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through Saturday and Sunday to get them done,”
is the bank’s unofficial motto. Broughton appears
he says. “But it’s not a sweat lodge. To your point,
at the center of that culture and makes sales calls
we do it because we like it. We’re doing deals and
himself, encouraging staff to stay “humble and
helping clients, and they don’t forget that.”
hungry,” Balanis says. “We emulate him quite a
In return for high standards for service, good
commercial lenders are rewarded. “We’re not on
bit. We think like him, and it permeates throughout
the whole organization.”
the high end of salaries,” says McBride. “We’re
Several executives talk about the strong sales
on the high end of year-end incentive pay, based
focus of the culture, which McBride describes as
on what you did that year production-wise … Pro-
an “eat what you kill” environment. To reward top
ducers get paid.”
performers, the bank assigns them support staff as
they grow, rather than taking away their customers and giving them to other bankers when their
loan book gets too big.
Despite the advantages, not everyone fits the
culture. The executive team regularly has meetings
“I’ve had several [deals] where we do work
through Saturday and Sunday to get them done
… But it’s not a sweat lodge. To your point, we
do it because we like it. We’re doing deals and
helping clients, and they don’t forget that.”
with potential hires, and only about 10% of them
are hired, Broughton says.
Rushing explains it this way. “We’ve had a lot
of interviews where very early in the interview, the
question will be, ‘Do I have to come into the office? How much can I work remote?’ That usually
shortens the interview.”
Like a lot of businesses in the South, ServisFirst
didn’t allow for much remote work during the early
days of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. Back-of-
Bart McBride / ServisFirst Bancshares
fice staff rotated time in the office and at home,
with only about one-third in the office at one time.
That lasted about two months, Broughton estimates. “We all thought we were going to get Covid
from a soup can and die,” he says. Pretty soon,
Rushing says he doesn’t know how pay scales
it became clear to him that wasn’t going to hap-
compare to other banks, but the real reason bank-
pen. He admits the decision to bring people back
ers come to ServisFirst is to take care of custom-
into the office full-time was controversial. “People
ers. “This is the God’s truth, if you’ve ever heard
said, ‘Tom Broughton was trying to kill me.’”
that phrase in the South,” he says. Broughton recruited him more than a decade ago from Com-
But for conservative bankers in conversative
markets, the formula works.
pass Bank, telling him if he was looking to leave
Of course, another bank with a sales-driven cul-
Compass for the money, it wasn’t going to work.
ture and incentives got itself into a lot of trouble
“‘But if you’re looking to come over here to take
with regulators several years ago for fraudulently
care of your customers, this is the best place to
selling products to consumers — Wells Fargo &
be,’” Broughton said.
Co. ServisFirst, while regulated by the Consum-
Getting rid of red tape and serving customers
er Financial Protection Bureau because it’s more