Hey now, welcome to another edition of the Inside BS show. And today we have a real treat for you. I have a guest today who actually does what his title says he does because it's who he is.

My guest today is my friend, Mike Galvez, who's a relationship manager, which means he's a banker and he works in Orange County, California. And he is the perfect guy to have the title of relationship manager because he's the ultimate relationship guy. This guy, if you ever go to Orange County, California, knows everyone in Orange County, knows everything about Orange County.

He could be the mayor of Orange County if he wanted to be. So please join me in welcoming to the Inside BS show, Mike Galvez. Hey now, Mike, how are you today? Hey, Dave, it's great to see you.

I'm thrilled to be here. Thanks for having me on. I am, like I said, it's great to see you.

I'm happy. I always love talking to you. And now all of our friends are going to enjoy the conversation that we're going to have as well.

So I've known you for a few years now, and we had dinner about six months ago. And you told me that you've been a banker pretty much your entire career. How did you get into the relationship manager job? Maybe take us through what you did to start in banking and how you got to where you are today.

Yeah, you got it. So I started as a teller in 1995. I was working as a cook at night going through school, trying to figure out what I was going to do.

And I kind of got tired of burning myself. My sister was at a bank, and she said, you can make more money. And you don't have to, and you're relatively smart, she said.

So you can do it. And I did. So I was working as a teller during the day and a cook at night and going to school all my days off.

And just kind of fell into it. I was just following jobs at the bank, ended up working at a call center. And then I ended up being an assistant to a relationship manager in the private bank for a while.

And at the time, I graduated with a degree in psychology. And they said, when you graduate, you'll be able to be a social worker, and you will make $8 an hour. And at the time, I was probably making $12 an hour as an assistant to somebody like me.

And then they said, you can go to more school, and you'll make a little bit more money. And I didn't want to go to more school. And I saw these relationship managers were making a good living.

And I said, I think maybe I can do that, learn some credit. And that's what I did. So I changed my focus.

My degree is actually in psychology, because I like people. I like talking to people. And I figured, well, I guess that's a strength.

And so I just continued my education in psychology. I just switched the focus to leadership and management. You can get a degree now in organizational behavior.

But back then, it was just psychology. And so that's what I did. I graduated from Cal State Fullerton right here in Orange County.

And I was an assistant to somebody like me for seven years. And then finally got an opportunity to be a relationship manager in 2004. And it was hand in glove, perfect fit.

It was one year vice president, year two senior relationship manager. By year six, I was managing relationship managers. So I spent 20 years at Wells.

I went back into production in 2015. Spent four years at Bank of America. And I've been at what is now BMO for five years.

So I mean, relationship banking is pretty much all I've done since like 1997, if you count all the time I was an assistant. It's really all I know. So what does a relationship manager do? And how would we know if we're dealing with a relationship manager at a bank? Well, mainly the type of relationship management that I do is for businesses.

So I focus on companies that do more than $10 million in gross revenue. And there's a few different types of relationship managers. You might have like a private banker or a private wealth person.

And those people deal with individuals, right? So you've got a business relationship manager. And you've got a individual wealth manager. And our job is sort of to be like a mediator.

Kind of make sure that the bank understands what the customer wants. And the customer understands what the bank wants. Because if you're trying to borrow money, or if you're trying to bring money in and out of the account, pay people and get paid, sometimes you're not sure what it costs, how to do it, what the requirements are.

Clients often wonder why they have to provide reviewed financial statements or audited financial statements based on their credit approval. Or why or why not the bank won't loan them money. And so I have to explain that to the client, right? This is what the bank wants.

This is why we are asking for these financials quarterly or whatever. And I have to go back to the bank and say, well, the client doesn't want to pay this. Or can I negotiate a better fee if they bring over more money? Or if they've got more on deposit? So it's really like a mediator.

I'm an advocate for the client and for the bank. So everybody's happy. And you know you're dealing with somebody like that.

You should be dealing with somebody like that. Typically, the only time my clients call an 800 number is when they've locked themselves out of their online banking. I don't have access.

Like security issues. But they call me and say, hey, Mike, I have a question about this. You should really have a relationship with your bank.

Because if something happens, there's fraud or whatever. Then it's an emergency. And you can get caught up in an 800 number no matter the bank.

Yeah. So you're kind of like a guide, especially when you're at a big institution. You're the guide that can help them navigate who they should be connected with to solve a specific problem related to their financial situation.

Sure. Yeah. They might have questions about foreign exchange.

You know, I've got a new vendor that is in Indonesia or something. How do I pay them? They've got a new Filipino assistant or something. How can I pay that person? Or how does it work? Do I wire the money? How much does it cost to wire money? Is ACH better? What are the riskiest things? They've got checks.

There's a lot that people don't think about when it comes to banking. I mean, there's lockbox. Let's say you are a cell phone company, for example.

You're sending bills out to everybody. And then people send checks back to pay you. So those go to a lockbox.

You're dealing with a lot of cash. There's cash vault services that can go out to locations. Maybe you're a franchise of a fast food restaurant, right? You've got 50 franchises.

And all of those franchises have cash, right? So you've got to set up cash vault. And those are the things that we do. People don't really think about that.

They think about their bank when they want to buy a building. Sure, we do that. You want to buy equipment? Sure, we do that.

But yeah, just getting money in and out of the account. Getting the best interest rate on your money that's in the account. So walk us through a day in the life of Mike Galvez, the relationship manager.

Your day starts. Like the question that you said to me, hey, people ask me all the time, do I go into a branch? So you work from home. Do you work in an office? I'm assuming you don't go to a bank branch.

No, no. I meet clients sometimes at a bank branch. But I would say in my career that I've been doing this, I've maybe just 15, 20 times into a bank branch.

There are some regional banks where the people like me just sit right on the platform with the tellers and whatnot. That usually happens in a regional, smaller banks. A day in my life, it varies.

Just like you know, with our networking that we do. So today started at 7.15 with a networking group of 50 people in the room, right? And it's with my good friend Bill Torres, right? He leads a group here in Cerritos. And that's my home group for my provisors group.

Not the one that I lead, but the other one. And so that started. And then I came back to the office because today is Wednesday.

And I usually work from home on Mondays and Wednesdays and half day Fridays. And I go into the office on Tuesdays and Thursdays. So I mean, and that consists of following up with clients on loan covenants, right? Like, hey, I'm looking for your financials.

Following up with prospects about, hey, you know, I'd love to do that loan for you that we've sent you out a letter of interest on. Maybe I can take you to a Laker game or an Angel game. You know, let's do that.

It's a lot of babysitting clients. You know, maybe they're not doing well. And I have to talk with our credit associates about how the future is going to look for that client.

So it's a lot of emails. I sit here. This is my home office.

I sit here and I work on the computer. And I send and receive, you know, hundreds of emails a day. And I talk with my associate, my assistant, who is, they call her, at this bank, they call her a client delivery associate, which I like.

Because she's my right hand. You know, when it comes to operations, did this check clear? Can I get copies of statements from December for tax purposes? She does all of that. And then I just follow up with her and make sure it gets done.

It's a lot. But a lot of it is, you know, and typically almost every day, I have lunch with a client prospect or a COI, a center of influence, right? And then I encourage my team to do that too. And I do manage a team of two people.

So I'm not their direct manager. I like to, I asked my boss when I started because I've managed people, but I'm not a manager now. As a team lead, I said, well, what does that mean? How do I do that? And he said, well, it's sort of like, you're the cool uncle.

You know, you talk to them about, I know that's perfect for me. I can. Yeah, that is 100% perfect.

I can be the cool uncle, which means we can still maybe have a drink at lunch or whatever. But it doesn't mean that the cool uncle will help you along, but he's going to give you a nudge if you're doing the wrong thing too, right? So it's a perfect role for me. I help these people get better at what they do if they need it.

You know, and I like to meet people where they are. I'm not going to micromanage and make it too basic and try to get them to do things the way I do. I just encourage them.

And I say, I try to never say, well, when I, what I like to do is this. I'm not the be-all end-all. I like to say, well, I've seen successful bankers do X, right? And the biggest thing for me is to meet with people, three types of people, at least, or talk to three types of people every day.

A client, a prospect, or a COI, center of influence. Because those are the people that are the most important, you know? Because things get in the way. I could spend all day working on my computer, looking at and going through one deal.

But if I didn't, and so that would be for a client, right? But if I didn't talk to a prospect or a COI that day, I don't look at that as a successful day. So that's super important to me, to do those three things. How are you measured? How is your success measured at the bank? How do they know if, you know, Mike is killing it or if, you know, Mike is doing a good job? How do they know? So it's a scoreboard job.

This job is a, and it varies and it changes from year to year. Typically it's loans, deposits, and revenue, and new customers. That's kind of the basic of it.

Every bank does it differently, but that's what it rolls down to. Because you get fees on loans. You get fees for treasury management and the services that people use in their accounts.

So that's part of it, right? That's all revenue, right? So if I have a client that has a real estate loan on the books or equipment, that interest are spread on the cost of funds. That's revenue. So that's measured, right? And they might say, you need to bring in four new clients a year or eight new clients a year.

But it's mainly bringing in deposits and loans to the bank and relationships. So if I bring over an operating company, and that's usually what we focus on is operating companies. So that would be, ideally you want that entire relationship, right? Hence relationship manager.

You want their line of credit, their deposits, their real estate. And then maybe refer them over to a wealth partner for their individual wealth. So that would be a relationship.

So it's all based on those numbers that you put up. It's all measured. And each bank does it a little bit differently, but that's sort of the gist of it.

And that's where we're at today. I mean, I like to say it's a scoreboard job because I like to have my freedom. And I don't like to be in here punching the clock or whatever.

Because I mean, as you know, work and sales happen all the time. I've talked to a million people when I'm in Hawaii or Northern California or all over the country, wherever I'm traveling, because somebody has a need. Like if you called me and I was in the Philippines, I would probably get back to you because you might have something that you have a need.

You've got to meet your client's need. And if I don't get back to you right away, then you're going to go off to the next guy. So it's an interesting deal.

And I like to say it's a scoreboard job because you can look up at the scoreboard and say, I'm being successful or not. Yeah, no, I like that. Those kind of jobs too, having measurable outcomes that I'm responsible for, you know, because you and I are both competitive.

And when we have measurable outcomes, we know if we're winning or losing, which is great. Yeah, absolutely. So you are great in a social environment with people.

So I can imagine that a lot of your social interactions eventually turn to business or your social interactions. Those people will eventually call you for help because they think to themselves, well, listen, if I got to talk to somebody at the bank, I want to talk to somebody I like. Let me call Mike because having like, I wanted you on the show because I like having conversations with you.

And I think you have value to add for our audience. I think people probably feel that way about their banking. I like talking to Mike and I got to bank somewhere anyway.

Let me talk to somebody that I really like so that I enjoy the process of figuring out how they're going to screw me on this loan. So, you know, is it is is that the truth? Like, do you do you go to social things and all of a sudden somebody from a social event calls you and says, hey, you know, you happen to mention in passing this new this new product that you have. And I think we might have a use for that.

Can we talk about it? Does that ever happen to you? Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, ideally, that's what it is. A lot of times when I find out that people, friends of mine or whatever, bought a building or whatever and they did it with somebody else, I'm like, well, you know, that's what I do.

Right. Like what happened there? And but I get it. A lot of times people don't want to, you know, do that sort of business because it's real personal, right? When I'm doing a loan for somebody, I'm digging into their their personal finances as well as their business finances.

And some people don't really like to divulge a lot of that information. But it does turn to that. And I like to be a resource.

I had a manager one time that was never a sales guy. He was a credit guy. And he would tell me, he said, you're wasting your time at these networking events.

If they're calling you about this or that. And I said, you know, I'm not because I want to be the guy that they call to talk about banking. And whether or not I personally can do it, if I can provide them a solution and they think of me every time they think of banking, then I'm doing my job right.

And then I can help all my friends too. Right. Because if I'm helping my wealth partner or a guy at another bank, right, maybe maybe it's not an appetite for our bank, but I mean, I've been in banking for 30 years.

I talked to my buddy Eddie at another bank this morning, right after my networking meeting. And in my networking meeting this morning, another relationship manager at another bank, he's looking for work. I said, oh, well, we're hiring.

Here's, you know, it's all about banking. So that's why I say I'm the bearded banker. I don't say I'm the bearded BMO banker because I want them to remember that I work for a bank and that I know about banking, especially with commercial banking.

So that's, to me, it's all about that. And I want them to come to me for that. I want to be a resource.

And we want those calls from anybody about anything. I want to call when somebody's got a problem. I don't care if it's a personal problem or a business problem.

If, you know, if we know each other or somebody who's important to you has a problem, I want to get that call because the way, here's the way I think. The way I think is, geez, Galvez did me this big favor. I'm gonna, the next time I need something in banking, I'm gonna call him regardless of whether it's in his wheelhouse or not because I want to help him out because he went to the mat for me.

He did, you know, he went out of his way to try and help me. I can't tell you how many conversations my partner and I, Nicola and I have where, you know, we're a year and a half into a startup business. And we're making decisions on all sorts of things from who's gonna do our trademark work to who's gonna do our corporate transactional work to like we picked a local banker here and the decisions we're making based on who's gone out of their way for us, who do we want to work with long-term, who do we want our business to go to because they're a good person and they'll take care of our clients.

We make those decisions really thoughtfully and I gotta believe that we're not the only people who do that. So if you call me or somebody calls you for help with something, their kid gets picked up for a DUI and you connect them with a criminal defense attorney who you have drinks with twice a month or you play softball with, that's a huge favor for them. When they go to buy a building, they don't care what your rate is.

You're gonna get the loan because you're the guy for them. You are the guy they can count on. So they're just gonna call you and they're gonna, you know, if their partner says, who'd you give the loan to? I gave it to Mike and here's the reason I gave it to Mike.

I called him at two o'clock in the morning. He answered the phone and helped me out of a jam. Sure.

That's the guy we want to work with. So I think getting those calls for every little thing, it's like karma. If you don't get something back for that person, you're gonna get something out of the blue that's gonna hit you because you did something nice for somebody else.

Absolutely. I mean, it's about being there for people. You want to be competent, right? You can't just be the very likable guy that doesn't know anything, right? You have to follow through.

I think a lot of times what's funny to me is people will say clients, especially if I inherit a client, maybe somebody leaves the bank and they assign something to me and the clients will say, thank you for calling me back. And I'm like, well, you called me, right? I mean, but that's almost acceptable these days. And I don't know if it's a generational thing for them to not call back or not return an email in 24 hours or whatever.

Sometimes I have to go, okay, well, I just got that email. Let me wait a little bit. Let me wait 10 minutes before I respond.

But yeah, I mean, people are so appreciative when you just answer their question. And if you can answer it in a knowledgeable way and take accountability. What's funny is one of my first jobs was at Disneyland.

And like you talk about me being from Orange County, and I'm Orange County born and raised. I was raised in Yorba Linda, which is North Orange County. I'm just North of Anaheim.

You know, I'm a diehard Angel fan. But one of my first paycheck jobs out of high school was at Disneyland. And what I learned from them was that if you don't know, ask.

I was a cook at Disneyland. So I mean, I wasn't necessarily client or guest facing. But as you walk through the park, they said, if a guest comes and asks you something, find out.

Like if you don't know, find out, right? And that was kind of something that's been instilled in me. And that's the way I work. I mean, that started at 18 years old.

My two daughters, two of my three daughters work at In-N-Out. And so In-N-Out is a great organization. It's probably the best hamburgers in California.

And they're slowly spreading. I think they were in Nashville and Oregon and whatnot, but they haven't gone out to Florida just yet. But it's a similar culture, right? That they drive this, hey, let's be the best.

Let's, you know, have the quality and have the service that people come back to. And that's just, I mean, it's all of our industry should be like that. But, you know, in this day and age, it's not all.

So what's the most unusual request you've received that you can remember work-wise? I don't know. Your personal life is a different story. Work-wise, like I don't want to get into any of that.

Let's just talk about work. What's the most unusual request? That's a good question. I mean, typically people know what the banks can and can't do.

A lot of times when you get crazy requests, it's fraud, right? They say, oh, I'm starting up this business. You know, a lot of times it's startups. And, you know, with the cannabis industry growing, until that's federally regulated and federally legal, you're not going to be able to do it.

The one that comes to mind was a hydroponic shop, right? So, and at the time, I don't remember if marijuana was legal in California or it wasn't, but it was a hydroponic shop and they wanted to refinance their building. They had a low on the building, but it was at a very high rate because it was through a non-traditional lender. Traditional lenders can give you a better rate than a non-traditional lender.

It's usually, you know, three or 4% higher with like a hard money or a non-traditional lender. So a bank can get you a better deal. So this deal kept coming back to us.

And hydroponics are not necessarily weed related, right? Because you can grow, that was their thing. Oh, there's indoor tomatoes that are grown and there's indoor this and that. And it's like, yeah.

There's a whole vertical farming industry that uses hydroponics. But it's not popular in the US, but we actually have a company that we work with in Canada that has a vertical farm that uses hydroponics. Sure, and it's not necessarily not legit, but the thing we kept coming back to is like 95% of their deposits were in cash.

So all of their business was in cash. So it's like, oh, and it kept coming back to us, right? They kept, it would go to one guy and he, at the time I was a manager and he'd go to one of my bankers and then we'd go, you know what? It's just cash business. We're not gonna be able to do it because with the cash, you gotta verify where it's coming because of anti-money laundering laws.

And then he'd go to another banker and he'd come back and I was like, yeah, we just can't do it. So that, I mean, it's not that out of the ordinary. Also had a strip club that we did and the bank doesn't wanna, big banks don't wanna do that kind of stuff too because you get into anti-money laundering as well as like sex trafficking craziness.

And I was a manager at the time as well and the way it got through the door is the business development officer was having drinks with the regional manager and he okayed it. And so the next day it's on my desk and I go, we're not doing this. We ended up shutting it down because we couldn't verify all the cash that was coming in.

We couldn't verify ownership of this strip club and I was like, we don't wanna be involved in that kind of stuff because it's reputational risk for the bank. If anything goes happen, if anything happens, they're busted for sex trafficking or whatever. It's reputational risk for the bank.

So Mike, give us kind of the insider secrets to the best ways for a business owner to work with a banker, right? Because we don't, as business owners, we don't really take a lot of time and think deeply about what's the best way for me to connect with a banker? Do I need to get all my documents together before I go to meet the banker? The person that I'm sitting with, if I'm going for a loan, how much influence does that person have over the loan? Give us the inside scoop on that because our folks who are listening and watching, they probably have never sat down with a banker and said, what's the best way for me to get the best deal? Like, does the guy across from me have the ability to influence whether this goes through, whether I get a better deal? So give us the scoop. How does it work? You don't necessarily need to have all of your documentation. You really just need to know, hey, I'm a business owner.

It starts with the basics. I need accounts. How does that work, right? What are the fees related to those accounts, right? And typically you would take in the bank statements that you have or we can talk about the activity on the accounts.

That starts from there. And then if you're looking at credit requests, well, let me back up because the first thing to do is to meet with somebody and talk to them and say, this is what I want to do because a lot of business owners, they may have embedded the greatest widget of all time. And they're an engineer that worked on widgets and studied these widgets and learned how to make them at MIT.

But they don't necessarily know the accounting of it all, right? And they're not really focused on it. And they look at, oh, I've got money in the bank. So I must be doing fine.

But they may be losing money, right? Or not being as efficient. So it's good to meet with your bank. You should also have a good relationship with your CPA so that you can have timely financial statements, right? There's nothing worse than saying, oh, I want a loan, but my tax returns aren't done yet.

And it's October, right? So I mean, yes, you may have filed an extension. The extension is, as a banker, the extension is my biggest pet peeve. So I mean, and if I was a business owner, I'd be like, how am I making day-to-day decisions when I'm not looking at my year-end financial statements until September? I've got to be planning, looking ahead.

So you should be in lockstep with your CPA and your banker so that you can see what your profitability is, what your EBITDA is, what your cash flow is, so that can you repay debt? And most bankers, well, these days, they're not training bankers in credit. They're training them just to be sales guys, make calls. But the good guys that have been around are either credit trained or they can talk to your financials and kind of calculate the debt service and say, okay, well, here's where you're at.

And they'll be able to tell you. And those are the people that have influence to the higher-ups, right? I don't have a whole lot of power, but what I do have is an ability to talk with the clients and say, this is where you're at. This is why or why you don't fit into our credit box.

And then articulate that to our credit managers and say, hey, here's where they're at. They may not be right where we want them to be today, but can we start them maybe a little bit lower, right? Can we start them here or there? And it's something that you want to do early. You should meet with a banker right away.

You should have somebody that you can contact at the bank that is not going to just direct you to an 800 number, that has the resources to answer your question, help you to understand why and get you to the next level and take ownership of it, like we talked about before. I mean, it's really important for you to have timely financial and frequent discussions, maybe at least quarterly or every other month with your banker when you're running a business, just to say, hey, I'm thinking about expanding to this market or that market, or what does that entail? So if you're a business and you're below the level where you work, is it better to start a relationship first, put deposits in the bank, have your operating account at the bank, and then six months or a year later, go in, ask to meet with a banker and establish your line of credit? Is it better to have those relationships first or does it not matter anymore? It's not necessarily that important. I mean, you can have a relationship first.

You don't have to have the deposits with the bank and then establish a relationship. So I work with companies that do at least $10 million, but there are resources for startup companies and companies that are less than that, mom and pop companies that do $100,000 a year. There are small business bankers inside the branch, but if they know somebody like me, then I can say, hey, talk to my friend over at ABC branch, and then if there's any issues, call me as well, and then I can get involved.

It's good to know somebody at the bank. And you don't necessarily have to start the relationship and then go, but I mean, and typically you're not going to get a line of credit right away on a startup unless you have equity in your home. It's kind of a lot on you personally with a startup business.

But once you've been in business for about three years, then you can start looking for a line of credit. You can get, if you have good credit and you're even, you can get like $100,000 for your business like on a credit card pretty easily. If your credit score is over like 750, 740, you can usually get credit for your startup business.

It's like a credit card and that helps. It's a good thing. It's not necessarily like building credit like we would for our personal, because once you start getting the larger dollar amounts, a million dollars, 2 million, $5 million in lines of credit, they're looking for accounts receivable.

Those are secured by UCC filings and they're looking at your financials and cashflow and your reviewed financial statements. It's not a credit score. They're not necessarily gonna look at your credit history with your bank.

All right, let's shift gears and let's talk a little about a little networking strategy. Okay. So you do, you made the mention that you try to do at least one contact with a prospect, with a client and with the center of influence, right? Is that what you said? So do you plan that in advance or do you get into your office and you say, well, I know the client that I gotta call is this guy because I got a voicemail from him.

I gotta call him back. So that'll be my client. Center of influence, well, it's tax season.

So I'm not gonna call the accountants. I'm gonna call like, who do you set it up in advance? Do you decide in the office? What's your focus? What's your game plan? So typically I do a lot of networking through provisors. So I'm a group leader in provisors.

So I typically hit between eight to 10 provisors group meetings per month. And with that comes a lunch meeting or a happy hour or a baseball game or something out of that group meeting. So that kind of dictates my schedule right there, right? So you figure, I think I was sending out lunch dates to a COI earlier today and there was only three dates left in March that I'm available for lunch.

And it's March 5th, right? So I mean, I'm already scheduled in April. So that kind of works itself out. And it's more of a casual reflection on my day.

If I get to three o'clock and I haven't talked to one of those three, then I go, okay, who can I call? Have I followed up on this prospect or haven't I? But my networking is planned out in advance. I have my schedule out to April and I had a reminder that came up on my calendar today to schedule my May networking. And so that'll happen today in the next couple of days, right? Because I make that a priority.

And then I go out and I see things. I actually set up a lunch meeting with, I invited about 30 people to go have lunch with me on opening day of baseball because it's on March 27th. So it's gonna be Yankees Brewers that day.

And so I invited a bunch of people, hey, these are my friends and it's a couple of guys from my baseball team. Let's get together. So, and with the clients, that just happens.

I mean, I'm working on something constantly for clients, right? We have a lot of covenants. I manage about 30 to 40 clients and they've always got something going on. I'll get who knows how many emails from a client every day that says, this is what I need.

I'm adding a signer. What happened to here? This wire, we need to, it wasn't for the right amount or we need to recall a wire. There's always some sort of a service thing that goes on and I'll talk to my clients about that.

Today, the client interaction was, he had hit me up last week asking about if he needed to advance from his line of credit and I told him what to do and how to do it. And then he never did. So I followed up with him today and I also said, hey, let's go to a baseball game soon because he was in Texas.

So it's just, it's kind of casual. There's scheduled things and non-scheduled things that happen every day. So there are a good deal of Provisors members who listen, who watch.

So tell folks who are listening and watching how you leverage Provisors because Nicola and I have talked about this over and over again here on the show, how we do it. But I like your approach because everything in your area, with the exception of your meeting, is in person. Correct.

So you got to drive somewhere. You got to get up early. You got to drive somewhere.

And then you do your follow-up meetings, which we call Troikas. You do those in person, right? Yeah, most of them, yeah. Yeah.

So tell folks how do you pick, because Orange County also is a really well-developed Provisors market. And if you're not familiar with Provisors and you're just joining the show, Provisors is a national networking organization with over 10,500 members. They're in 22 cities around the United States, over 400 groups.

I happen to lead a group here in South Florida. Nicola leads a group of attorneys here in South Florida. Mike leads a group in Orange County.

And we all get together all over the country on Zoom and in person. So when I go to Chicago, I try to go to an in-person meeting. When I go to New York, I try to go to in-person meetings.

How do you plan the meetings that you go to? Because you have multiple choices on most days of the week, right? Yeah, yeah, usually. So there are 30-some groups in Orange County. There's about 900 members of Provisors in Orange County.

What I tend to do is I like the afternoon meetings. So unlike a lot of areas, Provisors has a lot of lunch meetings here in Orange County. So I typically just go to the ones of the people that I like.

The thing about Provisors in Orange County is we really take it to heart. The first part of Provisors is know, like, trust, refer, right? So we really focus on the like part. And we're coming to Provisors with our genuine, vulnerable selves.

We've also had some with COVID and we've lost a couple members. There's been a lot of stuff that have brought us to be really close. And we're friends.

And when my friend got me into Provisors, that was one of the things, it becomes part of your friend group, it becomes part of your social life. And I was resistant. I said, I don't really need that.

I have friends. I have a social life, right? I got, I'm full. I got friends.

I don't need these business jerks talking to me about whatever. And he was absolutely right. On Friday, I'm going to my friend Josh's house, who's a group leader.

We're going to play music together. And my wife's going to come by and it just becomes social. So I go to the groups that I like.

And support the people that I like. I try to hit them all. It's just, there's just too many.

There's a handful of groups of the 30 that I've never been to their home group meeting. And in the eight years that I've been in Provisors. And I need to go to them at least once.

But I do see them at other events. We try to do a lot of social events. And like I said before, I try to have lunch with a client prospect or COI every day.

So I'm usually hitting, if I have a free lunch or if a lunch cancels, I'll call up a friend and say, hey are you, are you, from Provisors, a business professional, say are you available for lunch today? So it's, with networking, it's a very conscious effort to go to as many activities include, like so tonight I have a happy hour. So when you and I are done, I'm going to go visit my mother. Then I'm going to go to a happy hour with Provisors people, with our distributors and manufacturers affinity group.

And I'll see a bunch of other Provisors there. And then it's basically the same thing tomorrow. I don't, I think I have, and then Friday there's a networking meeting.

And then I'll be at my friend Josh's house. And there'll be other Provisors people that are friends that are there. You know, it does become a huge part.

And it's funny, another group leader friend of mine, Sarah Nahidi, she mentioned to me, she pointed out to me that I have a fear of missing out. And I didn't realize I had that. She says, you have FOMO.

And I said, you're missing out. She says, yeah, you want to do everything. And because I do, and I see people will post things on LinkedIn or Instagram.

And I'm like, hey, that looked like fun. Why didn't you invite me? And they'll be like, you dummy, we did invite you. You were busy that night.

And even if I am busy, I'm like, oh man, I missed out on that. I want to be at all the things. I want to be with everyone and have fun.

My wife, she just shakes her head at me because she knows how I am. So I have this thing, my family tells me that I have like two personalities. So there's Fun Dave, who hangs out with everybody from Provisors and has a great time.

And when they meet everybody from Provisors, they're like, oh, your dad or your husband, he's so fun. And like, my daughter makes this face. She's like, him, my dad? And then there's Home Dave, who is constantly on them.

Pick up your socks. Don't leave your cleats in the living room. You know, get the dog off the couch.

That's not Fun Dave, right? And all of my friends, almost all of them now, with the exception of people that like my wife and I knew before we moved to Florida, all of my friends are in Provisor. But the difference is like when I go to Chicago and I send an email, like I have an email list of everybody in Chicago. I'll just send an email and I'll say, I'm gonna be in Chicago for these dates, you know, drinks, lunch, anybody wanna get together? First round's on me.

People will say, I'm available at eight. I'll meet you at this place. I'm available at noon.

I'll meet you at this place. And then somebody will say, I can do that too. And the next thing I know, I'm hanging out with 15 people.

And Mike, work comes from that. That's absolutely right. Because we sit around and they're like, what are you in town for? And I tell them and they're like, I didn't know you did that.

I got somebody who can do that. And then I say to them, what are you working on? And I'll say, wow, I didn't know that that was something that you'd be interested in. I can connect you with somebody who's in that space.

It's just, and it's so much better. Like exactly how we started this conversation. It's so much better to work with and to connect with people who you actually like to be around.

You start to look for a way to do business with them. Absolutely, and that's why we're talking today because we connected at the group leader summit. It's funny because my neighbors, they don't really understand.

So I live in a great neighborhood in North Orange County in Placentia, the city of Placentia, which nobody's ever heard of. But I'm just north of Anaheim. But my neighbor across the street works at Disneyland.

And then there's like five cops that we hang out. And we're basically like king of the hill. We stand out front, whoever's working on something and we have a beer and talk to people, just hang out.

And they have no idea what it is I do because all they hear about is I'm at this lunch. I'm at this happy hour. I'm at this meeting.

I'm going to the game with so-and-so. And they don't understand that that's how I get business, right? And so when the car's parked here, they kind of think I'm just sitting in here, you know, making appointments. But yeah, I mean, and it does seem like a lot of fun.

You know, I do think about, you know, what happens if I retire? Because I'm going to miss all my provisor's friends and meetings and stuff, dude. That's the fun part of my job. So I will tell you a God's honest true story.

So I had breakfast last week with Carrie Young, who's the actual provisor's employee. She's a regional director for Chicago. And she and I share, we both work for Marriott.

She worked for Marriott for 25 years. I worked for Marriott for half of that time. And so we had that in common.

And, you know, I'm a member in Chicago. I go to Chicago all the time. So I try to see her every time I go in because I also send candidates.

I have clients there. So I send her candidates. And she was telling me that there are two guys who were, one was a group leader and the other was like a hardcore, he hosted the meetings at his office and he was a hardcore networker.

He was an ethics, he's still an ethics attorney, but he's retiring. And both of these guys are retiring. They asked her if they could create an emeritus group, which doesn't meet in the mornings and just has social events.

They were like, we don't know what to do. We want to still, they're like, we want to still be, so Provisors has a website called The Hub where you go and look up the meetings. And they said, we want to be able to have access to The Hub and we want to be able to drop into meetings from time to time.

I don't know, I don't know what I would do. You know, you create these friendships and these are my good friends. Bill Torres, who got me into Provisor has become one of my closest friends.

And it was his meeting this morning, we talk all the time. We met playing baseball and then that's how he got me into Provisor. It took him a while to talk me into it, but these are my closest friends.

And it's really wild the way it works out. And yeah, my neighbors have no idea. I don't think my wife gets sometimes jealous of the time that I spend.

And you know, Mike, what's funny is I'm a very, very social person. And we were at a, Chris wanted, there was two holiday parties for Provisors. There was one guy, Matt Stein, another great group leader at his holiday party.

And then we had to go to another holiday party for one of the members, Kim Estrada. And I wanted to do both. And in order to get to the other one on time, we had to leave without an Irish goodbye, right? You don't say goodbye.

By the way, that is my 100% technique because I would be saying my wife. So, and I'm not stereotyping. It's just a thing.

My wife is Latin and she insists that we say goodbye to everyone in the building every time we leave. By the way, if you're going to get ice, you say goodbye to everyone. You go get ice and you come back.

So my thing is I have to say goodbye to everybody. And I'm so terrible at this. My wife can just, she can just leave.

And so we left and I said goodbye to the host and that was it. And on the way, in the Uber, on the way to the other thing, I'm texting everybody. So sorry, I didn't get a chance to say goodbye.

I mean, it's literally the one time I've ever done that. Leave without saying goodbye. And I was having anxiety over it.

I'm texting, I must've sent 20 texts. So sorry, I didn't say goodbye. I'll see, I have this other event.

But it's just a social thing. And I think my wife gets jealous because she's not as social as I am. I take a lot of the social weight off of her because it's me shaking hands and kissing babies the whole time.

Well, and it also really fuels you. You get energy from it. You really like it.

So who are the centers of influence that are good for your business? I mean, I know you connect with everybody, but if you were to pick, I'm sure accountants are great for you. Who else are really good for you? CPAs are usually the best because they really get into the weeds of their clients. The next best and right hand in hand with those are like fractional CFOs.

Fractional CFOs are like operations guys, people that are really helping, getting into the weeds of the business, looking at an income statement and seeing how they can improve it. Let's see, what else? CPAs, fractional CFOs, and kind of like corporate attorneys, outside general counsel, because they get involved with a lot of the ownership of it. I think those are the top three.

I really like fractional CFOs because they really get into the weeds and they're really trying to improve business and really trying to affect that bottom line. Because I mean, really the top people that I talk to at a client is the CFO. So when you have a fractional CFO that's got five companies that he works for, all right, well, I wanna bank all five of those companies.

Why am I not banking all five of those companies? You know? For sure. Yeah. For sure.

There's a lot of quality people around here and CPAs are usually really sharp and we speak the same language. You know, when you're talking about EBITDA and leverage ratios and things like that, it's the same language. So yeah, it's good for me.

All right, tell me about the angels now. So you're probably a bigger, you're as big a baseball fan as I am, but you do more active baseball activities than I. Like my baseball activities consist of how many stadiums can we hit this summer? You actually play. Yeah.

So tell us how you got, so you're probably an angels fan, like I'm a Yankees and a Jets fan. I was just born into it. Yeah.

And you live and die with that. I live and die. It's terrible.

I'm not, I don't get that grouchy because otherwise I'd be just angry all the time because we're terrible. They're the worst ownership in baseball. It's funny because right next to my, so this is my living room.

Right next to me is my fireplace and above the fireplace is the television. The angels are playing the Dodgers right now. I turned off the sound for you, but it's late, it's spring, you know, Mike Trout hit a home run today.

So baseball, I came to baseball late in life. I grew up a football guy. I grew up a Rams fan.

They left in 94, which was, you know, that was in my early adulthood when that happened. And then what had happened was I had three daughters and my oldest daughter started playing softball and I had the time to help out. And because I was helping out, I started doing a little bit of research and I was always an angels fan, just kind of casual.

You know, even in 02 when they won the World Series, I was like, all right, our team won, but I didn't go to any games. I had maybe been to a couple of games. It's more of a social thing for me.

But once I started coaching my daughters and really studying the game to be a better coach so that they could be better, I just fell in love with baseball. And about eight years into that, I started playing baseball. A friend of mine was on a team and I was 39 years old and he said, we're gonna play baseball because I wanted to play.

And I said, I haven't done this for 26 years. He's like, you'll be fine. And then I was.

It really helped me as a coach. It helped me because I, you know, you get on the girls when they make an error. Oh, come on, why didn't you? Instead of saying, why didn't you? You know, you gotta be better.

It was more like, okay, what were you thinking when that happened? Because I had made errors. I've taken it off the nose when I shoot on an easy grounder. You know, I've done silly stuff, thrown the ball away.

But I just love it. So I play about, I play baseball. I wish I could play every weekend.

I'm hoping to play Saturday and Sunday this weekend. Oh, wow. But it might just be Sunday because it's rainy here.

But yeah, I love it. And that's how I met Bill Torres. He's a CPA.

He was on, we were just in the dugout. I knew him for like four years before we talked about business. And the thing about baseball is I encourage people to have hobbies, right? If you like to play golf, great.

If you like to play pickleball, great. If you like to play hockey, whatever it is. Adult sports, they're good for the soul because it's an escape.

You're not talking to your boss. You're not talking to your wife. I get the same feeling that I got riding my bike with my bat and glove over my shoulder when I'm in my car driving to the game.

And when I'm in baseball, all I'm thinking about is getting a hit, making that play, playing a game. And it's meaningless. It doesn't mean anything.

So I absolutely love it. And I usually hit about, so I get to play probably around 20 to 30 games a year. That's a lot.

Yeah, I mean, and I play outfield, first base, second base, and catcher. I caught eight innings on Saturday of last week. Oh my God, your knees must be killing you.

No, it's more my thighs. My knees thankfully are good because I didn't do anything until I was 39, but my knees are all right. It's the thighs that get me.

I'm like, I barely walk. And I'll probably catch on Sunday when I play this week, or at least I hope to. And then I usually attend somewhere between 15 and 20 Angels games and Dodger games and Padre games because that's the great thing about Southern California.

Yeah, and you're in the middle. You can get down to San Diego, yeah. I can get down to San Diego.

I went to three games with Dave Oates. You know Dave, another great provisors group leader. And then I'll go to Dodger Stadium.

In fact, I went to game one of the world. I hosted a client at game one of the world. I remember, I remember.

I saw you after that. Oh my, that's right. We did see each other after.

Unfortunately, I saw you after that. So yeah, that was wild because the best thing... So I cheer for the home team. You know, I think if I were to go to any stadium except for maybe Boston and the other team was not playing the Angels, I would root for the home team.

So when the Dodgers are playing, I'll root for the Dodgers. One of my baseball leagues is the Dodgers league. So I have home and away, Dodger blue.

It's really weird. And then, and I have, you know, with my name on it and whatnot. But my main baseball team is the Angels.

I mean, the one that I play on and the one that I cheer for. But yeah, I mean, so to cheer... The best thing about hosting a client at the World Series was not only did I not have to pay for the ticket, or a beer, I could expense the mileage. Oh, that's great.

That's terrific. So from Orange County, how long does it take you to get to Chavez Ravine? And how long does it take you to get to San Diego? To San Diego, it's about an hour and a half. To Chavez Ravine, depending on the time, it's between 40 minutes and an hour.

So you really are right in the middle. That's great. Where I live is fantastic.

I can get to Newport Beach and all of that in a half hour. My office is right by John Wayne Airport, 25 minutes away from that. My dog is going nuts.

No, that's great. I got two in here with me. So I feel like everything in Orange County is somewhere within 20 minutes or 15 minutes of John Wayne Airport.

It really is. It's a great place to live. It's a great place to raise my family.

And I just got lucky. My parents... My dad was born in Arizona. My mom was born in L.A. And they met in L.A. and then moved out here when it was growing.

Yorba Linda is the birthplace of Richard Nixon. So we got the Nixon Library that was built in my adulthood. I remember when Letterman mentioned the Nixon Library when I was a kid.

I was like, hey, where did... Because I would say, yeah, I'm from Yorba Linda. And people said, what is Yorba Linda? Yeah, it's just a city. So yeah.

But no, I'm ingrained here. Like I said, I love Orange County. I do feel like the mayor of Orange County.

I love to tell people about the great restaurants and bars and fun things to do and great beach spots and little known this or that. We're kind of foodies. My wife and I, we like to go to little non-chain restaurants and good food.

Oh, that's great. That's awesome. So I will tell a great Galvez Orange County story.

So when I first met you, I met you on a trip just to meet ProVisors people. And we sat next to each other at dinner and we hit it off. We talked about baseball.

We talked about dominoes. We talked about a lot of stuff. And I'm like, this guy is great.

I got to figure out a way to stay connected to him. And then I come back and Nicola, who's now my business partner, had literally just joined ProVisors. She was in ProVisors maybe four or five weeks and she was doing legal work.

And one of her clients had an issue in Orange County and they needed a realtor. Yeah. They had a property they had to sell.

And she said, and she was, you know, she was into ProVisors, but she didn't know the real impact that ProVisors can have. Right. So we're talking and she's like, because I got to go find a realtor in Orange County, California.

I'm like, what do you mean? She's like, well, I got this client who has an issue. He's got to sell some property and it's in Orange County. I'm like, oh, I got a guy.

She's like, you got a guy? She's like, how do you have a, I'm like, I got a guy in Orange County. I swear to God, I have the best guy in Orange County. He's got to know 20 realtors.

He's a banker. Let me connect you. And I connected you guys and you hooked her up with a realtor.

A client was thrilled and she was like, this ProVisors, this is really something. And I'm like, yes, it really is. But the thing is, if I hadn't like connected with you and met you that we wouldn't, we would have been, we would have found somebody, but we would have found somebody by like scrolling through a directory and calling around.

That's what's great. I know I have you on the East Coast, right? And you're so well connected in New York and Chicago. And I know people in Chicago too.

But, but, I mean, I know that you, I don't know anybody. I know one person maybe in New York. Yeah.

Yeah. And that's, you know, and for me, that's, I, that's one of the things that really makes, that fires me up is when I connect somebody with somebody else and they solve a problem and they're like, you know, you're a great guy. I would love to connect with you the next time you come out here because you, you're the person I know who can solve problems for me by connecting me with people all over the place.

And that's why when I first joined Provisor, sure, I wanted to get work from it, but I wanted resources because people who call me if they're not clients, if I help them out of a big jam, just by connecting them with someone, with a banker, with an attorney, with somebody who can fix a problem for them, all of a sudden they're starting to ask me, well, how can we work together? Because if you did this for me and I'm not paying you, I can only imagine what you would do if I pay you. Like that's, it's not too hard to go from A to B when you're, when you think like that. So I tell, I tell the people who watch and listen all the time that the book by Adam Grant, Give and Take, is a fantastic book.

And that's the, that's what I model my networking after. I focus on being a, being a giver as defined by Adam Grant in that book. I want to help as many people as I can.

So Mike, if somebody has any type of need in Southern California or specifically in Orange County, how can they get ahold of you? Oh, you can go to my LinkedIn website, my LinkedIn page. My contact information is there. Or you can, yeah, that's probably the best way because it goes right to me.

You can send me a message there. My email is on there. My, I think my phone number is on there.

So yeah, I'm happy to help. I mean, I really only have one phone and it goes right here. So I'm trying to, I'm not trying to hide, you know, my home address is on there, but I'm sure if they really wanted to, they could come and get me.

Well, you'd be out front drinking beers with the cops on your block. I feel pretty safe, though, right? You know, it's a safe neighborhood. I actually have three cops on my block as well.

They're the best neighbors because they're around all the time. And if there's like a suspicious car, you know, we get the group text. Hey, do you get, anybody know this guy? He's been, and they're, it's, it's really funny.

They're all local cops and that's great. And then I got, then I got the dog. The dog's name is Vladimir.

Of course, Vladdy, after the only Hall of Famer. I'm diehard. I got my baseball cufflinks.

I'm out of control. I thought you were going to tell me his name was Trout. Come on.

His middle name is Nelson, which is Mike Trout's middle name. So it's Vladimir Nelson Galvez. Yeah, now I, now I, now I feel better.

All right, great. If you want to get ahold of Mike Galvez, we're going to put his LinkedIn URL down in the show notes. I'll also drop his phone number in there.

And I'm going to put Orange County banker as well. So that when you think about this show a year from now, and somebody says, I need something in Orange County. You're going to go.

I listened to an inside BS show. I'm putting Orange County banker. So you can just look it up when you go into Apple podcast to search.

If you search the inside BS show, he's the only Orange County banker we've ever had. You will be able to find him right away. I promise you, if you've got an issue in Orange County, Mike can help you out.

Mike, it's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you so much for having me.

It means a lot. I really enjoy spending time with you. You know, I know that if we live closer, we'd be hanging out a lot more.

I'd be, I'd be over your house. I'd be going to Josh's to hang out and listen to you guys play music. I love it.

I love it. Alrighty, folks, that'll do it for another episode of the inside BS show. We'll be back here again tomorrow at 6am for another show.

My name is Dave Lorenzo. I'm the godfather of growth. Join us here every day.

Join us on Wednesdays for another interview. Until then, I hope you make a great living and live a great life.