THE ART AND IMPORTANCE OF BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS WITH YOUR BANK

I make it a habit whenever I am in Toronto to go in for even 15 minutes at least twice per week to my main bank. I know almost every single tellers name by heart even though they have a name tag on. I have built a personal relationship with my managers there, commercial banking officers and even all the people in the private banking area.

I honestly don’t have a real need to go in twice per week as I could do almost everything online that I need to do except deposit some cheques which I could do monthly or through the machine.

The only reason I go there is to show my face and build a relationship with all of the people working there. I have given my managers gift baskets from the maid service, I send a couple of them birthday cards and one of my managers even proposed to his now fiancé on one of my yachts from Toronto Yacht Rentals. I didn’t charge my manager a single penny for that ride and I never will charge them anything for any of my businesses.

The reason I do that is because they make my life so easy. I remember I was in Spain a couple years ago and needed to do some very important money transferring from one bank account to another institutions bank for a very large sum of money. Usually there is no way they will let you do that without coming into the bank and signing off on some papers. All I had to do was send a simple email to my manager and the problem was solved as he took care of everything above and beyond.

I could walk into the bank and give them a large dollar amount cheque right now and there would not even be a one second hold on it because of the personal relationship I have built with all of them.

The best one was how my name was not even on one of the accounts as even a user as I guess my business partner and I forgot to add my name to it. Yet they still let me take out as much money as I wanted from that account because again of that personal relationship I have with them.

I remember I was on crutches one time after I had an achilles surgery and while I was in Toronto my manager actually came to my condo to pick up cheques from my home and take them to the bank for me.

Those little things like giving away those free yacht rides and maid services has gone a long way for me. That saying in business is true, “you scratch my back, i scratch your back.”

My advice to all entrepreneurs out there is to get into that habit of visiting your bank a couple times per week and really build that relationship with them. They can help you out in many ways that will make your life very easy when you need it.