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Giving back through volunteerism and mentorship is altruistic. It’s also selfish because you get so much of the feels out of it! We caught Theodis Watson to talk about his mentorship, volunteerism, community development, and financial literacy. Plus, some very timely advice on using AI to create unoriginal content on your website.
Transcript:
Jeff Randolph:
Welcome to the Small Business Miracles podcast. I’m Jeff Randolph. This Small Business Podcast is brought to you by EAG Advertising and Marketing. We’re going to talk about marketing, and we’re also here to celebrate entrepreneurs. We have marketing news and advice that business owners can use to keep moving forward. This week we sit down with Theodis Watson. He’s the director of Community Development for Cross First Bank. But first, we’ve got another small business marketing tip to talk about.
This week we have just as much news as we have tip, and that’s about AI-generated content. I mean, you knew it couldn’t last, right? You can’t just have AI crank out all your blog posts. Yes, it does a great job pulling from the content that exists on the internet right now, it saves you a ton of time, it’s smart, it’s good, but AI can only be as good as the garbage you put into it. Google knows what you want. You want original thought. Because of that, you’re going to see core algorithm updates from Google, and you’re going to see some new and improved spam policies. I expect the combination is going to reduce that low-quality, unoriginal content and the search results by about 40%. And that’s what a lot of AI-generated content is, unoriginal content that pulls from a bunch of existing information you can already find out there. So what do you do? It’s the same thing we’ve been telling you to do.
Sure, let AI help you generate some concepts and thoughts, even a first draft, but a human with a brain and a perspective and a little bit of expertise needs to be involved in the process. Take your own thoughts and put them in there. At the end of the day, Google always wants to provide the best content and the best answers to users. Don’t mess with that. Focus on what you want to read and watch on your website and keep moving forward with that. Work smart, but think long-term quality. All right, welcome back to the show. We are here with Theodis Watson. He’s the director of community development at Cross First Bank and the national President of the Urban Financial Services Coalition. Theodis, welcome to the show.
Theodis Watson:
Hey, thank you. Happy to be here.
Jeff Randolph:
Excellent. Well, we met at the greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce Small Business Superstars event, and when we talked, you wanted to make sure we could talk about community impact on the podcast, which is something that Cross First focuses on. Talk about what that means and why small businesses and nonprofits need to pay attention to that.
Theodis Watson:
Yeah, absolutely. First, I just want to say thank you for allowing me to be here.
Jeff Randolph:
Oh yeah.
Theodis Watson:
And secondly, just a disclaimer, these thoughts are on Theodis Watson, not on behalf of Cross First Bank.
Jeff Randolph:
Important.
Theodis Watson:
I love what I do. But yeah, so Cross First Bank, just a little bit, local bank based in Leewood, Kansas. We’ll be celebrating 17 years this year. We’re about nine markets. But my as director of community development is kind of a three-pronged approach. And so it’s one, creating products and services for organizations to target small to medium-sized businesses. For example, we have a small business pro suite product where we target businesses with a million dollars and less of gross annual revenues, how to get them access to capital, resources to be successful. Secondly, I educate the community and even our clients about the many services or programs that are available here in Kansas City. We have several small business resources here, and just really trying to get them engaged into those programs that allow them to, again, be successful and build relationships. And then lastly, just identifying community organizations that are making an impact or that are serving a purpose and how are we able to partner with them and make impact, build impact to supporting their causes in their initiative.
So it’s a great opportunity and we’re leaning into that and we know there’s significant opportunities out there, but there’s also a significant amount of need out there, and so that’s what I’m here to do.
Jeff Randolph:
Well, thanks for being here to do exactly that.
Theodis Watson:
Absolutely.
Jeff Randolph:
I should mention when we met at that Kansas City Chamber of Commerce event, we talked about the need and community impact, and it wasn’t until you handed over a business card that we were like, “Oh, Cross First Bank, we do have a…” Full disclosure, “We do have a relationship with a certain bank.”
Theodis Watson:
Yeah, let’s talk about it.
Jeff Randolph:
Out there. So full disclosure there, but…
Theodis Watson:
Excellent.
Jeff Randolph:
It really is you that we wanted to talk to. You’re the incoming national President for the Urban Financial Services Coalition, which is a nonprofit made up of minority professionals in the financial services industry. The goal of the organization is to provide services to assist minority youth pursuing careers in financial services. Talk about that organization and the why behind it as the national president now.
Theodis Watson:
Oh yeah. It’s a great opportunity. It’s a great honor to be able to serve the community, the financial service industry. Urban Financial Services Coalition, honestly, we’re very excited that we’re celebrating 50 years here in Kansas City, April 11th and 12th at the Federal Reserve Bank. All of the banking systems have been really great partners of ours in addition to others. But we are excited to celebrate this milestone. It’s a great opportunity to support an organization and to be representative of an organization that is a minority organization and more specifically built for black financial service professionals and who mentored, nurtured, sponsored, and supported many minority professionals in this industry. So it’s a great opportunity. And basically we have three pillars, which is economic development, which are economic development, educational advancement, and professional development.
And so how do we do that is various by many opportunities with Toastmaster programs, we offer mentorship programs, scholarship opportunities for traditional and non-traditional students entering in either the business or financial related degrees. Mark One program is one of our capstone programs where we focus on high school and early college students for that next level of development as they are developing for their careers. We also do a view from the top series where we have senior leaders who come in and talk about whatever their expertise are and be able to provide us insight to what’s happening in the industry. We also provide financial education. We encourage several of our chapters. We have about eight chapters across the country, and we encourage them to do financial education courses and professional development within their own respective cities. And then lastly, a big program that we are very excited started off in 2022 that came out of the pandemic was how do we lead the engagement, lead the charge with an inclusive culture competency experience. It’s a mouthful.
Jeff Randolph:
Yeah.
Theodis Watson:
I’ll just say ICCE for short. But basically it’s identifying biases within the financial service industry and how we engage internally within our industry and externally with our communities to be better partners. And so it’s been very enlightening, it’s just a great experience, it’s a great… I say a great experience, not a training program. Those are just a few ways of how we are able to engage, how we are able to build community, how we are able to build future leaders in the industry within our organization and their current organizations who they currently represent. And so it’s just a great opportunity, great cause. And so ultimately the goal is to, like you said, build intentionality with targeting the youth to get into the financial service industry, but also see more senior leaders of color, women in the C-suite positions in the financial service industry, and how do we do that is by developing our own.
Jeff Randolph:
Man, that organization seems like you do a billion things, and all of them are pretty comprehensive start to finish. I was excited to hear something like Toastmasters as part of that, where being able to go out and speak to people is half the battle. That’s a great organization.
Theodis Watson:
And what I learned through Toastmasters and specifically, yes, it is about how to engage and how to think from the fly and be able to present, but it also teaches you how to project manage and how to build your own team because there’s different responsibilities you have to do if you have to manage or be the Toastmaster of the day. And so there’s a lot of other skillsets that come along with it. But it’s a great program. I was intimidated going into it at first. But no, it’s helped me tremendously.
Jeff Randolph:
Oh, outstanding. Community development is part of your title, and in doing that, we know that you’re out there talking to a whole lot of different organizations. As you’re talking to small businesses, small business owners out there in the community, what are the biggest needs that you’re hearing?
Theodis Watson:
Yes. What I hear is everyone is looking for access to capital. How do I get access to cash? How can I grow my business? But what I feel, and this is, again, my disclaimer, this is Theo’s thoughts, not Cross First Bank’s, but what I feel the biggest need is individuals being more intentional with regarding education, educating business owners, what they need, how to get access to capital, how to build their team, how do they also build relationships with their teams. So insurance agents, attorneys, bankers, we can go on and on about your accountants. So those are people who should be within your team helping you be successful. And then lastly, just thought leadership from individuals who want to see individuals win, businesses win, like marketing, doing podcasts and just understanding and listening to how you can better your business, better your program, how you can market better, whatever that is, how do we engage them and connect them with people who can help them do that better?
Access to capital is great, but it’s one thing giving a person money and they have no path or roadmap of how to utilize that, but giving them the education, giving them the resources, and then giving them the money, I’d say that’s probably the biggest need I’m understanding and learning as I’m out here connected with the business community.
Jeff Randolph:
Yeah, it’s the connection of who you know and making sure that you’re surrounding yourself with that trusted group of advisors who can help you get where you need to go.
Theodis Watson:
Absolutely.
Jeff Randolph:
All tremendously important. Theodis Watson, I think you’re ready to enter the lightning round. Are you ready to do this?
Theodis Watson:
Let’s do it.
Jeff Randolph:
Okay. As you know, this strikes fear into the hearts of mortals.
Theodis Watson:
I love it.
Jeff Randolph:
Now, you have no way to know what kind of things I might ask. No topics in general. And I’ll start it out this way. I’ll say that banking is the career, for sure, but I stare at your LinkedIn profile and you’ve got at least 17 volunteer slots on your LinkedIn profile, six are probably active, but that’s six active things that you’re doing. What does giving back through volunteerism and mentorship mean to you?
Theodis Watson:
Oh, man, that’s a great question. Honestly, it’s just really seeing people win and creating impact. One of the things I’ve learned and talked to one of my mentors a couple of weeks back was, I’ve grown exponentially from giving back, either from new jobs, new careers, new opportunities internally, spiritually, and just things that just keeps me going. So I would say what that means is it’s finding me a purpose. I found a purpose, so that’s what gets me going every morning, every day, knowing that I’m able to create an impact for someone, which ultimately turns back to making me feel a lot better about myself and what I’m doing. So leaving a legacy is very important to me. And so, yeah, just being able to give back, share resources, share my experiences is what keeps me engaged and want to continue to do more.
Jeff Randolph:
So there’s the one side of that is, I’ve gotten here, I feel like I need to give back, I feel like that’s something I can do, but the selfish part of it is something that I don’t know that we focus on as much, and that is, you get something out of it.
Theodis Watson:
Absolutely.
Jeff Randolph:
You get utility out of that, you get the feels out of that.
Theodis Watson:
Absolutely.
Jeff Randolph:
You are energized to go do more things because of that. You feel good.
Theodis Watson:
And just some of the relationships I’ve built. I mean, I literally can call Esther George, the old federal Reserve bank president, and say, “Hello, how you doing? Hey, I’m thinking about this thing. What do you think?” And she will pick up my call or have a conversation with me, go to lunch. There’s no way I would have those opportunities if I didn’t give back, if I wasn’t involved in community support. And there’s countless other names that I can name of people who are established and said, “Yeah, Theo, I’ll pick up the call,” Just for the simple fact of me being involved and engaged and we’ve connected through this community work.
Jeff Randolph:
And not all of us can name drop federal Reserve chairs.
Theodis Watson:
I’m on it. I can keep going.
Jeff Randolph:
That’s alright. Let’s talk about food for a second. Do you have a desert island food, something that you could eat every day for the rest of your life and not get tired of it?
Theodis Watson:
Oh, Mexican food. I could eat tacos, taco salad, anything. Yeah.
Jeff Randolph:
Here’s my difficulty with Mexican food because I suffer from the same thing, I could do that every single day, is that I also want a margarita or two at the same time.
Theodis Watson:
See, I knew it was about 10 o’clock in the morning, I didn’t want to bring that up, but absolutely.
Jeff Randolph:
I’m there for it. I’m absolutely there for it. If we give you the power to change the world by changing the way that people think or act or some other big change in the world, how would you change the world to make it a better place?
Theodis Watson:
Wow, that is a great question.
Jeff Randolph:
You don’t have to have it all solved.
Theodis Watson:
I don’t have to have it solved.
Jeff Randolph:
You don’t have to have a solve for it. But what needs to change that would be a much better place to be?
Theodis Watson:
I would just say giving people the power to think beyond their current capabilities. If I had a power to be able to tell people that things will be okay, you can solve problems if you get the right resources, if you find the right people. I think the power of thought, the power of thinking, the power of possibility, if I had the opportunity to engage and give people that, that will be my superpower, my one way of being able to change the world.
Jeff Randolph:
But when you were volunteering, when you’re mentoring, when you’re giving back to the community, I think you’re doing exactly that. We just need to scale it to the rest of the world from here.
Theodis Watson:
Hey, let’s do it.
Jeff Randolph:
How do you celebrate a big win? Let’s say that you’ve accomplished something, you tick something off a bucket list or just a big to-do list item. What are you going to do to celebrate?
Theodis Watson:
Oh, man, you said margaritas, right?
Jeff Randolph:
I did say margaritas.
Theodis Watson:
That’s one way for sure. But you know what? Just celebrating is looking forward to the next one, next opportunity, next win. That’s what keeps me motivated, keeps me going. I was just listening to a podcast today where they were saying, Coach K has this, you think forward, next play process. So celebrate it, enjoy it for that 30 minutes and let’s get to the next play. And so that’s one way I celebrate is, how can I just be better than I was before? How do I make a bigger impact the day before? And so that’s how I celebrate. But ultimately just winding down, a nice margarita and chilling with family and getting ready for the next day.
Jeff Randolph:
We can split that bottle of tequila.
Theodis Watson:
Let’s do that. Oh, man. Oh yeah, absolutely.
Jeff Randolph:
All right. Theodis Watson, where can people find you if they want to learn more, if they want to get involved in some way, how do they find you?
Theodis Watson:
Absolutely. You can find me on LinkedIn. I promised myself and my son, I will get better on other technologies. But LinkedIn is where you’ll find me, Theodis Watson. I call myself the community’s banker because I think there is a resource that I can find and help and support, and I’ve been fortunate enough to support all communities from the high net worth to the low to moderate income areas. So I’m glad to hear, glad to support. So LinkedIn is where you can find me. And again, hopefully by the end of 2024, I’ll have an Instagram active or something like that. We’ll find out.
Jeff Randolph:
Then we’ll have to dive deep into the Instagram and find out what’s there. What’s your perspective?
Theodis Watson:
I need some work on that. You might have to help me with that.
Jeff Randolph:
There’s image. There’s image involved. All right. Theodis Watson, director of Community Development for Cross First Bank and National President of the Urban Financial Services Coalition, thanks for being with us on the show today.
Theodis Watson:
Oh, my pleasure.
Jeff Randolph:
And that is our show. Thanks to our guest, Theodis Watson, and thank you for listening to the Small Business Miracles podcast. Remember to subscribe, leave us a five-star rating and review. Drop us a line on the website at eagadv.com if you have any thoughts. Until then, we’ll be out here helping entrepreneurs with another Small Business Miracle.