For the past year or so our communications with the outside world have revolved around a simple message: “finding a way to say YES”. You have likely noticed that this catchy tagline appears in our announcements, mailers, tombstones, social media postings, and videos. We might even have t-shirts that feature it! The phrase came up, not as the result of deep thinking and countless hours of market research, but rather its origin owes to an utterance from our own Director of Marketing (Jenni Shover) during a conversation with our leadership team. She pressed us by pointing out that “don’t y’all always try really hard to find a way to say yes?” We realized that this one simple statement isn’t just aspirational, it is part of our culture.
Here we are a year later, and Jenni has asked me to write about the phrase; what it means and what it doesn’t mean to me, as our Gulf Coast Small Business Lending President & CEO. These are my thoughts on “finding a way to say YES!”:
So, what does it mean? In reality, it means exactly what it says: we are here to support entrepreneurs who wish to acquire a business; start a restaurant; clean up a balance sheet; buy out a partner; build a warehouse; and more. When our BDOs first see a potential deal, that’s what crosses their mind: “How do I get this deal done?” or, better said “How do we find a way to say YES?” The same attitude can be found in our credit department (although, admittedly, they might prefer it if we’d hedge just a bit more). As a loan moves through the process and spreadsheets get populated with new data, the financials usually take on a different flavor. But the attitude remains: “okay, the data is a little different, what do we do to get this deal done?” Same when it gets to packaging, closing, and servicing. We are driven and our processes align with our intent to say “yes” to and follow through with an LOI whenever possible. If there is a deal to be done, we will do our darnedest to make it happen.
What does it not mean? In practice, we don’t say “yes” to every single loan request. I’m fairly certain that everyone understands that that simply isn’t possible. There are many reasons why we sometimes cannot say “yes”: the business plan does not support the request; the SBA deems a loan ineligible; the borrower is seeking an advance rate that does not meet our own level of comfort; and others. When we run into an opportunity like this, our first reaction is to still try to find a way to convert a “no” to a “yes” by proposing a different structure or modifications to the request. In truth, this happens pretty regularly. Loan structuring is an iterative process, helped significantly by our decades of experience and our desire to provide financing, our structuring expertise, and the various financial tools at our disposal make this a likely outcome. If restructuring is not enough, we reach out to our network, both internal and external, to determine whether they can provide part or the entirety of a loan request. We try really hard to help even when we can’t be the “yes” they are seeking.
As an example, our parent bank also owns an order-financing company, something that is difficult to accomplish with just an SBA loan. When some loan proceeds go towards the purchase of inventory to support orders, we may pick up the phone, talk to our partners at Trade Cap and see if they can join in. When we run out of options, which sometimes happens, we make sure the customer understands why we could not assist. It is not uncommon for an entrepreneur to address an issue or two and return to us at a later date to re-consider.
“Finding a way to say YES” is a way of life here at Gulf Coast Small Business Lending and, in many ways, it’s what makes us unique. We are experienced SBA lenders actively approving deals all across the United States as SBA Preferred Lenders. Especially during these times, our stability and experience are more important than ever. Give your Gulf Coast Small Business Lending representative a call (https://gulfcoastsba.com/our-people/) to discuss your next SBA loan request, and we will quickly ascertain whether we are the right lender for your situation. We are finding a way to say YES!
And no, we don’t have a t-shirt with that slogan, but we are seriously considering them!