.
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: In just history, everything Business, all aspects of business.
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: It's like case study after case study after case study after case study.
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: Look at the Harvard Business School.
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: How do they teach people Case studies?
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: What do you have on a daily basis?
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: Case study After case study and case study.
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: Who makes money?
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: Who does it, what works, what doesn't, who?
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: fails, who succeeds?
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: What caused them to not make it?
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: On that point, what can you see after all this time that you've had A good entrepreneur, an entrepreneur that you can maybe sense that's going to do well.
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: That's difficult.
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: 42 years is how long I've been doing this.
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: Today is my 43rd wedding anniversary to the same poor woman.
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: Congratulations, it's amazing To you, god.
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: She is a saint Medal of Honor.
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: It's all of us, I think.
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: But you know, so you've got to stick to it is.
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: My point about all of that is people get in things and it's not the flavor of the day, because if it's the flavor of the day it's easy to quit.
• 32:23
  Speaker 3: So the people that I've seen that have been successful are horrible losers.
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: They are willing to do whatever it takes to make it and and and I try to ascertain that from the conversation from the beginning right, yeah, that's not always easy, but I'm better at it today than I was, you know, 43 years ago, I think.
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: I think that the people that I've seen, that you know, some people get in a business and then they get fat and happy I guess that's the right words to use in this context Sure, and they quit working.
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they hire some smart guy to run their business and they don't pay attention.
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: Kiss of death.
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: Sure, the thing ain't working and the culture goes to hell.
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: And you know what Things don't?
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: They don't run the same.
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: So if you don't want to run it, get out of it.
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: That's my advice to a small business.
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: I like that, and if you want to run it, then do it, and do it every day.
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: You know, restaurant businesses are people that start restaurants and then they try to make a thousand of them and you know that culture goes away and that's why they're.
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: You know, the biggest failure in the world is restaurants turn over faster than any other business in the world, because you can't be at all of them, the ones that I know.
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: I mean you know what?
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: I've been Jose's banker all his life.
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: He ran every business he ever ran and every one of them was successful, because when you went down there and walked in, there was Joe Fennell standing right there, right, yeah, and he cared.
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, joe's a great guy, doug's the same way.
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: Doug has Jose's working.
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: You know, he's not fishing, he's working.
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: So, yeah, I just think that people that care win more than not.
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah, because they do care and they'll work harder to figure out.
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: What do I got to do to keep making it?
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: You know, because it would have been easy in 2009 to hand them the keys and go this ain't gonna work, man, that's sure.
• 34:07
  Speaker 3: Am I gonna put up with all these regulators and they're telling me I'm dumb and stupid and horrible, right, right, but you know what?
• 34:14
  Speaker 3: Everything I own was in this business, of course, and I'm not giving up.
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know.
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm a horrible quitter.
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't like quitters.
• 34:22
  Speaker 3: I never was one, you know.
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: Maybe I should have a time or two, but I never would.
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so you kind of when you're talking to a new entrepreneur, that's shut business.
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: I mean, you can get their passion I'm looking for their wisdom about.
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: Hey, everybody knows how it works.
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: If it's good, yeah.
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: My questions are always what are you going to do if this doesn't work?
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: Well, that's not going to work with me.
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm going to go get a job and pay you back.
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's what I expect to hear.
• 34:51
  Speaker 3: It's a good answer, because the truth is, you know, are you going to quit and leave me holding the bag?
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: So are you going to go do whatever it takes to make sure you honor your work?
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, because every note that's ever been says I promise to pay.
• 35:06
  Speaker 3: It's what it says.
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, everyone you ever sign, I hear you it says so you promise to pay.
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: Okay, well, are you going to do it?
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: Right, because that's the job of a banker is to collect the money back.
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: One time, jb Hunt was driving down the road and we were talking about this and banking and his stuff and this and that, and he goes.
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: You know we're all in the receivables business.
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: Nothing better has ever been said.
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, yeah, what's been said before the banks really only provide liquidity.
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, what do you think of that statement?
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: Well then, that's a horrible banker.
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, because you do more than that well, if all you need is money, go see bank of america, because that's all you're going to get.
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: You're getting no advice.
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: They're not going to be.
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: They're not going to be, uh, interested in your success yeah, you did like a management consultant or business consultant, a business that you work with.
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: I mean, we're a financial partner.
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah, what do you want out of a partner?
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: You want good advice.
• 36:01
  Speaker 3: Buy them.
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: Stay in the corner.
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: No, no Input.
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: You want more than their money, you want their advice.
• 36:06
  Speaker 3: You want their expertise.
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: Tell me what you think about my deal.
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: Sure, every single time I had a meeting two days ago, one partner buying out another partner.
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: He wanted me there because he wanted to look me in the eye and say here's what I think I'm going to do.
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: What do you think?
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: I think it's the best idea.
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: I've ever heard this guy's happy.
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: You're happy, you got the ability to do it.
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: When do we close?
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: We went to the board the next day and blessed what we'd already agreed to do.
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's how we did it.
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: Sure, and our board loves that deal.
• 36:33
  Speaker 3: They love those people.
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: They already knew him.
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: This wasn't some new guy to town, right, but it's great to see people getting to buy their partners out.
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, this age and other.
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: Sure, that's the exit, it's the continuity.
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: I mean, how long would it take a Bank of America to agree to let some guy off the debt?
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, right, and buy the guy out with an existing line of credit?
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: They probably couldn't even do it.
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: Well, there's going to be some agreement that's going to have to be rewritten and it's going to take a lawyer nine weeks to think about what's going to be in this agreement.
• 37:04
  Speaker 3: Right, business has to happen at the speed of business and it's very difficult.
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: And, honestly, you know, a $10 billion bank has rules I don't have we.
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: And, honestly, you know, a $10 billion bank has rules I don't have.
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: We're a B3.
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: You know I have no desire to be $10 billion and have all these rules that make what I do no fun.
• 37:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, right, I know I have no desire to be in that situation.
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: Hey, my old friend French Hill got named to the bank the congressional chair of finance and that's a big deal because he was a banker in Arkansas and he's really good.
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: I text him and congratulate him and hopefully he can help make some of these rules better for business and better for banks, which means better for business as far as some of the silliness that's been going on, with certain people trying to write all the rules CFPB trying to.
• 37:49
  Speaker 3: You know you're not smart enough to borrow money, so we're going to tell the bank how they have to loan you money.
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: Well, there's a lot of rules in banking that cost money eventually to the end user because we have to buy people to keep up with the paperwork.
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: Excuse me, yeah, you've only got so much to work with there.
• 38:10
  Speaker 3: And there's still the court of law If I don't treat you right, you can sue me.
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying, mm-hmm there.
• 38:14
  Speaker 3: And there's still a lot of law if I don't treat you right, you can sue me.
• 38:16
  Speaker 3: You know I'm saying so.
• 38:16
  Speaker 3: So a lot of that stuff is assuming that you're too dumb to understand that and you should be as a customer.
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: You should be pissed that they think you're too dumb to understand that.
• 38:23
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't understand the litigiousness of some people.
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: It's never been my orientation, no, and it generally.
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: It doesn't cost a lot of money and never works so what's another question I have, like as an entrepreneur, like entrepreneurs, like I'm just using myself as like I was not in banking, right, I didn't come from that background, I didn't work at a bank, I didn't understand anything about it.
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: I just knew when I started my business that I needed some cash to make investments and things and things I needed to do.
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: But what's important for a bank, like as an entrepreneur, like how should I approach?
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: I mean, you gave the number one, are you going to pay me back?
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the big promise, right, which, okay, say, I check that off.
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: That's just my character.
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: But next, as I'm trying to grow my business and like what's important for the bank to have from the entrepreneur in order to continue, to partner Similarly to the original conversation is okay, here's what we think we're going to do, but here's our plan B.
• 39:19
  Speaker 3: If you don't have a plan B, how do I get the hell out of this deal?
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you better know how to get out of it.
• 39:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't want to be the one that has to get out of it, right?
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so the riskier that it is, and startup businesses are the riskiest, then you know, you and I have told a thousand of your students sometimes you have to have a rich uncle, sometimes you have to have somebody that has the money that allows you to borrow that much money, because you ain't ever going to borrow that much money.
• 39:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know, I could love the hell out of a project, but if it doesn't have a plan B, I can't explain that either.
• 39:55
  Speaker 3: You know, because I I have regulators that come in, you know, every other year.
• 40:00
  Speaker 3: Hello, how you doing.
• 40:01
  Speaker 3: Let me look at all your stuff.
• 40:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so, um, a lot of times people never really think about why they should develop a relationship with people with money.
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: Well, I don't want to give up any of my ownership, okay, well, a little p I mean a hundred percent of a little bitty deal does not weigh the same Exactly Half of a giant deal, because you were smart enough to go sell some other people that have some other thing to add to your business, right, you don't go to if you go get partners just for money outside of a bank not a good idea.
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: You want to go get people that are, you know, additive to whatever you're doing.
• 40:35
  Speaker 3: They know something about shipping, they know something about some other part of your business.
• 40:40
  Speaker 3: They come out of a customer.
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they're a regulator, exactly Whatever it is.
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so many times.
• 40:48
  Speaker 3: A good business plan has to include I've had to go out and raise money with people that I don't know.
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: You know has to include I've had to go out and raise money with people that I don't know.
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: You're very successful at it.
• 40:58
  Speaker 3: The fact is, you have to have a plan B, and plan B can't be well if it don't work.
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: I'm toast.
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: So a good plan B to a banker would look like hey, here's my business idea.
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: I need to borrow this amount.
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: Good for paying that back.
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: Also, look at the people I'm surrounding with, I'm connecting with, I'm getting to be part of my business.
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: That reduces the risk associated.
• 41:21
  Speaker 3: The thought is how do I reduce it?
• 41:24
  Speaker 3: As the entrepreneur, you want to reduce risk to yourself.
• 41:26
  Speaker 3: You know I'm going to put everything in this and I got a family, and if this doesn't work, I'm going to out here on the side of the road.
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: You want to try to build something that lasts, and so to last, sometimes you have to have other people's money.
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: Yep, you know.
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: Yep, one thing I always advise my small business that I work with small businesses or students or whatever is keep your bank informed of good and bad.
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: Exactly, most people don't want to get.
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: They only want to give the good.
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: But they never say like, hey, this is what's going on, but this is how we're dealing with it, but it's going to look ugly for the next three months, right, okay.
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: Instead they just let it get ugly for three months and then they go.
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: Holy cow, we're you know banks hate that.
• 42:17
  Speaker 3: Oh my gosh.
• 42:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know bad news.
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know bad news is not fun, no matter who you are.
• 42:24
  Speaker 3: When it is, it doesn't matter.
• 42:25
  Speaker 3: But you know if you got to eat an elephant you've got to take big bites.
• 42:29
  Speaker 3: So if he does something wrong, go and take it.
• 42:32
  Speaker 3: You hit it over with.
• 42:32
  Speaker 3: Jim Lizzie used to always tell me also he goes hey, call, the hardest call, you got first.
• 42:36
  Speaker 3: Yes, You're on a downhill slide through the field, it's true.
• 42:41
  Speaker 3: And man telling somebody that I can't loan you money to me sucks.
• 42:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know what I'm saying.
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: I don't like doing that.
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you want them, you make money from them.
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: I don't want to make them.
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: I don't want to make them.
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: But when somebody's so passionate and yet I can't get comfortable with the damn thing, that call sucks to me.
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: That's one of the worst calls I have to make is hey, you know what?
• 43:00
  Speaker 3: I can't do that I've tried to figure everything in the world and I just can't get there.
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: And if I have a, they're like well, hey, tell me why I need to do something different If you don't like me.
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: You're like you're a turd.
• 43:12
  Speaker 3: See you later.
• 43:15
  Speaker 3: I'm going somewhere else and I don't want to be that guy that just says yes or no.
• 43:19
  Speaker 3: I want to have advice.
• 43:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, All of our people do.
• 43:22
  Speaker 3: We have relationships we're friends with.
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: I don't think we have clients we're not friends with.
• 43:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know what I'm saying.
• 43:27
  Speaker 3: We have friendly relations with every client that we have, and that's how we can move faster is because I know you, I know everything you've done, I know what you got and I can say to you on the telephone if you're in California, I want to buy this dadgum, souped-up Bronco in the middle of it.
• 43:43
  Speaker 3: That would be more like him, but souped-up Bronco.
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: Write a check, bring the title with you, let's go.
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: You know how do you maintain that, though, at the scale that you know now you're a billion, three or whatever, you have to have more people that can do it.
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: You know, because that's fine when you're, you know, a certain size, right, ryan?
• 44:03
  Speaker 3: Dangley can do it.
• 44:03
  Speaker 3: Okay, I mean I can name every president.
• 44:06
  Speaker 3: I got you know Ryan Moore's over there in Jonesboro and in the alternative bank and how do you make the handoff?
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: You know, I think another problem with a business that probably a lot of us have had is that your customers only want to deal with you.
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: So it's like how do you say, hey, you know.
• 44:27
  Speaker 3: I got to, I got to do that.
• 44:28
  Speaker 3: You always go with my provider, yeah.
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: So you know, here's the deal.
• 44:35
  Speaker 3: I'm never going to tell you you can't call me.
• 44:36
  Speaker 3: So the answer is but when that person that's taking care of your stuff and doing actually doing all the work, yeah, yeah, you quit calling me.
• 44:44
  Speaker 3: I know you're comfortable, yeah, and it's sure, quick dial on me, then I probably got the wrong guy handling your stuff, yeah, or lady fair, that's yeah.
• 44:51
  Speaker 3: So I've never quit taking those phone calls and sometimes, even though that person is someone that you trust and admire, you say, hey, I want to know what you think about this.
• 45:00
  Speaker 3: I get those every single day, seven days a week.
• 45:04
  Speaker 3: You know my phone rings on Saturday and it's just like you know.
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: That's a really good point.
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: I like that because that's been a.
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: That's a really good point.
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: I like that because it's been a.
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: That's a challenge that I've experienced.
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: You know, as you build relationships, you're getting clients, you're the entrepreneur.
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: You've got to be in sales, you've got to be the one that's building partnerships and relationships right, and then there comes a point where the work is too much.
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: You can't work, no, you can't execute exactly, and then how do you start passing over?
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: I I love that statement.
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: You know that if you're calling me still, that I need to find somebody else to help you in all your business.
• 45:38
  Speaker 3: Well, you've got to think about this.
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: If you have all of the responsibilities and you aren't as proud as you should be of that person, that can take that away.
• 45:50
  Speaker 3: See some entrepreneurs get past their ego being I'm the best, I am yeah, I am.
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: You know I'm the only man that can do this, and so you better be.
• 45:59
  Speaker 3: You probably haven't been in business very long.
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: One-person management.
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: It's a failure of a lot of small businesses.
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: One-person management.
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: You should be proud of the people that can accomplish what you do, as you are of your own accomplishment.
• 46:15
  Speaker 3: If you can't do that, you are going to be limited.
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: That segues beautifully into the next thing I'd like to talk about.
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: We're in a hot employment market.
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: I mean we're in a hot area.
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: Right Northwest Arkansas is probably one of the greatest economies out there.
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: I mean DFW is maybe bigger, but I mean this is a great area.
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: I mean DFW is maybe bigger, but I mean this is a great area.
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: And so many small business owners say I can't hire anybody.
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: There's no good people out there.
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: My people suck.
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: That's why we have bad customer service.
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: Yada, yada, yada.
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: What do you say to that?
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: Why do they have a hard time hiring good people?
• 46:51
  Speaker 3: Well, probably because they don't want to pay them Exactly.
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: Second, I agree, 100%.
• 46:58
  Speaker 3: Second, you know, and here's the thing I always tell people when they go to work for us is that, first off, I have jobs, I don't have positions, so you've got to do the job.
• 47:07
  Speaker 3: Second is, the more I pay you, the higher my expectations of your output.
• 47:12
  Speaker 3: Yes, i's be clear.
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: If I'm going to start you at that, you better run fast every day, get on the treadmill, don't get off.
• 47:19
  Speaker 3: So you have to prove yourself, just like I did, right?
• 47:23
  Speaker 3: No, my dad was a real mail carrier.
• 47:25
  Speaker 3: I didn't come to this world with money, I had to work.
• 47:27
  Speaker 3: I expect that from everybody that works at that place, sure, and so you have to set expectations, but you can't be afraid to hire someone and pay them if they're good.
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, no, I saw that 30 for 30, and I probably watched two of them in my entire life.
• 47:44
  Speaker 3: But I saw Jimmy Johnson because I know him and I like him.
• 47:47
  Speaker 3: The old football coach, right, mm-hmm, and they were doing a 30 for 30 on how successful he'd been in.
• 47:52
  Speaker 3: The last clip was the only one worth watching.
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: He he's getting on his boat, miami, because that's where he lived after he coached there.
• 47:59
  Speaker 3: He's got bill belichick in the boat with him and they're getting ready to take off and go.
• 48:03
  Speaker 3: And he goes, coach, what's the best advice you ever gave anybody?
• 48:07
  Speaker 3: And he said well my gosh, he turns and looks he goes.
• 48:11
  Speaker 3: I'm going to tell you, I'm going to give you the advice I got from that guy right there.
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: The best advice I ever give is the best advice I ever got.
• 48:19
  Speaker 3: Coach.
• 48:20
  Speaker 3: What did you tell me?
• 48:21
  Speaker 3: He says you can't coach dumb.
• 48:23
  Speaker 3: That guy could be the most athletically talented human being on the planet.
• 48:29
  Speaker 3: Bill bel Belichick's got six world championships.
• 48:32
  Speaker 3: You can't coach dumb who?
• 48:35
  Speaker 3: They may be shiny and look good and all that stuff.
• 48:37
  Speaker 3: That's so true, but if they don't understand the plays they ain't going to make them.
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: Well, I've always said you can't win an argument with a stupid person.
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: Well, okay, I mean, and it's, it's not about me anyway, thank God I've heard you.
• 48:52
  Speaker 3: No, that's stupid, but okay, well, I think you have to try to think about the quality.
• 49:01
  Speaker 3: I mean you've got to be a little better at interviewing, you know.
• 49:03
  Speaker 3: I mean, unfortunately, in my lifetime I've had to interview a few thousand people.
• 49:07
  Speaker 3: Sure, you get better at it only.
• 49:09
  Speaker 3: But if you're starting a new business and you've interviewed five people in your life, you don't ask them what's the hardest question you ever asked.
• 49:15
  Speaker 3: What's the hardest job you ever had in your life?
• 49:17
  Speaker 3: What made it difficult?
• 49:18
  Speaker 3: That tells you about what their background is right.
• 49:20
  Speaker 3: They need some help on stuff like that about how do I hire someone that knows how to work.
• 49:26
  Speaker 3: There you go, not what their grade point average was.
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: Mine was 2.009.
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: I remind you that I I know you always say that, listen, I had a brother, though, like you, is very successful, and he had a similar gpa.
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, let me just say, but I made a some okay, but john, but anyway, he ended up the head of a 17 billion dollar company.
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: But um, so no um.
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: But back on this, on this whole notion of hiring.
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: You know, first off, we're not just talking about startups, we're talking about existing small businesses and you know, I do think many of them if you talk to these owners, they'll tell you they're not really interested in growth.
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: Now, don't you think that makes it hard to hire good people if you say I don't want to?
• 50:14
  Speaker 3: grow.
• 50:15
  Speaker 3: I wouldn't want to go to work Exactly, I'm as big as I want to be and we want you to come here.
• 50:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Someone once told me I like you right where you are, oh that's terrible.
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: It didn't last very long.
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: No, that's the last job you want.
• 50:27
  Speaker 3: It was yeah, and so I will tell you that most people want you know, honestly, they want opportunity.
• 50:34
  Speaker 3: Right, that's what we all want Opportunity and opportunity comes with growth.
• 50:39
  Speaker 3: It doesn't come with it.
• 50:40
  Speaker 3: Does we're going to shut this thing down?
• 50:42
  Speaker 3: I want you to come over and go to work for me, yeah, oh, I'm headed for the stop sign as fast as I can go, so I can stop, right, you know, stop right you know it's no good.
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: The great thing about the growth is you get jobs you're not qualified for exactly, and that's how you grow at it.
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's how you grow, yeah, so so you know, ellen?
• 51:00
  Speaker 3: here's another thing we graduate a ton of kids, yeah, more every day out of that uva.
• 51:04
  Speaker 3: Right, okay, without that education I also never had a job.
• 51:07
  Speaker 3: Okay, because it just had.
• 51:09
  Speaker 3: That's how I got a job.
• 51:10
  Speaker 3: John dominic got me a job because I had an education, not because I was smart, not because I was anything, because I finished what I started, period, right, that's what.
• 51:18
  Speaker 3: That's what college did.
• 51:19
  Speaker 3: A big part of it.
• 51:20
  Speaker 3: I finished what I started.
• 51:21
  Speaker 3: Well, here's the here's.
• 51:23
  Speaker 3: The cool thing is I have had people with every degree as bankers.
• 51:28
  Speaker 3: Sure, you can be a history guy, and you know if you're a history guy, and you know if you're a history major, guess what?
• 51:32
  Speaker 3: You know a lot about history.
• 51:33
  Speaker 3: There's a lot of clients.
• 51:34
  Speaker 3: They love history.
• 51:35
  Speaker 3: So you have a conversation piece that not everybody has.
• 51:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, good point.
• 51:40
  Speaker 3: You don't have to be a finance guy to have finance jobs.
• 51:43
  Speaker 3: Just prove that you can stay somewhere and finish what you started.
• 51:46
  Speaker 3: Now give me a shot at learning how to do this.
• 51:48
  Speaker 3: I learned banking when I got in banking.
• 51:51
  Speaker 3: I learned banking in college.
• 51:53
  Speaker 3: Right, right, yeah, you learn everything you've ever done.
• 51:56
  Speaker 3: They didn't have a class on that in school.
• 51:58
  Speaker 3: No, they.
• 51:59
  Speaker 3: You have the only entrepreneur class that I'm aware of on the planet Earth and that yet does not teach them to be an entrepreneur.
• 52:05
  Speaker 3: You're telling them don't walk out of here and think you're going to get to do one.
• 52:09
  Speaker 3: One in 10 million has got to be Facebook.
• 52:11
  Speaker 3: You know what I'm?
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: saying no, exactly, oh gosh.
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: But that's another thing that I just want to touch on, and that is, you know, this idea that you have to start a business.
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: I always tell my students, maybe buying a business is a better way to go.
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: What do you think about that?
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: Well, and again, I don't think it's talked enough about in entrepreneurship, do you?
• 52:33
  Speaker 3: No, and many times you could be really fortunate.
• 52:38
  Speaker 3: I've seen some people very successful that went to a person that was aging out because of age yes, and they needed that enthusiasm, new blood, yep, new Blood and that put those people in an unbelievable opportunity to run a really good company quickly, because they had all of those skittles, that work ethic, all of those things and the timing was right.
• 53:02
  Speaker 3: Yes, hey, I want you to learn to do this and do it fast, because I want to go to the beach or where you want to go when you quit, right, and so I think that finding a business with over-management if I had to do it over again, right, I would want to think about that.
• 53:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know.
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a lot of value to that.
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: They've got customers, that's the thing.
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: They've got a history of financial performance that you can look at.
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's easier to borrow money on.
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: A deal is five years old, that's another thing.
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they're more bankable.
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I mean, do you?
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: How do you deal?
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: You must see a lot of these businesses that are in that position where the owners are aging out or they got health problems or they're going through a divorce and they're not paying attention to what they got.
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, what do you do?
• 53:55
  Speaker 3: with those people.
• 53:56
  Speaker 3: It's pretty rare, I mean it's not common, it was.
• 54:00
  Speaker 3: It's uncommon because most of them have family or somebody who's already in the deal.
• 54:05
  Speaker 3: So to have nothing with a plan for who you're going to give it to right.
• 54:09
  Speaker 3: It's a pretty rare bird, really.
• 54:11
  Speaker 3: Okay, are there?
• 54:12
  Speaker 3: And business brokers?
• 54:15
  Speaker 3: Many times that's where you start.
• 54:18
  Speaker 3: Is you look at business brokers where people are trying to sell their business?
• 54:20
  Speaker 3: You're like what are you trying to sell your business for?
• 54:22
  Speaker 3: That's a lot faster way to find those than any other way that I know.
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's databases like SunTrust Business.
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: You can get online and you start.
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: I love those things, though I look at them all the time.
• 54:38
  Speaker 3: I mean, if you list your business for sale, then that's an act of desperation because you ain't got any way to keep it right.
• 54:45
  Speaker 3: Yep, so I'm not going to say that's a high likelihood that you're going to like what you see.
• 54:50
  Speaker 3: However, that's the best place to mine it.
• 54:52
  Speaker 3: We're talking about mining, trying to find something, but yeah.
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: Yep, well, this has been a fun conversation, it has been.
• 55:01
  Speaker 2: I knew it, it went very rich, yeah, and I think it's encouraging too.
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: I mean, how often do there is this wall or this distance gap between the entrepreneur and the banker or banking system?
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: Right, they don't know me, they don't, they don't, no, but that's the value of this conversation, is that our audience can have a one-on-one, hear your story, hear your perspective.
• 55:25
  Speaker 3: The only stupid question is the one you don't ask right.
• 55:28
  Speaker 3: True, and I learned that in grade school.
• 55:30
  Speaker 3: Don't ask Right, and I learned that in grade school.
• 55:32
  Speaker 3: The fact is is that if you don't have a relationship with your banker and your lawyer and your accountant, then you are not going to be as successful as you could be.
• 55:42
  Speaker 3: It's true, and if you don't like one of the three, you ought to change them.
• 55:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, is there?
• 55:46
  Speaker 3: Yes, because there's not.
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: The only caveat to that is you need competent ones.
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you, because I've had accountants who didn't know what they were doing Right, and I've had lawyers who will take you on and don't really have the experience in the area that they need Generally speaking Competence.
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: If you have one of those people that you have competence in, then they can give you the other ones.
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: That's a good point.
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: That's a good point.
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: That is a very good point.
• 56:11
  Speaker 3: Recommendation from one of those for the others is generally a good place to start.
• 56:15
  Speaker 3: It just makes sure it's not his cousin.
• 56:17
  Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying?
• 56:18
  Speaker 3: You know?
• 56:19
  Speaker 3: You know this person.
• 56:20
  Speaker 3: You need to ask more questions too.
• 56:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's true.
• 56:23
  Speaker 3: Don't buy everything you're getting sold.
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: Well, I tell you what I think I mean.
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: There's so many things I'd like to talk about with Gary.
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: He's got so many great stories of entrepreneurs he's known and mistakes and great decisions people made.
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: We need to have him come back.
• 56:39
  Speaker 2: I'd love to.
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: I'd love to hear your founding story about Signature Bank.
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: I mean, that'd be really cool.
• 56:44
  Speaker 2: Be happy to.
• 56:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, be happy to, because it's not easy to start a bank.
• 56:48
  Speaker 2: No.
• 56:53
  Speaker 3: But I'll tell you, when you raise $45 million the first night on Dixon Street at a bar, it's a pretty good way to start a bank Says something about your contacts and relationships, doesn't it?
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: And trust people Exactly.
• 57:03
  Speaker 3: You can say I love you.
• 57:04
  Speaker 3: When you get your checkbook out, it changes.
• 57:06
  Speaker 3: That's true.
• 57:07
  Speaker 3: Amen, brother, amen to that.
• 57:09
  Speaker 3: Thank you both.
• 57:10
  Speaker 3: And thank both of you for your business with me in the past, and I appreciate it.
• 57:15
  Speaker 3: That's how we make payments at our house, you know as clients like us guys.
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: We love you and it's always fun dealing with you Well same with you.
• 57:26
  Speaker 3: I appreciate both of you.
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: Well, everybody, this has been a great conversation and next week we'll have another episode of Big Talk About Small Business.
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: If you are interested in sponsoring our show, we'd love to hear from you.
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: Don't come across desperate, mark.
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: No, I'm not.
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: Not, but it'd be nice it would be.
• 57:51
  Speaker 2: Hey, I actually talked to a sponsor last week.
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: Wow, amazing, you didn't tell me.
• 57:55
  Speaker 2: I'm waiting until the check, okay.
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: Well, anyway, we'll see you all next week.
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: Thanks everybody.
• 58:08
  Speaker 4: Thanks for tuning into this episode of Big Talk about small business.
• 58:11
  Speaker 4: If you have any questions or ideas for upcoming shows, be sure to head over to our website, wwwbigtalkaboutsmallbusinesscom and click on the Ask the Host button for the chance to have your questions answered on the show.
• 58:25
  Speaker 4: Stay connected with us on LinkedIn at Big Talk about Small Business and be sure to head over to our website to read articles, browse episodes and ask questions about upcoming shows.