Generalists vs. Specialists: Building the Ideal Team for Growth
Are you facing the challenge of building the right team to drive your credit union forward? Many leaders grapple with whether to hire specialists with deep expertise or passionate generalists who bring versatility. In an industry that's rapidly evolving, how do you assemble a team that's both agile and aligned with your vision?
In this episode of Grow Your Credit Union, Joshua Barclay and guest co-host James McBride, president and CEO, CONNECTS Federal Credit Union welcome on sponsored guest Kian Sarreshteh, co-founder and CEO of InvestiFI to talk about strategies for building the ideal team for growth by balancing specialists and generalists.
Plus:
Discover how embracing radical transparency can align your organization and enhance collaboration.
Learn how integrating investment services directly into your online banking can keep deposits in-house and meet your members' evolving needs.
Explore effective ways to enhance member loyalty and increase share of wallet in your credit union.
A HUGE thanks to our sponsor, InvestiFI
InvestiFi is the only InvestTech solution built to allow for trading to and from deposit accounts, enabling Credit Unions to retain more assets and attract new members. Help your members navigate the complexities of financial markets with ease from within their current online banking experience with InvestiFi. Learn more at investifi.co.
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FULL TRANSCRIPT
Joshua Barclay: A good day to the credit union community. Here are our three topics for today: How can you reduce friction and increase alignment by adopting a radical transparency policy? Would you rather hire a talented specialist or a capable generalist? Loyalty to the credit union is dead. How can you grow your members' share of wallet?
Welcome to Grow Your Credit Union. I am your host, Joshua Barclay, and we have with us today another guest host, the CEO of CONNECTS Federal Credit Union, James McBride. James, say hello.
James McBride: You know, I'm gonna try to channel my inner Becky Reed here. Howdy, y'all.
Joshua Barclay: Glad to have you back, James. Before we begin today's show, I want to first mention our fantastic sponsor, InvestiFI. They are the only self-directed investing platform that allows members to buy, sell, and trade directly from their checking account within their online banking portal. We will be talking more about that later in the show with today's sponsored guest, who we will introduce in just a moment. But first, James, you're back.
I'm glad to have you back. You had a great show with us previously. How are things going with you?
James McBride: Man, we're having a lot of fun here in Virginia, putting together the puzzle pieces to really put this credit union in place to really grow and really serve our community in unique ways, especially moving into 2025. We're really excited about what's going on, the partnerships we're developing, and so really glad to be here.
This podcast really helps challenge leaders just like myself to think about things in a new way, and so that's what we're doing here at CONNECTS. We're thinking about how we do community banking in a new way.
Joshua Barclay: James, I love to hear that. Let's kick things off. I want to introduce our guest for the day, the CEO of InvestiFI, Kian Sarreshteh. Kian, say hello.
Kian Sarreshteh: Hello. Thanks for having me.
Segment 1
Joshua Barclay: In a Harvard Business Review study, 500 employees from different levels believed their companies were 82 percent aligned with corporate strategy. But when Harvard Business Review researchers looked closer, the real alignment was only 23 percent. And Forbes suggests that the remedy for this kind of misalignment could be—drum roll, please—radical transparency.
Companies that embrace transparency reportedly enjoy 21 percent higher profit margins, along with lower absenteeism, better customer service, and stronger collaboration. Kian, you've been a strong advocate for radical transparency in your leadership. Can you share how you've successfully implemented this strategy within your organization?
Kian Sarreshteh: Yeah, absolutely. And I think it really starts with being able to first communicate the vision and where your company's headed. You know, especially at a startup, I think it's incredibly important with how fast startups need to move to remain competitive. The fundamental point of transparency is if everyone's not on the same page with how fast you're moving, there's going to be things that get missed.
I think one of the most common things we see with startups is missing deadlines on launching new products, new features, etc. So for us, having transparency across the board is rooted in our Slack communication. I think it could be unique to remote companies, but the way you set up your Slack communication is really important. We highly encourage everyone to communicate as much as possible in public channels in Slack.
On the sales side, we sell to credit unions, and we get feedback from a credit union as far as what they're looking for in a solution. We can post that in our Slack feedback, and then the folks on the product side of things can evaluate that feedback. On the flip side, if the tech and product teams are collaborating in public channels, the sales team can go in, see what they're talking about, and make sure it's relevant. That way, we're actually communicating and working on projects and products that are going to benefit the customers that our sales team is serving.
So that's one way to increase transparency in an organization that leverages a tool like Slack.
Joshua Barclay: James, radical transparency—do you adopt that at your own credit union? What does that look like inside your organization?
James McBride: I think it's one of the most important things you can do, and I guess there are different ways to define that. You know, when I think about our organization, I'm actually, in a lot of ways, treating our credit union very much like a startup, right? So, what Kian was just talking about—we're taking a credit union that's $85-90 million in assets, and we're trying to transform it into a growing... I've used the word 'juggernaut' here—that's kind of a future state we're hoping for, right?
We want to position ourselves to be really successful, and that takes knowing—from the very bottom of the totem pole all the way up to the top—what we're doing and why we're doing it. Communication, I think, is one of the hardest things you can ask a human to do consistently well. So we're trying to teach people, like Kian was talking about, how to communicate, when to communicate, what to communicate, and where that communication needs to live.
So critical. I send videos out to my team all the time to let them know what we're doing, where we are next, what's happening, and what's coming in the future. I tell our team all the time at the leadership level, we've got to make sure that we're getting our messages, not just in that meeting room, down through the organization so questions can come back up.
We've been starting an initiative: let's talk about our wins, getting that communication to filter through all the channels in the credit union—what's going well for us so we can move forward. Being transparent in an organization, I think, is table stakes for success.
Joshua Barclay: I want to ask you, Kian. I have a buddy—I won't say his name—who used to work for Bridgewater under Ray Dalio, who, I don't think he invented radical transparency, but he certainly popularized it in his books, talks, speeches, etc.
One of the issues he had around radical transparency was that people got kind of mean. It started to breed a culture of maybe disrespect or a lack of sensitivity. So when you're talking about radical transparency, how do you balance that with giving others respect and not creating a culture that becomes combative?
Kian Sarreshteh: Yeah. I mean, I think you have to lay some ground rules, right? But a lot of those ground rules, in the professional world that we all operate in, are unspoken. You know, if you're the type of person that's rude or can't communicate cordially with someone you disagree with, you're probably not somebody we want at our organization, at least.
So that really hasn't been an issue for us. I would say the more that people can actually communicate the 'why' behind decisions being made, the more adoption you'll get and the more receptivity you'll get from the other people in your organization.
I think that's one of the things that frustrated me as a younger professional, before I grew into the leader I am now. I would see leadership making decisions, announcing those decisions, but they wouldn't treat the rest of the employees as though they deserved to know the 'why.' For us, the 'why' is always incredibly important, even with the smallest of decisions.
You mentioned earlier sending videos along with communication. For us, we use a tool called Loom, which we've gotten a ton of value from. You can essentially use it to communicate something visually, which is always important. Loom is just a tool where you can do voiceovers when you're showing a demo or showing how to use a part of a product. That usually helps communicate the 'why' a lot better than just a few words of text, for example.
Joshua Barclay: James, we love to talk about "the how" on this show. So if credit union leaders are listening, and maybe they feel like they're not transparent enough, what is the first step? I know you to be a very transparent guy. You're a fairly new CEO to CONNECTS Federal Credit Union, so when you came into the organization, how did you start to lay the groundwork for that radical transparency culture you're building?
James McBride: The first thing I did, and I think it's important, is to let people know that we're going to start by getting to know each other, right? I think that's so important. Where are we going to go? That's going to come, but first, let's start to understand who we are today and start talking about who we want to become tomorrow.
Then we start educating people on what that actually looks like. How do we accomplish that? One of the things we talk about here is, "What is our North Star?" Our North Star is going to have to get more specific over time, but we have to earn that as an organization. Today, I talk about loans—loans to members specifically—as the North Star for this credit union.
How do we get there? In the next several weeks, as we lead into strategic planning and towards the end of the year, I'm going to start showing, on Loom, as we were just talking about: What does our income statement look like? What does our balance sheet look like? What are the triggers on those documents that will help people understand how their work every day impacts those numbers, and how it helps them and their bottom line at home?
I think those are the things that are going to connect all the dots for the humans in the organization. People often want to know what's in it for them. This is what's in it for the organization, this is what's in it for you, and this is how those things connect together.
Segment 2
Joshua Barclay: Credit union leaders are constantly on the lookout for top talent. But how we evaluate that talent can make all the difference. In his CU Insight article, "Six Reasons Your Credit Union Will Become Lethargic," Randy Pennington stresses the importance of prioritizing leaders who drive change over specialists who lean on past practices.
In this instance, Randy is referring to leaders, but let's open the conversation to all employees. James, when it comes to hiring, who would you prefer? A specialist with deep expertise in a specific area or a passionate generalist with a broad focus?
James McBride: You hire for character. So, the generalist, for me, is the place to start. What does that person bring to the team that's unique? It's also important to ask, right? So you can't say, "Well, we don't need to have the right people sitting in the right seats." I think that's an important element of the team composition, but it has to start with: Do we have people who want to be part of our company, who want to be part of the vision that we're trying to build and push us forward?
Because if the answer is, "Well, I just kind of want to sit on my hands and sit on the stool and hope for a paycheck tomorrow," that's not going to get us where we need to go. You've got to have the right people who are motivated and passionate about helping move the cause and the company forward.
That's the first place to start. They've also got to have the talent to deliver, but most of those things, especially in the lower rungs of an organization, are teachable. So I'd rather have somebody I can teach, who has the character and the will, than to say, "Oh, I've got somebody with X number of years of experience who should be able to come in and do all the technical transactions." The technical pieces, again, I believe to be less valuable than the intangible pieces.
Joshua Barclay: Kian, are you hiring a specialist or a generalist?
Kian Sarreshteh: Yeah, I agree largely with what James just said. For me, I think about it more through the lens of a startup, and I think it really depends on the stage of the startup in terms of where you need to lean in more. Generally speaking, I think you're going to get better value out of a generalist, but when you have too many generalists—and I equate that to having too many chefs in the kitchen—then not enough specialized tasks can always get done.
So, I think as you look at the growth trajectory of any company—especially a startup—in the early days, when there's just a few people sitting around a kitchen table trying to figure out how to actually build a startup, you need every one of those people to be generalists, right? Because there's just so much to do, and not really any room for specialists at that point. But as you scale an organization, you get to a point where it makes a little more sense to have siloed functions.
You don't want ten generalists trying to write code for something that's heavily specialized in a specific domain. So, when you have five employees versus 5,000 employees, it really makes a big difference in how you think about hiring specialists versus generalists. As you get bigger as a company, hiring specialists probably makes more sense. But yeah, I think it generally depends on the stage of the organization.
James McBride: Yeah, if I could just add one thing quickly to that. The other thing I would say is where I agree there... So, we want to create sales as a main lever in our organization. How do we sell to our community? How do we sell to our existing client base or members? How do we bring more people in at the same time?
What I’ve found in my 25 years in credit union land is most credit union people aren't very good at selling things. So when I said I wanted to go out and add a sales division, a sales arm to our organization, I'm looking for a specialist. I'm looking for somebody who has that skill, who knows what to do, and they're coming from outside the credit union bubble, bringing them in so that we can have a real sales environment inside our organization.
So, I do agree. Generally speaking, I'm looking for the generalist, but there is that opportunity where you need that specialist to come in and give you a shot in the arm in something specific.
Joshua Barclay: Well, I saw something recently that was interesting because, though I feel like I'm probably a specialist in a couple of areas, I'm also a generalist in most others, which is probably like most people. I saw something interesting: it said, "I'd rather be a jack of all trades than a master of one," and I found that interesting in today's world.
One skill—it depends on what it is, right? But I do think adaptability matters more than anything right now, given where we are, particularly with budgets, the economy, etc. So, James, when you're thinking about the generalist versus the specialist, do you agree with Kian? Because what I find interesting is you're both sitting on two sides of the fence.
Kian, you're CEO of a tech company. James, you're CEO of a credit union. As you grow, James, are you going to reevaluate the specialist versus the generalist, as Kian said? Because he's right: early on, you're probably going to want a room full of generalists, but at some point, specialization matters to get things right.
So, is that your approach that you're adopting, James? As you grow, whether that's asset size, loan volume, whatever, are you going to start making that decision and leaning more toward specialists?
James McBride: I think the more complex the organization becomes, the more necessary it is to hire talent that's already specialized in a function because you're looking for something specific. When I think about the leadership arms of a credit union, I think about the word "vertical." What vertical do they oversee?
Whether it be lending, member services, or accounting and finance, you want that person to really be able to own that function so you can have trust and confidence—with this radical transparency we're talking about throughout the organization—that everybody has trust that leader is the right person for the team.
In an environment where you've got a generalist, there's room for that when you're less complex. But the more complex you become, the more they have to grow into that level of specialization to continue to satisfy that function. So, I think it really depends on complexity. But you've got to start with character.
If you don't have the right character, the right passion, the right grit coming into the position, it really doesn't matter how talented they are if they're not going to help lead the organization in the right direction.
Sponsor - InvestiFI
Joshua Barclay: Hey, I want to take a moment to mention today's sponsor, InvestiFI. Did you know that while most Americans prefer investing with their primary financial institution, 99.5 percent of them look elsewhere, largely due to a digital-first offering by a FinTech? If you want to keep your members and their assets while helping them build a financially secure future, you need to meet InvestiFI.
As the only self-directed investing platform that allows members to buy, sell, and trade directly from their checking account within their online banking portal, InvestiFI’s solution provides a seamless experience—helping your credit union deliver new services, attract new members, and deepen existing relationships, all while fostering financial security.
Because InvestiFI's solution is integrated with your digital banking provider and banking core, the funds used to invest come directly from the member's bank account and back again when sold, not sitting in some third-party account accumulating fees you can't leverage.
Give your members access to an integrated investing solution from within their current online banking experience—with you, their credit union. Bring investing back inside with InvestiFI. Visit them at InvestiFI.co to learn more. That's InvestiFI—I-N-V-E-S-T-I-F-I.co—to learn more.
Segment 3
Joshua Barclay: According to the Fed's Survey of Consumer Finances, a record 58% of American households owned stocks in 2023, reflecting growing participation in the stock market. Yet, I've noticed that many credit union leaders still aren't offering investment products in-house. James, with so many Americans now engaged in the stock market, do you think credit unions are missing a golden opportunity by not providing members the option to buy, sell, or hold stocks within their online banking portals?
James McBride: The short answer is yes, but I'm going to give you a little bit more than that. Here's the thing: if you'd asked me that, say, even 12 or 18 months ago, my answer would have been no, because I was looking at it entirely differently. The landscape is changing very quickly as it relates to consumer finance, right?
What I see is stocks or stablecoins, things of that nature, are commodities. We buy and sell money; we don't deal in commodities. But the consumer market is shifting, and where people are investing is shifting all the time. It's going to continue to shift. So, if credit unions want to stay competitive and stay up and going, they've got to start thinking about things differently.
One of my favorite leaders, Ray Davis from Umpqua Bank, years and years ago, was selling bicycles in branches on the West Coast, right? So, we need to be thinking about how to do things differently, how to approach things differently. Anytime you can offer a solution that you know consumers are buying inside your credit union, to give them a reason to do business with you, that's a smart thing to be thinking about.
Joshua Barclay: Again, I'm pretty frustrated by this because I hate the fact that I can't buy, sell, or trade within my banking portal. I hate that I've got to go to—well, it was TD before, now it's Charles Schwab—and then I have to move money from the bank over to Charles Schwab to buy. It's annoying, and it's not convenient.
So can you talk to me about what InvestiFI is doing to bring investing into credit unions, where the money can stay, and we don't have to do all this flimflam moving money around?
Kian Sarreshteh: Yeah. We spent the last few years doing all the heavy lifting to make this possible, both from a technical and legal standpoint. We started our company as CryptoFi, which some people may still know us as, back in 2021. We really had the same thesis then as it pertained to crypto. We noticed during the crypto bull run in 2021 that a lot of people were buying and selling crypto on popular third-party exchanges.
We continued to monitor the data—meaning the outflows we were seeing from the banking cores of credit unions—and we noticed how much money was going to third-party crypto exchanges compared to the TDs of the world, Schwabs of the world, etc. We wanted to provide the most value to credit unions by keeping deposits in-house. We actually saw that, depending on the credit union, about five to ten times more money was flowing out to platforms that offered stock trading than to just crypto trading.
So, we leveraged the same banking integrations we had already built over the last few years to rebrand from CryptoFi to InvestiFI. Since then, we've been successful in being able to spin up the same experience on the crypto side as we can now with stock trading, ETF trading, and other asset classes that are coming soon.
One perspective I hear is that offering another mechanism for members to invest in assets might take away deposits, meaning assets would go off the balance sheet. But when members are already doing this with third-party platforms, they sell those assets, and the money stays within the walls of Robinhood, Schwab, or TD Ameritrade. With our solution, credit unions benefit when those assets are sold, as the funds can be recouped while still using this as a marketing tool.
Joshua Barclay: Walk me through this. And James, if you have any questions—being a credit union CEO—step in. Walk me through this, because it sounds so good. If I could do everything within my credit union’s banking platform, I would. So, for the credit unions out there thinking, "This sounds good," what is the implementation time like? What are we looking at to get this moving within a credit union?
Kian Sarreshteh: About eight weeks. It’s very streamlined, in the sense that for most digital banking platforms, we already have five digital banking integrations built, with more coming next year. So, as long as we’re integrated with your digital banking platform and core—and oftentimes we are—it really just comes down to setting up preferences within the environment.
For example, deciding the trade limits, whether to charge any fees to the members, etc., and then walking through the training so that your staff knows how to manage the program. After that, you’re off and running.
James McBride: So, Kian, real quick, from a CEO perspective, we've been talking about transparency today. Do you have a list of cores that are already integrated, that someone could look at to see if they can get this off the ground in eight weeks? Is that available today?
Kian Sarreshteh: We do. It's on our website, InvestiFI.co. You can go there and see if we’re integrated with your core already. That way, implementation can definitely be streamlined.
James McBride: And if it’s not there—if my core isn’t listed on your website—what would be the process for a credit union to work with you to get it added to their core?
Kian Sarreshteh: First, just ask us if it’s an integration we already have planned. Right now, we’re actively planning integrations with three more core providers. If it’s not one of those, we’re always happy to prioritize building new integrations, because that’s part of our core value proposition.
Ultimately, we want to be integrated with as many cores as possible. We have a streamlined process of building these integrations, and 100% of our development team is based in the U.S. For the last three years, we’ve been building these integrations, and because of our radical transparency, our turnover—at least on the engineering team—is near zero. It’s the same team that’s been building these integrations for years, and we’d be happy to do so for any credit union we don’t currently support.
James McBride: And then, my last question—at least for now. You mentioned credit unions are concerned about deposits leaving the balance sheet and going off-book. There’s still a liquidity crunch in this country, specifically in the banking sector, so that would be a concern for more conservative or traditional-thinking credit union leadership teams.
How would you help them offset or think differently about this? Yes, this is happening, but what are the benefits they’re going to get on the balance sheet by offering something others aren’t?
Kian Sarreshteh: It’s really about measuring the deposits flowing out. At the start of the program, we’ll take the last 12 months’ average of how much is leaving on a monthly basis. We have a list of line items that we query—platforms like Robinhood, TD Ameritrade, Schwab, etc.—and we track those deposits over time.
This solution helps protect deposits and keep them in-house because many of your members, with whom you’ve built generational relationships, would rather trade through their credit union’s online banking platform than with a third-party they may not trust. That’s the key KPI we measure.
Another benefit is that it’s a great marketing tool. Robinhood grew from zero to 22 million users in seven years. While most credit unions aren’t going to grow to 22 million members, it’s still a proven tool to attract new membership.
Segment 4
Joshua Barclay: The 2023 Global Financial Services Reputation Report found that nearly a quarter of consumers are likely to switch their bank in the coming year. While this study focuses on banks, there was a 2023 Customer Loyalty Index that shows a 14 percent drop in loyalty across the U.S., with consumer loyalty falling from 79 percent in 2022 to 68 percent in 2023.
Now, with loyalty declining, growing share of wallet seems to be key. MasterCard Data & Services suggests that increasing share of wallet strengthens customer connections, boosts loyalty, and reduces churn. James, what strategies are you using to increase products per member?
James McBride: It's interesting. I've had a debate with people who’ve been on this show about this exact topic. For me, it’s really simple: it’s about connecting the products together, right? So, what Kian and I were talking about earlier—make it easy for members to want to do more business with you.
If you know you’re going to do deposits, loans, investments, and all these other things, make the products connect in a way that’s beneficial for your target audience. But the first thing you have to have is a target audience. One of the things credit unions struggle with all the time is wanting to be all things to all people, and that's just not likely to happen.
If you think of a primary financial institution as the only financial institution, you're probably going in the wrong direction. But if you think about having a target audience, knowing who you want to serve, and knowing what they’re looking for, then connect the products to make it more attractive.
That’s the key. I think that’s the secret sauce to going from one or two products per member to three or four, because it makes sense for them to do business with you. There’s something in it for the consumer to want to do more business with you. That’s what we’re doing here—we’re trying to connect our products in a meaningful way.
One of the things I’ve talked about is the quarter-point discount on a loan for automatic payment. Is that really that attractive, or is it like offering someone a baseball card in a pack of gum? What are we doing here?
Let’s give something valuable, something that’s going to be enticing to the member. One percent? I'll give you a one percent discount if you do more business with us, and that’s going to have an impact on your bottom line each month.
I’ll show you the savings you’ll have by doing more business with us. Things like that are critical, and that’s what we’re building right now.
Joshua Barclay: Kian, when I think about InvestiFI, I think it’s another product that can make a member stickier. That’s how I feel about it. Talk to me about that.
Do you feel that InvestiFI creates an opportunity for credit unions to increase share of wallet and have more product penetration?
Kian Sarreshteh: Yeah. If you look at product-per-user numbers with other fintechs that compete with credit unions—like Robinhood or SoFi—those are great examples of companies using that exact strategy.
Robinhood started as a self-directed investing platform and grew to 22 million users in seven years. Then they launched a checking account, then a high-yield savings account.
SoFi did the same—they used to be a lending company, and then they offered investing after that. Now, they also offer high-yield savings.
That’s a trend we’re going to continue seeing among fintechs. What we try to do at InvestiFI is give credit unions those same tools so they can increase share of wallet and get better engagement across their other products. That’s the main thesis here.
Our solution keeps deposits in-house, enabling credit unions to do more lending, generate more interest income, and do all the other things that keep members engaged within the credit union.
Joshua Barclay: Kian and I had a little back and forth online after our Greg Allant episode because Greg declared that the days of being a primary financial institution are dead. In your estimation, though, what have you seen that increases loyalty? Is it product penetration? Is it simply that Josh has five products now and he's more loyal? Is it that simple?
James McBride: No, I don’t think so. This is not an easy nut to crack, right? You have to start with: who are you serving? Going back to Robinhood and their 22 million users, they developed a base of people who wanted to do business with them because they were really good at what they did.
At the credit union, we need to get really good at something, then share that with our membership—this is what we’re going to do, and we’re going to do it really well. There will be people attracted to that, like a magnet.
Now that you've got them here, you can give them other products, little by little, to enhance their experience. It will make them feel like, “Oh, this is the place I want to do business.” That’s how you eventually become the go-to financial institution.
If you try to just drop a bunch of unintegrated, random products, you’re likely going to find more failure than success, and you’ll get frustrated wondering why people aren’t taking all these great products. They’re not connected, and there’s nothing enticing the consumer to take them. They’re just a pile of products out there for people to pick through like they’re at a salvage sale or something.
Joshua Barclay: I just heard a mic drop. I don’t know if anyone else heard that, but I think I just heard a mic drop. Kian, talk to me about success stories. You’ve obviously looked at the data. In terms of working with credit unions or financial institutions, is there a success story you can point to that suggests InvestiFI increases product penetration and, therefore, loyalty?
Kian Sarreshteh: I'll say it’s still early days for our stock trading solution, as we just launched that. Most of the data we have is from our crypto solution. You mentioned Greg earlier—he’s one of our clients at WeStreet. We’re excited about what WeStreet is doing with crypto, but it applies to other asset classes as well.
They put up billboards around Tulsa, where WeStreet is based, and they got multiple people coming in and signing up with the credit union just because they were offering crypto. Notably, one person walked in and deposited $100,000 to open a checking account they intended to use to buy crypto. That’s a great example of using this tool to drive new membership and increase deposits.
Closing
Joshua Barclay: That brings us to the end of the show. Kian, do you have any final thoughts based on our discussion today?
Kian Sarreshteh: The purpose of this show is growing your credit union, and I think there are meaningful takeaways from today’s discussion that you can put into practice. The transparency aspect is huge, especially when you’re adopting new products. Transparency across departments is crucial.
At InvestiFI, when we sell into a credit union, our product touches almost every department: finance, marketing, operations, customer service, the member experience team. Transparency across the organization helps drive the "why" behind adopting new products and integrating them to bring value to the credit union and its membership.
Joshua Barclay: How can people get ahold of you if they’re interested but not quite ready to jump on InvestiFI’s website? What’s the best way to contact you?
Kian Sarreshteh: You can reach out to me on LinkedIn. My name is a bit difficult to spell—Kian Sarreshteh—but I’m very active on LinkedIn. You can also email me at kian@investifi.co. I left my last name out of my email to make it easier to spell. I’d love to hear from anybody.
Joshua Barclay: James, final thoughts?
James McBride: When we talk about transparency, it applies both to the consumer and to the internal stakeholders. Start with your internal stakeholders—tell them the direction you’re going, why you’re going that direction, how they can contribute, and what it means to them. As a result, the consumer gets connected to unique products that are targeted to a specific audience.
As we’ve been discussing, that helps you grow your credit union. You find niche products and delivery methods to connect with an audience that might not otherwise know you exist. For example, being on a billboard and saying, “Hey, I want to drop $100,000 into an account because they’re offering something I don’t see elsewhere.”
That’s how you create niche spaces and opportunities for credit unions to connect with underserved audiences. Creating value for all stakeholders is so critical, and I’m glad we had a conversation about that today.
Joshua Barclay: James, for those people who think you were spitting hot fire on the microphone today and want to get in touch, how can they reach you?
James McBride: I’m active on LinkedIn. I post pretty much every day, Monday through Friday. You can also call me at CONNECTS Federal Credit Union, or email me at jmcbride@connectsfcu.org. I’m happy to have a conversation with anyone. I’ll help anybody who asks for help. Let’s go make our industry better together.
Joshua Barclay: I want to thank you, James. I want to thank you, Kian, and I want to thank InvestiFI. Remember to check out investifi.co—that’s I-N-V-E-S-T-I-F-I dot co. A special thanks to you, our listeners, for continuing to support and listen to Grow Your Credit Union. If you like the show, please follow us on your podcast player of choice and share this episode with someone who would benefit from listening.
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