What No One Tells You About M&A Communications

0:00 Welcome everyone to today's session what no one tells you about M&A Communications we're ready to begin. I'm joined today by Mitchell Skoien, Vice President and product manager for First Foundation Bank, Yvonne Garand Chief brand and marketing officer for VSECU, Rick Hall who's a managing director at BKM Marketing Associates, Christian Rocco who's our chief customer officer here at digital onboarding. I'm Lori McLaughlin Chief marketing officer and I'll be moderating today's session. A few things before we begin we're here to talk about the typical communication mistakes that financial institute institutions make with M&A, what's most important to customers and members during the transition and how to build an effective communication strategy we are recording today to today's session and tomorrow you'll receive an email with that recording we also have the Q&A feature open at the bottom of your screen so if you have any questions throughout today's session feel free to post them there and we'll address them and with that let's get started

 

1:19 so first we're going to talk about some of the mistakes or surprises that come up from a communication standpoint during M&A and I'd like to start with Tricia 

 

1:33 you know I'm a marketer and typically we start any planning process by knowing what our goals and what our budgets are. I was pretty surprised to hear that oftentimes marketers are not in on the planning process when it comes to M&A Communications and their budget might be decided for them

 

1:51 can you tell me what's going on there and what your experience has been yeah sure so you know marketing expense related to an M&A event rolls into a big line called merger expenses right and there's tons of things in there

 

2:07 so you know marketing and marketers know sometimes marketing budget sometimes it has a bullseye on it sometimes when things aren't working out they always look to marketing to try to get things done for less money that happens in M&A as well if that payback period isn't hit and they have to go back you know very often marketing budget is is a place that they might cut the advice I would say is if as part of your strategy for your financial institution an acquisition is is part of that get ahead of it talk to whoever you need to and give them a number that when the event comes they know what to put in there and you have control over it and come with a plan obviously you know it's not a fit in the dark you know are you going to do this internally are you going to use an external firm you know get that number as close as you can and you know have some control

 

3:03 I just want to ask Ivana Mitchell do you want to add anything to what Trisha share

 

3:11 I mean just that I agree we've definitely had some times where there have been budget constraints or we've had to spend more than we've needed on let's say booklets and other materials that we're sending out during during an acquisition and it's something that I don't think we you know we fully thought through and budgeted up front it's more as it comes up when we what do we need how many clients how many booklets it's always kind of the at the time of the of the event so yeah I totally agree it's good to kind of think through those things well in advance

 

3:42 yeah I would just offer at our organization I went to the board in concert working with the CEO and was fortunate fortunate enough that the board understood that unlike most other type of operational expenses that this particular expense was going to be very difficult to forecast a budget as we began to communicate with our segmented membership based on some of the feedback that we were receiving we realized that we needed to Pivot in the middle of our communication strategy which did increase some of the costs but I think if you can just be as transparent as possible with your board of directors try to get them to buy in that this is a very important investment not an expense

 

4:28 which we all know as a marketer that line item is usually looked at as an expense versus an investment

 

4:35 I sure know that, okay I want to move on to another aspect you know a lot of times when I think about Eminem the thing that comes to mind for me is the conversion and kind of that huge project but in fact it really starts for the public and and for your customers and members with the announcement and so I kind of want to ask Mitchell you know when the event is first announced it can be make or break and what do institutions need to be ready for

 

5:06 yeah so you don't just have your your public statement it's really important that you're thinking through all of the other aspects of communication most importantly internally to your staff the staff of the acquiring Bank and the and the clients on both sides as well and those messages need to be really framed framed in the right light and you need to put your best foot forward this is really your first impression to a a whole new audience so

 

5:36 I would say that it's really important to take time to craft each of those messages and make sure you understand your target audience what's important to them what they're going to be scared about obviously employees are going to be anxious about their jobs you'll have clients that are that are worried about disruption to their to their day-to-day banking operations so there needs to be assurances in place and there has to be some logical reasoning behind it this is what's happening this is why it's happening this is how it's going to impact you those are all aspects that need to be a part of those Communications it can't just be a hey guess what's happening and not nothing else because day one the second you make that announcement there are going to be hundreds of calls there's going to be inquiries emails left and right and your staff needs to be aware of what's Happening why it's happening and have a very consistent message so that they can present confidently to anyone that asks so I   mean again yes it's make or break day one and it everyone needs to be informed otherwise there's confusion and and frustration yeah no I could definitely see that and this is a perfect place for me to turn to Rick because this is this is bkm's business right

 

6:55 and so Rick you know thinking about this you know there's the initial announcement there's conversion and there's all this space in between what advice do you have for marketers about things they need to be thinking about or mistakes to avoid during that critical period

 

7:12 I think one of the biggest challenges is with any change that M&A in particular is the the thought that you that you get very caught up in a very finite period of time this is a duration exercise and so you really need to be prepared at the very onset of communicating to both your employees I think I completely agree with Mitchell I think you know we spend a lot of time talking about customers and members employees are are really your gateway to effective messaging almost more than anything else that you can do if you're not you're not being transparent with them and you're not giving them the information it's very difficult to overcome skepticism that that customers or members may get from interfacing with people that they do business with on a day in and day out basis they're not informed then no matter what communication you send out to them you're going to have skepticism but I   think it really becomes looking at at the totality of the time frame right I mean I think you have to figure out where your opportunities are going to be obviously there's a big push at the very beginning because there's a lot of pent up information that people think that they want to get out that's critical both publicly and within your organization but then there are other periods of time too right these these don't happen over a series of weeks they happen over a series of months and in some cases we have clients that go over a year from the time that they announce until they actually convert and you know depending on the regulatory environment the complexity of the of the integration that's going to take place the core systems that you have to work with in order to schedule all of that it can take quite a period of time so it's really important to understand Cadence frequency and relevancy of the information that you need to communicate to keep people engaged and not give them you know you're going to have dark periods that's completely fine you don't have to make stuff up to feel like you're forcing the issue but when you do have stuff to be to communicate be very deliberate about it and be very clear about what it is if you're asking people to do something be very clear that you're asking them to do something you cannot and you're telling them that it's just for informational purposes be clear about that and we're just keeping you informed there's nothing you need to do nothing's changed so that you can separate things that are really critical from the things that just happen to be normal course of 

 

9:45 yeah that's that's really good advice I mean really for any marketer right make your call to action clear and apparent there was something you said when you kind of started speaking and I think it's really true which is if people feel unaware or caught off guard it's the worst thing that could happen whether it be employees or customers or members so I wanted to turn this back to Yvonne I understand that the SACU did the largest Credit Union merger last year with New England Federal can you tell us like the your process for starting to communicate how soon in advance did all that stuff happen sure

 

10:29 I'll start off by saying that we are still communicating with our members so for some credit unions your bylaws May dictate that your membership must vote in favor of the merger I think that's different than Banks so in February of 2023 we started socializing the idea and concept that these two credit unions are going to partner and come together and that there would be a special meeting where members could vote on the proposed merger in November of 2023. So from February to November our community our communication strategy was around creating awareness I still use that old adage three to eight to motivate it takes that many times to get a message in front of someone before they absorb it and we really needed to activate our membership to go out and vote we knew that there were going to be some older Legacy Affinity members who would oppose the merger so our communication strategy prior to the actual merger happening was focused on awareness and a get out the vote campaign then once the vote passed in the merger passed now we have pivoted to a conversion communication strategy so we are all we are just getting ready to start our first drop just giving our members the heads up that this is going to happen we find that when our member consumers come into our branches either vsecu or New England Federal Credit Union still some members don't even know that we've merged yet so all I all I can say is you can never over communicate use every single delivery Channel point of contact that you can think of to push out the communication I think that's odd advice

 

12:32  I see Mitchell smiling there and I know he agrees with you Mitchell can you over communicate what's your advice 

 

12:40 I mean I just agree wholeheartedly you know all the way up until the last second you'll still have clients that we didn't know we didn't hear about it I really liked the three to eight Communications I feel like really what we need to do is focus in on 

 

12:57 all of the different types of channels so what we what we learned is every

 

13:03 audience is different and how they like to be communicated to so really you need to you need to assess do they receive text messages are they visiting online you know online banking and reading those notices more frequently you know the institution you're acquiring might not act the same way that that you do and have different ways of doing things so you know that's something that we we've had to take into consideration and make sure we're communicating through channels that they're used to to get receiving Communications not just how we we would prefer to receive it I think yes if I could just add in Lori Yvonne brought up a really great point if for any great marketer around M&A you really need to do a deep dive into every single stakeholder that you have throughout the process it's very some of them are really apparent some of them are not and so when you do have things like votes that need to take place which happened you know for members in the credit union space but they also happen for Mutual Banks in terms of corporator votes so you know it's not as cut and dry as making an announcement filing an application coordinating with your core and then picking a date and then waiting for The Regulators to give you a thumbs up there's a whole stack of stakeholders that you as a as a communicator need to take into consideration to be very minimal but it can be pretty material if you over if you have oversight around any particular segment yeah good point I just want to remind the audience you can post any questions in the Q a feature at the bottom of your screen

 

14:40 okay so we're talking about this fact that you cannot over communicate no matter what you do it seems people are gonna some people are gonna say they hadn't heard about it and so the advice being just you know

14:54

whether it's five to eight just make sure you communicate enough and early enough

15:00

 as we think we think surprises that can come up the

15:06

timing can get tricky and so I was wondering

15:12

 Rick you know when you think about backing things up from an announcement date or conversion date

15:19

 educate us on some things that can get in the way with scheduling and things like that that you might not even

15:25

realize until the last minute yeah I think for for institutions that

15:31

go through this for the first time there's a scramble to kind of work

15:36

with your core providers and figure out what your conversion and your de-conversion dates are and then kind of back into what your

15:43

regulatory requirements are for communication what needs to go out when and how many days in advance you need to

15:49

notify the information that needs to be included but one of the things that you also need to take into account as an

15:56

institution is you need to think about more so than the conversion weekend you need to think about the time frame

16:03

building up to when things need to get finalized and communicated people take

16:08

vacations you can find times when we kind of bookend The Years Around

16:14

 M&A activity seems to happen kind of in the first quarter and a half and in the last quarter and a half of the year for some reason

16:20

 you know we've got blackout periods in December for most of the core providers so you know you end up with

16:26

this Log Jam of time and really critical resources that are needed particularly

16:32

in the legal and compliance areas as well as in the product areas that need to make sure that they're very clear in

16:38

the early stages of what's going to be required of them and what's going to be needed of them not just looking specifically at the

16:44

conversion weekend but the time that materials need to get finalized and signed off on that's a that's a period

16:51

of you know 60 to 90 days prior to the conversion that you're going to need to make sure that you secure those

16:56

resources and communicate as early as possible when you're going to need them yeah and Mitchell do you want to

17:02

speak to this because I know you've encountered these challenges with scheduling I mean exactly what what you

17:09

described you know we we've run into that previously so you know just because we have that 30-day legal

17:16

requirement to to communicate something and we're working towards that date it doesn't mean we can wait to the last

17:22

second to get something done we ran into vacations at our print vendor

17:28

delays there that really had it really close for us and you

17:34

know one of the Lessons Learned for us is just over prepare like you said instead of that 30-day window you should

17:40

be looking at the 60 to 90 day window when preparing materials especially if

17:45

there's any sort of other timelines that are reliant on that or or legal communication requirements those

17:50

absolutely should be considered upfront great I think that's odd advice Trisha

17:56

you have something to add yeah yeah another thing that people don't think about until you know somebody pencil

18:04

something on a calendar is what else is going on at the financial institution were you planning on launching a new

18:10

website you know potentially changing your digital banking provider or any other major projects that either are

18:18

going to have to come to a grinding Hall and you know readjust expectations on

18:23

that sped up or you know sadly maybe even happen concurrently

18:29

which you know just throws everybody into a tailspin so you know in addition to thinking about what dates you need to

18:35

head what else has the financial institution committed to because a lot of times these

18:41

events are you know you think it's going to close in q1 but

18:46

it gets delayed but meanwhile you have to operate as a business you can't

18:51

just delay everything you know on the hope that this transaction will actually happen I   think to your point there

18:58

Patricia as well you know people have to be cognizant of

19:04

resource constraints you know the size of the institutions you know most of them being

19:11

 you know not not a sizable enough assets to be able to employ full-time m

19:18

a teams necessarily they tend to turn to technology resources legal and

19:25

compliance resources duplicative resources that are needed in all these other activities as well so not only

19:32

their data their day-to-day jobs these other initiatives that you're talking about but also within the conversion and

19:39

we can tap product people and think that they want to review materials where at the same time they may be building new

19:45

products in order to effectively allow you know the migration of a product

19:50

set from one institution to another to happen in the first place so you know I   think it's it requires a

19:57

lot of flexibility and it requires you know this isn't the only thing on everyone's plate and I think if you can

20:03

make that acknowledgment at the very beginning when you build your team and say listen we understand everybody's got

20:09

a lot of different things it's not always the same thing but we've got to come together and my job from a

20:14

Communications perspective is to manage help you manage help manage your time so we're not spinning wheels and when we

20:20

need you we need you when we don't we'll give you the time and we'll give you enough heads up because these are pretty

20:25

frenetic frenetic times and they can no matter how far ahead you play in you're always feeling like you run out of time

20:32

so you know it's just a reality and a kind of a best practice that we've we've

20:37

seen over a number of years yeah good advice I want to shift on the

20:43

conversation a little bit we've been talking a lot about what inside the walls of the institution

20:49

 but I'd like to talk to Yvonne about the 2022

20:54

merger with New England something well a little surprising happened in

21:02

in the media really had a lot a lot to say can you tell us the story of what

21:09

happened and how you addressed it they did have a lot to say and it wasn't

21:15

always very positive so I'll just give you a little bit of background information so this merger

21:22

between vsecu and New England Federal Credit Union was one of the largest credit unions in ver in Vermont and also

21:30

in the New England area and for the vsecu brand

21:35

if there are any credit union marketers listening today you know that most

21:41

Credit Unions have a small and very loud affinity group when your credit union

21:48

was first developed for us it was state employees and then of course throughout the years as regulations changed and

21:56

the laws modernized so that more people could choose to bank with credit unions we shifted to a community-based credit

22:02

union what we did not prepare for was the

22:07

number of legacy and Affinity based members and local markets that would see

22:17

this as somehow predatory and bad so first of all contextually I'm from

22:24

Vermont Vermont's a very small state we don't have a lot of big banks in the

22:29

state and what I learned was that there was this misconception around the word

22:34

merger so you know we first came out early February with a press release announcing

22:41

the plan to to merge and we talked about how excited we were that we were going

22:46

to be building scale and capacity bring these two like-minded Financial cooperatives together for the benefit of

22:53

our members in the backlash the the severity of the backlash I would say really took me off guard

23:01

so what I found is that not only did we have to help communicate effectively so

23:07

that members understood the value add of this partnership but I also had to

23:13

dispel the difference between a merger and an acquisition or predatory

23:19

acquisition so when I talked earlier about get the buy-in from your board

23:24

when it comes to Financial Resources just be prepared that you might have these unknown curve balls thrown your

23:32

way and be prepared to be as responsive as you can there was a very large

23:39

initiative from a small group of individuals who tried to organically mobilize other opposers they were they

23:47

had their own website they got into social media they they were very effective they

23:54

called all of the media outlets around the state of Vermont so we did find that we had to play a little bit of ketchup

24:00 and terms of being responsive because it was something that we did not anticipate

24:05 at that level of discomfort and disagreement

24:11 yeah wow yeah so so for for listeners where your membership base or consumer

24:19

base needs to approve it just know that

24:25

we we think oh our members will approve this merger because you know we're we're inside the four walls and it and it

24:31

makes so much sense to us but don't take it for granted does anyone else have anything to add on

24:38

that point

24:50

I was going to say I'm glad I didn't I didn't have to go through that part of it you know ours was dealing with the

24:56

aftermath after the announcement and during conversion there was nothing luckily we're not a credit union have

25:03

to deal with that kind of battle up front so great event I just one just wanted to

25:10

something I do think that it's really important to if you have the time which none of us

25:17

typically have nearly as much as we'd like to have you know Yvonne's example is a fairly

25:24

extreme one but I do think that having naysayers review what you're communicating and how you're

25:30

communicating within your organization is healthy you know not not to be obstinate and

25:37

not to you know be just negative to be to be negative but you know I   think

25:42

there are we've gotten to a point around M&A where a lot of my first conversations

25:49

were not calling this an acquisition we're calling this a merger we're calling this a combination we're called

25:55

you know at the end of the day one institution is buying another institution and that's what people hear

26:01

and that's what they you know they don't buy that this is going to be great for

26:07

everyone and the Assumption in a lot of a language that goes out is this not believable anymore and and so even

26:15

though leadership and boards are very adamant this is going to be a really good thing you have to realize that

26:21

proving that it's a good thing is your job not saying that it's going to be a

26:26

good thing and that and that's a very different reality that you have to be able to accept

26:33

 and you know again no one I think would would want to be

26:38

in the state that you know in the in the in the context that Yvonne was in but I do think that it's very healthy to not

26:45

just rubber stamp all of the messaging that leadership necessarily wants to get

26:50

out there because it's gonna it's it's not gonna be it's not people are not going

26:55

to digest it the way that that it's often intended yeah thank you

27:02

thank you for for making that statement Rick because you are spot on

27:07

 what Rick said was don't be afraid to connect with the naysayers because you can potentially learn from them and we

27:14

did at vsecu as part of our communication strategy we decided to

27:20

hold member forums open member forums around the state I think we held six or eight of them

27:27

around the state we invited members to come and ask questions to the CEO both

27:33

CEOs and some board representatives and being in front of those individuals who

27:40

are naysayers what we learned was that much of the opposition really came from

27:46

a place of uncertainty and fear and when you start connecting with those

27:52

individuals who may not be supportive you actually learn from them and then

27:58

you can take those learnings and be a more effective communicator that's great advice I was going to get

28:04

to this a little later but I feel like now is the right time I was extremely impressed by your

28:11 

communication strategy on the 2022 event

28:16

and I want you to tell this story but I do want to say what really impressed me

28:22

was you know I've been in marketing a long time I might have expected you to

28:27

create member segments based on how many products people have based on which channels they use sort of an inward view

28:35

inside out you didn't do that and you didn't take a

28:41

one-size-fits-all approach can you tell the audience what you did yeah thank you

28:47

 and what I'm about to share with you was not something that was originally planned but to Rick's point we actually

28:54

developed this strategy based on the input and feedback that we were

28:59

receiving from the opposition so as Laurie said we all know that operationally the benefit of a merger

29:07

and or an acquisition is to build scale and capacity in resources create better

29:13

agility operational efficiency and innovation which can lead to better products and

29:19

services rather than using that jargon and

29:24

messaging that to all seventy thousand members we looked at our membership and

29:30

we identified the different segments or personas that would need to hear a different

29:37

message around the value additive of this merger and we really came at it

29:44

through a place of empathy and a human-centric thinking principle

29:51

so working with the team I said look we know that operationally we understand

29:57

the value of this but as you said Lori turn it inside out and let's look at it

30:02

from a place of empathy what are the pain points what's the fear what's the

30:08

disruption that we could potentially cause and let's talk to different segments differently so our entire

30:15

communication strategy was developed with a focus on six different membership

30:21

segmentation and then all of the messaging had one core anchor that was

30:28

the same think of it as the value proposition but then the messaging that supported that value prop was different

30:34

so for example the value proposition was stronger

30:39

together enriching the quality of life through this partnership the different segments that we

30:45

identified were our digital youngsters our green members of vsecu is a leader

30:54

in green energy financing we're a steward of environmental sustainability

31:00

 so we knew that that market or segment would see a different value than

31:05

the digital youngsters for example we had our affinity group right the state

31:11 

employees we had our out-of-state members out of state but never out of

31:17

mind and then geographically we had the Northwestern area which Burlington

31:24

Vermont is the metropolitan area if you will in Vermont and that particular area

31:31

is tends to be a little more affluent than the rest of Vermont and we know that their needs and life experiences

31:38

are different than you know smaller rural towns in Vermont so all of our

31:44

messaging was purposefully scripted differently for each each of those six

31:50

segments and oh and over a three-month period we mailed a we mailed a

31:57

communication piece to each of those six segments over a three-month period so

32:02

over a three-month period each member that fit one of those segments received

32:08

a communication piece from us that that was around awareness

32:14

why and get out to vote

32:19

so a little bit different not a one-size-fits all we took what we learned and really came from a place of

32:26

empathy versus our jargon which is again

32:32

operational efficiency scale capacity because bottom line your

32:39

consumer members they don't care they just don't care what they want to

32:46

know is that I'm still going to see the same branch manager I've seen for the last 50 years

32:52

if I'm if I'm an older Legacy member if I'm a digital young youngster I want to

32:57

know that as a result of bringing the these resources together we're finally

33:02

going to be able to compete with the Bank of Americas in the world with a better digital app

33:08

for those green-minded individuals we wanted them to know that by partnering with a strong mortgage lender in a

33:16

strong green energy financing lender that we would enrich the life of vermonters by helping vermonters have

33:23

affordable home ownership from a sustainably environmental perspective so

33:29

that's the way that we talked about it I just think it's a case study and how

33:35

to do it right it was brilliant Trisha go ahead yeah you know Yvonne you you said a word

33:41

 that struck with me because it was it was something that I've been through a number of

33:47

transactions the word empathy and and very specifically and that goes two ways

33:52

but very specifically I used to tell everybody and anyone that would listen you know here's the guiding thought I

33:59

want in front of you the the customers or members that you're acquiring did not

34:05

choose your financial institution and don't forget that they always have a

34:11 

choice right now there to your point and I think that was brilliant identifying segments and what would resonate with

34:18

them as a positive message to send them is brilliant and you had very distinct segments

34:24

sometimes it's a little bit harder for other transactions you know another financial institutions to find that but

34:31

irrespective I think having that empathy understanding that to some degree you

34:36

know like you said the only thing that matters them is going to be something pretty simple and then on top of that understand

34:43

that they didn't ask for this disruption you are disrupting their financial lives nobody likes that you know people in

34:50

general don't like change but then you're talking about messing up your banking relationship you know in

34:57

some capacity no matter how much you say you're going to try to make it a smooth transition you are disrupting them so

35:03

you know being empathetic understanding that is critical in any you know customer

35:11 

member facing Communications and then that same empathy when you're thinking about internal Communications and we

35:18

touched on that before but you know just really trying to literally put yourself in their shoes

35:24

yeah so as we think about empathy making sure

35:30

different audiences see the value I want to take this like down to a more detailed level

35:36

 kind of what happens when you're merging with an institution where their

35:42

customers or members might value different things than you offer and I want to talk to Mitchell about this a

35:48

little bit so if the profiles of the people you're acquiring you know they just might have

35:54

have different banking habits can you tell us about your experience and advice

36:00

here yeah I mean Yvonne did a great job of I

36:05

mean their strategy there is pretty much exactly what you need to to do and

36:10

address is understand your client base what's important to them not just in

36:15

the value added but in the product services that you're

36:21

offering so you know you have to consider like fees are going to be different accounts and how they operate

36:26

are going to be different online access mobile mobile banking access is going to be different so not so much on

36:33

the communications but when considering how things are going to go at conversion how things are going to be

36:40

received we talked a lot about listening to the client base but a

36:46

big portion of that is also listening to the acquiring Bank staff the front the front line staff should be involved in

36:54

some of the planning some of the thoughtfulness that's going into these communications they're the ones that

36:59

communicate with these clients every single day and will know how those will how that will be received if they're

37:06

losing certain aspects of their their day-to-day process that's something that

37:12

they're going to be able to call out and say this is going to be a pain point to to these clients we need to come up with

37:18

some sort of accommodation and I know we all have our own policies procedures to

37:24

keep in mind but you know we tried to make accommodations wherever there were

37:29

recommendations from that step from from any of the staff making sure that that they had a say

37:36

and a big part of I think what what everyone has been talking about is

37:42

 that thoughtfulness that goes into communication and one of the strategies that we had and it sounds it sounds

37:48

like Yvonne probably had the same was creating like an isolated Communications

37:53

committee and make sure that that the stakeholders within that committee are from every aspect not just Executives

38:01

just deciding timelines and deciding messaging but components of everybody from

38:06

compliance to operations to retail loans deposits everyone should have a say and and

38:14

some sort of feedback on what's being communicated how it's being communicated because they might

38:20

have a perspective that that you didn't think of and again

38:26

utilizing the the the acquiring Bank staff they're gonna be your best

38:31

resources in understanding the right terminology to use the right language to use the right way to phrase things

38:38

 and we've made this point a couple times but they should be informed before

38:44

the the clients are because they're within five seconds of them getting that

38:49

communication they're going to be on the phone with those clients and if that's a surprise to them it's it's an uphill battle from that

38:56

point all the way to the end of the end of the conversion so again getting them involved and making sure

39:03

that they're a part of the communications and are aware prior to anything going on

39:08

 I think that helps kind of clear up any of that confusion absolutely

39:13

 Rick let's talk a little bit about employee Communications

39:18

 I said earlier that maybe the worst thing that can happen is having customers and members that feel

39:24

uninformed I might want to take that back maybe the worst thing that can happen is for someone to walk into your

39:30

branch and have a member of your staff say I don't know what's going on they never tell me anything

39:36

can you can you talk about this phenomena and what you need to do here

39:43

well I mean it's not an overly complicated thing right I mean I think

39:48

if you take a step back and put yourself in in the shoes of who

39:54

needs to know what what and when do they need to know it and Mitchell talked about Channel what's the

40:01

best way to communicate I think one of the biggest mistakes that we make particularly when we communicate with

40:07

our employee bases is we change the way that we typically communicate there's a

40:12

knee-jerk reaction I think for some leaders to feel like they need to shift and not communicate in a way that they

40:19

are communicated in the past so if you if you have a you know you have

40:25

different hierarchies of groups that you get together that you meet with on a monthly or a quarterly basis

40:31

 you know but then all of a sudden rather than doing small team meetings or management meeting you're now bringing

40:39

every single employee into a zoom session less than 24 hours before

40:44

that schedule that session is scheduled you know that that sets off a lot of alarms right so in some cases you can't

40:52

get beyond that but at the same time you have to make sure that you're continuing

40:57

 anyone from a leadership perspective continues to communicate in the way that people expect them to communicate if

41:04

you're not an over Communicator as a leader but somebody else you know a CEO or a head of retail or you know ahead of

41:12

lending or some someone else seems to be more of the the spokesperson

41:17

you know you need to get people comfortable and you need to have credibility with people that they've

41:22

heard from before if somebody just shows up and then starts talking people are really trying

41:27

to figure out why is this so different and clearly there must this person speaking because there must be something

41:33

that they're not telling me and you know that that's just human that's just human nature and we all kind

41:40

of feel we all kind of feel that but it's important to make sure that you're make sure that you're aware of it yeah

41:46

if it always happens but when you're aware of it it tends to it tends to at

41:51

least you acknowledge it back to Yvonne's point of empathy and putting yourself in a situation where what

41:57

happens to the person you just literally went through our employee orientation yesterday and you're making this

42:03

announcement yeah good good point so I hear you saying at least a couple things

42:08

 make sure you know you're planning for what people need to know when they know it but maybe even more importantly make

42:16

sure you're delivering it in a way that's consumable by them and you could have cultural differences Mitchell I'm

42:23

going to turn back to you because I know you've had experiences where perhaps you're acquiring an

42:29

institution in another state or something and just might have had to adjust your

42:34

communication Style to relate to the new team well can

42:39

you is there anything you want to share on that yeah I mean it I think it it really

42:45

speaks to a lot of what we've been talking about is really understanding not just your client base but your

42:51

employee base so not only will they be more receptive to one thing or another we

42:57

talked about comfortable forms of communication there might be ways

43:03

that they've they've been receiving Communications historically both employees and staff that are familiar

43:09

and comfortable that to them that we're not aware of some of the some so there are some

43:16

cultural differences there more than anything it's the in branch and kind of like white glove

43:23

hand-holding level of service was the biggest cultural difference so specifically talking on our on staff

43:31

 the the bank that we had recently acquired was very comfortable helping

43:37

clients with with anything and everything and clients were used to that kind of white glove service which isn't

43:43

a bad thing but that's not that wasn't where what what we do and how we we interact with our clients we try to you

43:50

know teach them to fish you know go online and do things themselves we try to give them the tools to succeed and do

43:56

things efficiently on their own and that was a big disconnect at least in in cultures on on on the coast so

44:05

 I'd say that was that was probably one of the biggest items that we hadn't thoroughly thought through in

44:11 

advance and adjusted as as we went along to make sure that everyone felt heard 

44:17

was accommodated and you know happy with with the results in the end

44:22

yeah I just I want to jump on you know that I didn't use the word but but you know Mitchell certainly hit on it right

44:29

I   could probably explain I started writing on financial institution culture about three or four years ago

44:36

and you know it's just something that you just would kind of see and you would see some anecdotal information

44:42

particularly around M&A about the lack of cultural synergies that seem to

44:47

happen but they're not necessarily Quantified and you know I would probably make a a

44:53

broad statement that culture is is one of the most underappreciated elements of

45:01

due diligence in any one of these transactions and I honestly can't think of one that would outweigh that there

45:07

may be some that are equal but we see more instances

45:13

of you know if you ask the question what

45:19

 you know what the buzzword is well we have a lot in common

45:24

you know we we have very similar very similar histories we have very similar

45:30

processes about thinking about our customers and our members and we're we're customer first or remember first

45:37

and you know take care of our our members and our customers a lot of very very

45:43

generic language that you know frankly is not substantiated anywhere

45:50

 and the only people are the people on this call and probably the people listening and and watching

45:56

 are the people that really are the ones who are going to have to be front and center to deal with this

46:01

 because it's a real in my opinion disservice to not take a real look at

46:08

cultural differences it doesn't mean that mean that it needs to be a deal breaker but it does need to be a very

46:14

very considered aspect of due diligence that leadership is going in and and I

46:19

you know the second part of that that we've kind of proven out in a number of our engagements over the last couple of

46:26

years most institutions honestly particularly from the leadership perspective don't even know what their

46:32

own culture is they don't know what the value culture they know what the mission and the

46:37

vision are they know what kind of the buzzwords are but it takes a really

46:43

special leader to have a real firm grasp on understanding the nuances and the

46:49

elements of what culture ultimately means within an organization and what it

46:54

contributes and then conversely to translate that into a combination with

47:00

another institution to figure out how to do this in a way that you're truly

47:05

appreciating what their culture and why their culture brought them to a to a

47:11 

place where you want to partner with them and they aren't necessarily the

47:17

same things so while it isn't necessarily a deal breaker and it isn't one of those things that's as easy to

47:23

analyze as you know credit risk and the financials I would argue it's just as

47:30

important in in determining whether something's going to succeed or fail or or really just muddle along for a long

47:36

period of time because you just really don't know how to tackle it because you're afraid people are going to leave

47:42

and at some point that that becomes this you work out of fear as as opposed to to

47:48

operating a an integration out of working and playing to

47:53

people's strengths and it doesn't and and it's when you're in a replacement mode that's one thing if you're really

48:00

in the mode of being you know saying well that's great we appreciate that we'll do what we can but it's probably

48:06

not going to happen is a very different although honest way of approaching M&A versus when you make the commitment that

48:13

we're very similar and we've got a lot of things in common we're really going to bring the best out of each organization into this new combination

48:21

 that is a lot of work and I think everybody who's involved

48:26

needs to appreciate what that what that takes to make that happen

48:31

I'm glad you made those points about culture because I believe it I believe it could easily

48:38

make or break the success of a deal in our remaining minutes I just want

48:44

to remind the audience there is a q a function at the bottom of your screen but I want to spend a little bit of time

48:51

 just kind of going around the virtual table talking I guess basically sharing piece

48:58

of pieces of advice about how to communicate or things to keep in mind during the transition

49:06

 with respect to Communications and Trisha I wanted to start with you I know the name of this event

49:13

 has the word Communications in it but I always like to say you know you

49:19

can communicate with someone a hundred times it's not the same as helping them

49:25

 and so I know you happen to agree with that which is why I'm asking you this question

49:31

 for marketers on the phone what advice would you give to them as

49:36

they think through and plan their Communications around m a

49:42

yeah it's hard to distill it down to just one or two bullet points but you know just reiterating what Mitch and

49:50

others had said you know think about every possible Channel and there is no

49:56

it's we're communicating to too much one channel that you might not be

50:01

thinking about and is actually holding q a zoom meetings

50:08

 you know there's there are a lot of new and different ways to get information out to someone aside from

50:14

paper obviously texting if you if you aren't doing that today and you have an

50:21

m a event coming up absolutely figure out how to get that done because people pay way more attention to a text message

50:28

than any other form of communication and then just I would reiterate that

50:34

empathy part you know when you're sitting down to write a piece of communication

50:39

 you know that that is wrapped in this is why we want you to be happy about

50:46

this event drill into what why would they be

50:51

happy and not you know the the bank speak that we tend to oh you know scale

50:56

etc etc with Yvonne said so you know think about

51:02

communicating as often in as many channels as possible and making sure that message truly resonates with your

51:08

audience great how about you Yvonne what parting words of wisdom would you share with the

51:14

audience yeah I'll just Echo what Trisha said you know take the approach of being

51:22

human-centric first operationally focused second be as transparent as you

51:28

can be and then the last tip that I just want to leave with listeners that we found very helpful is we actually

51:34

created a dedicated response management team which was made up I think Mitchell

51:39

might have talked about it earlier it was made up of different Representatives around the organization

51:45

and that team's responsibility was to

51:51

manage all of the inquiries that were coming in we actually used teams we used

51:56

a team channel so our internal communication wasn't just a push it was a pull so we had a push-pull mechanism

52:03

in place so that everyone in the organization at any time could get into that channel and see what members were

52:10

asking and how were those questions being answered so sort of like a two-way

52:16

communication roadmap brilliant brilliant Mitchell I know

52:21

I know Foundation a little bit something similar with its knowledge base and kind of customer

52:28

Communications do you want to tell us about that and share any other advice yeah

52:33

 I mean I   take this opportunity to give a shout out to our our project management team they through through

52:40

an acquisition actually have within our intranet essentially a One-Stop shop for

52:46

all internal employees on every checklist every task every guide every

52:51

link every communication they essentially have everything organized so that if anyone has

52:58

questions or wants to know what's happening when it's happening through calendars dates it's all organized and

53:04

centralized for one one for everyone to see and a big part of that is holding on

53:12

to that information and utilizing it for potentially other future Acquisitions so

53:19

 this is something that's that's not just stagnant it's something that's growing and Ever Ever Changing we take

53:25

our postmortem very seriously after after we complete a conversion we have

53:31

multiple meetings and debriefs on what went right what went wrong we asked everyone including clients what

53:38

we can do better you know what they felt what went really well and we basically

53:43

take all of that information and record that for Prosperity you know Prosperity

53:49

we're just basically making sure that all of that information is ready and available for everyone

53:57

 and it's front and center in a centralized location and it keeps us on track

54:02

 and a big part of that is also having those like we've been talking about committees that are dedicated to

54:08

specific like intentions so whether it be communication whether that be any

54:14

sort of legal requirements or if it's product so being a product person having

54:20

that type of committee for any mapping client impact we had those committees scheduled and

54:28

managed by our our project management team as well so it it really keeps us organized through the whole through the

54:34

whole process we have one more question for you Mitchell which is I would be remiss if I didn't ask you

54:41

how you're using the digital onboarding platform to manage M&A Communications can you tell us about that because

54:46

there's a little nugget in there yeah well and I'll be honest we've been doing

54:52

our best to to break digital onboarding we're we're just building campaigns left and right and sending out tens of

54:59

thousands of communications especially prior to prior to

55:04

conversion so a big a big part of that was in our world on product Communications so what to expect

55:11 

 what's changing with with not only their products but more importantly how they're going to access and and interact

55:17

with the with the institution so online banking changes especially on the commercial side we have a large

55:23

commercial client base so everything from wires to ACH and remote deposit

55:28

capture we utilize customized Journeys that we're targeting those audiences to

55:34

make sure they were informed well in advance we went as far as to even take

55:40

those Journeys and publish them on our websites we instead of a you know targeted in to an individual we had 

55:48

we had basically Standalone Journeys that were published on our site along with all other guides and Communications

55:54

so you know if a client was confused or maybe hadn't received the email or wasn't on the recipient list they could

56:01

still access all of that extremely useful information prior to the conversion so you know we we utilize

56:08

digital onboarding not only for that but for even survey results so trying to see

56:15

how well we did if we could do things better getting kind of client feedback so I mean every single aspect of digital

56:23

onboarding we we utilized all the way up until conversion and after there's one other point I just wanted to mention

56:29

just because I think it's interesting which is the use of secure personalization

56:35

absolutely so so a big a big part of that so right up in until conversion

56:41

we utilize digital onboarding to communicate usernames and passwords to clients so

56:47

 we did that securely using the private metadata within digital onboarding so when we had our user lists

56:54

 you know all the way up until conversion we were letting clients know what's going to happen when they're

57:00

going to get it how they're going to receive it trying to get them comfortable and used to where to go to get that information and then we send

57:06

them their username and password and they have to utilize MFA to reveal their password

57:13

and get that information so that leaves that really successfully to provide secure login information to all of

57:21

our clients commercial and consumer yeah it's a great great way to remove friction and just get people on their

57:27

way I thought it was brilliant Rick we're going to end with you well actually maybe I'll give some

57:34

advice as well but what's your what's your final advice for the audience things they should be thinking about

57:39

well there's a couple of things that you know one simple thing is

57:45

 don't be afraid to deliver bad news it's going to happen the longer you hold it

57:51

well the more it's going to kind of take on a life of its own if you know something's not going to work in a

57:57

certain way or it's not be more than open and talk about transparency it's

58:02

probably the word I used more than any other word with our clients going going through

58:08

talking about communication the second is to not be afraid to say we don't know right now

58:15

 we have a lot of kind of silent periods when people expect you

58:22

to know the answer to what is going to happen and how is it going to directly impact them and a lot of times you just

58:29

won't be and particularly in the early stages when you're first announcing it you're going to have this new jerk

58:35

reaction to know what's going to happen to my account what's going to happen to my debit card what's going to happen to

58:40

you know all sorts of things that you're used to using and that's a long way away and it's okay to say we're not you know

58:46

we we have that on our radar we're confident we'll communicate it when we when we know

58:51

 but rest assured you know we don't know at this point in time there's nothing that you need to do I think those are two things I think the big

58:57

piece that has changed pretty much the entire landscape is the use of

59:05

 I'll just say generally web technology to support Communications

59:10

through M&A we call them hubs you can use them any way you want

59:15

 but you know when in and years have gone by where we talk we

59:21

still mail a ton of information right and there's still a lot that we use for

59:27

you know covering ourselves I think for regulatory purposes and just convenience and and documentation and all of that

59:34

stuff but there are also because as we were talking about timelines there's cutoff

59:40

times so you may not have answers in order to get things printed so using digital technology and digital tools is

59:47

really really critical for you to keep the most and do everything you can to

59:52

drive your new members or customers to those sites and become as Reliant and your employees as Mitchell is talking

59:59

about from an internet perspective drive your employees to use those tools because they will benefit everybody in

1:00:05

the long run and and it's real time yeah okay so your your advice dovetails

1:00:11 

with mine which is it is around digital

1:00:16

don't overlook the power of digital Communications not only for the reasons that Rick

1:00:22

mentioned it's also imminently trackable you can tell who's seeing things if they're taking action but my

1:00:29

real reason is this you can go beyond just communicating it's not helpful just to tell someone

1:00:36

what they need to do and when they need to do it it's nice and helpful if you can give

1:00:42

them a tool that helps them make that change right on the spot and you can do that if you're communicating in a

1:00:47

digital environment so you know give them a tool that helps them find the right app for their device

1:00:54

or retrieve their account or member number securely so just don't overlook that channel

1:01:00

we know that you're going to do mail and that's important but digital is definitely an important layer

1:01:07

and with that I want to thank all of our amazing panelists today for taking the

1:01:12

time out of your day to share your advice I'm just going to check the Q&A one more time and we do have a question

1:01:24 I'm not sure if anyone can answer this perhaps you could Mitchell or Rick why wouldn't a banker Credit Union use a middleware like Port X to make the merger and coordination easier

 

1:01:36 I don't think I can speak to that yeah no I mean it's definitely something that's that's been considered before and honestly it depends on the course and it depends on on the experience of that third party so not to say that not to say that that wouldn't be useful it's we've even considered utilizing certain vendors to convert them to a like almost a temporary core that way that way there's there's no there's basically no impact to the clients through from start to finish there's no real conversion date we can basically have it happen as we want it to happen so it's definitely something we've we've considered it it does come with its own work in involved and and different Partnerships but utilizing a middleware like that could expedite or make things easier when converting specifically for coreconversions from one one to another yeah I'm guessing I'm guessing we've got a vendor on the phone they're asking that question anyway I do appreciate all of the panelists thank you so much for taking the time everyone in the audience you will get a recording tomorrow via email feel free to reach out to us directly if you've got any questions and thanks for being here thank you Lori all right everyone thank you thank you