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Behind the Scenes of ACU Strategic Growth Conference · Leaders in Lending

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  Speaker 1: Do you come back and your energize. It's like, oh,
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  Speaker 1: we could do this, we could do this, we could
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  Speaker 1: do this, and there's all great ideas and then life
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  Speaker 1: gets in the way.
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  Speaker 2: There's multiple different sessions that will be beneficial now or
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  Speaker 2: maybe later in your line of business. Download all of
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  Speaker 2: it while you're there.
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  Speaker 1: Sometimes the best ideas don't always come from the agenda
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  Speaker 1: or from the speakers. It's from having lunch with the
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  Speaker 1: guy across from me who's got the same problem I have.
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  Speaker 3: Maybe pick small things to do, like it doesn't have
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  Speaker 3: to be we're going to.
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  Speaker 4: Change our entire contact center strategy.
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  Speaker 3: We're going to do a very small AI chat pilot
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  Speaker 3: in one thing. So thinking about how you can maximize
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  Speaker 3: your credit union's time at a strategic growth can be overwhelming.
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  Speaker 3: So how do you turn what you learned into action?
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  Speaker 3: So we're going to talk about how to prioritize, implement,
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  Speaker 3: and keep the momentum going going back into your credit union.
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  Speaker 3: So Barry Drew, how can teams prioritize all of the
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  Speaker 3: ideas that they hurt at strategic growth with getting overwhelmed
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  Speaker 3: with just the sheer amount of things that you could
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  Speaker 3: spend time on.
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  Speaker 2: Well, I think it's going to start with one, how
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  Speaker 2: many people you have going to the conference, right, So
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  Speaker 2: there's some credit unions going to send multiple people. There's
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  Speaker 2: gonna be some credit unions going to send one person
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  Speaker 2: and getting a download one before you go, and prioritizing
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  Speaker 2: where you want to start at the conference. Is it
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  Speaker 2: with vendors, is it specific types of topics that you
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  Speaker 2: want to bring back to the credit union? Then setting
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  Speaker 2: up you know, if it's multiple individuals, who's going to
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  Speaker 2: cover what part of the conference? If it's one single individuals,
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  Speaker 2: are there people from the credit union that are going
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  Speaker 2: to decipher that they want to learn more about X,
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  Speaker 2: Y and z, And how do you bring that action
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  Speaker 2: item back to the credit union based on how many
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  Speaker 2: people you have at the conference?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think also these are typically more seasoned
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  Speaker 1: professionals going to these conferences, so they usually would have
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  Speaker 1: a team of people maybe reporting to them. And so
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  Speaker 1: I always found with these sorts of conferences, it was
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  Speaker 1: always useful to at least share the agenda before you
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  Speaker 1: go to the conference with your team, see if there
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  Speaker 1: are other topics that may not necessarily be of interest
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  Speaker 1: to me as the attendee, but certainly others on my
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  Speaker 1: team may be thinking about that, So try and sort
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  Speaker 1: of get ahead of it a little bit and understand
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  Speaker 1: that which sorts of topics are going to be most
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  Speaker 1: important and most salient for the credit union strategy.
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  Speaker 2: I think on that too, like the majority of the
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  Speaker 2: time there's credit union professionals from the credit union that
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  Speaker 2: are going to these conferences. But we've been to multiple
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  Speaker 2: conferences where someone from the Board of Directors is there
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  Speaker 2: and the Board of Directors has this holistic view of
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  Speaker 2: you know, all things from growth perspective, get a download
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  Speaker 2: from the internal teams before the Board of Directors comes back,
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  Speaker 2: and then bring it back to the el T post
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  Speaker 2: that post the conference.
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  Speaker 3: What sort of personas do you see attending? And I
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  Speaker 3: think Barry you said that you know, it tends to
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  Speaker 3: be more kind of senior leaders the credit union. Is
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  Speaker 3: it across different areas where lending member services or like,
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  Speaker 3: how do you think about that? And maybe that difference
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  Speaker 3: for the size of the credit union too, of how
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  Speaker 3: many people they say and what levels.
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  Speaker 1: They are, I think size of the credit un but
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  Speaker 1: also the topic of the conference of self strategic growth.
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  Speaker 1: To me, there's more of a connotation of more of that.
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  Speaker 1: The chief strategy officer, maybe a chief operations officer, the
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  Speaker 1: marketing folks certainly would be interested in going to it
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  Speaker 1: from a from a growth perspective. Those are usually the
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  Speaker 1: personas that that we encounter at these conferences. But understand
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  Speaker 1: that there's topics there for everyone throughout throughout the credit
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  Speaker 1: un many different competencies that there's gonna be some great
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  Speaker 1: ideas come out of it. And now how do we
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  Speaker 1: actually take those great ideas and actually turn them into
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  Speaker 1: actionable items for a credit UNI.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, and that's a I guess kind of a great
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  Speaker 4: follow up question.
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  Speaker 3: Like you know, as you you send people to conferences,
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  Speaker 3: you're you know, you're spending money as an organization, you
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  Speaker 3: want to get something out of it. They may have
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  Speaker 3: their board of directors members there, So how do you
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  Speaker 3: think about maybe ideas where leaders could help build that
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  Speaker 3: accountability and and uh and kind of turn some of
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  Speaker 3: those things into actionable items when they come back.
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  Speaker 2: You have, in any line of it business some type
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  Speaker 2: of strategic planning session, and you should have a strategic
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  Speaker 2: planning session around conferences if you're going to multiple conferences,
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  Speaker 2: whether it be strategic growth or GAC or all these
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  Speaker 2: other different conferences the ACU runs. Have a dedicated team
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  Speaker 2: to again going back to what I was saying, have
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  Speaker 2: a team dedicated to X problem. Why problem? Then bring
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  Speaker 2: that back internally and then how can you create internally
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  Speaker 2: of the strategic plan something that's going to be looked
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  Speaker 2: at on an ongoing basis. So you have quarterly business
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  Speaker 2: reviews as your line of business pretty standard. Are you
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  Speaker 2: coming out of these conferences and looking at these actual
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  Speaker 2: items actually taking place or have they kind of gone
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  Speaker 2: back into the repository of things that aren't as important.
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  Speaker 2: Maybe having some type of plan like that.
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  Speaker 1: You know, that's a good point because I think a
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  Speaker 1: corely check in on this is so important. It used
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  Speaker 1: to be just full disclosure. As a former credit and
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  Speaker 1: CEO charged with making sure the strategic plan was updated
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  Speaker 1: on an annual basis, way back in the day, we
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  Speaker 1: would complete the strategic plan and it almost went on
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  Speaker 1: the shelf a little bit. It wasn't really looked at
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  Speaker 1: as much anymore. And I think now the strategic plan
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  Speaker 1: can really be used to center the entire organization around
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  Speaker 1: what the vision emission is and then the tactics I
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  Speaker 1: think come out of that strategic plan. The timing of
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  Speaker 1: this growth conference is very beneficial because being in August,
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  Speaker 1: you start to see a lot of strategic plan conferences
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  Speaker 1: and I should say within the Credit Union board, strategic
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  Speaker 1: retreats and someone happening in the fall in order to
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  Speaker 1: get into planning and budgeting for the next fiscal year.
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  Speaker 1: So that's again the timing is great, but let's just
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  Speaker 1: make sure that what we're taking from that strategic plan
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  Speaker 1: is not just kept within the strategic plans, it's being
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  Speaker 1: looked at on a regular basis, and again centering things
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  Speaker 1: around st.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and you think about like the lending space and
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  Speaker 2: just financial services in general evolves so much in a
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  Speaker 2: month two months. You never know what's going to come
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  Speaker 2: in the news. Maybe something that you said in a
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  Speaker 2: session at a conference doesn't pertain to your business today,
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  Speaker 2: but it could in two months as things shift with
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  Speaker 2: it within your internal rails.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: So I think that there's probably any any number of
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  Speaker 3: topics that they're hearing about any conference, but particularly as
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  Speaker 3: strategic growth. How do they think about maybe finding the
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  Speaker 3: right topics that can have the fastest impact because you
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  Speaker 3: do have these like planning cycles.
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  Speaker 4: You've got to plan for next year get.
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  Speaker 3: Things into the budget and into the both the people,
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  Speaker 3: people and money resources.
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  Speaker 4: But what are some of the big takeaways that.
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  Speaker 3: You think from a product strategy that could drive the
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  Speaker 3: fastest growth.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. I think a lot of times we go to
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  Speaker 1: these conferences, we get these new ideas and we're like, oh, well,
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  Speaker 1: we have some maybe we don't have the systems in
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  Speaker 1: place to actually operationalize it's the way we want to
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  Speaker 1: and sometimes bringing on new systems and bringing on new
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  Speaker 1: vendors that can be a year long process. There's a
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  Speaker 1: whole lot of due diligence required and the whole vendor
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  Speaker 1: management process that maybe has to front the ability to
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  Speaker 1: actually execute on a new idea. I mean, credit unions
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  Speaker 1: have a lot of systems today and aren't necessarily harnessing
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  Speaker 1: all the power of it. Like, maybe there are some
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  Speaker 1: ways that we could operationalize some of these new ideas.
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  Speaker 1: It may not be perfect, it may not be the
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  Speaker 1: optimum member experience that you want, but let's at least
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  Speaker 1: get some quick wins and some quick successes. And in parallel,
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  Speaker 1: if you think that there's another system or another vendor
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  Speaker 1: who you think could do it better, you can in
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  Speaker 1: parallel look through that whole vendor management process. But at
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  Speaker 1: the same time, let's get some quick wins now with
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  Speaker 1: utilizing the tools.
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  Speaker 2: That we already have and on that too. There's multiple
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  Speaker 2: different sessions that will be beneficial now or maybe later
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: in your a lot of business. But download all of
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: it while you're there, and then going back time to
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  Speaker 2: the kind of to these QBRS sessions. Just because something
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  Speaker 2: isn't viable to your business in the short term within
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  Speaker 2: the next two or three months, make sure you're able
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  Speaker 2: to again download all of that and be able to
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  Speaker 2: come back and look and say, Okay, this probably makes
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  Speaker 2: sense for us now we have this integration conversation that
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  Speaker 2: we had with X y Z vendor. This might make
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  Speaker 2: sense for us now, and then you can re explore it.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think very one of the things you said
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  Speaker 3: made a lot of sense. Like you know, maybe pick
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  Speaker 3: small things to do, Like it doesn't have to be
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  Speaker 3: we're going to change our entire contact center strategy.
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  Speaker 4: It could be that we're going to do a.
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  Speaker 3: Very small AI chat pilot in one thing like helping
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  Speaker 3: with account opening or something specific, so you can you
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  Speaker 3: don't need to kind of all the ocean you can.
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  Speaker 3: You can try to pick some meaningful use cases and
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  Speaker 3: test pilots out there too.
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  Speaker 1: Yep, small bites of the apple.
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  Speaker 4: Right, Yep, absolutely, I think.
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  Speaker 3: And then you know, as you think about that, like
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  Speaker 3: new partnerships, new vendors, identifying the ones that are worse
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  Speaker 3: than spending more time on you know, what are some
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  Speaker 3: of the what are some of the recommendations you'd make
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  Speaker 3: to credit union leaders as they're thinking about like how
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  Speaker 3: to do that, like how to figure out what.
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  Speaker 4: Is most meaningful and where to start eating that apple?
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  Speaker 2: Well, I think at any conference, I've always in my past,
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  Speaker 2: same as Barry prior to CEO Credit Union, go hit
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  Speaker 2: all of the vendors. They may not be the vendor
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  Speaker 2: for you right, but they may be the vendor for
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  Speaker 2: you in six years, six months. What have you get
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  Speaker 2: the full download from all of them. Another thing that
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  Speaker 2: you're going to get at a conference that you're not
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  Speaker 2: going to get over zoom teams what have you is
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  Speaker 2: you're going to get a general sense of the potential
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  Speaker 2: engagement of that vendor or that relationship that you have
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  Speaker 2: with that vendor. You're going to be able to get
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  Speaker 2: all of that at a conference rather than again on
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  Speaker 2: a zoom So make sure, you says side time at
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  Speaker 2: any conference that you go to to hit all of
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  Speaker 2: the vendors and get their perspective on what they can
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  Speaker 2: offer to your credit union, and then you can utilize
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  Speaker 2: that as part of your short term long term strategy.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and use your network. I mean, if I know
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  Speaker 1: that Lynn deals with XYZ company, and I know Linn
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  Speaker 1: personally and I can get together for coffee or cocktail
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  Speaker 1: after the conference, then let's talk about how has that
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  Speaker 1: relationship been going for you. Did it meet your expectations,
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  Speaker 1: is it growing in concert with your growth potential within
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  Speaker 1: your credit union? Do they hit their slas their service
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  Speaker 1: level agreements? Just sort of simple things like that. Because
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  Speaker 1: partnerships are so important now for credit unions, you cannot
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  Speaker 1: do everything that you need to do in order to
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  Speaker 1: move your member experience further with just internally with You're
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  Speaker 1: going to need help from others, and that help can vary.
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  Speaker 1: You know, Sometimes that help can hinder, sometimes that help
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  Speaker 1: can amplify your credit union value proposition in such a
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  Speaker 1: way that really does give you a really unique place
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  Speaker 1: in the marketplace and really sort of drives things forward
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  Speaker 1: from a member experience perspective. So use your network for that.
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  Speaker 1: They are the people who can tell you whether this
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  Speaker 1: is going to work for you or not.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, And I like something I think Drew said about,
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  Speaker 3: you know, getting in front of folks, You're kind of
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  Speaker 3: getting a sense for who they are as people, what
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  Speaker 3: they would be like to work with, versus just what
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  Speaker 3: is the tech, because I think sometimes the tech can
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  Speaker 3: be a little bit harder to sess out differentiation. But like,
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  Speaker 3: are these people who are going to be business partners
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  Speaker 3: of yours like extensions almost like staff augmentation to help
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  Speaker 3: you do the things that you can't do internally. And
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  Speaker 3: how do they support you once you are in that
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  Speaker 3: implementation process or using their products?
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  Speaker 2: I think on that too. If you do meet with
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  Speaker 2: a specific vendor and that meets your strategy right now
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  Speaker 2: you're in person, any vendor or potential partner is going
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  Speaker 2: to take the coffee or the cocktail you're If you're
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: interested in what they're saying right now, you can elaborate
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  Speaker 2: on that while in person, rather than setting up some
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: random thirty minute to an hour meeting a month from now,
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  Speaker 2: and then you could take that back to your team
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  Speaker 2: and it could be something a benefit.
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  Speaker 3: Sure, And I think you know we talked about the timing.
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  Speaker 3: Right now, you're kind of going into the fall planning cycle,
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  Speaker 3: planning for next year, but like a lot of these
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  Speaker 3: things or longer term projects or maybe as you said,
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  Speaker 3: things that are meaningful.
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  Speaker 4: A year from now but maybe are not your top priority.
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  Speaker 3: How can credit unions going to keep that moment to
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  Speaker 3: them going after the event reps like keep these ideas fresh,
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  Speaker 3: keep that kind of roadmap moving forward, even if they
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  Speaker 3: can't tackle everything today.
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  Speaker 1: From personal experience being at these conferences, you come back
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  Speaker 1: and your energize, it's like, oh, we could do this,
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  Speaker 1: we could do this, we could do this, and there's
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  Speaker 1: all great ideas and then life gets in the way,
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  Speaker 1: your your normal business gets in the way. Or now
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  Speaker 1: there's a problem that I've got to I've got to
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: drop everything to solve and you know, next thing, you know,
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  Speaker 1: it's two weeks, it's two months after and you know
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  Speaker 1: that all those ideas are still there, but nothing's really
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  Speaker 1: been operationalized. So it is critically important to actually you've
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  Speaker 1: got to schedule time for yourself to actually get these
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  Speaker 1: ideas down on paper, to engage with those in your
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  Speaker 1: credit union who can help you push these ideas forward.
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  Speaker 1: To actually be able to take meaningful steps towards making
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  Speaker 1: the change that you want to make. But you've got
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: to You've got to create that time for yourself. Otherwise
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: it just gets soaked up with the day to day
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  Speaker 1: that that tends to sort of permeate everything that we do.
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: And if you can build a team around it, right,
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  Speaker 2: if you have a team that is dedicated to conference strategy,
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: are there specific check ins? How often are those check ins?
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  Speaker 2: Going back to the QBR type of sense. If they're
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  Speaker 2: able to kind of run the whole strategy of what
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  Speaker 2: conferences bring for value to a credit union and you're
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  Speaker 2: doing monthly check ins there, then it doesn't go on
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  Speaker 2: the shelf, right sure?
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  Speaker 4: True?
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  Speaker 3: I think something maybe the credit unions could also pick
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  Speaker 3: up on that we tend to do a tech companies
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  Speaker 3: like Upstart, is this idea of hack weeek. I you
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  Speaker 3: know where you have like little teams that maybe you can't.
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  Speaker 4: Allocate resources fully to.
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  Speaker 3: Say an innovation team or more of an R and
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  Speaker 3: D team, but can you have like kind of competitions
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  Speaker 3: between different teams. Do see what you can do in
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  Speaker 3: small little bite See what that the people who are
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: doing the work can come up with using the tools
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  Speaker 3: that they have.
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  Speaker 1: Hack Week is a perfect metaphor here because I know
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  Speaker 1: some credit unions do have some sort of a Hack
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  Speaker 1: Week type of event, not many of them, but really
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  Speaker 1: all should in some respects because think of it from
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  Speaker 1: upstarts perspective. How many new innovations have we come up with?
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  Speaker 1: There are new ways of thinking have we come up
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  Speaker 1: with in terms of approaching a problem from Hack Week.
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  Speaker 1: We've even created solutions to problems we didn't even know
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  Speaker 1: we had through Hack Week. And think about taking that
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  Speaker 1: same concept at the crediting space. It could be very
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  Speaker 1: very powerful to again move your company forward the way
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  Speaker 1: you want.
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  Speaker 2: Even if it's not Hack Week or whatever you want
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  Speaker 2: to classified as it's not that much time in essence
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  Speaker 2: to build long term short term strategy. As it relates
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  Speaker 2: to this, even if you were to set aside a
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: day or two days, if there was a dedicated timeframe
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  Speaker 2: of being able to do this, then to burious point
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  Speaker 2: you'd be able to get more out of the scope
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  Speaker 2: of what you're trying to accomplish.
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  Speaker 3: And I think from an employee development and engagement too,
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  Speaker 3: if people feel like they have a voice and they're
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  Speaker 3: not just being kind of told what what innovation looks
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  Speaker 3: like and what to do like. You may come up
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  Speaker 3: with some great ideas that aren't visible except for somebody
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  Speaker 3: who kind of doing that job day to day whom
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  Speaker 3: I see it.
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  Speaker 2: And that's where you get that stuff, is you have
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  Speaker 2: dedicated times set away from not doing your day to
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  Speaker 2: day that you get solutions and you get people thinking,
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  Speaker 2: and it translates into better types of things across.
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  Speaker 1: The I mean, I love that point about It could
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  Speaker 1: be anyone in your credit UNI who's going to sort
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: of have that bright idea to move things forward. It's
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  Speaker 1: ironic that management teams tend to be the ones to
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: go to conferences and come up with these solutions to
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: member issues. When how much member contact do they have?
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  Speaker 1: Usually when I was CEO, I had member contact usually
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: when there was a problem.
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  Speaker 4: Sure, when it was a real problem, or you.
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  Speaker 1: Know, certainly when we had events and so on, a
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  Speaker 1: lot of handshaking and kissing babies and so on and
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: so forth. But for the most part, I'm getting problems, right,
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: someone who's really really mad at us. But guess what
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: my tellers, my senior loan officers, my branch managers, my
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: contact certed people are dealing with people daily, and they
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: are the ones who can tell you, do we really
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: have a good value problem position out there? Are we
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: really executing on what we want to do for our
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: membership or not? And they can probably even tell you
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: some of the things you could do better or the
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: reasons why you're not actually performing as well as you
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: think you should. So I think it's even more important
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: to bring those people into these sorts of brainstorming sessions
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: to try and find the real Lindstaff.
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: For the core of why you're doing what you're doing right.
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: Great, Well, if you're enjoying these insights, please leave us.
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: A rating on Spotify helps more industry leaders discover the show,
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: and your support means we can keep the conversation going
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: all right. Next we are going to talk factor fiction,
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: So we're breaking down real opinions about conferences, deciding if
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: we're on board with the time and resources that it
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: takes to attend them or not. So there's some people
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: who may think that you can learn more from LinkedIn
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: in a week than at a three day conference.
• 16:56
  Speaker 4: So what is that various? A little bit of a
• 17:00
  Speaker 4: skeptical face.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: Going, how's your LinkedIn feed looking lately it's a little bit.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: You know, Facebook is at some point not to slag
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: on linkedinn because LinkedIn is a very useful tool, I think,
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: especially in our business as we network with others in
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: the industry and so on. And look, there are some
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: ideas that come through LinkedIn, but I find that the
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: idea itself from LinkedIn is more a click or too
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: away from actually being something that I can act, that
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: I can utilize. So I want to I don't just
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: want Lend's opinion on I actually want to look at
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: the source of this information that's being provided to me
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: and sort of discern it for myself. Conferences are are
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: still a valuable resource in order to get those new ideas,
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: and I'll tell you that sometimes the best ideas don't
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: always come from the agenda or from the speakers. It's
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: from having lunch with the guy across from me who's
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: got the same problem I have, or is looking at
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: implementing the same solution, or even better, has already put
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: in the same solution that I'm considering. And that's where
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: I'm getting the really valuable idea. I don't know what
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: your experience has been.
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: No, I agree, I'm on point with you as it
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: relates to the scope of what LinkedIn looks like now.
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: But LinkedIn you're able to go find things right and
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: it's going to give you something in return. But generally speaking,
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: what's on LinkedIn is not as much of a download
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: that you can get at a conference or even in
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: a Wall Street Journal article. It's very tailored to whatever
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: the post is about. Emojis always are part of the post,
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: whereas at a conference you're still able to pick and choose,
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: but you're getting that full breadth of relationship building elaborating
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: on whatever the session entailed at a further discussion. So
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: I would say, if we're going to define factor fiction
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: that I would say fiction.
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'd say fiction as well. And one other thing
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: with the conference is you're in sessions with experts and
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: you actually have the ability usually in these sessions to
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: be able to have a Q and A after So,
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: you know, I've got a burning question that I've been
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: really looking for an idea or an answer to you,
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: I should say, and perhaps there's an opportunity to do
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: that in the session, or perhaps you catch that person afterwards,
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: you know, after the crowd is left, then you can
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: engage in that one on one conversation with that expert
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: and perhaps get a little bit of a deeper answer
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: to the questions.
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the sessions are spaced out far enough in advance.
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: I remember I was at Strategic Growth maybe two years
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: or so ago, presenting on behalf of Upstart, and the
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: amount of people that came up to me to ask
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: all things upstart as part of the presentation. It was
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: kind of overwhelming. But exactly, you could just walk up
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: and they're going to have that dialogue with you if
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: they want to get further clarification.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: Right two years ago, AI and lending, Yeah, I mean
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: was a big topic. So I'm sure you're a very
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: popular guy.
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: I was.
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: You always are a popular guy, but.
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: Let's be honest, extra popular. Yeah, that's maybe a cautionary
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: tale on use of LinkedIn. If you're using things like
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: chad GPT to help write your LinkedIn posts, that last
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: prompt that says would you like me to do X
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: y Z, don't copy and paste that into your LinkedIn
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: Occasionally I see that and it clearly into ca They
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: missed removing that line, so I think you touched on
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: it a little bit.
• 20:04
  Speaker 4: Already vary about where some of the best value can
• 20:07
  Speaker 4: be added, but but there can't.
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: Some people have this perception that conferences maybe are just
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: a little bit of echo chambers.
• 20:14
  Speaker 4: You know, the same.
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: Speakers, same topics, you know, not really challenging the status quo.
• 20:21
  Speaker 4: What do you both think about that?
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: I would say that's fiction. Again, every conference that I've
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: been to, I've always come back with ideas or maybe
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: some concepts that I hadn't really considered before. And again,
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: whether that came from a speaker in the agenda, whether
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: that came from a conversation with another attendee, but no,
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: this is pushing my thinking forward. So yeah, I.
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: Would agree on fiction. Going back to your point earlier, Barry,
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: you have multiple people there that are probably reoccurring speakers vendors,
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: but things evolve. What they said last year at the
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: conference could be different, and if you're in those sessions,
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: it's much easier to get their expertise as it relates
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: to that at this current state in comparison to the
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: prior conference.
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: They're experts because they are experts, and they're exactly they're
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: regular invities to speak because.
• 21:16
  Speaker 4: They add value.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: All right, So so last one and we actually talked
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: about this a little bit about you know, whether how
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: many people they can send from different sized organizations and
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: what the value is for the attendees. But do conferences
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: maybe only perception that they benefit the biggest credit unions
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: who have these large teams and maybe particularly like an
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: innovation or transformation group that can go.
• 21:42
  Speaker 4: Factor of fiction.
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: So the bigger credit unions, they already have a very
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: built base of their institution, right, they know what they
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: want to do on a short term, long term strategy.
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: Getting off of that track is probably much harder than
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: for smaller institutions. So I think the benefit of conferences
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: is actually greater for small institutions because they get a
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: further depth of what can be offered to create a
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: growth strategy as part of their smaller institutions all hedge.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: It's a little bit of a factor and a little
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: bit of a fiction. So I was CEO of a
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: credit UNI that was about two hundred and seventy five
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: million assets, and I would ceeover credit U there's almost
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: a billion. So the ability for us in the smaller
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: credit union to take some of these actionable ideas, they
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: weren't very actionable for us because we either didn't have
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: the resources. We didn't have the car, we didn't have
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: the expense budget for it, we didn't have the revenue
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: to support the potential expense that this would be. So
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: our ability to actually turn this into actionable AMS was
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: somewhat new to it, a little bit at a larger
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: credit union, a lot more resources, a lot more people,
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: and I'll say even from a board perspective, the board's
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: expectations at larger credit UNI were a little bit broader,
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: a little bit larger than just sort of a shorter
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: term service strategic objective that we were really charged with
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: moving this organization forward as fast as we could, because
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: although okay, billion dollar credit UNI is big, not so
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: much anymore. I mean, you know, credit unis are getting
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: bigger and bigger and bigger, and so I had to
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: compete in a very large metropolitan area with five and
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: ten billion dollars and twenty billion dollar credit unies. So again,
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: you know, our ability versus what they could do is
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: somewhat nearer to do as well. But yeah, i'd say
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: it's a little bit of a fact and in fiction,
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: but I would not let that dissuade anyone from attending
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: the conference, because you're going to get an idea that's
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: going to be helpful for you in some way, shape
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: or fashion.
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: A mean it is what you make of it, right,
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: if you bring it back and you can implement, or
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: if you can even learn some new things, they can
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: help you do the things you're doing better. That they're
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: in it of itself has value. Thank you so much
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: for listening to leaders in lending.
• 23:43
  Speaker 4: We will see you next time.