Noob School - Episode 100: From Bank Teller to President with Michelle Seaver

Episode Date: November 6, 2023

On today's episode of Noob School, we're joined by Michelle Seaver - president of United Community Bank in Greenville, Spartanburg and Cherokee counties. Join in on the podcast for a look into the banking industry, and to learn how Michelle's excellent work ethic and drive paved the path to her success. #NoobSchool #CareerSuccess Check out what the Noob School website has to offer: https://SchoolForNoobs.com I'm going to be sharing my secrets on all my social channels, but if you want them all at your fingertips, start with my book, Sales for Noobs: https://amzn.to/3tiaxsL Subscribe to our newsletter today: https://bit.ly/3Ned5kL #noobschool #salestraining #sales #training #entrepreneur #salestips #salesadvice

All right, welcome back to Noob School. Today I've got a good friend and Michelle Siever. Michelle is the market president for Greenville-Smartinburg for United Community. Used to be United Community Bank, but now it's just United Community. So Michelle, why drop the bank? So why drop the bank? Because we feel that we're so much more than a bank. We have different products and services to offer.

so we feel like being just a bank maybe silos us just a little bit, but we want to be so much more to people. And one of those extra services, what kind of things? So that would be trust services, wealth management services, insurance, different products that are not assumed just as a bank. Right. Not just loans and deposits. Wonderful. Well, I really thank you for being here today. I know you're busy.

How many appointments have you had already today? I've already been to Spartanburg a back. Spartanburg and a couple of appointments. That's a lot. That's a lot. But it's good. Everybody's busy. Everyone's busy.

That's true. Yeah, so Michelle and I have known each other, I guess, for as long as since when David worked at Datastream. Yes. When would that have been? How long ago? Gosh, that would have been probably around 1998. 98? Okay.

Maybe. Her husband, David, who's been on the podcast. was one of ourselves people, so that's where Michelle and I met, and he was very good, but he pivoted to real estate where he has absolutely crushed it, and he's got one of the best social media handles of anybody around. Sign swap seaver is certainly his sign swap. Sign swap. Yes, I get excited about sign swaps for obvious reasons, but it's so fun to watch them.

I mean, he really just makes it fun and makes it different. and, you know, sometimes there's people on the other side of that sign swap, too. Somebody's got to throw the sign. Yeah, yeah. Well, that's you, huh? Sometimes. Okay. All right, good.

Well, listen, you're running market president of UCB or UC, United Community now. And that's a big deal. That's a big job. It's an important job. So I congratulate you for that. But what I'd like to do for the sake of the news is to back up and learn a little bit more about your history and kind of how you got there. And then we can talk more about the job

once we arrived there. Would that be okay? That's great. Okay. So where did you grow up? So I went to high school on here in Greenville. Okay. My dad worked for IBM in the days of the I've been moved days.

So my whole family is from Mississippi, both my mom and my dad. They grew up there. They wanted to get out. And so dad got a job at IBM after they got married or before they got married. And then they just moved where. ever the job was. So I was actually born in Chicago. And then at age four, we moved to Wyckoff,

New Jersey, where we lived until I was 15. And then here? And then we moved here when I was a sophomore in high school. And what school did you go to? I went to Malden. You went to Malden? Yes. Okay. That had to be a big change for you. It was a big change. And we laugh about it a lot, because at that time, Greenville was not all that happening of a place to go to. And where we live, in New Jersey was not where you fly in and out of. It's a nice place. I always laugh and say that the only thing I can relate to people to explain to them where we lived,

I went to the same elementary school as the Jonas Brothers. Wow. So I think that's kind of cool. But looking back on it, the person across the street was a producer for CBS Records. Somebody down the street worked for Lancombe Beauty. I mean, everybody commuted into the city, and then they lived and kept their families

in this little suburb. It was a great place to grow up. I bet. I bet. Well, I'm glad for our sake that you moved down here. Oh, we are too for sure. We didn't quite fit in with Mississippi parents. They still sounded like they're from Mississippi.

And we didn't quite catch on to an accent. Well, we'll take you. We'll take you here. So when you were in high school, did you have any idea for what kind of job you wanted to do one day? I didn't. I had no idea. I was a cheerleader, which some people aren't surprised by. I like happy things.

I really loved it. It was great fun. That's good. I think what C. Dan Joyner played off of that cheerleader thing pretty well, you know, with positive enthusiasm. Yeah, I think that's interesting. You're in the right job for that in terms of the way you do your job with relationships and things like that. That's good.

And then you went to South Carolina. I did. You're Gamecock. Yes, I'm a Gamecock. I'm a proud gamecock. Of course, married to that Clemson Tiger that we've already referenced. Have a daughter that graduated from Carolina already. And then a second one that is a junior at Carolina.

So for many, many years, people didn't know that I was a Gamecock. The tables finally tilted a little bit my way when this girl started going to college. You've really won the battle, the home battle. because you've got two kids both at Carolina. I do say that I did, yes. You won? Yes. Not just this past football season, but yes.

Yeah, this one too, I believe. But we'll see. Feeling good. Knock on wood. So, yes, went to Carolina, had a great four years there, joined a sorority, did some leadership things, was president of sorority council, my junior and senior year, which was really just a great experience of, you know,

bridging through all the different sororities and kind of bringing everybody together to, you know, accomplish the greater good. So you're president not just of your sorority, but of the council. The council, right. I was not president of the sorority. It's not responsible for all of them. Right. Yeah. It's amazing. I mean, you know how many people I hired out of Clemson, Carolina, Wofford, Ferman, Citadel over the years, how many of them were president of something like that when they were in college? They were athletes. or they were president of something. They just had something that made them stand out a little bit from the crowd.

They were going to be good salespeople. Well, I remember in my interview, so I might be fast-forwarding us just a little bit. So, well, I did work during college also. So during the summers, not during the school year. My dad told me my job was to go to school. But during the summers, he told me I had to get a real job because I needed to get a real job eventually. So while I did want to go to Hilton Head and work at the old post office, which is what all the cool people did,

and, you know, follow a little bit of hoody in the blowfish or Jupiter Coyote or whoever was touring around at that point, I went and was a bank teller at Carolina First Bank during my summers in college. So I think that when I finally went to my final interview for the training program for post college, you know, they asked me, they said, gosh, you know, your grades aren't quite as good as we want them to be. And they said, tell us about that. I was an accounting major. Didn't love accounting, but majored in accounting because my dad said that was a great business degree. And so I thought I was a little bit too far down the road once I figured out that's not what I wanted to do to back up.

But I told them that I had leadership skills that maybe some of the other candidates might have. So while I couldn't completely focus on studying all the time, I was able to run this group of folks that had a pretty big responsibility. and implemented different policies during that time. So it's not always the most popular job to have either. Well, I think that's a good learning point for the noobs listening is, you know, they asked you a hard question. And you didn't say that you didn't slunk away from it, but you had an answer. You know, they could take the answer or they could leave it, but at least you had an answer. Yeah.

And I didn't know the answer going in either. It wasn't something that I prepped for. I didn't know that that was not good enough. Yeah. Now, how long you took that job out of college, how long before you got your MBA? So I don't have my MBA. And it says MBA on there. I thought it said something about Darla Moore School.

Well, Darla Moore School is the business school. Okay. So you got your business degree from there. Okay, I got it. I got it. I got it. So I didn't. I thought about it.

I actually was considering getting my MBA straight out of college and ended up getting the job in the training program and ended up going that route. Okay. With the thought that I'd go back and do it. And so your accounting degree, how did you figure out to make the bank a place that you applied for? So because I worked for three summers for the bank, so the first summer, it was in 1991, the bank had five branches at that time.

And so I was a summer teller. So I worked somebody's maternity leave. It worked out great. It was really fun. The second summer, I worked as a CSR because they needed somebody. I remember somebody walking past my desk and asking me what I thought Prime was going to move to. And I made something up, and at the same time, the president of the bank was walking by and heard my explanation, which was just something I'd made up. Because I didn't know what that was at the time.

And he came back and he explained it to me. At that time, it was just rates on a sheet of paper, and Prime rate was at the bottom. So I just knew that there was this number down there. at the bottom. And then the third year, I needed to take one summer school class, and the bank had just bought a bank in Columbia. It was growing, expanding, had bought Republic bank shares in Columbia. And the timing worked out really great, and they needed a float teller for the summer or a float CSR. And they had somebody that already knew what to do. So they let me take an eight o'clock class and then go straight to work. Okay. So you kind of just roll right into it. I kind of did just

roll right into it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I agree with your dad about the accounting degree. I mean, I certainly didn't take it, but you know, Warren Buffett says two most important things he would recommend young people do to prepare for business is learn

accounting and learn how to speak in public. Interesting. Two great pieces of advice. Yeah. Yes, for sure. You know, we work with at the bank legacy charter and we have a a program with their, a mentorship program with them.

And these kids are so amazing and so smart. I had two last year. I'm getting ready to start with two this year. And they know what they're going to do. They have it all mapped out. And I'm thinking, wow, they are so ahead of where I was. Because I did not have it all mapped out. Yeah.

Well, me too. And again, that's part of why I do this new school. So I'm trying to encourage people, particularly in college, to think about it and start to plan out and practice interview. and where do they want to be. I think it's really important. But, yeah, the charter school people, I think they get a lot of coaching, right, on how to do that stuff.

And once you wake up to it, I couldn't quite wake up to it when I was that age. I would hear people would say things, but didn't really hear it. You know what I mean? Yeah, absolutely. It's really important that you look at all these colleges, and I'd say, well, not this weekend. You know, I got things to do. Well, and I thought I just wanted to go to college and, you know, figure it out.

I didn't know. I thought you only knew what you wanted to do if you were a doctor or a lawyer. I didn't think everybody else had to figure it out. But sometimes I feel like it finds you. That's true. Good point. Well, it certainly found you in a good way. So you did your thing at the bank, and then the bank eventually sold the TD Bank.

Yes, so I went to work for Carolina first out of college and stayed there about two and a half years. Oh, that's right. I was managing the main office in downtown Greenville and the Cleveland Street office. I wanted to go into private banking, and I had met somebody through leadership Greenville that was in private banking at Wachovia. And I thought, that's what I want to do. I remember when I was leaving Carolina first, they said, well, that's kind of what you do now. And I'm like, but I want to really do it.

So I left, went to Wachovia, did a year. they needed me to do a job for a year. So I did that job for a year and then reminded them that they said that I could go work in private banking. So went into private banking, worked there for about seven years and loved it.

I love the planning part. I love helping somebody achieve their goals. I have a couple of customers that, you know, I don't name names, but one that sticks out to me that still is my customer a couple years later, doesn't even live here,

that was running a big international company and we helped plan his retirement. Nice. So when you ran that, when you were doing the wealth management, what was it called wealth management group? Yep. How many clients would you have at one time? So at Wachovia, I was a private banker or a wealth management associate.

And so we didn't limit it to the number of people you could deal with. It was more what you could handle. And you still had production goals. So there were, you know, you kind of had to balance. balance that. And then once I left, so I'm a big believer in not, you know, people talk about not burning bridges, but I'm a big believer in not burning bridges. And one of my coworkers was getting phased, you know, part of a right sizing of the team after the Wachovia First Union merger that became Wachovia. That person got right sized and I helped set him up at Carolina

First. And I told then the president of the bank, I said, gosh, I feel like I just gave up. my backup job. And he heard that and came circling back around and said, well, what do you mean by that? And I wasn't throwing it out there to be anything. It was just like, gosh, I hope I didn't just, you know, I'm a mom. I have two babies. And, you know, David had a really flexible schedule, but was, you know, early in his career too. And so I needed to work. And so I needed to make sure I always had a job and had good benefits to take care of everybody. And so I ended up having this discussion with the president and then ended up going back to Carolina first. And being the head of the private banking group and getting it started and then taking it

from there. But from a sales perspective, I think Wachovia really taught me the sales piece. When Wachovia and First Union came together, we had rankings that came out every month on our team. When we came together, I was the number one. wealth management associate in the bank. And then they didn't rank it the same after that. Was that based on like assets under management? It was loans. It was deposit. It was trust. It was insurance. It was investment assets. It was you had to be very well-rounded and you had to hustle for sure.

And so how would you typically get a new client in Wachovia? Would it be someone who was doing normal banking there and they would prefer you? Sometimes it was. Yeah. Sometimes, you know, it's definitely not cold calling on people. It's definitely somebody that may already be there that the branch identifies, has additional needs. Yeah. That you need to talk to them about. And it's a relationship.

You know, it doesn't happen like that. It's a long sales process. You know, trust. It takes not just the trust as in a trust department, but people have to trust you. Yeah. And know that you are going to be there for them in the good times and the bad. Right. and that you're going to be somebody they can talk to and not have a fear of repeating.

Yeah, that's a tough one. That's a tough one to, how does a salesperson who doesn't know the person, how do they go from a stranger to trusted ally? You know, what do you do and how long does that take, roughly? I think you have to invest the time. And you've got to invest it in things that don't immediately pad your pocket. Yeah. You know, it's not the initial, that's where I was most successful, I feel like, was investing in something that was going to have a longer-term sales timeline.

I wasn't looking for the initial hit, so to speak. It was something that you were going to put your time in. I remember feeling really rewarded when, sad situations, of course, when you have a husband and a wife that are getting a divorce, and they both come to you to help them after that. And you know, you've got to divide everything. Yeah. And make sure that, you know, everything's really separate. So could you take care of both of them? Yeah.

Okay. You can. You can. You can. You can. Just asking for a friend. Asking for a friend, of course. But, I mean, it's not, you know, I think you can.

You can choose to or you can choose not to. It depends on what the person's comfortable with. Okay. I let them make that decision. So how do you go from that to be? being the president? So when I moved to Carolina first to start the private banking group, really. They had a couple people there.

And so they threw a director title on me and told me to go. And so we grew it to having private bankers in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Florida. So that was the footprint. So we had to hire people in all these markets. They of course reported into the market. So I got to understand the struggle between line of business. and the market, you know, never want people to be pulled out of the market. I think that they've got to have that local buy-in for them to be successful.

And, you know, I believe that today as well, but I just wanted to be their support. But something I never let go of, which is, this is interesting, and I'll have another point on this, is the interaction with the customer. I think that is so important. I feel like if we don't have that, then we lose the reason that we're really there. is to take care of the customer. We lose our focus. We lose our edge to really have an understanding.

So what do you mean by interaction? Do you mean that they talk, they go and meet with and talk to? I still have customers that I take care of directly. Okay. Oh, that you personally and your other execs wouldn't completely, yeah, I get it. You know, there was a thing the other day,

the new Starbucks CEO. I don't know his name, but he had a retreat at one of the Starbucks kind of mock-up stores and he asked anybody on the team to go make like a mocha latte and nobody could do it.

And so he says everyone's going to work in the store half a day a week, to your point. Well, it keeps it real. Keeps it real. It really keeps it real. They couldn't even make a mocha latte. And they're trying to decide what 8,000 baristas are going to do? It's crazy, isn't it?

It is crazy. So that's good. I like that. So that worked for me, and it just helped me stay true to what I really love doing, is being with the people and building those relationships. So, you know, long story short, TD comes in. They buy Carolina First. They put me over wealth management for North Carolina and South Carolina.

The CEO of South Financial Group, which was the parent company of Carolina First, as Lynn Harton. And after his required time there, he moved on to another bank, to this bank out of Blairsville, Georgia called United Community Bank, that nobody had heard of. I hadn't heard of it. Nobody knew what Lynn had gone and done. And his first day of work, he probably texted me. And we just met for coffee. And we talked for a solid nine months about me coming over. And, you know, I read something in a book recently that it made me laugh because I thought, oh, gosh, that's what he was doing to me. And I had no idea. I really thought he was asking about feedback of who could do this job. I didn't know that he really wanted me for the longest time.

But, you know, I had a great job. There was no reason to leave. None of my jobs I've ever had a reason, a reason to leave. T.D. is a great bank. And you were working for Rob Hoke, right? So Rob was the regional there. Okay. In wealth management, I actually reported to somebody out of New York City. Okay. So Rob, I definitely put myself in the local team, but because of my role, I reported elsewhere.

Well, back to your original point about being a cheerleader or being enthusiastic. A long time ago, I was getting recruited by the Citadel and went to one of their games, and after the game, they said, come on the locker room and meet some of the team, you know. So I went in there. You know, you're like a, you know, 17-year-old kid in high school and all these, like, big old college guys. The only guy who smiled and came over and wanted to talk to me was Rob Hoke. He's like, hey, what's your name? Where do you play?

It just couldn't be nicer. Yeah. What a great guy. Oh, my gosh, yeah. And unfortunately for me, he was a senior, so I never got to play with him. But years later, I saw him somewhere, and I'd kind of forgotten even who that guy was. and I saw him and I'm like, I think that's the same guy. And I went up and talked to him and he goes, yeah, that was me.

Oh, that's a great story. He's just, he's a wonderful guy. He is a great guy. He carries it with him everywhere he goes. And he was good with Greenville too. It was. Yep. But now he's kind of busy traveling to the world and drinking wine.

That's what he should be doing. Dr. Dr. Wrenkin wine. I think he's over in Germany for October Fest. Oh, good for him. Yeah. Anyway, okay, so you, you went to work for Lynn eventually. Yes. at UCB at the time.

Yeah. And were you initially running this market you're running now? Yes. And how long ago was that move? Ten years. Ten years. It was ten years in May. Wow.

So May 2013. And we had a little office upstairs in the courtyard Marriott. And there were three people came with me total. So it was me, somebody to run a branch. And then the lovely. person that had been my assistant for so long came with me. Yeah. Ten years.

So really your whole career, if the first bank, Carolina First wouldn't have gotten sold, you could still be there. Possibly. Yeah. Except I popped off to Willcovia for a little bit. Yeah. And so the great thing about Carolina First that I feel like I've brought with me through the years is that commitment to the community.

They really did, Mac Whittle did an amazing job. of really making sure that the people, the team, was involved in the community. And that is something that I have just loved doing and being a part of and serving on boards and being an active member of the community. I think that's really special that we have the opportunity to do those things.

And I love that United Community also gives me the opportunity to continue the opportunity. I think it's, you know, we talked about relationships. Yeah. And some of the customers through the years, I don't want them to think of me as just Michelle Siever, who I'm going to call when I need a statement or, you know, when I need a new debit card or need a loan or, you know, whatever the traditional banking pieces. I want them to think of me as Michelle Seaver who is on this board with them, and they've seen at such an event,

and, you know, is involved in the community and is my banker. Yeah. Well, you're doing a good job of that, and I know that UCB in particular does a lot of sponsor of like different music events and things. So we should talk about some kind of sponsoring of street musicians, the buskers. Oh, that's a great idea. I'll help you with that. Yeah, you can help me with that.

We're going to do a busker once a year like a busker stage and have a big deal sponsored by UCB. That sounds great. That sounds right up our alley. Just VIP seats for you and David. Oh, thank you. Banking question. Yes.

What do you say when people say, hey, what's going to happen to the economy in the next year or two? So there's not a good answer there because nobody has a crystal ball. Nobody knows. You know, I don't think anybody really knows. I don't think we would have thought a year ago that interest rates were going to go up as high as they have. They're still not really that high if you think back to. I don't know what the rate was on your first mortgage. I know mine in 1996.

The end of 1996 was 8.5. And I thought that was a really good rate. Yeah, under 10. It was under 10. I thought that was fantastic. So I think it's a cycle. We've gotten so used to the 3% mortgages that we think that's normal, and that's not really normal.

Man, why didn't we just buy everything in town, you know? Golly. Well, some people did. Yeah, some people did. I bought something. I'm happy to have at least one thing locked in. I'm happy to have mine refinanced at all those low rates. Yeah, yeah.

So, I mean, I really just don't think we know. I think that there are so many factors. that we can't control. And so, you know, with our team, I try to say, let's not focus on the things we can't control. And let's focus on what we can't control. I agree. And again, in my businesses over the years, we've been pretty good at that. Like, you know, if there was a recession or something bad happened, instead of freaking out about it, we'd say, we're stronger than our competitors.

So we're going to survive, and some of them won't. So when it comes back, we're going to be better off. Yes. And we definitely talk about the strength of the bank a good bit. And, you know, we have our team equipped to have those conversations. We have conversation. You know, we don't talk about others. We talk about ourselves.

So when you, when you, I think I know the answer to this, but if a bank loans somebody money, it doesn't really matter what the interest rate is to the bank, because you're going to make a small spread, whether it's 3% or 8%, right? So the spread is what, yes, the spread is what we make our money. off of. It's important that the spread align with, you know, what your net interest margin is, what you want your net interest margin to be, but you don't want to lend money for less than what your cost of funds is. Yeah, yeah. So if you look at that you have to buy money with new deposit products in the four and a half, five percent range, you can't

lend to somebody at five and a half percent. You need a large spread. So in a situation where interest rates, let's just say are high and people aren't buying as many houses. What does the bank focus on instead to make to make your targets? So people still are borrowing money. Okay. They still are borrowing money. We're still having great loan growth. There's a lot of opportunity out there. We're fortunate that we can lend money still. We have about a 78% loan to deposit ratio right now. and that's pretty strong. So we're in a position where we can still lend money. We focus on our customers.

We're not going to just lend money to lend money. Yeah. You know, we want to make sure that we're taking care of our own. Well, when I was getting out of school, my favorite professor, I asked for some advice, and he said, one of the things he said was get a really good relationship with a banker. and I wondered from your perspective, how would a young person do that? How would a young person get? Like create a good relationship with your bank?

I think that, so I had an email Friday from an existing customer whose son lives in Atlanta and is not having a great experience with their bank and is looking to build a relationship with somebody similar to the relationship they have. So I think it's getting competitive. connected with somebody that you know and then helping them make the connection with somebody that is, you know, wherever they live. I think it's having that, you know, somebody that you know you can call. Just to make it some kind of personal connection to a person. Yeah, I mean, there's all different ways to, you know, open accounts now, whether you can open them online or open them with a person or, you know,

people don't go into branches as much as they used to. But I still think it's really important to have that person that you can text on a Saturday when something goes wrong or, you know, at night or whatever it is. I mean, I think everybody's kind of on call all the time now. My goodness, I mean, it certainly wasn't always that way with bankers. It used to be bankers' hours and, you know, that kind of thing now. I mean, the people I deal with is 24-7. Absolutely. They want to help you.

Well, and they do want to help you. And I'm not talking about a 1-800 number either. It's got to be somebody that knows you. Cell number. Knows the family. Yeah, somebody you can text, whether it's, you know, it may not be that big of a deal or it may mean that your debit card's gotten stolen or the numbers gotten lifted from something compromised.

In terms of selling, we talked earlier about you being kind of a relationship seller. Have you done any formal sales training or do you follow anyone in sales? So I don't follow anyone necessarily in sales, except for you. Yeah, you go. But I've certainly been through sales training through my career. think it's an ongoing piece. The bank does it. The different banks all do sales training. You know, it might be needs-based training. You know, we don't want to be just selling something to, you know, check a box. Yeah. By any means, it needs to be things that people need. But it's about

more of making sure that people are aware of what we have to offer. And that's our responsibility. So in times where the loan volume may not be as high, as it is. You know, we are currently talking to our teams about, you know, reach out. Yeah. Reach out to your customer you haven't talked to recently and say hello and make sure they're okay and, you know, look at the products and services they have and make sure

that they know what online banking can do for them or that they can set up alerts in their app. I agree. I mean, particularly since you already have the customers there, it's amazing if you, if you can get your people to show up and have a face-to-face discussion about, You know, what about this? What about this? Let me see if I can help you. That's easy.

Well, even when we're out and about in the community, you know, be open to having a conversation with somebody, too. We volunteered at Mill Village and packed boxes of produce one day. And I just randomly started talking to this gentleman who was right beside me, and he ended up moving his personal relationship to us. It was great. You know, I gave him a cell phone number. He texted me.

I put him in touch with the branch that was closest to where he lived. Yeah. And I met him there to make the introduction. And then, I mean, he just kept on going. But he was so impressed that our bank was involved in the community and was getting out of the office and trying to make a difference. That's great. That's great.

Now, how about chat GPT? Have you played with that at all? I really haven't. No? You ought to check that out. It's a... I know. That may make me sound like a bit of a dinosaur, but...

No, I mean, it just came out not too long ago. But it's just interesting. Interesting. It might be helpful with some of your stuff. It's changing rapidly. And it's still free. You can just go type it in and play with it. I bet you David knows about it.

I'm sure he does. I know about it from a standpoint of, you know, I hear younger people talking about using it for answers. Yeah. Or write a paper. Right, to write a paper. and I haven't actually played myself with it. If they told you to take over, you know, Anderson,

I don't know if you have an Anderson or not. We do. Say, how would I best approach the Anderson, South Carolina market for this kind of customer, give me 10 bullet points, no more than 500 words? There it is. Tell me. Wow.

It's crazy. All right. So what's your favorite book? I have two. Okay, you can do two. Can I do two? Yes, of course. Okay.

So the first one is a book called True North by Bill George. Okay. And years ago, Carolina First, South Financial Group, did a leadership program where they sent us to San Diego for this program. We had all kinds of people talking to us that wrote books, the head of Hewlett-Packard at the time. I mean, all kinds of really influential people. And there was this gentleman. So I was probably, oh, my upper... probably 38 years old, had two young children, had a eight-year-old and five-year-old.

And, you know, you have so many people that you're learning from and absorbing from and seeing different people's leadership styles. So this book called True North really gives you the permission to be authentic in your leadership skills. So it gave me the okay to be me and to lead in a way that I thought was the right way to lead. So it talks about your moral compass and encourages you to follow what you think is right. And so that was really even just a pivotal, pivotal time for me because, and I still go back to the book probably once a year and read a couple of chapters of it because it just is, it's a good read. I'll read it. That sounds like a great book.

What's the other one? The other one is, what are you for? By Jeff Henderson. So that's a new book that I've just recently read. And he came and spoke to our quarterly senior leadership conference. And he was in marketing for Chick-fil-A. And he talks about some of the bad ideas that he came up with the idea to drop the cows at the, I don't know if it was the SEC Championship game or which game it was at the peach,

or if it was Peach Bowl or whatever. And they all went on the field and they had to, you know, push him off all the cows off the field. You know, I'd stop the game and push all the cows off the field. And he's like, oh, no, my career is over. And it ended up being this, you know, great idea. I mean, talked about different experiences like that, but it helps you really refine what you're for and focused on, focus on, you know, that you're for the customer. You're for the, you know, the customer experience. Talked about Truett Cathy coming up with my pleasure. It talks a little bit about the Ritz-Carlton style of how they, you check in, you know, you're parking your car and they radio somebody

and tell them your name that you're on the way up to the check-in and then they greet you again. So it talks about that, you know, customer experience and being for the customer. And that really resonates with us as a company. That's two good books. I read them. How about a favorite word? Favorite word? So when I first thought about that, it was yes. Yes. Because isn't that what every salesperson would want? Yes.

But, you know, I've reflected a little bit more on that. And I think probably trust. It's important. And relationship, I probably have more. No, I've just given you like several. But I feel like all of those are really important. Yes, is important because we need to be affirmed. Yeah.

But trust is important because we need people to trust us in all areas of our lives. Yeah. People need to trust us. Yeah, once you have the trust, the yes is not that difficult, is it? Right. And most importantly, what's your favorite band? Hitting the blowfish. Moody and the blowfish.

Yes. That's what a good Carolina girl should say. That's right. That's great. All right. So what, do you want to promote anything in particular today? Well, I feel like I've talked a lot about the bank already. And the bank in the community.

And I didn't mean to talk about the bank so much. It's just a part of who I am. Sure. And the day-to-day life. You know, I love that we are committed to the Greenville community. Really, we're in North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, and Alabama. So we're much bigger than we were 10 years ago.

We were $7 billion bank 10 years, and we're 10 years ago, and we're almost a $30 billion bank. Wow. Now, so the growth has been amazing, but it's been good growth with the right people for the right reasons. Yeah. We are headquartered here in Greenville, and are building our headquarters, finishing our headquarters right there to the left of the Grand Bohemian.

That is going to be so beautiful. It is really great. We took a tour with the team last Friday. It was one of the last tours that we could. give before they start work on the elevator. And that apparently takes two months to put an elevator together. Did you know that? I didn't know that.

Well, there's three of them, so I assume that's, you know, it takes that long. But they come in a gazillion pieces and it's going to be so great. We're excited to be together. You know, right now we're in the office that I'm in on East North Street. We have the headquarters office is on a floor of the one building. And then we have some rented space down the street at River Place. And we have an op center. on Broad Street at the old EP2 building is what people sometimes refer to it as.

So the EP2 building will stay, but then the other three will come together. So it's going to be so nice for us to have our team, most of the team here all together in one building. So I'm really excited about that. You have your office picked out? My office is absolutely already picked out. Nice. It's been picked out for a while. Well, I want to come see you when you get in there and get the tour.

I would love that. Okay. It's going to be a great spot, and we're excited. I think it just continues to emphasize our commitment to Greenville and the state of South Carolina. That's a big commitment. That's a big commitment. It's a big building. Well, Michelle, we're very proud of you.

You've done great with every job you've had. You've prepared for a banking career with your accounting degree and your work at the bank in the summers. I mean, it's all kind of going, you know, just like it's supposed to. So proud of you. you're also a great I would say you're kind of a secret salesperson to do it with relationships

you know so you're getting your sales done so anyway thank you very much for being here I appreciate it well thank you for having me thanks