Two members of the Vertical IQ team and I attended the 2018 Exit Planning Summit in Nashville last week because many exit planning experts need and appreciate industry research. Having been a business banker for many years, and then personally being involved with founding and selling several successful businesses, I’ve had first-hand...

I truly enjoyed my job as a business banker. I relished the opportunity to meet new people and look for ways to grow their company while simplifying their financial life.

In the late 1990s, as a banker in Wilmington, North Carolina, one of my best customers maintained a huge DDA account, borrowed a cool million each year to expand, used treasury services, kept healthy balance sheet, earned solid profits, and had an experienced management team. This customer was a convenience store chain.

In my January blog “5 Reasons Every Business Banker Should Have Industry Niches,” I noted that successful bankers should study up and figure out the industries on which to focus. One factor you should consider is industry profitability. Generally speaking, profitable companies accumulate lots of assets and can therefore afford to pay...

Why Keeping Up with Your Banking Competition Keeps Getting Tougher

I love the annual Barlow Research Conference because the content is based upon thoughtful research. This year’s event in Chicago was no exception. Entitled “The Next Big Thing,” the forum speakers emphasized the rapidly changing banking environment. Banks better keep up...

When I was a banker calling on businesses, company owners frequently would ask me, "What's going on with the economy? Is it growing? Should I be worried? What are you hearing out there?" It struck me that they were looking to me, their banker, to be a “mini-economist” of sorts.

In our last blog post, 8 Reasons Why Bankers Should Call on More Growth Companies, I made the case for why bankers should be calling on more startups. While banks have traditionally been somewhat wary of these fast-growth, new idea-type companies, believing that they were too risky, I contend that there are numerous advantages to calling...

Startups. They’re all the rage lately, aren’t they? Incubators and accelerators are springing up all over the country, and the startups and growth companies they foster make up an exploding part of our economy. In fact, according to research by the Kauffman Foundation, startups account for up to 50 percent of the new jobs being created...

Knowing a little bit about a lot of things increases your odds of winning at Trivia Night, but if you are a business banker, being a generalist does very little to win over new client relationships.

I was recently at my son's soccer game when I struck up a fascinating conversation with another dad. I'd never met the guy, but we started chatting, and though I did not mention what I do for a living, he shared that he owns several hotels. I began inquiring about his career–asking him questions like, "How do you survive the downturns? I...