Judy’s day is packed: a series of business meetings, hosting Blo investors, then off to London, England later that evening on a flight to get her to her daughter’s graduation from university, a one-week holiday, and a week with Europeans who have shown and interest in Blo.

Before the bank is even open, Heidi Stewart – senior account manager, business and personal – reappears and in her hands is 270 £ which she counts out to Judy. Judy speaks to her about a few banking matters, then disappears into the din of Hastings.

This vignette illustrates how banks are developing new strategies in order to support businesses and help them succeed. In this case, Heidi is on the front lines of RBC’s efforts to win customers by providing a new level of service where responsibilities for personal and business finances are combined under a single account manager.

Need cash in your pocket when you land in London? No problem – in this case, it’s in your hands before the bank opens. Need advice on night deposits for your growing business? Easy. How about figuring out how to leverage you personal assets to start a new business? Done.

Two years ago Blo was just a twinkle in the eye of Judy Brooks. The idea came to her when she was on her way to a networking event for another of her businesses (ProActive ReSolutions) and at 6:30 pm she didn’t have time to book an appointment at a hair salon – nor did she think the $75 it would have cost to have her hair blown and styled was a fair price for the service. Eureka! A problem looking for a business solution.

“When women walk into an event, their confidence is determined by how their hair looks,” Judy says. “As women, we’re always saying, ‘Your hair looks great’ first, then we make comments on clothes.

“My daughter Devon was going to school in London at the University of the Arts and I mentioned the idea to her. She thought it would be a great project for a business plan that was part of a second-year course. Well, we basically took her business plan and executed it.”

That was a mere 13 months ago and already Blo is up to 50 employees and three locations: Yaletown, South Granville, and the newest bar at the Four Seasons Hotel. According to Judy, she has already had 90 suitors at her door with franchise proposals.

The genius of the concept is in the creation of a new category of business. Not a salon (you won’t find a pair of scissors in Blo), but a Blow Dry Bar. Walk in, get blown in one of eight styles, pay $31, go to your event. And business has been booming.

“We were cash-positive in the first two weeks,” Judy says. “We have women who come to the bars three or four times a week and never wash their hair at home.”

And how did RBC help with the launch and success?

 “RBC has been my preferred bank since I was 15-years old,” Judy says. “They’ve been the financial partners in all the businesses I’ve owned. For Blo, they’ve been extremely helpful in finding answers to the challenges of a start-up.

“Retail is not my world and Heidi was extremely helpful in getting me up to speed. Instead of me setting up the accounts for a new location, she did it. She also educated me about night deposits and other details. Heidi has made it easy for me to focus on the business.”

What Heidi has done – in conjunction with Judy’s personal banker, Roxanne Corriea – is help integrate personal and business finances. Through an RBC team, Heidi and Roxanne helped Judy organize her personal finances, allowing her to raise the start-up capital (with two minority shareholders) to successfully launch Blo.

“I help manage Judy’s entire family relationship,” Heidi says. “From personal finance like investing and mortgages, to loans, RRSPs, to RRESPs, business lending and investing. It’s a 360-degree, holistic approach to banking, and our clients value it.

“When we first met to discuss Blo, we talked a lot about what her goals were for the company and how we could help her save time and money by making her aware of some of the services we offer. Things like night deposits, online banking, payroll services, online tax filing and other electronic services.

“For example, when Judy was looking at setting up a Moneris Visa merchant account, she simply came to me and I quarterbacked it, saving her time and effort on a service that would directly benefit her business, but was not in her area of expertise.”

According to Aly Karmali – regional manager and adviser, small business markets BC – account managers like Heidi are the cornerstones of an approach to small-business banking that delivers more value to RBC clients. In fact, Heidi is one of 130 such senior account managers across BC (up from 60 only 18 months ago).

“What we want to do is to make banking as easy as possible for our clients,” says Aly, who also sits on the board of directors of Small Business BC. 

“Our goal is to make banking as easy as possible, but also to help our clients compete by sharing our resources and expertise with them,” he says. “In fact, we have a series of extremely helpful Definitive Guides for Small Business available free at most branches that have great advice on topics like marketing, financing, customer loyalty, building alliances and partnerships, improving productivity.

“We also provide a number of great seminars that small-business owners have found extremely useful. Many RBC clients have attended our 10 Deadly Sins of Marketing for Small Business series and we are very excited about the new A-Series program we are co-sponsoring in September with the Forum for Women Entrepreneurs, which will focus on escalating business growth.”

RBC is also positioning itself as a small-business resource with a robust website (www.rbc.com/tips) where you can find an abundance of information on starting, growing, and expanding your business. They’ve also recognized that 49 percent of all new businesses in BC are started by women and have a link on their site to a section with advice specifically tailored to female entrepreneurs.

Lest you think it’s all about altruism, it’s not. According to an Ipsos Reid survey commissioned by RBC in 2007, 560,000 residents of BC plan to start their own business, with 160,000 of those doing so within the next year. And financial institutions are all fighting for a piece of that pie.

But good deeds and good business are not necessarily mutually exclusive. If you have any doubts, stop in at Blo the next time your hair’s in need of fixing and not only will you get a great style, but you’ll bear witness to one bank helping one entrepreneur reach her dreams.

Coast Capital winning converts in small business market

Four years ago Coast Capital Savings’ small-business offerings were minor at best. In a short span they have made great strides in developing a number of unique product offerings intended to give the small-business owner a helping hand on the road to success.

Piloting that growth has been Coast Capital’s director of small business, Lisa Bolton. Hired away from TD Canada Trust four years ago, Bolton has taken Coast Capital’s community-based values and injected them into the business side of their operations, leading a growing number of Metro Vancouver companies to choose Canada’s second largest credit union.

“My area of focus is really the mirco-business operator,” Bolton says. “Our position is that we are really there for the little guy or gal – typically fewer than 10 employees and not a lot of separation between management and the owner.

“Not every business wants to get bigger, but everyone wants to get better. If our small-business specialists can help you shave a few points off your expense line or help you with recruitment, then that’s a success to the owner and to us. I would suggest that the charter banks are generally interested in helping businesses get to the next size up.”

Four years ago Coast Capital had no account managers dedicated to small business – today there are 18 who service the 50 branches from Nanaimo to Chilliwack.

“The average entrepreneur is skilled at the craft of the business, but not necessarily the science of running the business. Our small-business specialists can help identify gaps in cash flow, payroll, accounting or any number of areas in the finance side of the business.

“We want owners to spend more time on their business and we’ll spend more time in it.’

One area in which Coast Capital excels is in the arena of social entrepreneurship, where their Little Loans for Big Ideas program has been a big hit.

“Not everyone is going to meet the standard lending criteria, but if you have a great idea and we love it as well, we’ll lend on the viability of the business plan,” Bolton says. “For example, if someone wanted to start a ranch for troubled youth, and they have an excellent business plan, but don’t meet the strictest criteria, we have funds set aside for these type of for-profit social businesses.”

Though it’s definitely a higher-risk portfolio for the credit union, a thorough interviewing strategy helps mitigate the dangers of the program, which loans up to $35,000.

“We have a committee from different areas within the credit union that examines the viability of the business, and the decision to lend or not is made by the committee,” Bolton says.

Another opportunity Coast Capital has identified in the marketplace is keeping banking fees to a minimum, for both its retail and business clients. 

“We’ve conducted focus groups of small-business owners and found that the complexity of business fees was one of the themes that just kept coming up,” Bolton says. “Owners were saying, ‘I’m depositing my money with you and the fees are ridiculous.’ The average business owner is paying between $60 and $80 a month on fees at the big five banks.

“So we came up with a novel idea: How about this, we won’t charge you for depositing your money. And that was the genesis for our One-Small-Fee-and-the-Rest-is-Free campaign. So as a business owner, for $20 you can get unlimited deposits and withdrawls.”

Industry awards recognize TD Canada Trust’s customer service

When you walk into a TD Canada Trust branch, it’s more than likely you’ll be personally greeted before you reach the teller. This, according to Norm Attridge, is by design, as the financial institution positions itself as the leader in customer service amongst banks.

“Typically at a good retail shop someone will greet you right away,” says Attridge, TD Canada Trust’s BC regional sales manager for small business. “When you walk into a TD you’ll often have someone come out from behind the desk to greet you.

“It’s one thing to talk about service and it’s another to live it. We don’t really see ourselves as a bank, but as a retailer.”

With service as the cornerstone of its strategy, TD Canada Trust has put the small-business customer experience at the heart of all of its offerings.

Its customer-centric drive has led to a number of awards, including the Synovate Award from 2005 – 2007 for Best Customer Service, the 2007 J.D. Powers & Associates Highest Satisfaction rating among Canadian Banks ,and the Synovate Award for Best OnLine Banking.

“By and large at every bank the products are more or less the same, but with slightly different marketing spins,” Attridge says. “That’s why we put such an emphasis on building relationships.

“When you give the small-business owner the opportunity to interact, that builds rapport and then you get honest responses from your customers. We get to hear first-hand what is working and what isn’t, and that helps us improve.”

According to Attridge, the merger of TD and Canada Trust in 2000 played a big role in the evolution of the service offerings. One of the most apparent manifestations of the Canada Trust DNA is in the TD Canada Trust “8 to Late” banking hours, in which many of the branches stay open until 8 pm, not your typical bankers’ hours.

“We’ve been recognized as having the best web-based product and that, combined with our longer hours and commitment to service, gives our small business customers choices,” says Attridge. 

“Time is our customer’s most precious commodity and the more we can do to make banking simple, fast and easy, the more time the business owners can devote to building their business and living their lives.”

TD Canada Trust business advisers also work the full spectrum of “8 to Late” hours, making access to advice for small businesses that much easier.

“We’ve tripled the number of these advisers in the past three years – from 10 to 32,” Attridge says. “These folks work in the branch and proactively in the business community.”

Vancity pioneers micro lending

Twelve years ago, when Muhammad Yunus was a name completely unfamiliar in the west, Vancity Credit Union took his “high-risk” concepts and pioneered two innovative lending programs that have helped launch and sustain more than 1,000 businesses to date.

Yunus is the Bangladeshi economist whose revolutionary ideas on microcredit earned him – and the bank he founded, Grameen Bank – the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006.

The Vancity programs take Yunus’ basic concept – that a person’s financial status should not impede him or her from access to credit – and adapts it to a Canadian context.

At the heart of the lending programs is the intent to help the complete spectrum of entrepreneurs reach their dreams, according to Bill Sherritt, director of community business banking.

The Micro Loan program provides credit based upon factors other than collateral.

“Unlike traditional lending, which is based on securing a loan with collateral, the criteria for the Micro Loan program is based on the strength of the business idea, the passion of the owner and the character of the owner,” Sherritt says.

The loans range from $5,000 to $50,000 in size, with lines of credit that can reach $15,000 for new businesses.

Although Vancity faces higher risks with this type of loan, it is mitigated by a partnership with Western Economic Diversification Fund. 

“Our success rate with this type of loan is in the 88 percent range,” Sherritt says. “Generally speaking, nine in 10 business owners are successful, which is a very high rate (by comparison, Vancity’s conventional loans have a 99 percent rate).”

For those who are not able to qualify for this program, Vancity also has a Peer Lending Program that grants entrepreneurs access to small amounts of money and allows them to build their credit rating so that they may one day graduate to more conventional credit.

“The peer loans are in the amount of $1,000 to $5,000,” Sherritt says. “What we do is put small groups of borrowers together to support each other in the development of their businesses.

“An example could be a single mother who might need a loan for a sewing machine to sew from home and generate some income for her family.” The success rate of repayment in the Peer Lending Program is 96 percent.

In addition to these innovative programs, Vancity carries the full spectrum of banking products for entrepreneurs. Today, they have more than 50 mobile business account managers dedicated to helping their 27,000 business members across 59 branches.