Rob Garcia With Pinnacle Financial Partners

Intro: [00:00:04] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio, brought to you by on pay. Built in Atlanta, on pay is the top rated payroll and HR software anywhere. Get one month free at on pay. Now here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:31] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Atlanta Business Radio. And this is going to be a good one. Today on the show, we have Rob Garcia with Pinnacle Financial Partners. Welcome, Rob.

Rob Garcia: [00:00:44] Thank you. Glad to be here.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:45] Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about Pinnacle. How are you serving, folks?

Rob Garcia: [00:00:51] Well, I’ll tell you, it’s been an exciting run. Just joined the firm in, I guess, very late 2019 December. We really opened for business in January of 2020, just in time for COVID hit. But we’ve been at it almost about three years, and I’ve just absolutely had a ball building this bank. And it’s been it’s been a tremendous success by by all of our expectations.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:19] So for maybe the folks who aren’t as familiar with Pinnacle, what is kind of your value proposition? How are you kind of differentiating yourself from the other financial services firms in Atlanta, in the Southeast?

Rob Garcia: [00:01:32] Well, we may be new to Atlanta, but PINNACLE is certainly not new to banking. Pinnacle originally was founded in 2000 in Nashville, Tennessee. A handful of people in a few dollars started a bank. And here we are 22 years later and I think one or two ranked size bank in Tennessee serving the top 50 in the nation. So there was a great deal of tailwinds that I was able to to really use to really build up what we were wanting to do here in Atlanta. Pinnacle made the decision to come into Georgia and really wanted Atlanta to be the starting jump off place. So that’s that’s what I joined to do with them here. And so for us, while we may be new to the market, we did have a little reputation benefit because Pinnacle, like I said, has been around for for 20 years at that time. And really, our value proposition is pretty simple. I mean, banking, I hate to say it, it’s not that complicated. Sometimes bankers tend to make it complicated. But the reality of it is our value proposition is simple. We build we have a tremendous brand and and speed. The market is our is our benefit. Know we like to describe ourselves as an urban community bank. And what that means by that is, is we operate with the structure and the flexibility and the nimbleness that we know of community banks. But we have the size of a large bank to be able to bring all the resources, to be able to do larger credits and sophisticated capital markets and swap deals.

Rob Garcia: [00:03:03] So it really is a blend of a great structure and a tremendous set of resources behind us. So that’s been our advantage. I mean, our team is built here in Atlanta, but we have built a complete banking team here. I have everything from folks on the lending side. We have a complete credit team. So all the decisions that are made are made here locally. And and that that really adds to our our most important value proposition is speed to market. The other thing I would say that’s very helpful to us is our hiring policies. You have to have at least ten years of experience before you qualify to work with Pinnacle, five years in some of the more support roles. But if I were someone on the lending side or the credit side, I would have to bring at least ten years of experience. My team average is 22 years of banking experience. And while that’s important is because we have a very experienced group of people here. So you combine experience with speed to market because of all the local resources that we have. And I think that’s what’s really helped us gain a competitive advantage and allow us to have the growth that we have had here in Atlanta.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:21] Now, is your ideal customer or is that an individual that’s looking for a banking relationship? Is it a business person that’s looking to partner with a bank in order to be a trusted advisor to help them grow? Are you looking for kind of wealthy folks that need help with their wealth management? Who is that ideal pinnacle customer?

Rob Garcia: [00:04:48] The answer to that question is yes, and it’s all of the above. We have we have bankers that have expertise on on commercial lending in all phases of it. What I mean by that is we have we have we have folks who have a strong history of working in the small business market, which is very different than the larger commercial corporate type commercial business. And we have middle market bankers that really operate more in that upper size, upper tier of of of banking. So on the commercial side, we really have all segments covered well with the experienced team that we have here. We have a wealth group, licensed wealth. A bankers here that have Series 766 insurance license to the whole licensure battery to really take care of the banking needs of of our high net worth individuals. And in addition to that private wealth banker, we also have relationship with Raymond James. So we have a financial advisement group right here in our office that can literally provide the security sales, the planning, all those kinds of services on the wealth management side as well. So all of that is located right here in Atlanta. We have two and about to open our third branch location. So we have an office here in the Cumberland area in Riverwood. This is our main office. We have an office on Peachtree and then we’re building our third location right across from Avalon. And so those offices will provide retail banking services to our clients and our prospects to the traditional come in and open a checking account. If if we’re lucky enough to earn that business from someone, we have the capability to do that. So we’re really fully faceted in banking services. And really our growth has come almost a third, a third, a third really. We have a commercial real estate group as well. So between the commercial effort, the wealth effort and our retail effort, I would say our growth is really been pretty even across those segments.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:01] Now, since you’ve been in banking for a minute, can you give some advice to the entrepreneur, the business owner, who doesn’t yet have a relationship with the banker? And can you share like kind of why that’s so critically important, especially in today’s chaotic times?

Rob Garcia: [00:07:23] Oh, I can’t that’s that’s my favorite question. Lee and I and I can’t imagine a better question for a bank to answer. Covid could have been or should be the greatest example of what we went through with COVID, particularly the PGP program. If we all go back and remember the PGP, it was so chaotic. It was a it was a program that was birthed in just a couple of weeks by the federal government. We were learning as banks, we were learning the rules as we went along. Banks had to build organizations to support the whole PGP effort. And as we all did and what we learned in that process is it is very important to know who your banker is by name. And what I mean by that is some of the best clients and some of the largest regional banks were referred to a one 800 number during that time where no one really knew if their application was approved. And it was a very tense and stressful times as we were watching that thermometer of SBA funds just steadily decreasing and all they had was a one 800 number. And what we were able to provide in the market in our ability and nimbleness is, you know, it was it was nice to have a name associated with your organization and advocate, if you will, on the inside. So if there’s anything I would say to that customer profile that you just defined, I would say know your banker even more importantly than knowing where the bank locations are, because you need an advocate, you need an individual that you can rely on. And like I said, the PGP was the best example of that.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:08] Now you used the phrase Community Bank earlier. Why is it important for the culture of Pinnacle to be seen as that kind of good neighborhood corporate citizen?

Rob Garcia: [00:09:25] Well, first of all, that’s a very important component. You know, one of the things that community banks do well is really they invest in their community. And I’m going to hate to say it, sometimes the larger you get, the more the more that becomes less and less an effort. And sometimes it’s just easier to write checks when you’re a big company as opposed to really investing in your community. And so a very important value intended for PINNACLE is community involvement. And so that’s a that’s an important part of that. But when I refer to Community Bank, I’m mostly referring to the nimbleness of a community bank. You know, in a community bank, you know, one person and that person can take care of every one of your needs, soup to nuts. And you know what? My commercial banker may not be a mortgage lender, but he’s got a mortgage lender two doors down with him that he’s going to bring into the relationship. And our client doesn’t have to remember five different names and five different business cards. You know, it’s almost a concierge kind of approach to it. And so that nimbleness for. It tends to be what we describe. The community bank effort now, usually with community banks are small or can only do small loans and the resources are limited and that’s what we’re a little different. We use their approach, but at a $40 Billion bank, we bring tremendous resources to do some of the larger credits and and some very sophisticated transactions. So so it’s more of the structure, the delivery model. We’re geographically designed. So so everything having to do with Georgia in Atlanta is under my responsibility. And we’re not siloed under a bunch of different groups like retail and commercial. All of it is brought together into one leadership, one team, and that gives the client a much, much more responsive resource to the bank.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:24] Well, if somebody out there is maybe frustrated by their their bank, that maybe is investing a lot of their resources on the naming stadiums rather than serving their customers. What is the website or the best way to get a hold of you or somebody on your team?

Rob Garcia: [00:11:42] Well, we can dial the website is NFP Paul, Nancy, Frank Paul and PHP dot com. And that will get us to our corporate website website our my office number here is 4709908401 and that’s my office number. I’m the regional president. And so I would be delighted to take your call and, and, and listen to the opportunity and be able to match you up with the banking professional here that could that could take care of your specific needs.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:16] Well, Rob, we really appreciate you coming on and sharing your story. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Rob Garcia: [00:12:23] Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you for being on.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:26] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you next time on Atlanta Business Radio.

Intro: [00:12:34] Today’s episode of Atlanta Business Radio is brought to you by on pay. Built in Atlanta on pay is the top rated payroll in HR software anywhere. Get one month free add onpay.com.