Business Services experts Gary Ferguson and Darci Robinson join Lynne to discuss the ways that credit unions bank businesses better. They cover the department’s growth, expertise in servicing business needs and the commitment to personalized customer service.

 

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0:00:06.5 Lynne Jarman-Johnson: Money, I’m Home. Welcome in, I’m Lynne Jarman-Johnson with Consumers Credit Union. From finance to fitness, we have it all. And we have for you today, experts for your business. A credit union and business you say, you betcha. Gary Ferguson is our Vice President of Business Services, and Darci Robinson is our Director of Cash Management and they’re both sitting with me today, so excited to have you here.

0:00:31.4 Gary Ferguson: Thank you.

0:00:32.3 Darci Robinson: Excited to be here.

0:00:33.3 LJJ: Gary, I’m going to start with you. Credit unions, when I started here at Consumers, many of my business friends said, “Oh, you know, you do little projects.” I’m like, “What does that even mean?” But it wasn’t little tight projects.

0:00:47.3 GF: No.

0:00:47.8 LJJ: Tell us a little bit about how you’ve grown our business services department.

0:00:51.2 GF: Yeah. So back then, that’s what it was perceived, is that credit unions really didn’t do business lending. So that was the challenge early on, was just getting that message out to the community, out to the business community, and many of them were surprised. Because they were already doing business with us on the retail or consumer side, and oh, by the way, we can help you in the business too. So, when I started at the Credit Union, we were a small shop. There were four of us. Our footings were basically about 25 million. We fast-forward today, there’s 18 of us, our assets are holding about 225 million. And oh, by the way, we can serve the vast majority of businesses today. So, it may not be your Fortune 500 companies, and that’s not our space, but any other business in that, we have the expertise and the capacity to be able to serve all their needs.

0:01:47.7 LJJ: And Darci, I know that you help with so many different products for the businesses. The cash management, which is in your title, tell us a little bit about that.

0:01:56.5 DR: With the cash management products, they’re going to help the businesses when they need to do direct deposit for their employee. If they need to pay their vendors, or even to pull in customer payments. Positive Pay is super important for businesses now because of fraud. That’s a fraud prevention tool that will help them catch items that might be trying to post on their count. Desktop scanning, super easy to use, you have a scanner that’s on your desktop, you can make deposits right there in your office.

0:02:32.2 LJJ: No more running and back and forth. Gary, tell us a little bit about the product. You talked about lending. But what about deposits? I mean, it’s a two-way street when you run a business.

0:02:42.3 GF: Yeah, absolutely. So, in order for us to grow or any financial institution to grow, you need deposits. That’s the life blood of our organization. And as we get those deposits in, obviously we lend those out and for our business community, we have all the same products and now whether you’re looking for a small business line of credit, you’re looking for a term loan that can take the place of purchasing equipment. Maybe a vehicle for your business, a whole host of things, as well as commercial real estate loans. So, one advantage that we have, or we believe we have on real estate loans, we can write those for 20 years. We don’t have the loans, unless you want an amortization of 25 years, then you have a five-year differential, but by and large there’s no balloon.

0:03:23.8 LJJ: Time out a second because you said there’s no balloons. That’s a big differentiator.

0:03:28.3 GF: It’s a big differentiator.

0:03:31.2 LJJ: And something that I know because I ran my own business would put fear. You couldn’t sleep at night thinking about this big balloon that’s coming up. What exactly is that?

0:03:40.2 GF: So, the balloon is nothing more than an end date for that particular loan. So, you may have a mortgage that’s out there and your payments are being amortized over a 20- or 25-year period, so to keep your payments low, but there may be only a five-year term on that. So, after five years, you’re going to have a very large payment that’s going to come due. And you have the option you can either pay it off in full, depending on the size. You may or not be able to do that, or two, you have to look to the financial institutions to have it refinanced or take it someplace else to get it refinanced.

0:04:12.8 LJJ: So, if it is refinanced, does that mean the rates stay the same, or really, it could be that, oh, oh, I’m going to have to pay more over the next five years?

0:04:20.5 GF: Yes, more than likely, it’s going to be re-priced. You’re going to have a lot of times the same closing costs that you initially had five years ago. So, it’s an additional expense, more time out of you to get all this documentation together again.

0:04:33.0 LJJ: Time and money.

0:04:36.4 GF: Is huge. So, the only thing that changes are we’ll set it up on a re-price every five years. Some financial institutions out there, they’re going to write it for five years and then it’s going to balloon, and they’ve got to refinance it or go someplace else and finance it with another financial institution.

0:04:53.1 LJJ: And doesn’t that make a huge difference as far as the long-term success of a business, if you’re constantly worried about that big balloon and having to switch.

0:05:02.5 DR: Oh, absolutely. And it’s in the rear-view mirror, but if people recall back in the economic downturn in 2008 and 2009, some institutions just stopped doing commercial real estate. If you’re in a balloon then, and it came due, it was difficult to impossible to get refinancing during that time. When you have those notes that just reset after five years and you don’t have to go find a refinance, it’s peace of mind and a lot of savings. Because you don’t have to pay for new appraisals and new closings.

0:05:41.6 LJJ: What are some of the products that you love the best Gary– that you know that our business loan officers are out there helping their business owners that they work with on a day-to-day basis?

0:05:52.6 GF: The ones we do the most of our commercial real estate. And a lot of that you know, they’re looking to acquire other parcels, expand their business or add on to their business with new construction. Those are good to fund projects in that. A lot of it is equipment loans depending on the business’s needs, if you will. So, there’s a lot of different opportunities. What we try to do, and the business owner should want that as well, is match that loan up with the purpose or the asset, that’s where the need is.

0:06:27.2 GF: So, if they’ve got an issue with cash flow, probably a line of credit, it’s probably what they’re going to need. If it’s cyclical and it’s going to be paid back in a short period of time, you can also bridge that gap with credit cards. We do a lot of business credit cards here at Consumers, and that’s just another tool that you can utilize is the line of credit, short-term financing.

0:06:49.9 LJJ: Darci, I love the fact that when we say a business loan officer, this is a partner of different businesses. And I have many businesses that have come here after they’ve talked with me and then met our team. The one thing that they keep saying to me is how surprised, pleasantly surprised they are, that it’s not just a rubber stamp or they’re just looking at some paperwork and saying, “Let’s go.” It is a get to know you and find out truly where’s the fit and how can we help your business plan.

0:07:18.4 DR: Oh yeah, definitely. I always have, if I’m meeting with someone new for the first time, and I’ve never felt comfortable in my previous life working for a bank saying this. I’ll say, step into any office. You don’t have to be a member, stop in and get a cup of free coffee. On Fridays, we have root beer, stop in and just feel what it’s like. You’re going to be welcomed. And you can go into any one of our offices and it’s consistent throughout. And that is huge, is you want to feel welcome to your banking institution.

0:08:01.1 LJJ: And I do love that our entire team feels that they’re part of the business services team. Everybody is working together for success for that business.

0:08:10.1 GF: Yes, absolutely.

0:08:11.3 LJJ: One of the things that we love to do on the marketing side, is help a business grow. So, I think some of the things that we do differently, which I think have been like eye-openers is some of the fun podcasts, like you see here, videos. Have you heard that people love those?

0:08:25.2 DR: They do. Another thing that sets us apart is our member perks. So right off of our website, we feature businesses. Our members may get a small discount, but it gets the business’s name out there, and on our Facebook. How many followers do we have?

0:08:43.6 LJJ: I know.

0:08:44.5 DR: And how many people look at it? And we have feature businesses, that’s free advertising. And we like that partnership with the businesses that we work with, if they grow, we grow. We’re in it together. We’re in the same community.

0:09:00.4 LJJ: Gary, tell us a little bit about maybe throughout your career here, and you and I have been here for quite some time. You too Darci, I think that’s the other component. Right?

0:09:09.7 GF: Yeah, we’ve got good stability.

0:09:13.2 LJJ: Long term. Stability. Tell me something that makes you smile. Maybe something that happened. Doesn’t have to be recently, it could be back when you were growing that you think, “Boy, I am so proud of Consumers and what we’ve done for our community and our businesses.”

0:09:26.4 GF: I think it’s my team for what they do out in the community. They’re the advocate for those businesses and they’re bending over backwards. Working with them, trying to get their deals together and everything. I don’t know, I’m just super proud of my team and the folks we have out there. The industry itself has changed over the years, so you have a lot of times finance institutions, will just have salespeople out there, just throwing anything and everything at businesses and their job is just to sell, sell, sell. We look at it more as it’s need-based in consultation with that, we’re helping those business owners try to hopefully take it to the next level and grow their business.

0:10:09.0 LJJ: You know, we mentioned having fun here at Consumers. Even in business, and I’ll tell you the most fun about this guy, if you don’t mind me sharing it with you. Let me see your socks today, Gary.

0:10:20.5 GF: My socks? Oh, yeah.

0:10:25.1 LJJ: So, okay. Tell me about these socks.

0:10:26.6 GF: So, we just recently went on a Mediterranean cruise. And it stops predominantly in Greece, this was in Crete. So, these are socks from Greece, with the acropolis or whatever.

0:10:38.8 LJJ: Okay. How many pairs of socks do you own?

0:10:42.4 GF: Oh, I don’t know, but I got a whole drawer full. Predominantly, a lot of them are Disney but …

0:10:48.1 LJJ: You are a Disney guy.

0:10:51.2 GF: Yeah.

0:10:51.8 LJJ: But there’s nothing Mickey Mouse about your business addresses?

0:10:54.6 GF: No, not at all.

0:10:57.5 LJJ: So, if you see Gary on the street, ask him to see his socks. Every day they’re different and they are so much fun. Well, thank you so much, you guys have some great tips and opportunities for the businesses out there, and I can say I’m proud to work alongside both of you every single day.

0:11:12.0 DR: Thank you, Lynne.

0:11:13.6 GF: Thank you.

0:11:14.8 LJJ: Listen, if you are a business owner and you’ve always thought, “A credit union?” Come to Consumers Credit Union, and as Darci just said, stop in any office, we’d love to share a cup of coffee with you. Introduce you to our teams, anywhere that we have an office. That’s including Lansing, all the way to Holland, all the way to South Haven, Kalamazoo, Grand Rapids. Boom, there’s lots of places you can come. Oh, and don’t forget online, we have a five-star app. Hey everybody, thanks for joining us today, Jake Esselink, thank you for your production skills, and I hope everybody has a safe week out there and businesses, we hope to see you soon.

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