Independent Banker - September 2018 - 52

Keep your focus tight
While this option isn't always an appealing one
for community banks, some have found that
focusing on a niche is not only professionally
rewarding but also fi nancially prudent.
" We set out in 2007 to be a commercial
bank, keeping our focus narrow right out of the gate-
commercial lending, commercial real estate construction
and treasury management, " says Metro Phoenix Bank's
Haggard. " These were the areas we felt we were good
at and where there was room for us in the market. We
knew very early that we could not compete in the retail or
consumer space. "
As a result of this focus, Metro Phoenix Bank doesn't
have to dedicate additional resources to other lines of
business, including the compliance burden that some of
these other lines of business would require, the brick-andmortar
that would be needed for those other lines, and
the staffi ng. " We just have one branch, and we have a very
small staff , " Haggard says.
The bank also doesn't waste a lot of time on deals in
which it knows early on that it won't get to the fi nish
line. " With the experience that our people have, we can
determine very quickly which direction we need to go, "
says Haggard.
Five Star Bank is another bank with a specialized focus.
" We have always been a highly effi cient bank, and the main
reason is our customer base, " says Beckwith. " We are a
business bank, so we have a lot of larger customers. We
don't spend a lot of money on promotion, but we do a lot of
one-on-one customer engagement. " He acknowledges that
the bank's offi ce hours are limited (9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday
through Friday) but says this doesn't limit customer
service. " We also outsource almost everything that we can,
so we don't have to create and maintain the infrastructure
and staff in-house for those functions, " he says.
Five Star looks to technology as another way to remain
effi cient as foot traffi c decreases. Currently, about 70
percent of the bank's transactional business is handled on
its mobile and internet platform, and the bank continues to
push mobile apps.
Prime Alliance Bank in Woods Cross, Utah, is another
bank with a niche focus. " We have only one location,
we specialize in commercial lending, and we gather the
majority of our deposits online, " says Jan Allen Ackley,
executive vice president and chief credit offi cer of the
$350 million-asset community bank. " Since we only serve
one market, we don't need a large staff that would need to
be in place to service other types of customers. We make
sure all of our staff are highly skilled, and we don't have a
lot of departments in the bank. "
Pick up pennies
While there are some major areas that
community banks can investigate for costsaving
opportunities, some community banks
fi nd that looking at everything, regardless
of how insignifi cant it may seem at fi rst, can
pay dividends. " Our main focus is to keep overhead as low
as possible, and that involves a lot of little things, " says
Middlefi eld Bank's Caldwell.
" A friend of mine who was a guide on Denali [the highest
mountain peak in North America] told me that the reason
people die on Denali is because of a pebble in their shoe, "
says Verus Bank of Commerce's Nalezny. When it comes
to improving effi ciency at the bank, Nalezny has found
that there is no single thing that is most important. " We
are always looking for ways to do things a little bit better, "
he says. " In business, you are always either picking up
pennies or losing them. We are always focused on picking
up pennies. "
William Atkinson is a writer in Illinois.
" We do everything with as few people as we can.
This includes allowing people to do double duty. "
-Walter Birdwell Jr., Citizens Bank
52 Q ICBA Independent Banker Q September 2018
Independent Banker - September 2018

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