September 12, 2025 • 28 mins
When was the last time your banker gave you a same-day decision? For most business owners, the answer is "never" – but Andy Nadeau and his team at FB Financial are changing that reality in Western North Carolina.
"We tell business owners what they need to hear instead of what they want to hear," explains Nadeau, who brings over three decades of financial experience to his role. This straightforward approach represents just one way his team is disrupting traditional banking. While most financial institutions have centralized their decision-making processes, FB Financial keeps every business decision local. This proves especially crucial for Asheville businesses that experienced challenges last year – situations that distant decision-makers in Charlotte or Atlanta simply wouldn't understand.
The results speak for themselves. Eight months after launching in Asheville, FB Financial is ahead of schedule on their ambitious "Path to $100 Million" initiative to support local economic growth. Their success stems from approaching banking entrepreneurially, offering everything from $500,000 credit lines to $25 million commercial property rehabilitations.
What truly sets them apart is their consultative mindset. "We're advisors first," Nadeau emphasizes. Unlike banks that interact with clients only during annual renewals, FB Financial positions themselves alongside CPAs and attorneys as trusted advisors who should be the first call before any major business decision. This approach has business owners responding with surprise: "Our bankers don't talk to us like this."
Connect with FB Financial at their Biltmore Park offices or through their website to experience banking that moves "at the speed of your opportunity."
Guest contact: andy.nadeau@fbfinancialonline.com
Thanks for Listening. You may contact me or our team at https://billgilliland.biz/
All the best!
Bill
Thanks for listening. Please hit the subscribe button, leave us a 5 star review, and share this podcast. You can reach me at williamgilliland@actioncoach.com or at https://billgilliland.biz/
All the best!
Bill
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hey there and welcome to this week's episode of Epic
Entrepreneurs.
I have got an amazing guesttoday.
I am looking forward tochatting with him, but before we
chat with him, my name is BillGilliland.
I am the principal at ActionCoach, business Growth Partners
and one of the founders of theAsheville Business Summit, and I
just want to remind you thatit's not too late.
We've got coming up September23rd.
(00:24):
You go out to wncsummitcom andyou can get your tickets there.
It's going to be an amazingevent and, in fact, our guest
today is one of the sponsors.
So I've got Andy Nadeau from FBFinancial.
I am so pleased to have him onthe podcast.
So welcome, andy.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Thanks, bill, appreciate you being here.
I actually look forward to thesummit.
It's going to be exciting.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Oh yeah, so tell us a little bit about FB Financial
and you and how it all cameabout.
Yeah, sure.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
I appreciate it.
Fb Financial we're a divisionof First Bank out of Nashville,
tennessee Bank out of Nashville,tennessee, 120-year-old
financial institution reallyfocused in the Southeast region.
A big presence in Nashville,obviously, in Tennessee,
knoxville, down into Birmingham,alabama, places in Georgia and
(01:19):
now in Western North Carolina inAsheville.
And so my background is 30 plusyears, bill, in the financial
services industry.
I spent many of those with thelarger financial institutions
and have experience in bringingbanks that want to come to a
(01:41):
market that are not here today,and so that's why I joined FB
Financial.
It was about this time lastyear.
They had a vision of coming toWestern North Carolina.
They were looking for a leader.
I have experience in it.
I brought JP Morgan back in themid-2000s to Charlotte.
Now they have over a thousandpeople in the Carolinas and FB
(02:03):
Financial is focused on buildingout a complete franchise,
meaning full service, retail,commercial mortgages, wealth
management, et cetera.
So pretty excited about theopportunity.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Yeah, that is exciting.
Well, when we think of banks,we don't often think of
entrepreneurs, but what you'redoing is very entrepreneurial,
even what it sounds like.
Your whole career has beensomewhat entrepreneurial.
So so tell us a few thingsyou've learned about, sort of
from an entrepreneur's eye on,like, how do you do that?
(02:37):
I mean, how do you?
What are some things you'velearned?
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Yeah, it's.
It's funny that you point thatout, bill, it's.
You know I've hired a team ofwe have five people now total
here in Asheville, and when Iwas recruiting for bankers, I
said I want you to stop thinkinglike a traditional banker and I
want you to think like abusiness owner.
Right, because that's who weare.
We're a team of entrepreneurswho just happen to be building a
(03:03):
bank behind an establishedfranchise, and so some people
may say, well, that's a littlebit easier than a full startup.
Well, it's a little bitchallenging because we have
branding issues.
There are a number of firstbanks throughout the country
that already exist, and so wehave to separate ourselves right
from the very beginning.
I need.
That's why we're FB Financial,right, and so we're really
(03:28):
looking at disrupting thetraditional kind of banking
model where a client tells uswhat they need with their banker
and the banker tries to get itdone, and you know, we kind of
refer to that as theorder-taking side of it.
That's not who we are.
We are entrepreneurs at heart.
We tell business owners whatthey need to hear instead of
(03:53):
what they want to hear, and Ithink that's why we've been so
successful in just the eightmonths that we've been here in
Asheville.
Early this year I put achallenge out to the team and I
publicly said that we call itour path to 100 million and we
want to put $100 million to workin Western North Carolina and
that's through helping companiesrebuild through the tragedies
(04:16):
that we had last year.
We want to help companies grow,we want to help them expand and
we're ahead of plan and off toa tremendous start.
So if we took the traditionalapproach to banking, I don't
think we'd be even half of wherewe were.
So we like to call ourselvesdisruptors in the banking
industry.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
So I've got a couple of questions about that.
That's awesome, I mean, one ofthe things I've always liked,
and I knew immediately from thebeginning that you were
different because you werefocused on business and you were
focused on serving businessesand helping them grow, and so I
think it is interesting.
I do think it is a brandingissue.
(04:57):
There are a lot of F banks thatstart with F and first and all
these things.
So I love that you've attemptedto do something about it.
Yeah with that, but talk aboutdisruption.
So what are you like?
What specifically are you doingto disrupt?
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Sure, you know banks today, if you look at the
banking model, they'vecentralized everything.
So to take any bank out there,most of the decision-making has
become centralized, and so youmay have a team out here in
Western North Carolina, but thedecisions are not made here.
And if you think about it,trying to explain what happened
(05:36):
last year to some of thosebusinesses that had a terrible
fourth quarter, for an example,to someone that sits in
Charlotte or Atlanta orJacksonville, florida, they just
don't understand or get itright.
And so one of the first thingsthat I did when I was looking at
joining FB Financial was, ifwe're going to do this, we're
going to do it right and we'regoing to have to make local
(05:58):
decisions.
So every decision we make witha small business is made right
here in Asheville, and that'syou know.
We like to say what's good forAsheville is good for us.
So we're truly a bank built forWestern North Carolina, truly a
bank built for Asheville, whereall decisions are made here,
and I'll give you a couple ofexamples on that.
(06:20):
And we're not biased.
I mean we're generalists.
We talk to every industry.
We have no buy box.
If a deal makes sense, we'regoing to find a creative way to
do it and we've closedeverything, Bill, from a
$500,000 line of credit torecently we closed a fully
(06:41):
funded $25 million rehab of acommercial property.
So there's nothing too small,there's nothing too big and
there's nothing that isdiscouraged to us.
If it exists in Asheville, itexists for a reason and we want
to understand the story.
Now.
The fundamentals to that billhave to be there right.
It has to have good ownership,it has to have good fundamentals
(07:02):
.
The fundamentals to that billhave to be there, right.
It has to have good ownership,it has to have good fundamentals
, has to have a competent team.
But if there was a hiccup lastyear, we look at that.
How did the previous year look?
How did the year look beforethat?
And I think we're seeingcompanies respond to our way of
trying to find a way to dobusiness versus finding a way
(07:26):
not to do business.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Yeah, it sounds refreshing to me, the first deal
I ever did in business.
You know, the local guy that Iwas doing business with had he
had full authority.
I mean he's like, hey, bill,you know I can't loan you this
amount of money, but you know,and it was way over what I
needed.
(07:48):
So it was, you know it was yeah, it was cool.
He said, how much do you want?
And I'm like, because you knowthe deal was good, it was cool.
He said, how much do you want?
And I'm like, because you knowthe deal was good.
And then you know, over theyears I've seen how it's gotten
I call it bureaucrat it up.
You know it's just got a lot ofthere's a lot of red tape.
So I love that that you canmake the decisions locally,
(08:13):
because I mean, if you can sayyes or no, that's what people
need and they can get an answerfast.
So that is, to me,entrepreneurial and I hope that
when you're listening to thisyou hear that, because this is
an amazing opportunity.
I mean there's almost no,there's none of that anymore.
Even a lot of the communitybanks have some sort of
(08:35):
committees and things thatthey've got to go to and credit
this and credit that, and so, uh, yeah, this is, this is
exciting.
I'm, I'm, I'm super excitedabout that.
That is a disruption I'll beinterested to see.
I I think more banks will goback to that eventually.
I hope I, you know, maybe,maybe, hopefully they're not
gonna catch up with you, but uh,but you know they're, I don't
(08:57):
think they're gonna get therefast enough because there's such
a chain of things that have tohappen.
So, yeah, I'm guessing itdoesn't mean you still don't
have to dot the i's and crossthe t, but but that, but that's,
that's, that's right, and andyou know, we, we, we have, um,
(09:18):
we have 120 plus years of totalexperience.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Um, it just here in the Asheville office.
Right, I've been in thebusiness 30 plus years.
I've seen your bankers havebeen at it 30 years, another
banker 15 years.
Um, there's not a deal that wehaven't seen.
And so I think when we're outtelling the story and we tell
people, take us up on our offer,right, well, we'll give you
same day decisions on most deals.
(09:42):
Think about that, same daydecisions.
Now we need basic information.
A lot of times we'll be on thephone, like we're talking with
now Bill and company owner hastheir financials in front of us
and we'll ask them five or sixkey questions and then we'll
start laying out a deal.
And does it make sense?
And they're like, well, wait aminute.
It's been sitting with mycurrent bank for three or four
weeks.
They haven't even gotten me adecision yet, and you're telling
(10:03):
me you could do this deal.
I said, yeah, we'll issue aterm sheet this afternoon if
you're ready to go.
And so those are the types ofexamples of type of things that
we're doing.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
And right now.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
And right now, you know, right now we're just,
we're a little laser focused onhelping rebuild Asheville, one
business at a time.
Asheville's needed a strongbusiness bank and that's what
the opportunity that I saw.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
And that's why we're here.
Yeah, I agree, I agree, I agreewith everything you said.
I mean, I don't, I don't.
I think it's wonderful to havea bank that is aggressive and
that is entrepreneurial and willmake decisions, because, I mean
, I don't know about you, but ano is actually better than a
(10:48):
maybe.
Absolutely, a yes is better, ayes is better than no, but I'd
rather have a no than a maybe, acould no, yeah, yeah, yeah,
don't drag me.
Yeah, no, I love it.
So you said think like abusiness owner.
So what does that mean to you?
Speaker 2 (11:07):
Well, it means how we think about when we look at
partnering with a business.
We put ourselves in their shoes, like we want to become part of
their team.
So I tell my team we want to beon the same side of the table
as their key advisors, and a lotof time bankers today are not
right, and so most businessowners have a CPA.
(11:31):
They trust, they have anattorney they trust.
But you know, they go to thebank maybe once a year asking
for the best rate and haverenewal time.
They'll give them somefinancials.
That's not who we are.
We're consultants first, we'readvisors first, and so any major
decision we want to be theirfirst call, because every
(11:51):
decision they make affects theirbalance sheet, affects the
financial health of the businessthey make, affects their
balance, it affects thefinancial health of the business
.
And then we'll walk themthrough as a key advisor would
and say have you thought aboutthis?
Have you thought about that?
What's the impact if you dothis on that?
And so we have thoseconversations every day.
I mean, we were talking to acompany last week that owns a
(12:14):
lot, a number of car washes, andthey're asking the difference
between should we roll these upin our portfolio or keep them
independently financed.
And so we walked them throughit.
We walked them through bothsides of the argument and they
were at the end of the call.
It's like you guys are bankers,we don't.
(12:35):
Our bankers don't talk to uslike this.
You guys are more of an advisor, and once we get that from a
client, we know we've got aclient for life.
And so that's really when wesay think like a business owner.
We want to put ourselves intheir shoes, we want to
understand their challenges andat the same time, we want to be
able to add value at everyinteraction.
(12:56):
If we can't add value at everyinteraction, then we become just
another what I call anothersuit chasing that business right
, and that's not who we want tobe.
We have to be different and wehave to disrupt that.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
I think you are different.
I think there's no questionabout it.
I mean, I think you could go to20 banks and I don't think
you'd find anybody doing thathere in local markets, so at
least that'd be my experience.
Let me.
I'm going to ask you a coupleof sort of business and
management questions, justgeneral, maybe not about the
bank.
So what do you look for whenyou're hiring employees?
(13:32):
You've hired a lot of people.
Yeah, over the years I've hireda lot of people when you're
hiring employees.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
You've hired a lot of people.
Yeah, over the years I've hireda lot of people.
Yeah, you know cultureeverybody talks about culture
and you know, and it seems to bea buzzword but you've got to
find people that fit within theorganization.
So, for example, if I'mbuilding a basketball team, Bill
, I'm not going to build thatteam with five point guards.
(13:55):
Right, I need a variety offolks on this team.
I need a center, I need a pointguard, I need a power forward,
and then I need someone thatjust loves to pass the ball
right Because I like to shoot.
And so what I mean by that I usethat analogy is that you need
to surround yourself withlike-minded people that have a
different skill set.
So, if I'm hiring, I've hadpeople over the years say boy, I
(14:22):
wish I had 10 more Andesbecause we would dominate.
And I'd say you do not want 10more Andes, Trust me, you
absolutely do not want 10 moreAndes.
What you need is you needcomplimentary players around an
Andy type, a driver, anentrepreneur type to fill in the
gaps and fill in the holes.
Right, and so it's you.
(14:45):
Sometimes you need to calm tothe chaos, or the chaos to the
calm.
And so when you're looking tohire people, obviously you're
looking for competent people.
Like one of the first questionsI ask everyone I hire, are you
good at what you do?
And I look at their reaction,right, Just think about that.
The first question you sit down, say, listen, are you good at
what you do?
And if they come with an answerof confidence and say, hey,
(15:11):
actually I think I'm one of thebest at what I do, and let me
tell you why I'm going toprobably hire that person on the
spot.
Well, if they come, and if theyanswer the question, well, well
, I don't know, I think I'm good.
People tell me I'm kind of good.
I think I'm nice.
That person automatically,right in the first 30 seconds,
(15:32):
probably is not going to be agood fit.
So you kind of look for acouple of different things.
You look for people that areconfident.
You look for people that arereally good at what they do but
at the same time, love to win asa team.
And those are the types ofthings that you got to get very
(15:54):
early on in the conversations.
Because I'll tell you,financing a company is really
easy, Bill, Hiring people isreally hard.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Yeah and what you're doing and, frankly, what you're
doing here is you're buildingthe team to help companies.
I mean, that's really your roleas the market president.
So, yeah, I get it.
I've never heard that question.
I love it.
I thought I'd heard them all.
I mean, I've heard all kind ofcrazy stuff, like I mean you
(16:21):
know how many cows are in Canada?
And a bunch of dumb stuff, butI actually love that question.
I remember you know it'ssimilar to a question.
I remember a guy asked me onetime we were in talking about,
you know, a coaching agreement,and the guy just looked at me
and he said, is this going towork?
And I was like yeah, it's goingto work.
(16:42):
And so he signed.
But if you don't have theconfidence, you're not going to.
It's kind of reminded me ofthat thing.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
Well, let me get your thoughts on a few things.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
Bepic, which is one of our taglines, is an acronym,
so I want to get your thoughtson the acronym.
Just a couple of words orsentences about each one, so
just kind of a quick fire roundhere.
So the B stands for bring theenergy.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
Yeah, I mean, without energy you got nothing right.
You got to have.
You know, I look at energy ashaving a sense of urgency and I
love people with a sense ofurgency.
And I love people with a senseof urgency, not a reckless sense
of urgency, but someone thatoperates with a sense of urgency
, At the speed of youropportunity.
(17:31):
That's what we tell companiesLike well, how fast can we get
that?
Look, it's at the speed of youropportunity.
How we move, you're going todictate.
So when I hear that, I think ofsense of urgency, I love, of
sense of urgency, I love thespeed of opportunity.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
That's a great thing.
That's a good title for a bookor something, or for this
podcast.
We'll get you something.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
Okay, how about?
Speaker 1 (17:52):
E E is education.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
You've got to continuously learn.
I mean, like I said, I've beenin this business 30-plus plus
years and I'm learning somethingnew every day, and I want the
people that are surrounding me,I want them, to be able to bring
value at every interaction withme so I can learn something.
And so if you don't, thenyou're just, you know you're
going to fall behind.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
Yeah, no, I love that , I love that Okay the P is
planning.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
You got to have a plan, you know.
If you don't, you know thisright, if you don't, you're
going to fail the plan.
Right, you got to have astrategic mindset.
So planning needs to bestrategic.
It needs to be with purpose.
You know, bill, I was a schoolteacher many, many, many years
ago and I was coachingbasketball and I said every move
on the basketball court is withpurpose.
If you don't have purpose,you're wasting time, and that's
(18:49):
part of the planning process.
Right, you got to be strategicand you got to have purpose.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
I love that, I love, love, love that.
The I is inspiration, the I isinspiration.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
Inspiration is passion.
You got to be passionate, right.
Inspiration is when someonesees your passion, sees what you
do, and wants to follow you.
You know it's like followshipit's not even a word, I believe,
(19:24):
but I used followship over theyears is you got to have people
that want to follow you, right?
So I'm building this bank.
I took people away from otherbanks that had a long time
career, but I say you got tofollow me in this venture
because it's going to be a hellof a time, right.
We're going to have fun, it'sgoing to be hard, but we're
going to build something special.
And that's what I think of whenyou say that.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
Yeah, I got the vision.
No, I love it.
Yeah, what you just said.
I remember interviewing afriend of mine and I said what
gives you inspiration?
He said that's the wrongquestion, bill, and I said what
do you mean?
He said the question is how canyou be an inspiration?
And that's what you're talkingabout, with followership being
an inspiration.
Yeah, so I love that.
I love that.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
C commitment you got to be all in.
You know, in this, in anythingthat you do, you can't get a
little bit pregnant.
So you're all in right.
And by being all in is you gotto bring the energy every single
day along with the commitment.
So it kind of ties in a lotwith what we're talking about
(20:27):
today.
You've got to be all in.
If you're not, you're not goingto be successful.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
Right, right, right.
I love it, but those are great.
That's great advice, I think,for anyone in business.
That's great advice, I think,for anyone in business.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
So, from your standpoint of view, what advice
would you give to businessowners who are looking to grow?
A lot with what we talked aboutaround your epic.
But at the same time you talkabout acronyms, and you know you
talk about acronyms and therewas an acronym 30 plus years ago
that I built Every businessI've been in around.
It's called CAP, c-a-p-p, andCAP stands for clients that
(21:13):
cooperate, appreciate, prosperand pay.
So when you think about that,that's who you want to surround
yourself with clients thatcooperate, appreciate the
relationship that they have inyour customers, appreciate the
value proposition that you bringto the table.
Prosper that's the growthaspect of it.
(21:35):
Bill right, you have to havethat vision and commitment to
grow and prosper.
And then finally is pay.
And people think, well, do youshy away from that?
I said no, I don't shy awayfrom pay.
We want our clients to pay.
We want them to pay fairly.
They're not going to overpay.
But if you're building abusiness, it's the same thing.
Think about your business.
(21:56):
When you work with clients andconsulting, you probably don't
use that acronym, but when youthink about what makes a good
client, well, they cooperate,they appreciate what I bring to
the table, they prosper and theypay.
Right.
You can actually take that andput that in any business.
You can put that in themanufacturing business, you can
put that in the consultingbusiness, you can put that in
(22:16):
the restaurant business.
And so when you think aboutgrowth, you got to think about
who am I going to grow with andwhat is?
What is my ideal customer?
And then how am I going to getthat customer to trust me and
give me their full share ofwallet?
Right, that's how we thinkabout this every day and that's
(22:38):
how our entrepreneurs should bethinking about this.
This is how business ownersshould be thinking about this
every day.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
I like it.
I just thought of it.
You could say like put on yourcap and be epic I love it.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love that.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
Yeah, no, yeah, we put our two together and we've
got something amazing.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
No, we've got something going here.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
Yeah, yeah, no, I love it, I Well, how does
somebody get a hold of you orsome of your bankers?
Sure, or entrepreneurs, Ishould call them.
Yeah, there you go.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
Our business owners.
Yeah, so our offices are inBiltmore Park.
Our website isfbfinancialonlinecom.
My email address is andynettoat fbfinancialonlinecom.
They can get.
They can get a hold of us anyof those ways.
They can reach out to medirectly and I'll put them in
(23:37):
touch with with my team, who Ithink is the best fit for them.
My team is out and about in thecommunity telling our story.
A nice way to meet folks isthat we are the presenting
sponsor for the Chamber'sbusiness after hours, and so
we've had two or three of those.
(23:57):
Now We've been meeting 50, 60new people telling our story and
it's amazing the feedback thatwe've been getting from that and
the follow-up has beenoverwhelming.
Quite frankly, bill is once thecommunity hears our story and
say, well, you are different.
And I say, well, we are, butlet us prove it to you.
(24:19):
Let us prove it to you Because,as you know, it's hard to
disrupt a long-time relationship.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
And.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
I'll tell you at the same time too.
If a business owner comes to usand we can't help them out any
more than what their currentbank is doing, we'll tell them
that, right, we're not here toadd value to the right company.
We think we can do that with alot of companies, but if we
can't, we're going to tell themvery quickly and we'll give them
(24:48):
some insights on how to go backto their existing bank and get
what they need.
And actually, one of thefollow-up conversations we had
with one of our prospects isthey came here, sat in our
conference room, we spent anhour and we told them.
We said listen, the path ofleast resistance to you is go
back to your bank and tell themyou want to do this, this and
this.
This is how you're going to doit.
Well, two weeks later, I raninto this person at the business
(25:11):
after hours and said Andy, youradvice was spot on.
We went back and did that andthey ended up doing the deal.
I said perfect.
I said think you know, on yournext deal, think of us and they
will.
And they will, yeah, and ourintention is is that we want to
help companies any way that wecan in Western North Carolina.
That's either directly throughour balance sheet.
(25:32):
If it's advice, we'll help themin any way that we can.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
Yeah, no, I love that .
I love that.
So we appreciate you coming inand sponsoring the summit.
If you want to get it, you needto come to the summit.
You need to stop by their table.
They're going to have a tableout there.
There are going to be somebankers out there talking to you
about what they can offer.
You can learn more about whatthey do.
I think we've covered it,though.
(25:59):
I mean this is awesome.
The best thing to do is reachout, have a conversation,
understand what they do, howthey do it, see if they're a fit
, and if they are, then great.
And if they aren't, you know,we'll all still be friends,
exactly.
So, yeah, hey, thanks for beingon the podcast.
Really appreciate it.
Yeah, I appreciate it.
Bill, thanks for having me.
Yeah, hey, remember to get yourtickets to the summit on the
(26:22):
23rd.
You need to get them now.
We're about two weeks out,almost exactly, and so we look
forward to seeing you there.
We look forward to seeing youat the FB Financial Table as
well, and until then, all thebest.
Hey there and welcome to this week's episode of Epic
Entrepreneurs.
I have got an amazing guesttoday.
I am looking forward tochatting with him, but before we
chat with him, my name is BillGilliland.
I am the principal at ActionCoach, business Growth Partners
and one of the founders of theAsheville Business Summit, and I
just want to remind you thatit's not too late.
We've got coming up September23rd.
(00:24):
You go out to wncsummitcom andyou can get your tickets there.
It's going to be an amazingevent and, in fact, our guest
today is one of the sponsors.
So I've got Andy Nadeau from FBFinancial.
I am so pleased to have him onthe podcast.
So welcome, andy.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Thanks, bill, appreciate you being here.
I actually look forward to thesummit.
It's going to be exciting.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Oh yeah, so tell us a little bit about FB Financial
and you and how it all cameabout.
Yeah, sure.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
I appreciate it.
Fb Financial we're a divisionof First Bank out of Nashville,
tennessee Bank out of Nashville,tennessee, 120-year-old
financial institution reallyfocused in the Southeast region.
A big presence in Nashville,obviously, in Tennessee,
knoxville, down into Birmingham,alabama, places in Georgia and
(01:19):
now in Western North Carolina inAsheville.
And so my background is 30 plusyears, bill, in the financial
services industry.
I spent many of those with thelarger financial institutions
and have experience in bringingbanks that want to come to a
(01:41):
market that are not here today,and so that's why I joined FB
Financial.
It was about this time lastyear.
They had a vision of coming toWestern North Carolina.
They were looking for a leader.
I have experience in it.
I brought JP Morgan back in themid-2000s to Charlotte.
Now they have over a thousandpeople in the Carolinas and FB
(02:03):
Financial is focused on buildingout a complete franchise,
meaning full service, retail,commercial mortgages, wealth
management, et cetera.
So pretty excited about theopportunity.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Yeah, that is exciting.
Well, when we think of banks,we don't often think of
entrepreneurs, but what you'redoing is very entrepreneurial,
even what it sounds like.
Your whole career has beensomewhat entrepreneurial.
So so tell us a few thingsyou've learned about, sort of
from an entrepreneur's eye on,like, how do you do that?
(02:37):
I mean, how do you?
What are some things you'velearned?
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Yeah, it's.
It's funny that you point thatout, bill, it's.
You know I've hired a team ofwe have five people now total
here in Asheville, and when Iwas recruiting for bankers, I
said I want you to stop thinkinglike a traditional banker and I
want you to think like abusiness owner.
Right, because that's who weare.
We're a team of entrepreneurswho just happen to be building a
(03:03):
bank behind an establishedfranchise, and so some people
may say, well, that's a littlebit easier than a full startup.
Well, it's a little bitchallenging because we have
branding issues.
There are a number of firstbanks throughout the country
that already exist, and so wehave to separate ourselves right
from the very beginning.
I need.
That's why we're FB Financial,right, and so we're really
(03:28):
looking at disrupting thetraditional kind of banking
model where a client tells uswhat they need with their banker
and the banker tries to get itdone, and you know, we kind of
refer to that as theorder-taking side of it.
That's not who we are.
We are entrepreneurs at heart.
We tell business owners whatthey need to hear instead of
(03:53):
what they want to hear, and Ithink that's why we've been so
successful in just the eightmonths that we've been here in
Asheville.
Early this year I put achallenge out to the team and I
publicly said that we call itour path to 100 million and we
want to put $100 million to workin Western North Carolina and
that's through helping companiesrebuild through the tragedies
(04:16):
that we had last year.
We want to help companies grow,we want to help them expand and
we're ahead of plan and off toa tremendous start.
So if we took the traditionalapproach to banking, I don't
think we'd be even half of wherewe were.
So we like to call ourselvesdisruptors in the banking
industry.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
So I've got a couple of questions about that.
That's awesome, I mean, one ofthe things I've always liked,
and I knew immediately from thebeginning that you were
different because you werefocused on business and you were
focused on serving businessesand helping them grow, and so I
think it is interesting.
I do think it is a brandingissue.
(04:57):
There are a lot of F banks thatstart with F and first and all
these things.
So I love that you've attemptedto do something about it.
Yeah with that, but talk aboutdisruption.
So what are you like?
What specifically are you doingto disrupt?
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Sure, you know banks today, if you look at the
banking model, they'vecentralized everything.
So to take any bank out there,most of the decision-making has
become centralized, and so youmay have a team out here in
Western North Carolina, but thedecisions are not made here.
And if you think about it,trying to explain what happened
(05:36):
last year to some of thosebusinesses that had a terrible
fourth quarter, for an example,to someone that sits in
Charlotte or Atlanta orJacksonville, florida, they just
don't understand or get itright.
And so one of the first thingsthat I did when I was looking at
joining FB Financial was, ifwe're going to do this, we're
going to do it right and we'regoing to have to make local
(05:58):
decisions.
So every decision we make witha small business is made right
here in Asheville, and that'syou know.
We like to say what's good forAsheville is good for us.
So we're truly a bank built forWestern North Carolina, truly a
bank built for Asheville, whereall decisions are made here,
and I'll give you a couple ofexamples on that.
(06:20):
And we're not biased.
I mean we're generalists.
We talk to every industry.
We have no buy box.
If a deal makes sense, we'regoing to find a creative way to
do it and we've closedeverything, Bill, from a
$500,000 line of credit torecently we closed a fully
(06:41):
funded $25 million rehab of acommercial property.
So there's nothing too small,there's nothing too big and
there's nothing that isdiscouraged to us.
If it exists in Asheville, itexists for a reason and we want
to understand the story.
Now.
The fundamentals to that billhave to be there right.
It has to have good ownership,it has to have good fundamentals
(07:02):
.
The fundamentals to that billhave to be there, right.
It has to have good ownership,it has to have good fundamentals
, has to have a competent team.
But if there was a hiccup lastyear, we look at that.
How did the previous year look?
How did the year look beforethat?
And I think we're seeingcompanies respond to our way of
trying to find a way to dobusiness versus finding a way
(07:26):
not to do business.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Yeah, it sounds refreshing to me, the first deal
I ever did in business.
You know, the local guy that Iwas doing business with had he
had full authority.
I mean he's like, hey, bill,you know I can't loan you this
amount of money, but you know,and it was way over what I
needed.
(07:48):
So it was, you know it was yeah, it was cool.
He said, how much do you want?
And I'm like, because you knowthe deal was good, it was cool.
He said, how much do you want?
And I'm like, because you knowthe deal was good.
And then you know, over theyears I've seen how it's gotten
I call it bureaucrat it up.
You know it's just got a lot ofthere's a lot of red tape.
So I love that that you canmake the decisions locally,
(08:13):
because I mean, if you can sayyes or no, that's what people
need and they can get an answerfast.
So that is, to me,entrepreneurial and I hope that
when you're listening to thisyou hear that, because this is
an amazing opportunity.
I mean there's almost no,there's none of that anymore.
Even a lot of the communitybanks have some sort of
(08:35):
committees and things thatthey've got to go to and credit
this and credit that, and so, uh, yeah, this is, this is
exciting.
I'm, I'm, I'm super excitedabout that.
That is a disruption I'll beinterested to see.
I I think more banks will goback to that eventually.
I hope I, you know, maybe,maybe, hopefully they're not
gonna catch up with you, but uh,but you know they're, I don't
(08:57):
think they're gonna get therefast enough because there's such
a chain of things that have tohappen.
So, yeah, I'm guessing itdoesn't mean you still don't
have to dot the i's and crossthe t, but but that, but that's,
that's, that's right, and andyou know, we, we, we have, um,
(09:18):
we have 120 plus years of totalexperience.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Um, it just here in the Asheville office.
Right, I've been in thebusiness 30 plus years.
I've seen your bankers havebeen at it 30 years, another
banker 15 years.
Um, there's not a deal that wehaven't seen.
And so I think when we're outtelling the story and we tell
people, take us up on our offer,right, well, we'll give you
same day decisions on most deals.
(09:42):
Think about that, same daydecisions.
Now we need basic information.
A lot of times we'll be on thephone, like we're talking with
now Bill and company owner hastheir financials in front of us
and we'll ask them five or sixkey questions and then we'll
start laying out a deal.
And does it make sense?
And they're like, well, wait aminute.
It's been sitting with mycurrent bank for three or four
weeks.
They haven't even gotten me adecision yet, and you're telling
(10:03):
me you could do this deal.
I said, yeah, we'll issue aterm sheet this afternoon if
you're ready to go.
And so those are the types ofexamples of type of things that
we're doing.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
And right now.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
And right now, you know, right now we're just,
we're a little laser focused onhelping rebuild Asheville, one
business at a time.
Asheville's needed a strongbusiness bank and that's what
the opportunity that I saw.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
And that's why we're here.
Yeah, I agree, I agree, I agreewith everything you said.
I mean, I don't, I don't.
I think it's wonderful to havea bank that is aggressive and
that is entrepreneurial and willmake decisions, because, I mean
, I don't know about you, but ano is actually better than a
(10:48):
maybe.
Absolutely, a yes is better, ayes is better than no, but I'd
rather have a no than a maybe, acould no, yeah, yeah, yeah,
don't drag me.
Yeah, no, I love it.
So you said think like abusiness owner.
So what does that mean to you?
Speaker 2 (11:07):
Well, it means how we think about when we look at
partnering with a business.
We put ourselves in their shoes, like we want to become part of
their team.
So I tell my team we want to beon the same side of the table
as their key advisors, and a lotof time bankers today are not
right, and so most businessowners have a CPA.
(11:31):
They trust, they have anattorney they trust.
But you know, they go to thebank maybe once a year asking
for the best rate and haverenewal time.
They'll give them somefinancials.
That's not who we are.
We're consultants first, we'readvisors first, and so any major
decision we want to be theirfirst call, because every
(11:51):
decision they make affects theirbalance sheet, affects the
financial health of the businessthey make, affects their
balance, it affects thefinancial health of the business
.
And then we'll walk themthrough as a key advisor would
and say have you thought aboutthis?
Have you thought about that?
What's the impact if you dothis on that?
And so we have thoseconversations every day.
I mean, we were talking to acompany last week that owns a
(12:14):
lot, a number of car washes, andthey're asking the difference
between should we roll these upin our portfolio or keep them
independently financed.
And so we walked them throughit.
We walked them through bothsides of the argument and they
were at the end of the call.
It's like you guys are bankers,we don't.
(12:35):
Our bankers don't talk to uslike this.
You guys are more of an advisor, and once we get that from a
client, we know we've got aclient for life.
And so that's really when wesay think like a business owner.
We want to put ourselves intheir shoes, we want to
understand their challenges andat the same time, we want to be
able to add value at everyinteraction.
(12:56):
If we can't add value at everyinteraction, then we become just
another what I call anothersuit chasing that business right
, and that's not who we want tobe.
We have to be different and wehave to disrupt that.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
I think you are different.
I think there's no questionabout it.
I mean, I think you could go to20 banks and I don't think
you'd find anybody doing thathere in local markets, so at
least that'd be my experience.
Let me.
I'm going to ask you a coupleof sort of business and
management questions, justgeneral, maybe not about the
bank.
So what do you look for whenyou're hiring employees?
(13:32):
You've hired a lot of people.
Yeah, over the years I've hireda lot of people when you're
hiring employees.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
You've hired a lot of people.
Yeah, over the years I've hireda lot of people.
Yeah, you know cultureeverybody talks about culture
and you know, and it seems to bea buzzword but you've got to
find people that fit within theorganization.
So, for example, if I'mbuilding a basketball team, Bill
, I'm not going to build thatteam with five point guards.
(13:55):
Right, I need a variety offolks on this team.
I need a center, I need a pointguard, I need a power forward,
and then I need someone thatjust loves to pass the ball
right Because I like to shoot.
And so what I mean by that I usethat analogy is that you need
to surround yourself withlike-minded people that have a
different skill set.
So, if I'm hiring, I've hadpeople over the years say boy, I
(14:22):
wish I had 10 more Andesbecause we would dominate.
And I'd say you do not want 10more Andes, Trust me, you
absolutely do not want 10 moreAndes.
What you need is you needcomplimentary players around an
Andy type, a driver, anentrepreneur type to fill in the
gaps and fill in the holes.
Right, and so it's you.
(14:45):
Sometimes you need to calm tothe chaos, or the chaos to the
calm.
And so when you're looking tohire people, obviously you're
looking for competent people.
Like one of the first questionsI ask everyone I hire, are you
good at what you do?
And I look at their reaction,right, Just think about that.
The first question you sit down, say, listen, are you good at
what you do?
And if they come with an answerof confidence and say, hey,
(15:11):
actually I think I'm one of thebest at what I do, and let me
tell you why I'm going toprobably hire that person on the
spot.
Well, if they come, and if theyanswer the question, well, well
, I don't know, I think I'm good.
People tell me I'm kind of good.
I think I'm nice.
That person automatically,right in the first 30 seconds,
(15:32):
probably is not going to be agood fit.
So you kind of look for acouple of different things.
You look for people that areconfident.
You look for people that arereally good at what they do but
at the same time, love to win asa team.
And those are the types ofthings that you got to get very
(15:54):
early on in the conversations.
Because I'll tell you,financing a company is really
easy, Bill, Hiring people isreally hard.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Yeah and what you're doing and, frankly, what you're
doing here is you're buildingthe team to help companies.
I mean, that's really your roleas the market president.
So, yeah, I get it.
I've never heard that question.
I love it.
I thought I'd heard them all.
I mean, I've heard all kind ofcrazy stuff, like I mean you
(16:21):
know how many cows are in Canada?
And a bunch of dumb stuff, butI actually love that question.
I remember you know it'ssimilar to a question.
I remember a guy asked me onetime we were in talking about,
you know, a coaching agreement,and the guy just looked at me
and he said, is this going towork?
And I was like yeah, it's goingto work.
(16:42):
And so he signed.
But if you don't have theconfidence, you're not going to.
It's kind of reminded me ofthat thing.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
Well, let me get your thoughts on a few things.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
Bepic, which is one of our taglines, is an acronym,
so I want to get your thoughtson the acronym.
Just a couple of words orsentences about each one, so
just kind of a quick fire roundhere.
So the B stands for bring theenergy.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
Yeah, I mean, without energy you got nothing right.
You got to have.
You know, I look at energy ashaving a sense of urgency and I
love people with a sense ofurgency.
And I love people with a senseof urgency, not a reckless sense
of urgency, but someone thatoperates with a sense of urgency
, At the speed of youropportunity.
(17:31):
That's what we tell companiesLike well, how fast can we get
that?
Look, it's at the speed of youropportunity.
How we move, you're going todictate.
So when I hear that, I think ofsense of urgency, I love, of
sense of urgency, I love thespeed of opportunity.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
That's a great thing.
That's a good title for a bookor something, or for this
podcast.
We'll get you something.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
Okay, how about?
Speaker 1 (17:52):
E E is education.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
You've got to continuously learn.
I mean, like I said, I've beenin this business 30-plus plus
years and I'm learning somethingnew every day, and I want the
people that are surrounding me,I want them, to be able to bring
value at every interaction withme so I can learn something.
And so if you don't, thenyou're just, you know you're
going to fall behind.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
Yeah, no, I love that , I love that Okay the P is
planning.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
You got to have a plan, you know.
If you don't, you know thisright, if you don't, you're
going to fail the plan.
Right, you got to have astrategic mindset.
So planning needs to bestrategic.
It needs to be with purpose.
You know, bill, I was a schoolteacher many, many, many years
ago and I was coachingbasketball and I said every move
on the basketball court is withpurpose.
If you don't have purpose,you're wasting time, and that's
(18:49):
part of the planning process.
Right, you got to be strategicand you got to have purpose.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
I love that, I love, love, love that.
The I is inspiration, the I isinspiration.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
Inspiration is passion.
You got to be passionate, right.
Inspiration is when someonesees your passion, sees what you
do, and wants to follow you.
You know it's like followshipit's not even a word, I believe,
(19:24):
but I used followship over theyears is you got to have people
that want to follow you, right?
So I'm building this bank.
I took people away from otherbanks that had a long time
career, but I say you got tofollow me in this venture
because it's going to be a hellof a time, right.
We're going to have fun, it'sgoing to be hard, but we're
going to build something special.
And that's what I think of whenyou say that.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
Yeah, I got the vision.
No, I love it.
Yeah, what you just said.
I remember interviewing afriend of mine and I said what
gives you inspiration?
He said that's the wrongquestion, bill, and I said what
do you mean?
He said the question is how canyou be an inspiration?
And that's what you're talkingabout, with followership being
an inspiration.
Yeah, so I love that.
I love that.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
C commitment you got to be all in.
You know, in this, in anythingthat you do, you can't get a
little bit pregnant.
So you're all in right.
And by being all in is you gotto bring the energy every single
day along with the commitment.
So it kind of ties in a lotwith what we're talking about
(20:27):
today.
You've got to be all in.
If you're not, you're not goingto be successful.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
Right, right, right.
I love it, but those are great.
That's great advice, I think,for anyone in business.
That's great advice, I think,for anyone in business.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
So, from your standpoint of view, what advice
would you give to businessowners who are looking to grow?
A lot with what we talked aboutaround your epic.
But at the same time you talkabout acronyms, and you know you
talk about acronyms and therewas an acronym 30 plus years ago
that I built Every businessI've been in around.
It's called CAP, c-a-p-p, andCAP stands for clients that
(21:13):
cooperate, appreciate, prosperand pay.
So when you think about that,that's who you want to surround
yourself with clients thatcooperate, appreciate the
relationship that they have inyour customers, appreciate the
value proposition that you bringto the table.
Prosper that's the growthaspect of it.
(21:35):
Bill right, you have to havethat vision and commitment to
grow and prosper.
And then finally is pay.
And people think, well, do youshy away from that?
I said no, I don't shy awayfrom pay.
We want our clients to pay.
We want them to pay fairly.
They're not going to overpay.
But if you're building abusiness, it's the same thing.
Think about your business.
(21:56):
When you work with clients andconsulting, you probably don't
use that acronym, but when youthink about what makes a good
client, well, they cooperate,they appreciate what I bring to
the table, they prosper and theypay.
Right.
You can actually take that andput that in any business.
You can put that in themanufacturing business, you can
put that in the consultingbusiness, you can put that in
(22:16):
the restaurant business.
And so when you think aboutgrowth, you got to think about
who am I going to grow with andwhat is?
What is my ideal customer?
And then how am I going to getthat customer to trust me and
give me their full share ofwallet?
Right, that's how we thinkabout this every day and that's
(22:38):
how our entrepreneurs should bethinking about this.
This is how business ownersshould be thinking about this
every day.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
I like it.
I just thought of it.
You could say like put on yourcap and be epic I love it.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love that.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
Yeah, no, yeah, we put our two together and we've
got something amazing.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
No, we've got something going here.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
Yeah, yeah, no, I love it, I Well, how does
somebody get a hold of you orsome of your bankers?
Sure, or entrepreneurs, Ishould call them.
Yeah, there you go.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
Our business owners.
Yeah, so our offices are inBiltmore Park.
Our website isfbfinancialonlinecom.
My email address is andynettoat fbfinancialonlinecom.
They can get.
They can get a hold of us anyof those ways.
They can reach out to medirectly and I'll put them in
(23:37):
touch with with my team, who Ithink is the best fit for them.
My team is out and about in thecommunity telling our story.
A nice way to meet folks isthat we are the presenting
sponsor for the Chamber'sbusiness after hours, and so
we've had two or three of those.
(23:57):
Now We've been meeting 50, 60new people telling our story and
it's amazing the feedback thatwe've been getting from that and
the follow-up has beenoverwhelming.
Quite frankly, bill is once thecommunity hears our story and
say, well, you are different.
And I say, well, we are, butlet us prove it to you.
(24:19):
Let us prove it to you Because,as you know, it's hard to
disrupt a long-time relationship.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
And.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
I'll tell you at the same time too.
If a business owner comes to usand we can't help them out any
more than what their currentbank is doing, we'll tell them
that, right, we're not here toadd value to the right company.
We think we can do that with alot of companies, but if we
can't, we're going to tell themvery quickly and we'll give them
(24:48):
some insights on how to go backto their existing bank and get
what they need.
And actually, one of thefollow-up conversations we had
with one of our prospects isthey came here, sat in our
conference room, we spent anhour and we told them.
We said listen, the path ofleast resistance to you is go
back to your bank and tell themyou want to do this, this and
this.
This is how you're going to doit.
Well, two weeks later, I raninto this person at the business
(25:11):
after hours and said Andy, youradvice was spot on.
We went back and did that andthey ended up doing the deal.
I said perfect.
I said think you know, on yournext deal, think of us and they
will.
And they will, yeah, and ourintention is is that we want to
help companies any way that wecan in Western North Carolina.
That's either directly throughour balance sheet.
(25:32):
If it's advice, we'll help themin any way that we can.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
Yeah, no, I love that .
I love that.
So we appreciate you coming inand sponsoring the summit.
If you want to get it, you needto come to the summit.
You need to stop by their table.
They're going to have a tableout there.
There are going to be somebankers out there talking to you
about what they can offer.
You can learn more about whatthey do.
I think we've covered it,though.
(25:59):
I mean this is awesome.
The best thing to do is reachout, have a conversation,
understand what they do, howthey do it, see if they're a fit
, and if they are, then great.
And if they aren't, you know,we'll all still be friends,
exactly.
So, yeah, hey, thanks for beingon the podcast.
Really appreciate it.
Yeah, I appreciate it.
Bill, thanks for having me.
Yeah, hey, remember to get yourtickets to the summit on the
(26:22):
23rd.
You need to get them now.
We're about two weeks out,almost exactly, and so we look
forward to seeing you there.
We look forward to seeing youat the FB Financial Table as
well, and until then, all thebest.
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