DON’T TRUST YOUR BANKER!

If your banker is Lou Douglass, trust him. Not all bankers are as trustworthy or believe in relationship banking. As a former owner of a moving company that only did office moves, I can tell you that we had a lot of debt, since we had no C.O.D. revenue. Between our line of credit and our long-term truck debt, we had more than $1 million of loans with our bank.

From 1988 until 1999, we were with the same bank. We knew we had a great relationship with our banker because we never missed or were late with a payment. We thought our previous banker was our confidant—someone we could trust and confide in. That’s why we were shocked when our bank seized the $45,000 in our operating account and called in our loans just because we told our banker that my partner—my wife—and I were getting divorced. To our dismay, because we were honest and volunteered the information, we were penalized by our bank. Our attorney said that every bank loan has a clause that states that a bank can call a loan if at any time it feels “insecure” with the borrower. Our bank exercised that right, and we were totally out of money.

If it hadn’t been for Lou Douglass, our former loan officer with a previous bank, we would have been forced to close our doors since no other bank would loan us money. On a spiritual note, one of the reasons I believe in Divine Intervention is because a week earlier, Lou had started a new commercial bank and was looking for customers. Since we had a great prior banking relationship and he knew and trusted us, he loaned us money when we really needed it. Thanks to Lou, we were able to stay in business and sell our company, Peachtree Movers, a year later.

In hindsight, my advice to you is this: unless Lou Douglass is your banker, keep your cards close to your vest.

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For more information on our online office moving training, please visit

www.officemoves.com/training/index.html or call Ed Katz at 404.358.2172.