hello i’m gary shotton and i’m here as a part of inspiring better business and today we’re going to talk about banking relationships and you know this is a spin to recognize the bank is a vendor of yours there’s someone that supplies you something just like we have a steel supplier or we have a material supplier we have a internet supplier the bank is is one of those suppliers and they’re pretty important if you’re in business you’re at the level that you can borrow money what’s called a secured loan where you can borrow money and and pledge assets against that because that’s how the banks work and the bank is uh looking for and we’re suggesting that we create long-term lasting relationships with all vendors and specifically the bank specifically with the people that are key inside the bank now in the united states we have a lot of movement inside the banks we have a large lot of large multi-location banks and frankly it bothers me to be only connected with one of those because yeah you could say i’ve banked at this particular bank for many years but the individuals inside that bank do not know you and there’s a time and place that surfaced here in the last week that is amazingly important that i’ve had that 30-year relationship with the same people besides the same bank now the bank actually changed names but i still had the relationships with the people inside that bank here’s what happened we had an opportunity for a federal government to help us in business to make sure we had people on payroll it’s called a payroll protection plan and i applied for that and it became evident that my banking relationship was critical because everybody was applying for this in a four and five day period and the fact that i had a good relationship and they knew me they knew trusted me it allowed me to go to the top of the list and i got a chunk of money a good chunk of money uh almost the second day that it was even possible i was in the first wave and i understand now the money’s run out i don’t know if there’s going to be any more and i i don’t i can’t answer those questions but in my case the lesson here is that i had and have maintained solid consistent relationships with my bank with my bankers and that means when they asked me for something like a financial statement or or a monthly i report to them my accounts receivables in a report i have a line of credit that’s tied to that accounts receivables and they’re only following procedures that our federal government have given them as guidelines they have a ton of procedures so why would i bulk and hold back and criticize and delay and put it last on the list i’m telling you when they ask me for something i have it back to them normally in 24 hours you know what that does it tells them that i have my act together it tells them that i i have my financial statements in place you know when i have uh foresee something that’s going to be a little bit uh maybe risky or i’m i’m not sure of the future i make an appointment about 15 minutes don’t take all day and i go in and say listen here’s what’s happening i want to just keep you advised if i need it alone here’s i’m i would like to at least come and talk with you way ahead of time if i needed something from you they don’t they never happen most the times but they want to hear from me they don’t want me to to come in on a sob story the last minute and that happens to them they have people walk in and say if you don’t give me a loan by tomorrow i’m out i’m done i’ve had heard of people coming in when they finally can’t pay their bills anymore they just throw the keys on the desk of the banker and says it’s yours you know that’s not a good way to do it so i have a confidence in my bank and they have a confidence in me and wow did that pay off and i heard of other people that were uh scrambling trying to find a banker because these loans that the their loans that are forgiven and by the way uh when you dig deep into it the reason the banker is very selective and they want to be connected with somebody they trust they already have a relationship why wouldn’t they i’m a regular customer they should take care of me first that’s what happened and i maintained that relationship so that would happen and so basically they’re actually guaranteeing the loan in one way or another yeah the federal federal government is trusting the banker to be the uh in essence the this eyes on the on the ground making sure the loans are going to legitimate trustworthy companies that can do business in a good fashion so they have a lot on the line so again my lesson is develop long-term relationships with all of your vendors don’t jump around just because somebody gives you just a little better break i don’t want my workers to jump because somebody on to another job just because somebody gave them a 25 cents an hour more money i want them to stay with me so i’m planting good seeds of loyalty and i have many good seeds of being 20 years in this with our company with some of the same suppliers that have been with us for years and years and years and yeah i could maybe sometime get a little cheaper uh price on something because somebody can always undercut them i don’t bite for that realize we’re not seeking money we’re not seeking wealth we’re seeking the ability to do a good job and the byproduct of that is profit money uh success seek the right thing and you’ll be much better off don’t seek money seek the proper business procedures that you should be operating in banking relationships are important i hope you gather a little uh information from this it’s helpful thanks for being a part of inspiring better business you