Building the Future Community Bank with Jim Marous

Caleb Stevens (00:50.396)
All right. Well, Jim, welcome to the Community Bank podcast. It’s great to connect with you. How are things up your way? is it Ohio that you’re in?

Jim (00:58.434)
Yeah, I’m in Cleveland this time yeah, the Cleveland this time of the year I’m in Florida in the in the wintertime. I I never thought I’d be a snowbird but but it’s it’s it’s grown on me. Let’s let’s say that you know, I don’t miss the snow, even though I don’t mind the snow. And we get our we get our share of weather in both places in the off season, so

Caleb Stevens (01:15.664)
There you go. Well, my wife’s from Florida, so she’s very familiar with with snowbirds like yourself. And speaking of my wife, I was talking to her the other day and I said, You know how you follow these Instagram influencers online? I said, You may not believe this, but there’s such a thing as banking influencers. And I said, My my manager, my boss, Chris Nichols, would be in that category. But you, Jim, you’re kind of the OG. You’re kind of the original banking influencer if there is such a thing out there. So for the listeners who are living under a rock and don’t know who you are, tell us about yourself and what you do.

Jim (01:34.37)
Yeah.

Jim (01:45.944)
You know, I I have five decades in banking. I started as a management trainee back at National City Bank in Cleveland back before it was PNC, and learned the first five years of my banking career really all different areas of banking, and then went went on to about three different other financial institutions before I jumped

the the ship and went the other side of the desk and started selling direct marketing dig back then it was direct marketing not digital marketing services for different agencies that served only banking. So what’s interesting is I’ve I’ve been I’ve had hand in banking my whole career on different areas. And as I mentioned to you in the the pre-podcast is that about 17 years ago I started writing for the financial brand and bought the j what at that time was called the online banking report from Jim Bruni who

put put on Finovate back in the day and and it it it’s really interesting to see how much has changed and yet how much has stayed the same. I mean I I can go back and you know I’m starting to give stories to people that that they don’t realize why, you know, all of a sudden branches didn’t need the 14 teller lines tet teller people on the teller line and they don’t remember pre direct deposit. They don’t remember Fridays in mid

month and end of month days that all fell in the same when not only did you have people cashing checks, but you had people updating passbooks. It depends on the category of person. If it’s an older person, they were updating their passbook on a quarterly basis. And if they’re younger and they especially if they worked in the government or had any kind of government checks, we had lines out the door until way after closing. It was it was a crazy time. And it’s interesting to see the transformation, but you know the purpose of banking and the dynamics of

The branch systems in in the United States are all very unique.

Caleb Stevens (03:36.293)
What what what would you say has stayed the same? You’ve been around for quite a while and you’ve seen we could list off a number of changes, but what would you say are some common theme themes that have stayed the same?

Jim (03:47.252)
one common problem, the banking world discusses a lot of things that they believe in way before they do it, or if they ever do it. We know the importance of relationships. We know the importance of building broader relationships. We don’t do a really good job of of doing the issues, doing the items that need to be done to do that. And it’s gotten in many ways, it’s gotten easier since the days when I started banking, and in many ways it’s been more difficult. Easier because

We have so much information on our customers we can get from internal or external sources due to the digital environment we’re in right now. But in the same sense, a person can now close an account without closing an account with a push of a button, open an account elsewhere. And I refer to it as silent attrition, where a customer moves to another institution, starts using them as their maybe their primary or a major secondary relationship.

And the existing organization doesn’t even know it if they’re not looking at flow of funds or realize what’s happening to the relationship. So what happens is we don’t have attrition that’s very high. It hasn’t really increased. And yet we have a lot of people that have moving accounts on a regular basis, maybe have two or three primary accounts. And in the past it used to be always a checking account, because that’s where the transaction always started. Well, that’s not it anymore. My son, I would say his primary financial institutions may be

Venmo and and probably could be a a discover card or a a card from from Chase that he basically uses for the rewards. And he has never walked into a branch except for once when he opened the account. And he would say himself, if you’re asking me what my most important financial relationship is right now, it’s probably the credit and the debit side, but in different ways. You know, and and so while the the legacy organization may still think they have the primary relationship.

Which may be true in the on the paper. The reality is he doesn’t see his primary financial institutions anything other than being a a deposit warehouse, as Ron Chablin would say.

Caleb Stevens (05:51.771)
Yeah, yeah. Well, speaking of Ron Chevlin, I first heard you guys earlier this year at the Financial Brand Forum. You guys did a great job with your part in the finteruption panel. It was kind of a part in the interruption ESPN style show, which was a lot of fun. That was a lot of yeah, a lot of fun. You guys did a great job. And you went through a rundown of a bunch of different topics. And so I’d love to kind of just start for our rundown here for this discussion with you may have seen this, but I was reading a Travillion

Jim (06:03.084)
Yeah, what a blast. Yeah.

Caleb Stevens (06:20.676)
Article recently, you know, the recruiting firm Travillion, and they noted that the average CEO today of a bank is 65 years or older. I want to say they said half of all bank CEOs are 65 or older. 20 years ago, only 30% were 65 or older. So in part of this is the the the baby boomers moving into retirement. But we’re seeing one of the largest leadership transitions we’ve ever seen in banking history. And you’ve just described, you know, the difference between how your son banks and how a

Jim (06:40.214)
Ha ha ha.

Caleb Stevens (06:49.98)
someone who’s older historically has banked. What does that mean in your mind for community banks and how should boards be thinking about that? How much of this, you know, there were 18,000 banks back in the eighties and now we’re just over 4,000. For the banks that want to re remain independent, stay around and not become irrelevant, what should they be thinking about?

Jim (07:11.566)
Boy, there’s a lot there. Number one, you know, the the the bank CEO, the the bank president, banking industry has the longest tenure, if I’m not mistaken, of any industry with regard to how long people stay in those positions. It’s I think seven to nine years, but it’s extraordinarily long compared to other jobs where other industries where it’s maybe five or six years before the turnover happens. And I think on one hand, you could you could get me into a side that says,

Caleb Stevens (07:12.774)
Yeah, right.

Jim (07:40.45)
This is a disadvantage right now, given how the banking world is changing. On the other hand, I could very easily in the in the Ron Shellman, Jim Roos discussion base, I could easily take the other side and say, we have to remember what that legacy, what that that institutional knowledge, that 20 or 30 years of knowledge of a financial institution brings you. Because there’s a lot of value there. But but on the other hand, we we see.

There’s some weaknesses here, not just on the CEO and present side, but certainly on the board side. We have to continually improve what that position does and its knowledge of where banking is currently. We we see in our research that we do that

the there’s a barbell effect of the organizations that are best from an innovation, from a transformation, from a a growth and and expansion of what they’ve done in the current way of banking. We see it in the smallest institutions and we see in the large institutions. We don’t see in the middle. And and you know the largest can buy their way out of anything. The smallest, you have a lot of financial institutions, a lot of credit unions and small community banks that have

Truly small businessmen as the president. They’re they’re they’re innovative. They’re they’re they really look at what’s going on currently and they continually nuance what they’ve done and they’re on top of the industry. Now that’s not to say every small industry institution is that way. We have a lot of very, very, very legacy organizations. But I think what we’re gonna see, and we’re starting to see it, we’re about to have probably the biggest consolidation we’ve ever seen in this industry since the depression.

And I don’t think it’s gonna be because of financial r realities. I think it’s gonna because of what I’ll call digital resilience. How ready are you for the future? And the challenge is if you look at those non-responsive smaller institutions, or especially the mid-sized organizations who have leadership that I I I use this in my podcast more often than I should, Pobby, that played golf together on Monday nights 20 years ago and have never had a bad year. No, the the reality is.

Jim (09:49.45)
In for the ninety-nine point nine percent of the industry, it ain’t broken. We’re making money year after year. It may be more difficult one year, they may not be as ready, but I think we’re gonna start to see the impact of being ready for a digital world, for an AI world, for the type of engagement that customers want. And those organizations that are the most ready are gonna be the acquirers, even if it’s the small acquiring the large, if it’s a credit union acquiring the bank, if it’s a fintech acquiring a credit union or a bank.

I think we’re going to see that those organizations that are best positioned are those that continually think outside of what they’ve been to what they need to be. the biggest hampering to to innovation today is is trying to instill legacy thought patterns, legacy processes in an ex in a really good modern solution. I I just I’m I’m recording the inside video today about the fact that.

We continue to say our branches in or out, you know, in especially in the US. And to some degree, they’ve been outdated from the standpoint of the traditional ways that branches were used, because people prefer to to open an account and to do their banking digitally as opposed to in a branch, but they’re glad when the branch is there. But those branches that are being built by Bank of America, by Chase, by others, many times are to support.

non-branch related relationships and to make them more branch focused. So Bank of America, I I interviewed and I also interviewed Chase and they said that they they are developing much deeper digital relations and opening more digital relationships when they put a branch in location. Now mind you, they’re filling up gaps, but they also have a very strategic vision saying

How do I then bring the customers in? And to do this, to think about banking differently than we’ve done, legacy leadership can be an asset or a liability. And you interview a lot of finance institutions. You have a lot of them in your correspondent network. The reality is you can pick out ones that fall into both categories. You know those organizations that are being hampered by their legacy leadership, you know those that are being benefited.

Caleb Stevens (11:48.903)
Hm. Yeah.

Jim (12:06.924)
From the knowledge of that legacy leader. But it really is going to be, you know, I’m I’m sitting here at at an elderly age, and every day I’m talking to my AI tool. Okay, are is the bank president? Is the CEO using AI to ask it questions about what they should do differently? More importantly now, are they educating the board?

To be a more proactive, innovative board. Because if the board was selected, as we often did, based on neighborhood friends, this will not be the board that can serve you. You need a board that’s really gonna push the leadership of an organization higher, better. And I think I just interviewed a a a gentleman from a $300 million organization in Colorado, just a really tremendous president of a and CEO of a bank. He says, I spent a lot of time.

bringing my board up to speed on what they have to push us to do. Cause he still bl things. I report to my board, but if my board isn’t pushing me, then they’re not doing their job. And honestly, I’m not doing mine. So, you know, you aren’t going to get short answers from me, but I I I think that the reality is the readiness of a financial institution today is more determined by their leadership. Not just at the very top, but down the levels, to say how much are they really

Caleb Stevens (13:14.417)
Yeah, yeah.

Jim (13:30.474)
moving the institution and how much are they relying on legacy processes, legacy rules, and even the whole mindset of legacy view of risk, which we can or not get into. But I believe that, you know, I came into banking, we are a risk adverse, you know, industry, one that is against risk. Okay. So instead of limiting risk, how about if we manage risk?

You know, the the the counteraction to credit bureaus it being the only way we we d allow credit, I think we’re missing great opportunities. And so there’s a lot of elements there, but it it’s really a mindset more than anything else. I think that the transition from old leadership to new leadership, you know, who do they pick? Do they pick somebody that’s in the organization that is the next step for somebody who has got the same problems that they have? Or are they bringing somebody on board that says, I

I have been here for a while, but I also have a mindset that I g I could tell you I have been hampered by our own rules and regs. So.

Caleb Stevens (14:34.855)
Yeah. Well, you make an interesting point on the risk side, which is I think an important reflection question there is is it truly we’re trying to mitigate risk or is that just sort of a cover for I don’t want to grow and learn and change and adopt and try new things under the guise of of risk. Yeah, right.

Jim (14:49.048)
Same thing we use for same thing we use for regulations and compliance. We we would you we have a lot of reasons to say no. Heck, the noise in the marketplace right now puts a big hampering on organizations buying new technologies. The tech the technology to be an extraordinarily advanced financial institution is available to every size organization. There’s there’s I mean it’s this is something that’s really happened the last six or seven years, but the reality is.

A small institution can do everything that a customer is usually going to want from Chase if they want to. It’s a matter of can they, will they, and will they not get in their own way? Because that’s part of the challenge.

Caleb Stevens (15:31.241)
Right, right. You make a good point too. you hear a lot about CEOs saying AI is gonna help us cut costs, AI is gonna help us do this and that. One question back to the CEOs out there is how are you personally using and learning about AI? That way you have familiarity with what you expect it to accomplish for your organization. it’s not a magic wand where you just wave it and say AI is gonna magically cut our costs. How are you? How is your board thinking about it, learning about it, embracing it? Because

Jim (15:58.574)
And are you are you only looking at the lowest hanging fruit and are you looking at the pilot plans? We we see AI being tested in a lot of places. And in most of those places they say, well, we haven’t really seen a value from AI. Well, that’s shame on you.

Caleb Stevens (16:03.497)
Yeah, yeah.

Jim (16:16.044)
Because in most cases, I don’t think they’ve answered the key question they have to answer, which is what is our North Star? What are we in business? And don’t give me, I want to be a good digital banker. That’s not a North Star. What is your organization’s specific North Star? And then build AI tools and you is use AI tools to accomplish that. And lowest hanging fruit, I I talk about all the time. Most AI implementations right now are to reduce costs.

And I think it’s the wrong reason because what you’re looking at in most cases is how do I replace processes or people with LLMs or whatever it may be with with AI. And that’s not the best answer because you know I’m gonna I’m gonna give you a lot of examples where the the AI tool should be an asset or an assistant to the the human and basically make it so the human can get to a higher level within their mindset.

Caleb Stevens (16:52.008)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jim (17:10.176)
And simply offload some lower level. That doesn’t replace the person. It simply makes it so they can get more done. You, myself, you know, I I would imagine building podcasts as quickly as you do and as often as you do. You use AI tool regularly to say, yeah, r run, run by me what what I should be asking. You go, that’s better than I could do on my own. And it saved you two hours, whatever it used to be. And and in reality, it’s

Caleb Stevens (17:23.676)
All the time.

Jim (17:34.976)
We have to ask it the right questions. If we simply say, How can I use AI to reduce the cost of my organization? You’ll get those answers, but they’re not the optimal use. You know, I I still get back to outward facing technologies and and services where, you know, how can I serve my customer better using these AI tools? And that then you get into risk. There’s always the excuses. Yeah.

Caleb Stevens (17:45.202)
Yeah.

Caleb Stevens (17:57.077)
That’s good. Let’s shift gears for a moment, Jim. I know you and you’ve already touched on this a little bit with with branches and branch strategy, but I know you have your thumb on the pulse of the retail banking world really closely. Talk about I was talking with a with a bank executive recently, and they said, you know, we’re really having a hard time growing retail deposits. And there was almost a little bit of like, should we even

invest in that area or try, we’re never going to compete with Wells Fargo or Bank of America or Chase on the retail side. Should we be more exclusively commercial, small business focused? what would you say to a bank executive that’s trying to think through their strategy and that balance of retail, granular deposits, but also going after the commercial and the and the the small business?

Jim (18:45.26)
The next shiny object. it’s interesting because branches look for that that quick win. And the quick wins are not as stable and are not as consistent. We’re going to have a lot of competition come into our industry that don’t have a branch next door. You know, I I think Nubank could be a very big competitor. we’ve already seen a lot of the fintech firms. We see X as of last week.

Offering all their premium customers 6% interest rate on deposits. You know, that that’s a that’s a big deal. And by the way, commercial’s not going to take care of it. Now, are there opportunities out there? Yes. And a lot of it is going to be: have you really optimized and maximized your current customer base, your current member base? And I’m going to say that at almost every single organization, we haven’t come close. And the reality is.

When was the last time, or do you even get a flow of funds report? Do you know what I do with my deposit that I make twice a month? And do you know where it goes? Does it stay with your organization or does it transfer to Robinhood, SoFi, Chine, some other organization? How do I use credit? How do I use debit? You have all this information. And the reality is, as I mentioned earlier, when I when I ask a group of bankers,

How many of you have closed a primary financial relationship in the last five years? Nobody raises maybe two people raise their hand, but they’re working for the financial institutions. So you kind of expect the back to be a little bit biased. But then I ask, how many of you have opened a relationship at a financial institution that’s outside of your current one for some service that your organization also offers? And almost everybody raises their hand. These are bankers working outside their current organization. This is how normal customers work. The challenge is.

With nobody making a taking a look at what’s happening within a relationship within the the accounts they already have, you have no idea what the hell hold elsewhere. But you have access to the information because if you’re where they’re making their direct deposit, you know where it’s going. If you are the where they’re paying their mortgage, you know how to keep them. You may not want to reprice their mortgage, but maybe you should. How are you how are you building around your current base in a way that

Jim (21:03.874)
really brings value to the organization and to the customer. And, you know, I I’m I in the insight video I’m doing today, I’m talking about, you know, are you setting up appointments for people to come in and discuss not wellness, not, you know, doing a a a a financial analysis, but saying, by the way, I think you’re not using your accounts to the max. We’d like to come in and show you how we have a better service that you may be interested in. Get them in the branch. You will crosshell them. You know, and and

So that’s the first step. Second step, what segment are you best serving? You know, Key Bank found that they do really, really, really well with doctors and professional services. Well, most community banks can do the same. You know, what what do you do in the neighborhood? Are you reaching out? You talked about commercial, you know, AI.

provide I wish I I actually wish I was a c commercial call-in officer nowadays as opposed to when I did it before because now I can go into a commercial relationship and not try to sell them the next product I want to sell them, but to tell them about their business. by the way, I did some research on your business and I found out this, this, this, this. With the accounts you have with us here, I don’t think you’re maximized what have. Where’s your payroll? Because we know that your competition, who is this, this, this, we can give them more information than they have time to search for themselves.

And all of a sudden bring a value that I never could have done as a commercial columnister. I was simply checking off boxes. I said, yes, I visited seven institutions. I provided seven ideas on what they should open. I was winging it. I was simply throwing mud against the wall. Today, all that information is available to us.

Using the digital tools that are out there. So I th I think commercial or small businesses are very important. And then again, look at your current customers. You know, how many of them have side gigs? You know, because you know, we have a whole lot of people, myself included, that all looks like a personal account. It ain’t. I’m not my my money is not flowing in because of personal business. It’s flowing from personal business, but I don’t have a business account at one of my institutions.

Jim (23:10.69)
But that’s where my primary deposit is. So, okay, how much do you know me? You know, again, it it’s getting back to what it was 50 years ago. Know me, understand me, and reward me, and not met necessarily through points, but through better relationships.

Caleb Stevens (23:13.193)
Hmm. Yeah.

Caleb Stevens (23:28.681)
Well, and I’ve heard you say before, and I know Ron Chevlin’s talked about this too on our show before, which is oftentimes when it comes to knowing your customer, it’s not a lack of data. It’s do you have visibility into that data? Do you know what to do with that data? Do you know what story that data is telling? I’d be curious, in your mind, who who who owns that that side of things? Cause that’s where I’ve often seen things fall through the cracks. There’s there’s there’s no clear owner. Is this marketing? Is this the chief lending officer’s job? Is this

Where does this kind of fall up under?

Jim (23:59.211)
Is it me or you breaking up?

Caleb Stevens (24:01.823)
Sorry, Jim, do I illusion?

Jim (24:03.638)
I I yeah, I I got bits and pieces of that.

Caleb Stevens (24:06.825)
Let me you want me to retake the question and we can just edit that out. All right, sorry about that. I don’t know why I’m having trouble. could be our network. Yeah. So I’ll just I’ll just start from the top there. So and I’ve heard you talk about this before, Jim, which and Ron Chevlin has too, I think, to some degree, which is it’s not it’s not always a lack of data. It’s about

Jim (24:11.244)
Yeah, yeah, that’d be great. No, no problem. It could be just as easily me. So I I don’t point fingers anymore.

Yeah. Yep.

Caleb Stevens (24:32.457)
visibility into that data, knowing what to do with that data, knowing what story that data tells. One one area where I often see this fall through the cracks is there’s just no clear owner. Is this the chief lending officer’s job to dissect this and find opportunity? Is it marketing? where where where do we sort of who owns this? You know, the lenders, they say I’m busy, I’m out calling, I don’t have time to sit through and sort through all this data. So where do you see the best banks

taking advantage of this data and is there a person in the bank that you see owning it more often than not?

Jim (25:03.458)
Well, could very easily be whoever has a relationship with your primary partners on solution providers. So if if there’s some organization that really is taking your data sets and turning it into actionable insight, then then it’s whoever owns that relationship or whoever builds that within your organization. Because as you said, the last thing I want as a calling officer, if I use that example again, is data. What I want is insight.

And organizations again will go back to the risk.

Caleb Stevens (25:32.829)
Or or busy or busy work. This is just busy work, Jim. Why do I need to be in Salesforce? Why do I need to be logging all this stuff? I gotta be out calling.

Jim (25:40.886)
I would I would agree. And there’s where AI can come in handy for two reasons. Number one, if you give me all the data sets, I can run AI to make it so I can give you a prompt that gives me insights from that. More importantly, let’s find that person internally. Maybe it’s marketing, maybe it’s the customer relationship manager, maybe it’s IT or whatever they call that area of the bank now, that says, I’m gonna distribute. It’s the distribution of the insights, not the distribution of the data that’s gonna make the difference.

I need to make it so that every teller, when somebody comes into the branch, you know, I I love the geofencing myself, but I if I come into a branch and you can identify who I am, and whoever gets me says, Jim, glad you can make it to the branch today. By the way, you know, in the conversation about the transaction I’m there for, we’ve done a little bit of research. You know, we really see that your balances have dropped a little bit from your normal level. And I wonder what’s the reason for that. You can build the conversation. You only can do that though if

The person has access to that insight that comes from the data. Insight from within and from without. We get scared to death of sharing information with people in the organization. Heck, I I fought those battles as a marketer for a long time in the banking world where I’d get information eight months stale on trying to make a new program and it’s gonna be old before it starts. But the reality is we need to have insight that we don’t aren’t afraid of.

Mistakes are gonna be made. You know, I don’t care if it’s email, I don’t care if it’s a text message or a something in my mobile banking app. We’re gonna make mistakes at matching needs with the customer. However, the customer is used to having those mistakes made every day and they understand how they’re being made. We’re in most cases not gonna say, we’ve opened a new savings account for you because we saw this. No. We’re gonna say, based on some of your deposit information that we’re seeing, which you know we are seeing, we think you might be a good candidate for this.

That’s readvisory. That’s helping. That’s showing empathy, which I think is missing because we don’t, you know, I the last thing I wanted to tell her is: here’s Jim’s relationship in data sets. No. You know, it’s so easy now. Combine it. Tell me what it means. Tell me what you think it may mean from this fact that if you if you’re following transfer of funds, you have a story then. You know, and by the way, the customer knows.

Caleb Stevens (27:49.75)
Yeah.

Caleb Stevens (28:01.866)
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Jim (28:04.684)
That you should know that. I get more frustrated when my two primary financial institutions, both are in top five in the in the country, don’t know what I’m I think they know what I’m doing. They don’t let me know that they know what I’m doing. And that’s the gap. And and I think it’s I think it’s fear of the mistake, fear of the error. And you can build a case for that. Risk is important, but forgiveness from the customer, knowing what we’re what kind of world we’re in right now.

Caleb Stevens (28:20.07)
Hmm.

Jim (28:33.996)
You know, if we at least try, we get a lot of brownie points for that. You you we t I can take the the pizza place down the street that says, You want to order the same thing you did before? This is this, this, this, this, this. They could have made a mistake because maybe I was ordering for a different family at the time. I go, No, no, that’s wrong. I’m not gonna blame them for that. I’m I’m kinda happy you’re trying to save me time. I I think.

The real and and we’re not gonna really have a relate. We use that word. Ron got mad about it last week, or I maybe it was Jim Perry said, you know, relationships, come on, I’m not gonna have a relationship with my banker. But you know what? I’d certainly like them to try. You know, I got I have this this little card I have from Delta that the postcard sitting in the nice seats and and they said, Jim Roose, thanks for being a valued platinum member today on behalf of this ATL-based crew.

signed by the the the the people at the front. I’m going, this is a small thing, but I’ve saved this. This has been two months ago. But I’m going, what they’re doing is they’re giving me a little thank you that’s a surprise and delight. We have so many opportunities not to make it where we’re simply ticking off something on a a to-do list. My bus business banker, you know, I wrote I spoke about this recently and said he reached out to me every quarter.

I now try to avoid his call because I know he’s gonna go, how you doing, Jim? Just want to see if everything’s going well, if, you know, a little bit about your business. The reality is you’ve done no research. You’re simply going through the list of what you’re supposed to do. And I understand that. I value that. I understand you’re really busy. But you you have the ability to dig further. You have the ability to say, you know what, I looked at some of your recent podcasts, you talked about this. How should we fix this in our branch? Show interest. Make it so it’s worth me picking back the phone up.

You know, it’s it’s a very interesting but overly simple and overly difficult process. I can talk about every day and I and it’s it’s easy for me to as they say, easy for you to say you’re not in our branch, you know.

Caleb Stevens (30:34.838)
Well, I I totally agree. And I I’m even thinking about, and I’m sure you get this too. I get probably, I don’t know, 10 sales emails at least a day from people trying to sell us marketing technology solutions and things. And I’d I would venture to say 80% of them are totally written by AI at this point. And it’s such a misuse, and I’m not I’m not against AI at all. I’m pro AI, but but the way in which it’s being used, they clearly have not done their homework on me.

the problems that we’re facing as an organization, my specific role within the bank. but occasionally, occasionally.

Jim (31:10.154)
Or or even or even to teach the AI tool how to avoid sign like AI. I mean, we we’ve we we’ve you and I have both learned this, you know. Okay, I I don’t want to see an M-dash, and Ron is frustrated because he loves M-dashes before AI was even there. He goes, They’re telling me it’s terrible stuff. But beyond that, you know, are are you really are you doing stack sentences? Are you doing groups of three? Are you there’s so many ways and there’s tools out there that can tell you.

Caleb Stevens (31:16.81)
Hundred percent.

Caleb Stevens (31:26.184)
Yeah, right.

Jim (31:38.648)
How to write without sound like AI. And by the way, maybe you get one of those tools that say identify as AI, it sounds like AI. Put your personality into it. Give a story. Do something that nobody else can write. AI can still help you write that, but it’s not going to feel like AI. And you know, what I hate more than anything is the LinkedIn contacts that say they can do this, this, this, this for me. And I go, You haven’t even asked what I do. You don’t know my business. And I’m working with a consultant now, a a

Caleb Stevens (31:52.746)
Yeah. Right.

Jim (32:07.212)
an a huge investment for me. But I did it because they led with questions. They said, you know, we’ve we’ve looked at your your your podcast. We found this, this, this, this that we think is wrong. Who’s and they but they did it through questions. They said, you know, who’s the hero on your podcast? I go, the guest. They go, okay, that that’s good.

Okay, so what happens in the first minute? I said, well, about 30 seconds is an intro and music and all this and this. They said, okay. And they they wouldn’t tell me I was wrong, but I’m going, I’m going down a path I know I’m gonna get caught on. And then they show me how they can improve what I’m doing, but they ask me questions first. if AI teaches you anything, it’s the power of the question and getting it out of its own way because it’s gonna love you. That’s it’s it’s built to keep you talking.

Caleb Stevens (32:55.349)
Yeah. That’s right. Well, well, and I’ll and I was gonna just say too is the the the sales emails that do stand out is when it’s clear they’ve done their homework and they’re they’re interested in having a relationship with Caleb. They’ve listened to the podcast, they’ve done some homework on what I do, they’ve they know about the bank. And so it’s clear that I it’s not spray and pray, I’m gonna send this to a thousand people and I’m just a number in your list of a thousand people you’re hitting with this email.

and then you’re gonna sort of put AI on top of it and call it, it’s personalized because it’s at Caleb’s name and we pulled his LinkedIn, you know, title off of his LinkedIn profile. That to me, that’s not true personalization. But what I was gonna say is community banks are in such a unique position where they can leverage the power of AI with, to your point, the true relationship that comes from a community bank culture and and mindset.

Jim (33:49.582)
It’s not impossible. And again, it it reinforces what we try to do in a community banking world. Is the the thing that we do better than anybody else across the street or down the street that’s a bigger financial institution is we know the community. We we know the people. We know our customers. You know, maybe reference the the the fact that the community baseball team

won a championship or that a new store is going in town and and you’re sharing that and maybe sharing information about your relationship there. And and yeah again, AI can make it much more human at a speed and scale that was never possible. You know, where we, you know, almost like knocking on the doors.

without knocking on the doors or when the community bank the commercial banking officer w walks in and knocks on the door, they come in with some information they can share with the small business owner, make them better. You know, who’s the hero? Not it shouldn’t be me. I you know, I may get back to the bank and be a hero, but you know what? If I’m a hero, it should be in that person’s eye, should make him the hero or her the hero. And it and, you know, it’s it’s

All these tools, and again, it gets back to your very first question about the CEOs, the a the top executive financial institutions. Are these people learning the tools that are available and how they can be deployed? And are they surrounding themselves with people that are the same? If you see a person that’s going to say, I don’t want you to change the loan adjudication process because I’ve done this, this, this, this in the past, and they’ve closed out or

put wrinkles into things that you’ve tried to bring into the organization. We have a problem, Houston. We we gotta do something here. And that comes from the top. That comes from also the board as you teach as you teach, train up to the organization and say, how are we become prepared? Because the best organizations are gonna be those that can leverage new technologies to bring old world solutions.

Caleb Stevens (35:57.859)
Hmm. Well, Jim, that’s if we that’s great. As we land the plane here, I’d love to kind of end by talking a little bit about deposits. Every bank right now is concerned about growing deposits. And we’ve already touched on that a little bit with you know, the the retail side of things. But just in general, any effective deposit gathering strategies that you’re seeing beyond beyond just the the standard

Well, we’re relationship focused and we know our customer. If I asked any community bank listening, they’re all gonna say we’re relationship focused, we’re service oriented. But are you seeing any true, interesting, unique, huh? Never thought of that before, deposit gathering strategies that you think are effective for banks right now?

Jim (36:38.69)
You know what? I I the things that have interested me the most lately, and and maybe I’m just too old school, are the common sense ideas that I I kind of referenced earlier, which is have you worked your base? You know, I I’m gonna have a hard time to get Caleb to be a a a customer of mine in Cleveland, Ohio, is gonna take a rate or some kind of nuance that’s gonna make it see go, I’ll tick the tires. But Caleb ain’t gonna be around two years from now because

XYZ bank in Washington State’s gonna all of a sudden go, you know what? I want Caleb. And they’re gonna offer me U 8% or whatever they’re gonna do. I’m gonna be a lot better off working my current book of business as well as the relationships around those people and doing it in old school ways to say, you know what, I’d like to set up an appointment for you. And this is what the purpose is. And by the way, the purpose is all about the customer as opposed to me. You know, I I go back and I was just

Kicking the tires on this from a long time ago, but Fitzford Bank changed all of their checking accounts. This might be 12 years ago, from 17 different accounts to like three or four. And I may be showing the numbers wrong. But to do that, they put people into the new account and they said, We think we’ve done the best we can to bring you the most value based on the way you transact and the way your balances are. But then

They had the branches reach out to every single one of those customers and said, Can you come in? We’d like to make sure we place you in the right spot. We make mistakes. If you can come in, we’ll reevaluate your checking count. We’ll make sure you’re getting the best one. That’s truly the best for the way you live and you use your checking account right now. If you can’t, we’d like to do that. That was the objective to make sure people got in the right account. What ended up happening?

Caleb Stevens (38:08.34)
Yeah.

Jim (38:26.1)
Sales went through the roof. Relationships went through the roof. Satisfaction scores went through the roof because they set up appointments to meet face to face where digital would have been fine, online would have been fine, just clicking the thing and going, by the way, your account’s name different right now, but nothing much has changed. Well, maybe that wasn’t the best solution. But they got people to come in. And the people that came in brought deposits, brought relationships, brought family members. Because what is it? No other bank that they work with.

Had done that. Maybe banks that have much longer relationships. You know, in addition, not just that, look at those small businesses. Look at those small commercial account relationships and say the one advantage you have in that mid-size is those five those businesses may not be big enough for the big guys to go after full bore. They’re big enough for you. How do you set that differentiator? So I

I think I I I get frustrated when financial institutions said, you know what, I’m gonna build a branch in a new market that’s really growing. Okay, why? That’s two million dollars before you even start to direct pick up deposits. I can tell you, I’d be better off offering six percent as a as a a bonus rate to a current customer and just saying, you know what, I know they’re gonna leave, but at least I’m gonna have something in the bank for it. It’s gonna be a better decision. You know, we and

I I think, you know, it it’s interesting as I think some of the older ways of generating deposits are some of the best. You know, there are great solution providers out there, great people with insights. You know, Chris Nickel is a great example. He’s he’s presented a lot of great examples. And, you know, we talk about having this be a problem and then we don’t implement the solutions. We get we get in the way of doing that. You know, we we talk about

Caleb Stevens (40:09.443)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jim (40:13.472)
A three, you know, another way of generating deposits also get your new account opening experience down to three minutes. Cause I’m not spending eight minutes, twelve minutes, fourteen minutes on a mobile device to open an account. However, I would if you look at your deposits, look at your weaknesses, look at the number of accounts you opened, I will almost guarantee you that if you don’t have a three-minute process, you lose 50% of those customers that knocked on the door and wanted to open an account but gave up.

So what do you do? You figure out a way to get that three minutes because you want those. And by the way, because not every institution is doing that, they all have digital account opening, but most of them suck. The bottom line, if you get to that three minutes, you’re going to get accounts that the other people down the street tried to get, but they walked away because it was too difficult. In addition,

What’s important about that is it really sets the tone for the way you’re gonna be doing better digitally throughout the whole organization. If you there’s great solution providers out there that can get you three minutes, the one problem is bank XYZ, credit union z ABC will say, Okay, I wanna do exactly what they say, except I need to use the driver’s license ID. You just blew the system up. You just made it a nine-minute process.

You’ve got to get you’ve got to use the tools that are available. And I’m I can sell you forever on the fact that a digital identification is better than any driver’s license will ever be. We just are used to one. Heck, we thought we thought signature cards were good back in the day. That’s before your day, I’m sure, in banking. But the reality is if you see those little drawers in the back of a teller line, they used to hold signature cards. Now they hold pens and giveaways and everything else. But I think it’s about doing the

Basics of banking better.

Caleb Stevens (41:59.363)
Hm. That’s great. Well, Jim, if folks want to reach out to you, if you’re getting their wheels turning and they’re saying, Man, we we need to keep this conversation going, how can folks find you and connect with you?

Jim (42:10.539)
I’m not hard to find. I don’t know if that’s good or bad, but that’s one of those nuances of being an influencer. Is that if you look up Jim Maros, J-I-M-M-A-R-O-U-S, if you look up Banking Transformed, I’m also at J Maruse at the Financial Brand dot com. And and you know, I I really encourage people. It’s it’s it sounds like a like a an unpaid promo, but basically, you know.

Give it kick the tires at Banking Transform Podcast. I do banking insight videos twice a week. We interview bankers from across the industry and solution providers about how to make banking better. And that’s that’s why I’m doing what I’m doing. That’s why you’re doing what you’re doing, Caleb, is saying, you know what, I have no end game here except to hopefully raise the bar. And if we hit one or two out of every engagement we have like this, that’s a pretty good win rate.

Caleb Stevens (42:59.479)
Yeah, that’s fantastic. Well, Jim, thanks for what you do to add value to the bankers out there. And we appreciate you coming on, you’re giving us a lot to think about. And so I hope our listeners will maybe li give this show listen two or three times ’cause I know I will. There’s a lot of a lot of gold in there to be absorbed. So yeah, thanks again.

Jim (43:15.01)
Thanks a lot.