From the Teller Line to the CFO Seat: How Trust Drives Better Deals

Josh Wilson: Good day everybody. Welcome to The Deal Podcast powered by FA Mergers. Today gonna have a fun conversation with a friend of Jude's, who's known him for a long time. Done a ton of deals with him. He's, he comes from the world of commercial banking. He's been in it for about 20 years. Moved to CFO, right?

So we're gonna go through the journey of that. So I wanna welcome you to The Deal podcast, Tim. Let's go, man. Start off with who are you? God. 

Tim Prevost: That's a great 

Josh Wilson: question. It's a good question, right? 

Yeah. 

Tim Prevost: That's an outstanding question. Where do you begin? Do you you want my age?

You want you know where I'm from? Yeah. I guess where I came from. 

Josh Wilson: Let's start with this man. I, we could talk about business all day long, but one of the things that you brought up to us was that you're in the world of treasure hunting. Like you've got your professional job, you love barbecuing with a family.

You love your wife. You talk to the story of the origination of how Yale won her heart or stole her heart. Really? But it's steal. Yeah, it's a steal. You're barbecuer treasure hunting. Let's start with that, man. Talk to us about treasure hunting. 

Tim Prevost: You just you find an estate cell somewhere and, I piggybacked off of a buddy of mine that, was in that world and took me to a few state sales and garage sales and, you just pick out some treasures, you just, you find some stuff that would be interested in you to you and maybe some things that you could flip, or something like that.

It is just been a fun hobby. Yeah. Just to piddle around and, find some knickknacks here and there, so I get to keep a few of 'em. I, very recently, I guess I, I would tell you I've found probably some movie poster banners. They're like five by 25 movie posters, Mylar type stuff at the movie theaters.

And I just thought it was pretty cool. It was an interesting find. Probably keep some of 'em and maybe flip a few and yeah, see if you can get your money back on them. 

Josh Wilson: I love that we started here. 'cause it this is the deal podcast, right? So we can talk about, CFO financials at the bank and we'll get to commercial landing.

Not boring just different, bigger deals. But I think the deal making behind garage sales and estate sales is phenomenal because you have to know the value of something. So valuation's very important, but also your negotiation skills. 

And you have to know how to move a product.

My, my grandmother and I used to garage sales, so fellow garage sailor. 

Tim Prevost: All right. 

Josh Wilson: Okay. Swap shop South Florida. 

Tim Prevost: You 

Josh Wilson: good? That was my jam. Talk to us about, this is a hobby of use, you find joy in it. But talk to us about how do you know what is something is worth? Or do you have a specific niche when you're going to these groups?

Tim Prevost: Experience 

Josh Wilson: Okay. 

Tim Prevost: Time. You, you spend some time maybe looking some things up when you find them. You spend some time dealing with the same items the same the same types of items. Your typical maybe vinyl records or something Yeah. That you look into, the genre to look at, really just oddities.

You just find some stuff that looks maybe odd to you that maybe would look odd to somebody else that, maybe somebody would collect. So 

Josh Wilson: yeah. 

Tim Prevost: Things like that. 

Josh Wilson: Okay. And then how do you check the value of something? So you're looking, then you're like, ah, man, this is neat.

What do you do? You got a cell phone in your pocket, 

Tim Prevost: right? Everything's at your fingertips, right? Yeah. You got your cell phone on you, you got you have the internet browser, you got eBay, you got Amazon, you got, all these different sources that you would look at just like anything else, right?

You gotta find the comparable sales. 

Josh Wilson: Yeah. 

Tim Prevost: So you're comparable sales of the items that you're looking at to see what it's worth and if it's willing, if you're willing to pick it up for that, 

Josh Wilson: so this is a hobby of yours, 

Tim Prevost: right? 

Josh Wilson: But let's just say that this was your job, right?

And you're looking at something like, talk to us through the decision making process of a treasure that you find. Walk us through how you go about making a decision of going, okay, this is worth pursuing. So you looked it up on your phone, yet it's worth this. And I could buy it for this, right? 

Tim Prevost: Yeah. Yeah.

So you figure out, so what you could buy it for, you wanna make some sort of money off of it, right? So you got it. You want some sort of spread. 

Josh Wilson: Yeah. 

Tim Prevost: And then you have to figure the time that it's gonna take for you to package it to list it to, the time that it's gonna take for somebody to find it and then buy it from you, right?

Yeah. All of that kind of plays a factor. And if it's something that you really want to. You wanna deal with? A lot of the times I'm looking for smaller items. 'cause any of the bigger stuff, it just takes longer to deal with. So 

Josh Wilson: costs a lot to ship it to. 

Tim Prevost: Yeah, sure. 

Josh Wilson: Yeah. 

Tim Prevost: It's got some cost to ship it to.

Yeah, 

Josh Wilson: for sure. All right, so you, the latest were some movie. What movies were they? These movie posters? 

Tim Prevost: Yeah, it's a pretty interesting question. All right. They were all over the place. Yeah. We went from horror movies to what was house at the end of the street or something like that?

Yeah. A little horror movie. And then you got like your Kevin James here comes the boom and you have your Adam Sandler the the longest yard. 

Josh Wilson: Yeah. 

Tim Prevost: So there was a lot of those, there were also like a Mr. Beans holiday. Great 

Josh Wilson: movie. 

Tim Prevost: There's no way I can flip that one when my kids saw it.

That's right. You have to keep this one. It's and I tried to keep all the sports ones and stuff so invincible and the long shots and rebound and stuff like that. So 

Josh Wilson: did they have them in tubes or were they in poster form? 

Tim Prevost: No, they were all Mylar. So it's almost like a. Type, like a type of vinyl.

Yeah. They weren't rolled up. I think that if you probably rolled these up, they would probably crack. Maybe break at some point. So they weren't rolled, they were just hanging out on the top of a shelf and 

Josh Wilson: yeah, 

Tim Prevost: I just grabbed them and. It's 

Josh Wilson: so interesting that I heard the phrase, one man, one man's trash is another man's treasure.

Right? And then you could look at that and you'd be like, yeah, maybe. And then you look at Wayne Heo, who built a huge fortune in South Florida from. Waste management and then buying the dolphins. And then he did pretty well for himself. Uhhuh. But I love hunting for these kind of deals.

Talk to us about some negotiation tactics. So you and I are at a garage sale, and you're like, cool, Josh. We found gold. We found treasure. Talk to us about negotiation tactics at garage 

Tim Prevost: chase. Yeah. That's a great question too. 'cause I'm horrible at negotiating, so maybe I'll handle 

Josh Wilson: that. 

Tim Prevost: I typically would talk myself up, which is horrible.

I'm, I would either just go in with whatever price that they have and say, okay I'll. If I'll do this, what would you do for a bulk discount? Maybe if I bought 'em all. 

Josh Wilson: Sure. 

Tim Prevost: Which happened maybe in the case of these Milo banners, right?

I ended up picking up around a hundred of 'em and they were $2 a piece and I got 'em for 50 bucks.

Josh Wilson: Let's do the math on 

Tim Prevost: this. Yeah, you can. 

Josh Wilson: All right. So there were a hundred of them. 

Tim Prevost: Yeah. 

Josh Wilson: And two bucks a piece. So that's $200, 

Tim Prevost: 200 bucks. Yeah. 

Josh Wilson: And you bought 'em all for 50 bucks?

Tim Prevost: We bought 'em for 50. Yeah. They were taking up space. 

Josh Wilson: Right. 

Tim Prevost: Obviously this guy to me 

Josh Wilson: about not being a good negotiator. 

Tim Prevost: I, no I'm not. No. I'm a horrible negoti. Yeah, so 

Josh Wilson: I think what makes you so good is how honest you are and how trustworthy you are right off the bat.

Tim Prevost: I appreciate that. Yeah. That's nice of you to say, 

Josh Wilson: well, Jude paid me to say that. 

Tim Prevost: There you go. 

Josh Wilson: Yeah. 

Tim Prevost: The truth comes out. 

Josh Wilson: The truth comes out. Okay, cool. So treasure hunting, something you do like on Saturday mornings and Sunday? Sometimes, 

Tim Prevost: yeah. Sometimes when I have a break you, yeah, I can. I can go and find something.

The Saturday mornings are a little difficult, with kids Sure. On the weekends and stuff, so that's a little difficult. But I, I did have a reason, to stay out of the house on Saturday morning, and I ended up bringing my daughter with me.

Josh Wilson: So good.

Tim Prevost: That was a a fun experience for her. So 

Josh Wilson: did she get to buy some toys? 

Tim Prevost: She bought a few things. Nice. Yes. She bought a bracelet Yeah. With a cross on it. It's what caught her eye. 

Josh Wilson: Yeah. 

Tim Prevost: Yeah. Which was fine with me. I was more than happy to spend whatever on, whatever she found. It was a it's an interest of mine it was fun to pass that along,

Josh Wilson: for sure.

That's cool. All right, let's go back to banking started as a commercial banker. Talk to us roles responsibility for people who might not have experience in the world of banking. What does a commercial banker do? 

Tim Prevost: Yeah. I started out as a, a summertime, part-time job.

This was probably 21 years ago. I started out shredding paper,

Josh Wilson: really 

Tim Prevost: it was a summer job and it was maybe in between junior and senior year and high school or, the senior year and freshman in college, so I started out doing that, and then I was a teller after that.

So I went from really the whole gambit of 

Banking, I went from being the only side I guess I didn't touch was customer service, which I did get a little bit of that. I guess being in commercial banking, you have to have some sort of service to your customer, right?

So I did I started out as a teller. I moved to to loan clerk moved to the management trainee program, and then, I eventually became a loan officer and a commercial lender in Lafayette for for quite a while. Maybe 12 to 15 years,

Josh Wilson: yeah. 

Tim Prevost: So it was good.

I I met a lot of people. And I think I'm very fortunate to meet the people that I have met because I think really they've kinda shaped me into who I am today, yeah. For better or worse, right? 

Josh Wilson: Yeah. When you see the new teller systems where the money could they hit a button and the, that exact cash pops out, and then they count it back to you.

Now, you were in it before that where you had to. Count out each one. 

Tim Prevost: Oh yeah.

Josh Wilson: Does it drive you absolutely mad when you have cash or whatever? Someone hands you money and you look at it and the bills are facing the wrong direction or upside down? 

Tim Prevost: How? How do you know?

Josh Wilson: Because I was a teller. 

Tim Prevost: Oh my gosh.

Okay. So yeah, so look, I've. I was a teller for for probably four or five years, of my, banking career. Yeah. And all of the bills had to face the same way. 

Josh Wilson: The same way. They have to. 

Tim Prevost: I would imagine that a lot of my customers back then were like what are you doing?

You're so weird. That's that was just a thing. They all had to face the same way 

Josh Wilson: yeah. 

Tim Prevost: Now, when I make a transaction on my own, to go and get some cash or something from the tellers or anything, they, they have to be facing the same way.

And I'm sorry, but I have to recount it, I know you counted it to me twice and I appreciate that. But 

Josh Wilson: yeah, 

Tim Prevost: it's just, I don't know, maybe it's a tick of mine. I'm not sure, but I do have to recount it and, 

Josh Wilson: yeah. 

Tim Prevost: They do have to face all the same way. If you open my wallet now, you'll see that they're all facing the same way.

Josh Wilson: It has to. 

Tim Prevost: Yeah. 

Josh Wilson: It's a good way to verify things because all the currency, they have the same pre, the presidents will be the same, but also in the corners the numbers. So you can fly through a stack of bills fairly quickly and new bills are so hard to count. So they get sticky.

They sticky. Yeah. 

Tim Prevost: They stick together. 

Josh Wilson: Huh. That's interesting. Now when it comes to. We connected on that, on teller line. Man, I met so many great people being a tell when I was a teller, it was such a great job and it you meet people, you're talking to them, some people are there just to get their paycheck and they want out.

They don't even have an account there. But you see that same person, the business owner or the little old grandma who comes every Friday at fill in the blank, right? 

Tim Prevost: Yep. 

Josh Wilson: Talk to us about a great experience that you had as a teller. That maybe stands out or a story, or maybe, I know you're not allowed to give customer names, but maybe like someone who stood out in your mind that, that was impactful for you during that time.

Tim Prevost: Gosh. There are a lot of things that kind of stick out in my head, but they're not all like you would think, yeah. It's it's anywhere from. Sticking a bunch of candy in it too, but the, in the drive through, when I was first starting out and seeing the smiles on the kids' faces, so cool.

That was cool. And then it's having the same customers now, I guess that you would see. So I would wait on 'em in the teller line, and then if I see 'em today. They have the same memories of me that I have of them. It's it's to the point of like, when I was when I was verifying the money and if there were a hundred dollars bills, I'm looking at the, oh, absolutely.

I'm looking in the light, yeah. And I'm trying to see the face of Ben Franklin, and trying to make sure that all the bills are good. And now when I see that customer to this day, he's, he is like grabbing a hundred dollars bill and he is holding it up to the light, 'cause he knows that's. That's, that was our connection, back then. For 

Josh Wilson: sure. 

Tim Prevost: So now it's a funny little joke. 

Josh Wilson: Yeah. 

Tim Prevost: We tell each other, but, 

Josh Wilson: man, do you remember when the new hundreds came out and you're looking at a old hundred and the new hundred and you're like, this is funny money.

This is this. It feels fake. It looks fake. 

Tim Prevost: Yeah. 

Josh Wilson: It's weird. So you got an opportunity to move on the lending side and you move to commercial banker. Now we're in the world of mergers, acquisitions, middle market deals, and talk to us about why. This side of the deal table needs, guys like you in the commercial banking side before we move to CFO stuff.

Tim Prevost: Yeah, that's a great question. I think that the deals that I had looked at, I guess just to maybe give you some of 

Josh Wilson: Sure. 

Tim Prevost: My experience, maybe they were very. Far and few between, I guess few and far between having m and a type deals.

There were very few when we did look at 'em, we looked at the financials and I guess we were maybe some sort of trusted advisor, maybe of our customers that were looking to buy a business to say, okay, does this make sense? And you ran through the gambit of the financials and did the EBITDA and try to figure out multiples and.

Go through RMA books at the time and that's I guess maybe they kinda looked at you like that, for sure. Like you were some trusted individual to, which I guess I'm, I am fortunate to be, have seen, I guess as that. 

Josh Wilson: Yeah. What kind of deals did you like to focus on?

Commercial banking, you get your start. They're like, all right, cool. Here's your new name tag that sits on your desk. And, go get deals. 

Tim Prevost: Yeah, 

Josh Wilson: go get the business of banking. Go get loans. 

Tim Prevost: I I did a lot of real estate deals. 

Josh Wilson: Okay. 

Tim Prevost: So I, I did do a lot of like rental real estate these kind of investor investors came to you and I guess we're looking to buy a rent house or a flip house or something like that, so I met a lot of realtors that way. And I, I did, that was really primarily my focus. 

Josh Wilson: Yeah. 

Tim Prevost: When I was commercial lending at the time. Yeah. 

Josh Wilson: Got it. 

Tim Prevost: And then as you you met more people and then you, your deals maybe got a little bit bigger after a while and you were your customers got bigger and they started buying toys and, some recreational properties and stuff like that.

That's what you. You melt molded into, right? 

Josh Wilson: Yeah. So I guess it's not just, rental properties, fix and flips, long term, short term rentals, commercial properties. Every once in a while, like the guy comes, he's Hey man, I need a boat. 

Tim Prevost: Yeah, 

Josh Wilson: I need a second property. Or something like that.

Tim Prevost: Yeah. 

Josh Wilson: So commercial bankers, not just commercial it's it's providing their financial needs across many different assets or maybe even some liabilities. 

Tim Prevost: Yeah. And and I started on the consumer side, so I, okay. I did do a lot of of your small vehicle loans or something like that, and then it just grew into the rental real estate, into the toys and recreational properties and stuff after that.

Starting in that world. I guess that there was no deal that I would look at that. I would say I'm gonna turn it down 'cause it's too small for me, or I'm gonna turn it down because it, it's not a commercial deal, it's a consumer deal. That just I didn't see it as that.

I saw it as maybe somebody having a dream or somebody, just wanting to go and get a new car 'cause they needed it.

Josh Wilson: For sure, 

Tim Prevost: those are the deals that I would do. And if it made sense that we, it would. It would happen, so 

Josh Wilson: Cool, man. What is something you learned from being on that side of the teller line or that side of the loan or maybe even in the future loan committees or the things that you saw at the different positions you've had?

Maybe that, the general. Knowledge of not being in the world of banking. You might have missed like a piece of wisdom that you picked up along the way. 

Tim Prevost: You mean on the teller side or 

Josh Wilson: teller or any of your advancement, like 

Tim Prevost: any of it at all. 

Josh Wilson: Like that, that you might be, think might be helpful for the deal makers out there?

Tim Prevost: Gosh. That's a great question. I would think that a lot of things that I've seen, maybe on the either, either through somebody's decision making, maybe trying to get in somebody's, he, somebody else's head to, to kinda see why did you do this?

Because this is on your credit bureau, or why did you do this? Because this is on your personal financial statement or, maybe it's not anymore, 

Josh Wilson: yeah. 

Tim Prevost: Maybe taking that into my personal life to say, okay, maybe I don't wanna go down this path, or maybe, maybe this is a better decision for me,

Josh Wilson: Sure. 

Tim Prevost: So I, I can maybe I've taken some of that experience and used that in my own world. 

Josh Wilson: Okay. Very cool. So you got an opportunity, you're doing good at your job, you got an opportunity to step into a new role. What the heck does a CFO at a bank do? 

Tim Prevost: So I so on the commercial lending side, right?

So you're looking at maybe other businesses, financials, you're trying to figure out some debt service, some cash flow coverage. 

Josh Wilson: Right. 

Tim Prevost: I'm, I guess I'm trying to do that on the bank side, and then I'm also looking at some a lot of asset liability management reports, and I'm looking at budgets and the I guess the markets.

Trying to see how those would affect the bank's financials. And then also being a good steward of. Customer's monies, right? So you wanna make sure that whatever you invest in is something that's safe. Whether that be just kinda sticking it in cash in a, in a federal reserve type deposit account.

Or you just, you buy a bond or an investment or something that's safe, that's, it's really the focus I guess, that we have is making sure that that our asset quality is one of the best. 

Josh Wilson: And then how do you measure the success of that as a, CFO for a bank?

How do you know if you're doing a good job or a bad job? 

Tim Prevost: Man, 

Josh Wilson: the color of the ink, right? Black is good. Red is not good.

Tim Prevost: Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. That it's such a great question. 

Josh Wilson: Yeah. 

Tim Prevost: And I guess to, to put it in layman's terms, how do you do that?

Josh Wilson: Yeah. 

Tim Prevost: It's, it feels like such a such a boring topic, banking, but I hope we just say if we could, just continue to be one of the best, yeah. And I think by all measures, there's a, there's 110 banks in the state, or 109 banks in the state.

We get a report on a quarterly basis and we wanna make sure that we're still looking good. 

Josh Wilson: So you can measure yourself against other banks regionally or in the geography. Now Jude mentioned he said, he loves working with you guys 'cause it's, you guys are built on trust in relationships and it.

It's a great bank to, to focus on because you, you built a lot of the business based on handshakes and looks, right? I see you eye to eye, belly to belly. We shake hands, talk to us about, the, why that's important to you and how do you see that get spread across the bank?

Tim Prevost: Yeah. And dude's such a great guy. Yes. And just a a great steward for the community and. I think you just try to do the next right thing. 

And I think that that's either, if the next right thing is a no, or if it's, or if it's a yes.

You just, you try to do what's right,

Josh Wilson: sure. 

Tim Prevost: And I think that's what we we stand on. And we wanna make sure that that everybody's taken care of, and obviously on the employee side as well as the customer side. Yeah. That's that's really what it is.

And being timely and returning phone calls and just being there when people need you. 

Josh Wilson: That's cool, man. Switching gears, we're gonna talk about barbecuing, that you're a good cook from what I hear. Let's hear about some of your adventures in cooking. 

Tim Prevost: Yeah, that's a mouthful.

Yeah. Yeah. I, I am, I'm starting to I guess maybe expand in that a little bit more. But, I, I do I do to, slap on some ribs and and barbecue pork steaks and hamburgers and, anybody in south Louisiana likes to barbecue.

Josh Wilson: For sure.

For sure. What's your style of cooking for ribs? Do you like dry rub or do you like slab on some. Some sauce. What's your game? 

Tim Prevost: No, it's it's really just just like dry seasonings really is all I'm doing. I'm not going to, slap it with barbecue sauce or anything like that.

If you prefer that, then you can have it on the side, but I'm, yeah, and I'm not like a a low and slow on a rib. I'm like an hour and 15 minutes, an hour and 30 minutes tops. Is, it's a true barbecue, I'm not smoking them. And, yeah I don't hear any complaints outta my household, so there you go.

I must be doing something. Okay. 

Josh Wilson: Yeah. So when it comes to CFO, your job is to not only, know how the bank's doing overall, 20 20,000 foot view, but you also have to sometimes look at each individual that's performing, right? You have your loan officers and commercial bankers, and you're looking at them.

For what are some of the things you look for a healthy banks' like machine process of lending and deposits? What are some things that you look for moving up the ranks? 

Tim Prevost: Yeah. I think I would mainly just wanna make sure that everybody's taken care of 

Josh Wilson: for sure. 

Tim Prevost: So if you're on the lending side or I would just wanna make sure that that they have the tools that they need. 

Josh Wilson: Yeah. When banking locally and you have these relationship, you know that with your fellow banker and making sure that people are taken care of, in, in such a community driven approach.

I guess what's the benefit of a local bank versus maybe a different style bank with that, maybe National Bank or something like that? What are some of your thoughts there? 

Tim Prevost: I don't want to throw anybody under the bus, yeah. Or or spit on the competition or anything like that.

I don't wanna do that, but we definitely just try to to move quicker. We feel like we can get the deals done in a, super easy, convenient, timely fashion. 

But it's definitely not I don't wanna say anything bad about any other bank out there.

Josh Wilson: Yeah, man. You got the kindest like energy, man. I'm serious. You're awesome, man. So one of our, 

Tim Prevost: appreciate it. 

Josh Wilson: You got it, man. One of our previous guests, and you're gonna have an opportunity to do this too. So let me plant the seed with you. Is you're gonna create a question towards the end that the next guest gets to answer.

All right, so you'd be thinking about that in the meantime. I'm gonna, I'm gonna ask the question that they asked you. Okay. So this came from a previous guest. Mr. Ken and people listening in, they could always go back and listen to Ken's interview. This kind of ties the episodes together. Ken just sat in your seat.

We interviewed him a few minutes ago, so people could always go back and watch, but he asked this question to you, okay? All right, so it, he fill in blank 'cause he didn't know who was coming in next. Tim, would you want your child or one of your kids to do the same job as you? Why or why not? Man, 

Tim Prevost: that is a great question.

And you're asking a third generation banker, same question, yeah. This is this is where my grandfather started. This is where my dad started and where I am. I have a heart to say yes, but then, I know my kids, so it's I just feel like there.

Their minds are built for different things. And I do I do feel like they would benefit in a different world, in a different industry. 

Josh Wilson: Yeah. 

Tim Prevost: Just by the way that they think and they're both super smart, but it's I don't think the money industry is their thing.

I think it's, I think their path is different 

Josh Wilson: for sure. 

Tim Prevost: Yeah. But great question. 

Josh Wilson: Yeah. Great answer. Because sometimes, especially when you get into multi-generational stuff, my dad was a construction guy and I was supposed to be a construction guy. We had a sign that said Wilson and Sun Construction.

But it wasn't my path. I, I grew up digging ditches and, floating trusses and I've done that. My thought was my dad could build it, I could sell it. I got into real estate. So like sometimes the path isn't the right, and sometimes the dad or grandfather or someone down the line needs to sell their business.

And that's, but for people in the audience, as always, reach out to our guests and say, thanks for being on the show. Their contact information will be in the show notes, and if you're in the area, maybe go in and actually say hey to, to the banking team over there. And if you have a deal that you'd like to talk about.

Maybe here on the podcast show or maybe with one of our team members, head over to the deal podcast.com, fill out a quick form and heck, maybe one day get you on the show. Until then, we'll talk to you all on the next episode. Cheers, everyone.