President's Blog

The marketing department in BIG banks must be the best job in the world.  It is a fiction writer’s dream job since there seems to be no real necessity to connect the actual world with the one they get to create in massive advertising campaigns to be spread across page and screen.  The teller lines are always short, the staff always smiling and helpful. No one is ever confused by the letters, disclosures or other fluff that comes out of the big machine.

If technology can solve your banking issues, our LARGE brethren certainly strut their solution stuff.  A recent ad showed a mom and two kids at the mall.  Once their bank text messaged their account information to the mom, all was right in the world and the three of them went skipping off to experience the joys of indoor bargain hunting.  I have never seen this behavior in real life.  The mom’s are generally stressed and the kids would rather be confined to Saturday School than spend their time cruising the mall with their mother.  And generally, when you are so uncertain about the amount of funds in your checking account it isn’t because you fear that there is TOO MUCH money available.  Maybe the text said “Bank Error In Your Favor – Collect $500.”

The great banking give-aways went the way of the dodo bird, the mammoth and other challenged species formerly found in La Brea.  The Crocker Bear and the toaster may have been the only truly great banker give-aways that anyone actually cares to remember.  Now the government limits the value of what can be given away with an account, otherwise they want you to pay taxes on the ‘gift value’.  You’ve probably seen those BIG banks that give away cash when you: open, maintain, refer, prepare or prefund one of their offerings.  That cash also comes with a 1099 issued in your name at the end of the year.  Yes, nothing says we love you like cash but having to pay taxes on that love seems to mess with the overall gift concept.

I believe that’s why people like you prefer to bank with a small bank like Sierra Vista Bank.  We’re not big on gimmicks.  Our goal is real value for your deposit and borrowing needs.  Everyone on this team takes pride in being able to answer the questions that you have. They take personal interest in figuring out how to make something work.  And when the answer is ‘no’ or at least ‘not now’, my experience is that our bankers want you to understand why that has to be our approach.

Now I think our ads are catchy. How can you deny a guy willing to be caricatured into 4X4’s, jungles, airplanes or Shakespearian era costuming? But that’s the extent of our shtick.  From that point on our goal is real value from real bankers with real answers to your real problems.

So that’s who we are.  No gimmicks, no tricks, no creative financial smoke and mirrors.  We hope you’re glad as well.  But if I could just figure out how to give away a tax-free poodle with every new account…priceless.