Does Your Banker Know You by Your First Name?
Relationship banking involves investment of time, not just dollars.

Talk to any group of business owners about banking and you’ll hear more than one person say they are just an account number to a banker. That belief has no doubt been fostered by one or more unpleasant experiences. Other business owners may say that their banker just doesn’t understand their business. Still others think that bankers know everything about all kinds of businesses.

None of these perceptions is true. In fact, if you talk to a group of bankers, many of them will say that they would like to be doing more business with business owners and entrepreneurs. Simply put, bankers must lend money to make money.

So why the gap in perception between business owners and bankers? They obviously do want to do business with each other.

Closing the Gap
One of the problems is that bankers are always handling and securing other people’s money. Thus they are trained to be very conservative and to not take unnecessary risks. Entrepreneurs, on the other hand, are high-risk takers and therefore can’t understand why bankers and others don’t share in their enthusiasm for their business ventures. Once this very basic difference is recognized, all parties involved have a better chance of developing strategies for building firm and long-lasting relationships.

The best time to establish a first name banking relationship with your banker is long before you need to borrow money or want to open an account. In every banking relationship—whether it involves lending, merchant cards, deposit accounts, checking, savings or others—you and your banker should feel comfortable working together. Here a few tips for building that relationship:

• Invest time to talk with several prospective bankers. No matter what its size, every bank should provide a friendly environment that allows for convenience, safety and confidentiality of all transactions.
• Make sure you initiate a working acquaintance with the receptionist, tellers and bookkeepers, as well as the bank manager and business banking officer.
• Be sure you and your banker understand your business, its cycles, your primary and secondary target market and any special cash needs (e.g., the days you may need large amounts of coins or several denominations of bills, payday needs, special deposit requirements, etc.).
• If problems develop, don’t wait until the last minute to tell your banker. Bankers don’t like surprises. Don’t let your banker find out that something is wrong with your business via a rumor or by reading about it in the newspaper. The bottom line is that you can never tell your banker too much about your business.

Remember that relationships and mutual respect must be built over time. You spend time with some people; you invest it with others. Let your banker know you are ready, willing and able to invest the time needed to develop a first name relationship with all the personnel you intend to interact with. Your banker should also be willing to invest time with you to learn more about you and your business. Build the relationship first, and the comfort of money transactions will follow.

Reuben Siverling has served as a financial consultant to small businesses for the past 20 years. In August of this year, he joined US Bank as Business Banking Officer for Platte County and Gladstone, Mo.