Approaching Community Banking Through First Principles

0:02 You are listening to Leaders in Lending from Upstart, a podcast dedicated to helping consumer lenders grow their programs and improve their product offerings. Each week, here, decision makers in the finance industry offer insights into the future of the lending industry, best practices around digital transformation, and more. Let's get into the show. Welcome to Leaders in Lending. I'm your host, Jeff Keltner. This week's episode features my conversation with Daryl Kaffey, SVP of Retail at Webster five. I think it's really interesting conversation. We delve into his different approach to management, coming from a JD background versus a more traditional finance or business background, how he thinks that leads him to approach things differently. We talked about what he calls a shift to a larger lender mentality within the context of a smaller bank, how you can execute that strategy both at a people and a technology level, and what that really means to think and act like a larger lender, maybe one a little bit more resource We talked a lot about how you make smart decisions, how you think about balancing expertise and history and knowledge internally with data and insight that might be coming from data and build the infrastructure to enable sound databased decisions. He's got a fun story for the best career advice. So this was a really fun conversation. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. This is my conversation with Daryl Caffey.

1:21 Daryl, welcome to the podcast, and thanks for making the time to join us today. Yeah, thank you, Jeff, really appreciate the invite. Looking forward to it. Yeah. I like to start all my interviews off with the kind of question about like, talk to me about the your history and how you got to wear your acts. I feel like everybody has their own winding paths, usually not a straight line to the banking industry and then in the lending space. So talk to me a little bit about how you got here. Yeah, sure thing. Well, you know, it's funny. I graduated law school in twenty twelve, which at the time was in the midst of a recession. So I remember getting out of school looking for law jobs, and what was so tough was at that time most of the law jobs out there were no longer for people waiting for bar results. They wanted people who had already passed the bare so I had a whole time landing an internship, got a few offers, but nothing that was really that attractive, and I ended up spreading out my job search, so I started looking at the medical profession, the banking profession, really industries that at that time are doing fairly well. So I figured I kind of dipped my toe in both. Oddly enough, I got two job offers, probably a week or two after I really started looking outside of just the legal space, one in insurance sales and the other one at a slightly discounted salary to get into a post closing at a bank that specialized in mortgages. So I weighed the two options, and I'm thinking, you know, I see some of the insurance sales guys, and a lot of them that are really happy and excited.

2:38 There's a lot of them that looked pretty sad. I looked at the bankers, and I kind of decided that it was probably a better choice up front to get into banking, especially because I thought there were more legal opportunities down the road. And that's where I started. You know, I got that opportunity as a post closer and the mortgage business, and I was happy to get my start there. That's fascinating. I love the description of looking at the people. I remember my dad said he was choosing business schools and he looked at an East Coast school and everybody's in like coast suits and ties. Looked at the West Coast school, every reason shorts and polos, and went that one looks good. I like doing. Those people look happy over there. We're gonna do that. Yeah, Well, you know what's funny about that. As I navigated my career, I started getting doing a little bit of legal work, doing a little bit of banking work, and which you really start to notice is at a higher level the bankers didn't have a lot of fun. A lot of the attorneys man the older they get, and as they kind of navigated those early years in the profession, I saw the look on those phaces too, And that's why I'm still in banking. You could say I always look at one of these things, right, I talked to people. I won't comment on legal or banking professions specifically, but Kassa, would you want your kids to do what you do? You ask a doctor, he asked a lawyer, you ask a banker, and the people who say no, you go, that's probably a that's a pretty sure sign that it's not a great spot to be the people. Yeah, I love for my kids to do this. You Okay, it's probably pretty good.

3:50 They're pretty happy. They liked the life they got surprising where people got a good wind and look at it. You know, I wouldn't want my kids to go into what I'm doing. Oh, I mean, these deals have all changed. It's not like they made necessarily decisions, but they turned out different. How do you mean the JD path in is really interesting that maybe the more typical path into banking is the NBA Finance accounting degree kind of area. How do you think you approach the space differently coming from a you know the background of having a law degree and a legal kind of mind and approach versus what you see for a more traditional like you know, MBA's in the banking space. Yeah, that's a really good question. You know what's interesting is, you know, I'll focus on just my own background for a moment here. Having a j D has given me perspective of really all all sides, all angles, you know, So a lot of times when I'm faced with an issue, I have a pretty easy view of both the pros and cons of either side of the argument. So when you get into like a loan level discussion, whether it's an underwriter debating something over an issue with a loan officer, I tend to immediately have that other person's perspective in mind.

4:53 And I found that for not only decision making, but for staff development and training purposes. It's really been useful for me to just understand both the perspective against someone's opinion, the perspective for someone's opinion, and then ultimately try to make a decision that makes the most sense for both parties. From my experience in banking, and to your point, a lot of people who have the MORGE over that NBA background, they tend to probably make really sound business decisions in a vacuum. And I say that obviously no slide on anyone with the NBA, but the mentality tends to be this is the right business decision. We're doing this, and we're doing this right now, and sometimes that has a detrimental impact on staff, on decision making and perspective. So I personally thought that I had a different approach, an approach that sometimes still frustrates people.

5:39 Right because the last thing someone wants to hear when they bring an issue to me is the other side of the argument. But ultimately, I really like how it's helps me kind of make decisions and kind of guide my path I like that. That's really interesting. I do think this. You know, one of the underappreciated skills is the ability to really see the perspective of the others. So so many of us are wose are listening with the intent to respond with versus listening with the intent to understand. So you're kind of just already gone. I hear what you're saying, but all I'm doing is calculating, like how do I I commence to You're wrong? You should think what I think in my head is supposed to going. Let me really understand where you're coming from, really get the full you know, by you know, for a minute, buy and mentally that argument and see and then like understandable. Bit. It's a it's a really interesting comment. I think it's a it's an underappreciated skill I think in the business world. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. Now. One of the things we talked about when you and I chatted earlier was this kind of like you described it as being in a smaller bank but shifting to a larger lender mentality, and I thought it was a really interesting phase. I wrote it down in my note. So tell me what does it mean to you to shift to a larger lender mentality, bigger lender. I think it's what you actually said, But you know, what does that What do you mean when you think that or say that.

6:44 Yeah, it's a really good or at least interesting topic. When you look at how banking is usually done across community banks, it's usually the same. You know, a heavy instas song commercial lending. Sumer lending typically gets a little less infrastructure, less technology investments. Into a point when you really want to compete at a larger scale, you can't afford to do that. So when you look at some of the bigger players, you know, the quick ends of the world, those different types of organizations, the reality is their technology is built so strong, it's built internal and they can easily pivot. So for a community bank, if you want to really attract the client of the future, which sadly is really the client of today now, you have to be at the forefront of technology that also bleeds to recruiting. You know, if you want to bring on new loan o virginators, especially from either millennial generation of gen Z, their perspective is going to be, hey, we've got to leave with technology and service and let that kind of carry the way too long. I think a lot of community banks have sat down, looked at their balance sheet, realize that the majority of their client basis some of the older generations, and then just focused on them because the reality is, if I look at the deposit of the bank, I bet they hold the majority of them. But when you've got to start to think through is well, how do I get to those future deposits, those future relationships, Especially as our business becomes so transactional, you really have to have the technolog oology and the ability to pivot that you oftentimes see with large institutions that may have a whole staff dedicated to technology. Not when I think of large banks, the ability to pivot is not the first phrase that comes to us, at least for a large five. Maybe some the large fintet lender is the more the quickens of the rockets, but most banks, I don't think

8:18 it would be how do you think about building the ability to do. That means that a technical infrastructure is that a team approach is at a management style, this kind of ability to iterate, to change, to adapt to changing circumstances. Where do you think that comes from? And how does one go about building that capacity within an organization? Yeah, you know, I think it's almost a layered approach. Always starts with the people, you know, don't. I'm a big believer that no matter what you're trying to do, the biggest variable that leads to either success or any kind of unpredictable outcome tends to be the individuals working on it. So at a high level in any organization, the mindset has to be we want to see this business line grow. We want to leverage the most or the best or whatever intertwine mixed between a technology possible. And that's usually the foundation, Right, we actually want to do this, and we want to do this this way. We want to be innovative. I think a lot of people check off that box because innovation is such a buzzword now that everyone kind of thinks. With that, the next step becomes, all right, let's actually get the technology, at least try to get the technology that allows for that innovation that's usually when most people get hit with reality for the first time. So I mentioned those big banks ability to pivot. The reality is they just have the ability to fund the opportunity should they arise, right, and when you look at a smaller organization, that really becomes that first chile. Of course we want to innovate.

9:31 Well, what happens when we see what the bottom line of innovation looks like? Can we actually do it? So then you try to have that technology, you try to get it, and let's just say for whatever example, that it ultimately works out and you're able to get that technology. That last piece of the milestone goes back to the people again, right, not only people who implement that technology, but having to buy in an organization level to really really run with it and start to integrate it into what you do as a bank. So to me begins with the people. Then the next chund is actually getting that technology. And then that third piece is actually making sure the technology is working to its full capabuilding and then with it is work and then you still have the support of people to kind of take it to the next level, because the last thing you want to do is just get technology. Say you're done and assume it'll just all work out. It doesn't always work that way, never works that way in my experience, battle plan ever survives first contact with it. I want to say customer, not intimate, but that you know, like the deployment never goes the way you think.

10:24 I'm curious how you build the culture or incentives around that particular piece that kind of like it goes out the door. We got it done, great, now we're lying to go. It didn't quite work the way we thought. You know, many places that's like, okay, Darrel, you had this project and it failed, like black Mark in the book next to you in the HR system, it didn't work out, and other organizations go, hey, it was a good idea. It's still a good idea. We gotta like, we gotta iterate, like kudos to you for getting it out the door, and now here's your chance to go and iterate and get it to a successful place, which often takes a little bit of like, you know, the market didn't react quite the way we thought, so we'll do this, and the customers had these issues, and we're going to do that, and you kind of iterate your way to it. How do you think about building a culture that's supportive of that kind of iteration, because I think so, I think it's really hard to do that, right, the incentives, this history of the organization to run the other way. Yeah. Well, you know what's interesting. I'm a big believer in creativity and the power that it comes with, and to a degree, a lot of people tend to separate business from that creative thought process. Now, so a lot of times when I'm working in technology, one of the most important things I try to instill and at least the project team, is that we have to be as creative as possible. We've got to assume that this technology should let us do anything that we can imagine it can do, and then let the technology ultimately tell us it can right. So, to me, step one is really kind of building that mentality of we can do anything. I feel like I'm like in front of an elementary school class, but really that's the thought process. We can do anything, the technology can do anything. And when you have that mentality, sure you're gonna hit roadbumps, you always do.

11:54 But if your baseline is telling you, hey, we can overcome this roadblock, and this vision I have long term can be achieved. I think you can kind of fight through some of that initial backlash that comes with any failure. So I'm a big believer in kind of emphasizing creativity, making sure the team knows, let's have a vision for what we want to do. What I'm not a big proponent of is being placed in confines up front. So I worked on products in the past where no day one, they say, you know what, we're going to limit who gets to see the back end functionality on day one. To me, when you make those decisions, while oftentimes the safer decision, it prevents you from reaping the benefits of that one person's bright idea that just needed to know something could have been a possibility. So to me, kind of going back to your question all about creativity, I'm making sure that management knows up front how important that is. I mean, the staff is actually executing knows how important that is. And then once you launch, everyone in between is going to think the same way. If you do not like something, or think something is working in a way that feels less efficient, it's a good chance we're just not leveraging the technology the right way. Bring up those topics, let's have those conversations and see what we discover from it. A lot of times you discuss or that it's a problem that can be easily solved, and maybe it can be harder to solve, but even in those cases you can start to build that roadmap to solve.

13:07 It's such a great point and I always reminded that so often people who aren't as deep in the technology can have this intuition about which problems are hard or easy for technology to solve, and they're often completely backwards. They'll go, we probably that's probably really hard, and the tech guys go, that's actually very easy. We can do that, no problem. And sometimes it's the opposite. We go, this seems like it should be a really easy fixed in text. I guess, yeah, I know it does. But it's but that the ability to bring it up and the willingness to engage in that discussion can be so critical because sometimes you go, hey, it would really be awesome if just this, but I'm sure it's like too hard to do, and you not even difficult, like we'll do it this afternoon, and that that's far. It can be really interesting and powerful. Yeah it's not easy, and you know, buying into two sharing ideas seems simple, but I actually think it's always been one of the most challenging things. I think there's always that inclination that, hey, my idea is and good people are going to think I'm not smarter, I don't have ideas, so people tend to hold back. So I'm really trying to fool that out of people.

14:03 Sometimes there's always a challenge, But yeah, I'm a big believer that you've got to try to there any particular technique plactics you used to pull out those creative ideas pull people's get them, you know, into more of what a comfort zones the wrong way, but getting them more comfortable to share that the crazy Because you're right, we all have the like self critical guy in the back of our head on, I don't say that they're gonna laugh at you. I have the same thing with questions. Don't ask that question. I could think you're idiot and I go, uh, you know, so you don't like ask the question that you don't understand something because you just don't want to look like you didn't know. I think the same is true and creativity. Don't want to you get that same same voice your head go on, I don't know man, I don't don't ask that when don't say that? When I said, maybe, how do you get people out of that? What's your like just tactically, how do you how do you like in a meeting or in a conversation, like, how do you get people out of that? Zune? Yeah, we do a big picture. I'm a believer and I tend to say this a lot to my team. If you've been doing something for two years, probably outdating right, so to a point, I tend to try to drive home that concept of what are we doing.

14:58 Let's not assume that because the person who trained the person who trained me did it this way, it's the best way. There's a high likelihood that that was a task or a product that lacked innovation throughout that time period. So really being critical of what you're doing, asking yourself if you really envisioned how you would do it, And honestly, Jeff, it's all conversation, you know. I was talking to one of my team members a few weeks ago, maybe a month ago, and we were talking about innovation and the biggest challenge that I tended to actually with innovation or creativity, however you want to do it is experience and knowledge. Right, You know, if you could somehow just suspend what you know about this topic, banking, mortgage, lending, whatever it's going to be for a moment, then just ask yourself, how would you do it? My guess is you would probably do it differently than it's being done today. I think the same thing could be said for just about anyone. If I pulled someone off the street, be it a doctor or a teacher, whomever, and said, hey, let's close a mortage today, how do you want to do it? The chance of them drawing a set up death that issues this closures and a processor and then an underwriter like, there's no way they're going to draw that as that process, So to a point, you almost got to suspend the knowledge that you've carried the things that lead you to think you're gonna ask a stupid question.

16:11 Hey, I've been around long enough to know you don't say stuff like this. Well, what if you weren't around that long? Would you have just said it? Then? So, to a point, suspend the knowledge, try to get away from what we feel as our comfort zone or our specialty, and then just start looking at things with a fresh set of eyes and saying, hey, how would I do this? Is it necessary that two people are working in tandem like this? Does this really require this mix of operations and sales? And honestly, Jeff, most of the time the answer is yes. But once in a blue moon you tend to come up with a no, and then you really start to kind of peel back the layers of that onion and you can find some really really special things, very cool. You talked a lot in your enablement section about like technology, like you know, people, and then your second kind of layer was like getting the right technology. And I think if there's anything I hear from smaller institutions about competing, it's like, why don't have the technology, but I can't hire the people I don't have the money. And so that's kind of like, how do I either build or buy or partner to get the right set of technologies and figure out whether I should build it in a house, whether I should partner, which is the right partner? That becomes critical. How do you think about the challenge of finding and deploying the right technology, because that feels like where people feel like they're really at a disadvantage versus the big guys who have like, Yeah, you look at the City Bank Technology Bunch or whatever. It looks like Google's revenue or something ridiculous, Like it's just this huge number, and you go, how do I possibly compete with that?

17:29 So I'm curious how you think about, you know, winning in technology without having the resource of you know, one of the larger banks. Yeah, it's difficult, you know. I will say. The starting point is always the money, right, like, how am I going to fund this project? How am I going to make it make sense from a complete ROI standpoint? But if you can suspend that for a moment, Step one to me is always just knowing what's out there. You know. I've always looked back at this one task I was given a long time ago, where you know, one of my managers pulled me aside and said, hey, look at this cool CRM project or tool. I need to figure out who has this tool available. And I'll tell you, Jeff, I must have went back to my desk and spent weeks just scouring through the internet, articles, blogs, everything I can to find this one particular tool. Then I ended up finding it, and the craziest thing happened. I want to say, you know, probably a month prior to me actually starting to do this search, I ended up getting one of these normal you know, banking tech magazine sent to me. And you know how it goes. You get all these magazines all the time, you flipped through them, you look for interesting articles, you cast at the side. I flipped the thing over and on one of the last pages was an ad from the company. Right. So I'm sitting here and thinking like I've been searching for this company for weeks now, and the whole time I had a magazine on my desk with an ad from the company in the magazine. So you know the point of the story, it's really not know on what's out there, right, So whether it's going to trade shows, reading the magazines, reading books, watching podcasts, whatever you do, you've got to consume as much information about the business as possible because

19:00 you start to get a picture for what's out there, what's being worked on, and what the future looks like. So the baseline has to be I've got to know what's out there. Once you know what's out there, then you can start to devise a plan that allows you to achieve those technology goals. For us here, one of the things that I did at the advice of the salesperson I met throughout my journey, was actually to focus on tools that helped our sales team build business. First. Typically in lending, Yeah, typically in lending, people focus on the loan origination system. You know, what am I going to do to process my loans in the most efficient manner? And honestly, it makes all the sense in the world, right because you've got to close loan as you want to do it the best way possible and as compliant as possible. What I found was that by focusing on technology that helped my sales team, I not only attracted salespeople that felt like they needed that technology, but we began to actually generate the business we needed to pay for the more expensive back end technology. So we took a lead that focused heavily on you know, CRM, on pricing, on POS gave those to my sales team. That way, they had those resources out there to really kind of make their job more efficient. A lot of things that we done in the back end was manual, so it was a little harder and we most certainly didn't have the best integration with those systems. It's a lot of exploiting spreadsheets and importing data. But the reality is we be allowed that to give us the propellers we needed to kind of grow and it worked out really well for us here. I love that for two reasons. I mean, in my mind, two lessons I've learned about technology plants. One being add value quickly how you like, you know, not let the big

20:33 project in the way of delivering something that's kind of higue that you can take advantage of. And secondly, kind of not letting the perfect stand in the way of the possible. They kind of like we gotta do a little manual for now. We know that's like that's not where we want to be, but it gets us to that value more quickly and then shows us we can build the case much where like, hey, we got we get this amount of value to this if we just do this extra piece, here's what we can do, and we can actually get to that better place more easily and build support for it over time. I find that those like getting to value quickly and doing some things maybe that aren't the right final solution, but that gets you there faster can be really powerful tools and kind of building internal support and getting projects out the door, and you know, actually providing value of the organization, and you learn a lot. You know, I hate to say it, but you know, I go back to the things I learned, you know, when I first started this business, Like that's how I learned to navigate different POS systems, LOS systems. You know, some of the manual calculations. You don't love doing it, but you still have to know how it works. And then there's also just a general kind of baseline of how technology interacts with data that you start to appreciate when you have to look at the Excel spreadsheet and pulled it into the system and then you don't see the fields map and appropriately you most certainly get an appreciation from middleware.

21:38 But the understanding that I was able to allow me to develop, I think is carried with me a long way throughout my career. Fascinating. I agree. I want to ask you maybe one more area, which is how do you think about decision make You kind of talked about not letting your knowledge of the space get in the way of being creative or thinking kind of with fresh eyes, But how do you think about like the value of experts in history versus data in making decisions about what to invest in or how to move forward the project because it feels like those can be you know, whether we're reliance some intuition or some history or some data. And how do we actually get the right data in structure and how do you think about, you know, leveraging those two kind of different assets, disparate assets when you're making decisions. Yeah, you know, I'm a huge data guy. You know, I'm a huge data nerd. There's no other way to tell it, you know, I tell people one of the you know, I had someone asked me once before how I have gotten to the point where I am with consuming data?

22:30 And the reality is like, I don't have I'm a big sports phantom, and I don't have time to watch every game, but I read every game's box score every single night, and I probably have since I was a little kid. So, you know, sadly, I consume so much data that looking at data for work is almost like a byproduct of what I do for fun in my free time. So to answer your question, I'm huge into the data analytics. I think it usually helps guide decisions and truth be told. When I first got into the job i'm in now, the very first thing I focused on was building the right data driven tools to allow me to make data driven decisions. And then the next mix I layer onto that always becomes the people. So to go to your question there, I usually leave with the data and then rely on my knowledge afterwards and the knowledge of others afterwards. And that's obviously no slight on that knowledge. But the data should tell you the answer. What people tell you is how it actually plays out, right, you know. So it's one of those funny things where you obviously have to have an appreciation for history because the data can tell you anything at once, but the reality is someone who's lived it and seen it is going to be able to tell you how these things play out no matter what that data may imply. So for me, I leave with data, then immediately go to the people. Go to the people with knowledge, get their input from what they've seen throughout their careers, and allow that to kind of guide me to that decision point. Interesting, how do you think about having you know that you talk about then big data. Guess, so there's two things you said that I really want to understood it thinking about the box

24:00 score examples that you're kind of finding a way to summarize the day there's like watching the game. There's a lot of data that you miss if you look at the box score. But you're watching the game, but you've got the like the thing you wanted, which like the score, is the basic the basic comings and goings. Right, you didn't see like who swing looked good and who looked tired and which picture was thrown, which you don't get at all. Right, you'll lose some nuance, but you get you can consume way more information, Like you can actually look the box scores for dozens of games. Without you could never watch dozens of games in a day, but you can might pull up the paper. Are there similar things you do for industry news or internal news where you're saying, how do I go from the big set of possible data to the summary review that gives me what I need to see quickly, so I can have a larger scope of the kinds of data that I'm looking at, because that's the value, right as all of sudden, you're you're looking at a much broader field than you would if you were looking at a much more detailed look. Yep, I agree with you, you know, from from my perspective. One of the things that I think is really important is anything that could be automated to me. I have to get automated to me. So there's obviously articles and news blurbs or you know blogs I'm sorry that you just sign up for and they just show up in your inbox first thing in the morning. To me, that's usually my starting point because you know, going back to what you said, you do have to kind of consume that high level information. So if I'm at least tuned in to get delivered the most and hobviously goes across the whole board, you know, whether it's a technology driven you know, article or magazine, whether it's some of the regulatory blasts from the CSPBA, anything that I can get automatically just sent to my inbox, I must have because to a point, that again goes almost to the same thing I said about the technology.

25:29 It keys you in on what's going on around you. So I need those keys to say, like, hey, this is what we're talking about over here, because this is a hot button issue. And then once you start digging into that top play you can say, okay, I know a little bit about this, I know nothing about that. I need to go dig more into that so to a point, I use it kind of clue me in. So I'm huge on some of the automated blogs that come out, anything that can just go on a regular you know, like I said, the regulatory news blurbs that come out, and you know, we've got some compliance intens that do the same thing. Love consuming all that information and then obviously digging deeper anytime that I see something that I'm either completely in the dark of or just don't know enough about, and I'll just use it to kind of guide me. Got it. I love that. So I'm like, I started signing up for newsletters and I tend to like sign up for a bunch and then remove the ones that aren't Like there's like a winnowing. There's a curating process for industry news or get a lot of AI news letters coming to me now, and then I try and find the same thing I think them say it would be the time spent on building the right dashboards with the right data to make decisions internally that can kind of give the summary view on the regular. Actually, this time really well spent. You can surface that data. So I want to ask you on this too, how do you think about investing in data infrastructure because I often hear from organizations, Yeah I love to make database decisions, but like it takes six weeks or you know, I call the analytics team like, oh, yeah we could, we could pull that number four. You will take us, you know, five days or seven days to pull it, and then you go out. I can't. I can't have every question I asked pack seven days to get an answer back from an analytics team because it's in four databases and wherever. So are there approaches you have or insight you've got on how you like, get the infrastructure available, have data ready to use in that decision making processes?

27:03 That seems like sometimes just getting to the answer to what seemed like simple questions can be the the roadblock to using data effectively. You can't like I would use the data, but I can't get the answer to my question, So then I want to go on intuition instead. Yeah, you know, honestly, it all depends on where you're at. So as tricky and there's a big non answer for me personally, I looked at my circumstance on day one and said, what data do I have available to me right now that I can leverage and that goes for everyone in every situation. So whether you're a small community bank that has an all likelihoods siloed data information or bigger institution that likely has a centralized data team and warehouse, you've got to navigate your particular situation. Going back to my experience, my first thing I wanted to do is take what was available to me and then start to leverage it. And you know, the first thing I learned, Jeff, people aren't putting the data in the right fields right. So day one I build the reports, I pull up and there's nothing right. So then what I ultimately realized is I need to use those reports that we're supposed to have the data as a tool to manage whether we're even inputting the data. So that required me to start spending time with my staff saying, hey, you know we funded this loan, why isn't the funding date here? And you start to kind of work through these things where you start to let people know how important certain data fields are. So it started with actually trying to make reports, realizing that they weren't going to work because I was missing key data points. Then working with the team to kind of make those data points the norm and then from there you always have the long term goal. So short term consume what I have available, make reports that can allow me to determine how is my team

28:34 moving and progressing, what is the best decision for the circumstance, And then at an enterprise wide level, it's all got to speak to each other. Right, So when you're at a small community bank, typically you find yourself in a situation where it's a long term goal to have one centralized data repository that's pulling in retail banking data, commercial lending data, residential lending and consumer lending data, putting them all in one place, and then getting to make those decisions that ultimately allow each business line to work at this optimal capacity. The challenge that takes so long, right, not only does it take long, but the biggest challenge that community banks typically faces. You know, you've got finite resources, both financially and from an employee standpoint, You've got priorities that obviously differ. Right, So as much as I want to go onto that database on day one and have reports made from my team, I'm sure the same way is felt by the retail banking team, and I'm sure the commercial lending team feels the same way. So now you have to start weighing like, okay, well, what's the market look like, what's driving revenue across the organization? And honestly, you've got to prioritize what makes the most sense and I get that. So to me a short term you've got to take what you have and make sure it's working as well as possible, and that requires you to spend some time making sure you're getting the right data.

29:44 You got to do it. And then long term, as an organization, you've got to focus on getting it into one centralized place and then finding a way to get that information out to the different business lines in the most efficient manner where you can reap the gains from it. And just take it one day at a time. It's easy to be intimidated day one and just turn your back to data, but if you invest on day one, you will reap those rewards just a matter of time. Well, Chinese setting right, the best time to plan a trede was twenty years ago. On the second best time, you gotta do it. Got I gotta start planning a tree for hopefully not twenty years. In the data infrastructure or play but you know, like some number of years down the road when you read the full benefits, all right, now, that was that was fantastic advice. I think that's the end of my my prepared questions. But I have three questions I love to ask everybody at the end of these episodes, which I find are really insightful. So if you're ready, here we go. Let's do it.

30:36 First question, what's the best career advice you've ever gotten? That is a good question, and I am going to tell you the truth. You know, I had an instance in my career early on where you know, I had had gutten sick and ironically, I was talking to one of my managers at the time and I didn't know what to do as far as how I should be communicating it throughout the organization. And you know, he told me something that was brutally honest that I really appreciate it. And he told me, in a nutshell that while me and him cared a lot, I'd find out that a lot of other people wouldn't really care. And as crazy as that sounds from an advice standpoint, what it reminded me of was that everyone's got things going on in their life and having an appreciation for the fact that everyone's got things going on is really really important. How we handle those things can ultimately define who we become and who we are. So what he really taught me in that moment was who do you want to be? Control what you can control in those moments, and the things that you can't control, your best to not turn to those around you and try to have them either understand you can't do it and boost up. Although you know, obviously having a strong support system's really important, but the key is always saying, hey, I've got this in front of me, this challenge, this obstacle to overcome, and I'm going to go overcome it. And then once I'm done overcoming it, then perhaps we can talk about those challenges that may have gotten in my way. But don't let those challenges stop me from trying.

32:00 Interesting. That's a fascinating story. My second question is always what's the best piece of advice about the banking industry? You've gotten the best piece about the banking industry. You can make a little narrower consumer banking lending, but you know, kind of like industry specific advice or perspective. Yeah, that's a hard question. The best piece of advice I've done in the banking industry. Yeah, you know, one of the things that someone told me that I've kind of always kind of clung to was to stay close to the customer. And what's interesting is it's usually said in the scale of you know, you're a salesperson, right, and a lot of times people who work in sales get scared that, well, if I work in sales, I don't want to become a sales manager because I'm no longer working with the customers. Not working with the customers, I'm no longer going to have the value I used to have. That lodge makes all the sense in the world For someone like me who's worked in operations. What it reminds me of is that what I do, whether it was post closing on day one, or you know, the processing or the underwriting, whatever else happens throughout the land process, it's still all about the customer, right, Does the customer enjoy this experience?

33:09 Depending on you know what you can and can't control. Obviously, some underwriting things you just have to do. I always try to ask myself, is a customer gonna be happy with this? And if you lean with that customer first mentality. I found through my experiences that you tend to find yourself on the right side of history. So to me, it's all about the customer. Try to stay close to them. If you can't stay close from pure sales perspective, stay close from an experience perspective, and then things usually work out that way. Stay close to the customer and put them in the middle eight. I love that because it's it's so easy, particularly in a finance business, to like get caught up in the numbers and forget the you know, the individuals, the customer at the end of the get your approval rates and your funding rates and your default rates, and you can just look like a big spreadsheet and there's just there's people and customers at the end of it, and they really do drive the business at the end of the day.

33:57 And understanding where they're coming from, the putting their needs first really powerful. All Right, They're all one last question, the hardest of the bunch. What's one bold prediction for the future. This is the if I bring you back in a year, can we can? We can? We hold your feet to to fire And if you've made a made a good call here or not goodness gracious, this is the yeah, the good old crystal ball question. I don't know, this is lose lose too. Like, Ultimately, if I say a great prediction, don't do it myself, I'm going to be the guy who decided not to pull the trigger on the great idea for this way off. You know, with this business, I think we're we're in a place now where consumer lending is very transactional. I think a lot of people are looking at technology as being the driver in removing some of sales from the process. So if I were to make one prediction from now, it's going to be a lot of people are going to think technology will take sales people out of morgage lending. I'll argue technology is going to end up making sales people even more important to the sales process, because now we're going to find ourselves in a place where services your differentiator. If someone were to tell me that I've got technology that can take me from application of closing today, Quicken's got the exact same thing. Well, now the only differentiator is going to be the person that picks up the phone and just says, hey, how are you doing so to me, I'm a big believer that is technology grows, whether it's blockchain or whatever else, it makes the processing, underwriting, closing process easier. If you decide to exclude salespeople from that process, I feel you're gonna end up on the wrong side of history here.

35:29 I think they're going to and again I stole it from someone else, They're going to be become what I call the champagne and the process the champagne the champagne. You've got the same experience and two sides of the bucket. But on one side there's going to be a person sitting there with their champagne, cheering with someone else. On the other side, there's just gonna be someone sitting down with nothing. Do you want to be doing the champagne toast or the group with no champagne the champagne toast? I like it excellent that you did good job of the bold prediction. Now you gotta keep yourself and the sales seems gonna be happy. Don't know that you're not trying to make them unemployed with atom everybody wins. Well, darl this is a fascinating conversation. I appreciate your making the time to join us today and sharing your perspectives. Thanks Jeff, really appreciate the opportunity. It was really fun. Upstart partners with banks and credit unions to help grow their consumer loan portfolios and deliver a modern, all digital lending experience. As the average consumer becomes more digitally savvy, it only makes sense that their bank does too. Upstarts AI lending platform uses sophisticated machine learning models to more accurately identify risk and approve more applicants than traditional credit models. With fraud rates near zero, Upstarts all Digital experience reduces manual processing for banks and offers a simple and convenient experience for consumers. Whether you're looking to grow and enhance your existing personal and auto lending programs or you're just getting started, Upstart can help. Upstart offers an end to end solution that can help you find more credit worthy borrowers within your risk profile. With

36:59 all digital underwriting, onboarding, loan closing, and servicing, It's all possible with Upstart in your quarter. Learn more about finding new borrowers, enhancing your credit decisioning process, and growing your business by visiting upstart dot com, slash Foward dash Banks that's upstart dot Com slash foward dash banks. You've been listening to Leaders and Lending from upstart. Make sure you never miss an episode. Subscribe to Leaders in Lending in your favorite podcast player using Apple Podcasts. Leave us a quick rating by tapping the number of stars you think the show deserves. Thanks for listening, until next time.