In the world of business, your customers (clients, guests, or whatever you call the people you do business with) may refer to you as a vendor, supplier, dealer, etc. That represents a financial relationship that is transactional. Moving beyond transactional—when that customer wouldn’t even consider doing business with your competitors—elevates the relationship to a partnership. A partnership is a vendor relationship on steroids.
How do you build this type of partnership? First, you must define the relationship you want to have with your customers. What kind of relationship do you want with your customers and clients (or whatever you call the people or organizations who do business with you)? How do you want them to think of you? Are you a vendor, supplier, distributor, etc.? Or, are you their partner?
Terry Turner is the president and CEO of Pinnacle Financial Partners, a Nashville bank founded in 2001. He was—and still is—very intentional about how he wants his clients to perceive their relationship with the bank.
Before we go further, this is much more than a story about a bank. It is a powerful way for any business to think of its customers. Let’s continue.
Pinnacle Financial Partners is a bank with both commercial and personal banking clients. So, how did the concept of partnership get put into the name? This was one of the first questions I asked Turner on my Amazing Business Radio podcast. Here’s a short version of his answer:
When Turner and his team started the bank, they had a blank sheet of paper. They weren’t tied to taking an existing bank and trying to twist and turn it to what they wanted. Starting fresh meant the team could dream up everything they wanted the bank to be. They brainstormed what they wanted to create, the type of culture they wanted and more. They shared their vision with focus groups and asked them to help choose a name that defined what the best would look like in the banking world, and the answer was Pinnacle Financial.
The leadership team loved the name. The word Pinnacle represents the top, the best, etc. But there needed to be more, so they added the word Partners to the name, to represent what they were trying to achieve with their clients. The concept of partnership was exactly the relationship they wanted with their clients.
So, that’s the beginning of the story. Here are five more lessons shared in the interview. As usual, I’ll share the main point followed by my commentary.
1. Be crystal clear about what you want to be known for. Turner’s go-to-market strategy was simple: provide distinctive service and effective advice. Before I could press Turner on this, he said, “It sounds like blah, blah, blah. I don’t know how many bankers have ever called on you, and not one of them ever promised you they would give you bad service and poor advice.”
2. It’s about the depth of the relationship. Turner wants to go deep with the bank’s clients. “We’re involved with our clients,” he says. “We know their situation, and we’re in a position to advise them.” Turner wants to be thought of as a firm—like a law firm or an accounting firm. They have clients, not customers. The relationships run deeper than a traditional transactional bank.
3. A culture of fulfilled associates is as serious as earnings per share (EPS). Getting the associate (employee) experience right is important to the financial outcome of the bank. A strong shareholder is dependent on happy clients. That doesn’t happen unless you have happy associates. Turner said, “You never get the client experience to exceed that of the associate experience.” Proof of this is an incredible employee retention rate of over 95%.
4. Hire people with experience. Pinnacle Financial Partners only hires experienced people. The minimum amount of experience is 10 years, but the average new hire has 18 years—and the average experience across the workforce is 23 years! Turner was excited to share, “If you fill your company up with people who, on average, have at least 18 years of experience, you can build a control infrastructure that requires less bureaucracy and frees people up to do what they know how to do.”
5. Answer the phone in three rings. The bank uses technology, but it also recognizes that sometimes that won’t work—or sometimes the client would just rather talk to a human being. When customers are confident that they can talk to someone when they need to, they often go digital first, knowing it’s backed by a quick and seamless transfer to a live person who will answer in seconds and not put them on hold for minutes—often too many minutes.
Remember that elevating a vendor relationship to a partnership is more than just a strategy. It’s a commitment to your customers. Turner’s approach at Pinnacle Financial Partners is a guide to turning standard business interactions and relationships into the deeper level of a partnership. Use the examples in this article to motivate you and your organization to create similar relationships with your customers.