Abundance Over Scarcity: The Mindset Shift That Makes All The Difference

Speaker A: Welcome to another episode of the Remarkable Credit Union Podcast. We created our podcast to help credit union leaders think outside of the box about marketing, technology and community impact. The Remarkable Credit Union is brought to you by PixelSpoke, a digital marketing agency that works with credit unions to create user friendly, high converting, award winning websites. As a B corp and an employee owned cooperative, we believe that business can and should be a force for good. Each episode we bring on expert guests from the credit union and broader cooperative movement for conversations about the intersection of marketing and social impact. Our goal is to challenge your preconceptions about business as usual and provide you with actionable takeaways that you can use to grow your membership, improve the financial health of your cooperative and better serve your community. I'm Katie Stone, CEO and one of the co owners at Ah, PixelSpoke.

Speaker B: And I'm Caroly Goodkin, also a co owner at PixelSpoke and the director of Marketing and Impact. Today we are going to tackle a big question that is very near and dear to me, uh, which is how can a credit union lead with impact and be profitable, particularly in an industry where many competing institutions are driven by profit above all else. And to help us tackle this big question today, we have John Felton, who has spent nearly four decades with Southern Chautauqua Federal Credit Union and he stepped into the role of CEO back in 1992. Under John's leadership, SCFCU has earned low income designation, is Junto Samansamo certified, and has launched many innovative community focused lending initiatives. And we just learned that John is actually preparing to transition out of SCFCU in the next few years and ideally would like to become the credit union mission man. Uh, basically talking to credit unions about how to be sustainable and truly live their mission. Welcome John. It's so nice to have you.

Speaker C: I appreciate this opportunity so much. I love spreading the victories that we've had at the credit union. Really look forward to this discussion. Yeah.

Speaker B: So John, I saw you present at the recent inclusive conference and I was just really inspired by your presentation. I was also inspired by your story. One thing I just love about the credit union movement is how many of its workers and leaders come from what I call credit union families or their parents were involved in credit unions, um, and they're carrying that forward. So I was wondering if you could just start by sharing the history of Southern Chautauqua Federal Credit Union.

Speaker C: I sure can. Um, my connection to Southern Chautauqua Federal Credit Union is deeply personal. My father, who was a teacher, along with my mother at one of the local high schools. My dad was book number 110. So he didn't start the credit union but he got involved very early and after being involved in a while he was asked to join the board of directors. I think I get some of my heart to give back from my father. He was that guy that always wanted to help other people out. So whether or not he truly knew the power and the value of credit unions way back in the early 60s, I don't know. But it's been a joy to be able to take his hopeful vision and move it forward. My mom was a school teacher as well, phys ed teacher. When she got pregnant with my younger brother, she decided to stop teaching and my dad famously accepted the job of treasurer, the position of treasurer, which then they kept the books, they had the briefcase. It was a very small organization and brought it home to mom and said look, you can keep the books for the credit union. And she famously said I um, don't know anything about this credit union gig but the support back then was awesome. Other credit unions helped out, we pulled together, we worked as a co op, you know, we, that's what credit people do, right? Come together. So I never had the vision of being in credit union land whatsoever. I did grow up sitting on my mom's lap and she'd write loans. We'd have people come, we didn't have, they didn't have office hours. People would come early morning sometimes mom was in her bathroom, they'd come late at night. If we were eating dinner and a member came for a car loan, we stopped eating dinner. Sometimes we shared dinner with them, right. If they came with kids, we went out in the backyard and we you know, do a pickup game of uh, of uh, baseball in the backyard, you know, with these other credit union members, kids. It was an absolutely wonderful situation in my parents home. Unfortunately, 1986, I had my younger brother that I mentioned was battling cancer. So dad had retired by them. Mom was, was doing the majority of the work at the credit union still in her house. But they would drive from Jamestown up to Rochester. Jerry was going to rit he was a much better student, much better athlete and he could even sing better than me. So I was always jealous of Jerry, right. But he was up uh at rit, didn't want to miss school. So mom and dad would leave early in the morning, pick him up, then take them to Buffalo to Roswell Park, a leading M Cancer institute, take them back to rit, spend the night with them to get them through the chemo and then drive home the next day. Well, somebody had to take care of the credit union. What were they going to do, hire somebody off the street? You know, that wouldn't work. Since my chosen field was restaurants, I was working mostly evenings. M and I would just go back to mom and dad's house, and there'd be an envelope for Bill or an envelope for sue, and I would just sit there and babysit the office. But after a while, I thought, I better do some work and study and learn more about this industry. And people would ask me questions, and I would give them answers. And then I checked with mom when she got home. Is that the right thing to say? And she coached me on things and whatnot. And it didn't take me very long to really recognize we had teachers that would drive 45 minutes to get their loan through my mom, because they trusted them. They believed what Jerry would say to them. Right. They would drive past four banks and two other credit unions, but they wanted to talk to Jerry. And we still base everything on that style relationship. Deep, deep, deep relationships. So 1987, January 1st, was a happy day for me because I got to leave the restaurant industry and start working with my mom back in her house. I could wear my Birkenstocks and my cargo shorts and a tie dye T shirt and, uh, just, you know, get involved in the credit union business. It really was cool.

Speaker A: That is an amazing story.

Speaker B: So heartwarming.

Speaker A: Yeah. Unexpected as well.

Speaker B: It sounds like since you kind of took the reins, that the credit union has experienced some really impressive growth. But as you mentioned, it's also still small enough to offer that really high touch, personal experience. And I have a special place in my heart for smaller credit unions. But I also know there's a constant tension, you know, between the need to grow and the need to stay close to your community. So I'm just wondering how you grapple with that tension.

Speaker C: So the early years, I really saw the appreciation of the janitors, the cleaners, the bus drivers, the cafeteria workers. Teachers would come and use us, which was great. But you could have somebody come in that was intimidated by the banking system, somebody who didn't necessarily make enough money to always make it paycheck to paycheck. And those people would love you. They would give you a bear hug over a $500 loan to fix their car. Right. They would come and ask, is it okay if I take money out for snow tires? So I just recognized that people needed that trust level, so always made that core. And what I have been told time and time again is that, uh, well, John, as you grow, you're not able to keep that business model. You're not going to be able to replicate that. And that's not true. You can replicate it. You can be who you are. You can be that trusted, caring institution no matter what size you are. And you do that by surrounding yourself with passionate people who understand the mission, who understand our role in the community. And later we'll talk a little bit about ALICE families and how important they are to other humans.

Speaker A: Well, thank you for teeing up the next question because we pulled some data. According to United Way in southern Chautauqua county, nearly half, about 48% of all households are experiencing financial hardship. That includes 18% of households living below the federal poverty level and an additional 30% of households that are categorized as ALICE, which for those of you who don't know is asset limited income constrained employed. So essentially that group of people that are employed are living just above the federal poverty level. So they can't access a lot of the programs designed for, you know, the lowest income, but are also continuing to struggle financially. So how does that data and you know, around the demographics, financial demographics of your community help drive your strategy and your product mix?

Speaker C: The data does reinforce a simple but very important principle. Know your market, know who you serve, and understand what the people in your community need to succeed. Chautauqua County's average income, household income is about $56,000. We're the second lowest in New York State. These are hard working individuals that struggle from paycheck to paycheck. Good people that just deserve the same level of service that those of us that are on the road to financial freedom. Yet our responsibility is to identify the products that they are using. Early in my life I was a paycheck to paycheck counsel. Most of my staff started out as paycheck to paycheck households. If I didn't have enough money in my checking account and it was a few days before payday, I used a credit card to put gas in my car or I bought groceries with my credit card and nobody really judged me for that. Now so many Americans have this lovely phone with all these fintechs on it so they could do a payday advance loan and yet they're being judged for that. Maybe they don't have a credit card, maybe their credit cards are maxed out. They still need gas, they still need food. So the credit union's job is to know who you are serving and develop products that are less destructive than the products that are moving out to everyone that again relies on their phone and the convenience of it. And when I say less destructive, sometimes we have to make tough choices. Sometimes we know we shouldn't use our credit cards to do this, but it's a rock and a hard place. So we do. Let's not judge people. Let's give people an opportunity to live a better life with financial education and the products that they need to succeed.

Speaker A: It's a beautiful answer in its simplicity. Really appreciate that. So I want to pivot a little bit to a different type of product you serve. That really caught my eye. We know a lot of credit union products often look more or less the same. And even when credit unions try to differentiate with great rates, the differences are fairly minimal. But your kids credit union product really excited me because it's not your typical run of the mill kids savings account. It's actually a program, if I understand it correctly, that if started when a child is in at least second grade and followed year over year guarantees that they will graduate high school with $10,000 or more. The amounts that parents and kids are asked to contribute seemed very reasonable to me. And really generous certificate rates help take care of the rest. I, when I was doing some research into this product, wished I had started something like this for my daughter who is turning.

Speaker B: Yeah, me too.

Speaker A: Yeah, turning 16 next month. And I'm just thinking about how that would give her such a nice head start for college, a house one day and so many things. So I love this idea. I'd love to hear just more about how you came up with the idea for this product and what is the impact you've seen so far.

Speaker C: So being a lot of my board members were teachers, we believe in education and we made every effort to work with the schools at no cost to go into classrooms and educate. And one of the schools, Faulkner, where um, this credit union started, said, well, let's set it up once a month, come in, talk to our kids, start it early. And we tried to really do a lot of financial education. We actually bought little sampling trees and we gave those out to talk about how money grows just like trees do. And it was fun, but it wasn't life changing. One year, it was the second year we were doing the program. A girl stopped at one of our branches and she was telling the branch manager that they were going to run to Walmart, buy a bike and her parents were going to match her savings so that she can get a bike. And you could tell this was a family that was Paycheck to paycheck household, right. This little girl was so proud, and the parents were too, because their child, you know, saved for this goal. So the branch manager gave me a call and she was so happy. John, can we get pictures? We've got to publicize this. And it kind of hit me where I was thrilled for that girl, thrilled for that family. But we're here to change people's lives. We're not here to change a summer. We needed to pull the program back and really make it a goal based high yield savings program that would offer children what I believe is a solid financial future for anyone graduating high school at $10,000, especially in our poor community. 10,000. Not tied to education, not tied to anything. Maybe you need a car, maybe you need an apartment, maybe you are going to school. So we're not putting limitations on it. And you're right, I think the goals are reasonable. In second grade, save $200 and we pay 10% on that $200 in HCG that then matures when they're a senior. Third grade is 300, fourth grade is 400. I think we cut down to 5% when they're in seventh or eighth grade to finish it off on the upper years. And, you know, think about it. A ninth grader, $900. That might sound like a lot of money, but ninth graders are babysitting, they're cutting grass, they have ways to make money, and they have to learn early on. The rule we give them is when you're living with mom and dad, 50% of your paycheck, whatever you're collecting for babysitting, goes into a savings account. And we've had kids, hundreds of kids, graduate with $10,000.

Speaker A: That's really impressive. And I just really appreciate how deeply you think about the impact of these products. I'm curious to know a little bit more about, you know, that driven membership. Are these accounts that you're opening with folks when they're young, are those turning into lifelong members? Is it too early to tell? I'm, um, I'm curious to know more about that.

Speaker C: Well, it's not too early to tell, but I haven't necessarily focused on, um, the debt on that program. But what I can say is in four local high schools, we have branches run by our people with student interns. And it's kind of like the feeder program, right? Uh, uh, you know, we, we have the small hockey teams here, but then, you know, move up through life and yeah, you lose a few of the players as they age, but then you have those core people that really understand the game. And I think what we're seeing is just that we have kids that are starting early. Then they come in the, uh, intern for us. We've actually hired a few of those interns of a great employers for us, but they're starting off life in a very positive way. We just recently built the system to start tracking to see how many products they are using for those students that have started with us early in life.

Speaker A: That's great.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: Very curious to see what that data will be. And what I love about that is I often feel like financial education is seen as sort of the separate initiative and strategy from the products that drive your revenue. And to me this seems like a product with financial education built in. Like it's. People are learning by doing and they're putting in money and actually seeing it

Speaker D: grow with very specific goals to work towards.

Speaker B: So again, my kids are almost 11 and 14. Really wish we started this when they were in second grade, but maybe it's not too late. So I'd like to talk about your loan products too. You talked in your session about you offer appropriately priced loans, and this seems to be kind of a guiding strategy for your credit union. So can you just talk a little bit more about what it means to be appropriately priced?

Speaker C: Yeah. Again, recognizing our market, recognizing we're, uh, heavily weighted towards the lower end of Alice families, because Alice is kind of a broad range. A lot of start out when they're younger in the lower sides of alice, but then the goal is to get them through the Alice, um, lifestyle and past that. So when we look at the entry level Alice families, we know they're using what I would consider to be predatory lenders. They're going to institutions that are comfortable charging 26, 28, 29% interest, or they're using products that call it fees. But the interest rate, you know, really is even more, uh, is worse than that. So we do offer loans at 18%. And I've had other credit union people look at me like 18%. You're not a credit union. Well, if you're getting 18% instead of 28%, you're a very happy camper. Right. If we can take somebody that is paying those high, high rates and we can bring them in our doors at 18%. Our job then is to educate them, give them the hope of better days along with the products that will lead to better days. Hope without action is not that great. Hope with actionable points is wonderful. That's how you change lives. So we will Bring people in, very high risk people. People that have only maybe had at their job for three months but need a car to get to work. We'll take people that are a little bit longer employment that had repossessions. We'll lend them money on a car. Again, I don't know about you guys, but I'm a different person than I was 10 years ago. And if we allow that credit score to hold somebody down, how will they ever escape? Yeah. So we'll take those individuals, we'll educate them, we'll bring their loan over here, we'll give them an opportunity, we'll work with them to ensure that they're making their payment on time. Because if you allow somebody to make late payments, you're holding them down. Right. There's a responsibility. I believe promises matter. If someone promises to pay us every single month, you need to pay us every single month or you need to call us before the payment is due. And if you can't make your payment, then you make a sub promise. I'll make half the payment out of this paycheck and the other half out of the next. Right. You build yourself as that resource that's willing to work with the members that are struggling so they don't turn to those alternative places so they know they're not being judged, they're not being looked at as somebody that is unable to handle their money. They're being looked at somebody who does care and want to make their payments. I believe everyone wants to make their payments. Sometimes you can't.

Speaker A: Absolutely.

Speaker C: Sometimes you just can't.

Speaker D: Yeah.

Speaker C: So we do start them out at the higher interest rate, but we coach them and then we call them annually to bring them back into the office to lower their interest rate. If their credit score is going up, the interest rate comes down. We encourage people not to lower the payment. If you're comfortable with that payment, let's leave it the same and pay this car off two months early. Because we know cars don't last as long as the loan.

Speaker D: Yeah.

Speaker C: And we do that annually for them. The joy of taking somebody at 1799 down to 1490, M9 down to 1299, down to 1099 is joyful. Right. So when my pricing is appropriate, it's appropriate for the market that you're lending to. We have great rates for A and B paper. Right. We're very competitive with any other institution, but we have to use the appropriate pricing for the risk involved.

Speaker B: That, uh, makes a lot of sense.

Speaker A: So you do have a higher than average ratio of Credit loss, expense to average assets. So it's 0.93% compared to the peer average of 0.26%. But, and I love this, you consider this not a weakness, but actually a strategic choice. Can you tell us more about that?

Speaker C: Absolutely. And you're right, it is a choice. We celebrate our victories, we analyze our defeats. One of the first questions while I'm out doing different presentations, after the presentation, people will come over and say, John, that's an uh, incredible, uh, story. We can't believe what you're doing, but we can't do that. That is a choice as well. I believe every credit union could take on more risk with appropriate pricing. So we really have to look at both sides of the equation. We can't just talk about our losses without talking about our income. So my gross income is about 300 basis points above the national average. 300 basis points? Mhm. If my losses are about 70 basis points higher, let's do the math. 300 still down pretty well.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: This is 230 basis points for a hundred million dollar credit union. 230 basis points. $2.7 million. Right. So my m bottom line is extraordinarily swamp, which allows me to expand my branches, which allows me to employ 82 people. A typical credit union my size probably has 50 people. I believe in giving people the time to do the job that I expect them to do. I don't want anyone going home so exhausted that they're not enjoying their lives at home. And I don't want the single parents that I employ to feel the pressure of, oh my gosh, I can't miss one more day because I'll get fired. We have extra staff on hand because we know people have issues. And if you're a single parent, you're going to call off more than somebody who has more of a safety, uh, net. Right. But they don't deserve to lose their job. The employer has to take that into, compensate into consideration and develop a system that works.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Yep.

Speaker B: A single parent myself, I very much appreciate that mindset and appreciate just, you know, caregivers have a lot on their plates outside of their work hours and it's nice for a company to recognize that.

Speaker C: The other thing I'll add, if I may, is with all that extra income, right. You can really compensate your people well. You can really provide healthcare insurance, you can provide incentive programs that are great. But the other thing you can do is network in your community. We give about $100,000 a year through the local nonprofits. We work closely with the United Way. As you know, the people that work at nonprofits are generally people with a master's degree, a lot of student loan debt, and about probably 20% of their salary comes from their hearts. You have to work here. You're a good person. People that work in nonprofits are undercompensated. So once we developed a relationship with those folks, first by giving, by supporting them and then showing them what we could do, not only were we able to win them over, but then they would send us their clients, m clients who are receiving additional services, clients that just need that trusted institution. So we built this spider web that would just send people to us because of what we do. It is such a win win.

Speaker A: Well, I think that that also leads nicely into my next question. We know that when organizations of any type are trying to increase profitability, there's usually, uh, a, ah, draw to start by cutting expenses. Um, but you've taken on a different strategy at Southern Chautauqua. You've, uh, really focused on developing additional income streams. Um, can you give us an example or two of additional income streams you've developed?

Speaker C: Absolutely. And these are win win income streams. If you looked at our, at our call report, you might think that I'm charging a lot of fees. We do not. And we always give fees back when asked. And if somebody asks us for the fees back, we coach them. Um, that's a coaching opportunity. So the other products that really led to a lot of our success is some people call it credit insurance, some people call it that protection. We have a great partner with our debt protection program. We market up very, very little. But even with that small market, we're making about $400,000 a year extra income off of this product. Now this product, debt protection, unemployment insurance, disability insurance, and life insurance. We just had two car companies in our community full. They're done by, uh, end of August. They're both closing down. We've already reached out to the members from those employers. We've already, uh, let them know that you have this insurance and we've already helped them start their claims for it. If you have somebody that loses their job, what do they do? You can't live out on just unemployment income. Right? And what a horrible time to maybe lose your car because you can't make your car payment or get it fixed when you need to go find the next job. So we believe in debt protection. We know that it protects our members first and foremost. 65% of our retail lending gets debt protection. That is probably four times the national average. But it's because our staff understands the benefits of it, and our members are the best salespeople for it because they will tell you time and time again. Yeah, I got hurt. I was skateboarding last night. I fell, I hit my hip. I'm going to be out of work for the next three weeks. The credit union made my payment. They don't say the credit. You know, the insurance company made the credit union made my payment. And then people will come to us. And I want that. I want that stuff where you're going to make my payments if you need to. Right. It sells itself, for sure. Naturally, Gap Insurance is very important because we know most car loans are upside down. I think our price on it might be $149. Dealerships are selling it for $399. People are blown away with what our price is for it. Again, there's a very, very small markup for it. We're not greedy when it comes to that. We want the members to have it, and then that protects the members and that cuts down our losses. Yes, our losses are higher than normal. I bet they could be double if it weren't effectively using the debt protection program.

Speaker A: Really smart strategy.

Speaker C: Yep.

Speaker D: Yeah.

Speaker B: And, uh, one thing I just feel

Speaker D: like has come up again and again is how proactive you are about reaching out to your members.

Speaker B: I feel like so many opportunities are missed just because people. I mean, I consider myself a fairly financially savvy person, but I don't necessarily know what I'm eligible to apply for at all times or what opportunities I might be missing out on. So just, uh, the idea of calling your members, you know, knowing what's could be going on in their lives, that they might be about to lose a job, and just really getting ahead of that is a phenomenal strategy.

Speaker C: So that strategy really came from my experience in restaurants. Um, I never wanted to be back in the kitchen, but I always thought I had to know what's going on back there. I was always part of the house, guy. Um, and when I was a waiter, I told probably that I would be the highest waiter that night. Right. Little competitive going on there. There are some people that will go over the table and as they're ripping off the check, they'll say, did you want anything for dessert? And then there's other people that will walk over the table and ask how dinner was and say, we've got a cheesecake tonight that you'll die for. Oh, you don't like cheesecake? Oh, our Dutch apple. It's the best Dutch Apple we've ever had. Let me bring some samples for you. Right. You can sell if you try, if you, if you educate. Right. It's as simple as that. I sold more desserts than anybody and that increased my tips. Right. It was. I love that we educate. Because if you just say to people, is there anything else I can do for you? You're relying on them to know what you do.

Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.

Speaker C: You tell them what you can do for them. And that really has led into our, uh, credit card refinance program, which is phenomenal.

Speaker B: Uh, and I think this plays into my next question, which is, uh, in your presentation, you talked about living with an abundant mindset that is contagious. Um, I love the sound of that. And I feel like, you know, it's been a, it's been a challenging few years in the broader business landscape. And I feel like there's very much a dominant scarcity mindset out there. And this, this just feels like the opposite of that. So I'm just curious, what, what does that mean in practice? How do you live with an abundant mindset?

Speaker C: I. I don't know if this is an appropriate story or not. My mother, My mother grew up on a dairy farm. On the dairy farm, there was a saint that you could fall into a pile of cow manure and come out smelling like a rose. And she would use that with me as a child. Just things always have gone well for me. Right. So I've just developed this abundant mindset that everything will work out as long as there's a, um, plan. Right. It's not just luck, but we also create our own. When you walk into some offices and there's maybe one teller, one loan officer, place looks barren, doesn't look kept up. Right. That's scarcity. And that puts a, that makes an impression on the people that are banking on you. When you walk into a branch and people are happy and people are satisfied and people are mission driven with the passion to greet everybody that comes in your doors with the idea that our job is to help that individual. If they're in a bad mood when they leave, they have to be in a good mood. We have to help them do that. Some days we just use popcorn. And that works.

Speaker B: That'll work almost every time.

Speaker C: So we just live with this knowledge of we're the ones that are going to change people's lives. We're not going to change them every day. But over time, people that bank with us come back to us all the time and say, your people are always happy. John uh, how do you keep such a happy staff? And then when we post for a new position, we get hundreds of applications. We're branded as the place that cares about their staff. My staff is most important. My members are second and my board of directors are third. Third. It's really great.

Speaker A: Thank you so much, Sean, for sharing that.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: All right, we want to close with some rapid fire questions. These are just for fun. First of all, what is your favorite junk food?

Speaker C: Toffee covered peanuts.

Speaker A: Ooh, that sounds pretty good.

Speaker C: And when you're on a road trip, not every gas station sells them. So when I go in and I see the toffee colored peanuts, man, there's two bags in the pocket.

Speaker A: Awesome. I'll have to check this out. What was your favorite childhood TV show?

Speaker C: So, uh, you know, grew up in the 60s and early 70s. Batman. But Batman with Adam West, Another Batman movies. Batman and Robin. Back in the day, I always viewed myself as Robin. Nice.

Speaker A: All right, maybe this is a segue into my last question. I don't know, but what was your last Halloween costume?

Speaker C: Yeah, I had to think about it a little bit. It's been a couple years, but my other half and I. She was Morticia Adams and I was Gomez Adams.

Speaker A: Nice.

Speaker C: Kind of a financial guy and whatnot. So I thought it made sense.

Speaker B: Yeah, I actually don't know what my answer to that question would be. I. I'm, uh, not very fun on Halloween. It's been a long time since I dressed up. All right, so let's do our final take. And just as a reminder to our listeners, our big question today was how can a credit union lead with impact and be profitable, particularly in an industry where many competing institutions are driven by profit above all else. So your final challenge, John, is in just a few sentences. Can you summarize your thoughts on this?

Speaker C: Yeah. Build your brand by becoming a trusted resource to your community. Be a resource to every member that walks in your door. Be the resource that reaches out to your members to explain what you can do for them, especially Alice families. These families are falling through the cracks. They're being taken advantage of. This is the low hanging fruit that credit unions can serve. And just build a base of people that love you. You have to understand the process products that those members need. And you need to develop the better product priced appropriately with the hope of better days, because you're giving them actionable points to build their. To increase their standard of living. Leading with abundance. Be happy. I believe happiness is found in helping other people. My staff is extremely happy when we leave and, uh, stop at the local grocery store or whatnot, often we're hugged, we're thanks, we're appreciated. And then other people hear that and they see our logo because we wear it with pride, because that's who we are. We focus on building sustainable income for the credit union. Because if I disappear, if I merged into a larger credit union, I believe just about every merger mission disappears. And I believe that if I'm not here to take care of my members, that then bad people, if I can say that, will take care of them in not a good way. Right. Most importantly, don't ever let your setbacks overshadow your victories. Yeah, we might do 300, 400 loans a month and I might take 10 cars, 15 cars from people. Most of those cars are redeemed by those individuals. Some of them are not. But I can't let those cars be the driving factor. I have to look at the data, the success that we're having. Our capital is over 17%. We've been recognized as one of the fastest growing credit unions in New York State, and that is in a county that is the second lowest average household in it is doable. It is important to do good in your neighborhood because you will do well while you're doing good in your neighborhood.

Speaker B: Thanks so much. You inspired me during your inclusive, uh, session and have inspired me yet again. I really appreciate you taking the time to join us.

Speaker C: Thank you. Thank you. Like I said, I believe my mission is just to tell more people we can do this.

Speaker B: Well, we hope we can help. Um, wonderful. Well, thanks again for joining us.

Speaker A: Yeah, thank you.

Speaker D: Well, I don't know about you all, but I sure feel inspired and uplifted. After that conversation, uh, thinking about a

Speaker B: few key takeaways, ways.

Speaker D: One thing that really struck me was this idea of using products as tools for financial education. I feel like financial education is often siloed from the credit union's revenue driving products and services. You know, it's kind of seen as a value add, but not really a core piece of a credit union's business model.

Speaker B: But what would it look like if

Speaker D: products themselves were actually vehicles for financial education? I just love the Kids credit union product that we talked about. It's really more of a program than a product per se, and it teaches kids and teens about the power of saving and the power of compound interest. They're really learning by doing. And honestly, I think the lessons are much more likely to stick.

Speaker B: Personally, I'll remember any lesson that ends

Speaker D: in $10,000 in my bank account. And then secondly, um, thinking about building relationships by proactively reaching out. Yes, credit unions are proactive about reaching out, but often this is just to market their own products and services.

Speaker B: And maybe, you know, in this era

Speaker D: of personalization, some credit unions might be able to target their marketing messages a little better. But what if personalization were really more about asking, about listening, about offering tailored resources and support? John mentioned the two large employers in his community that are closing down and how he knows that's uh, going to have an impact on his membership and how they're really proactively calling members who will be affected to make sure they know what their options are. This is really different from reacting to a bunch of members suddenly defaulting on their loans. They're, they're really getting ahead of the game, which is good for their bottom line, but they're also showing members that they care. And lastly, perhaps my favorite takeaway is just let's lead with a mindset of abundance and not scarcity. I am personally just so tired of the scarcity mindset. It is such a dominant force in the landscape of American business and it really doesn't have to be. John talked about how rather than cutting costs at the expense of services or staff well being, how leaders can choose to adopt an abundant mindset that focuses on investing in people, investing in mission driven growth. John is making strategic, intentional choices. You know, like investing in extra staff, providing competitive compensation and accepting higher but manageable credit risks with appropriate pricing, as he points out. And all of that might cost more money up front, but over time it really leads to sustainable growth, not to mention a deeply loyal team and membership base. Well, I could go on and on but I think I'll end it there. Thanks for joining us today for another great episode. The remarkable credit union is brought to you by PixelSpoke, a digital, um, marketing agency that works with credit unions to create user friendly, high, high converting award winning websites. As a B corp and employee owned cooperative, we believe that business can and should be a force for good. You can learn more and check out our work at PixelSpoke Co Op. That's PixelSpoke all one word coop. Until the next time, I wish you the best of luck in making your credit union remarkable.

Speaker B: Sa.