How a Bank Teller Became One of Bank of America’s Top Bankers

• Paul Yates graduated with a finance degree in December 2008 as the current market crashed.
• The only career in his industry he could get was as a section-time teller at Financial institution of The united states.
• 13 many years later on, he is a top private banker at BofA thanks to his achievements with Florida yacht house owners.

Paul Yates graduated with a finance degree at the worst attainable situations: December 2008.

Many thanks to the Great

Recession

, banks were halting their instruction plans, and the freshly minted University of North Florida graduate could not locate the analyst job he was soon after. 

Two months later on, he went to a Financial institution of The united states department in Fort Lauderdale to dollars a Valentine’s Day check from his grandmother. He questioned the teller if there ended up any positions available. The only placement was as a section-time teller, and he took it.

13 yrs afterwards, the now-37-calendar year-outdated is noticed as a best performer at the private financial institution, escalating his e book by 65% in 2021, in accordance to Bank of The united states, which declined to specify his ebook measurement. Positioned in the yachting funds of the earth, Yates’ group has extended much more than 20% of the entire personal bank’s yacht-mortgage quantity, the most of any crew at Lender of The us, the financial institution stated. Yates expects to lengthen 6 to 10 watercraft financial loans, which start out at $5 million, this year. 

Yates advised Insider how he labored his way up from aspect-time teller to banker for the uber-loaded.

Yates credits his results as a teller and a non-public banker to the same trait: salesmanship

Yates has been a “revenue shark” since he was a kid, selling massages to household users and Creepy Crawler toys to his elementary-faculty classmates. He can strike a dialogue with any one, he advised Insider, and is familiar with when to go in for the get rid of.

“As a shark, you happen to be underneath the water right until you need to have to occur up,” he said. “Figuring out the time in the conversation to do that is what I imagine has led to my achievements.”

He was in a position to talk prospects into opening accounts after going for walks in to money checks. The objective was converting 10 clients a month, and he landed 40 in the initial month, Yates claimed. 

According to Yates, it was a specially tough time to earn over prospects, as rely on in big banking companies was at an all-time very low.  

“2009 was a rough time for Financial institution of America with the crisis and all the things likely on in the news,” he said. “I experienced to spin it.”

He rubs elbows with the yachting community to land large customers

Right after six months as a teller, he was promoted to personal banker, encouraging department customers set up new accounts and use for financial loans and credit score playing cards. He begun working with tiny companies in late 2009.

Yates received his initially-choice department, which was around Port Everglades, the key seaport for South Florida. It was within just walking length of all the key yacht brokerages, whom Yates served with anything at all from acquiring petty hard cash to payday workers, wire transfers, and setting up LLCs for owning new boats.

He struck up a friendship with a consumer who was a yacht broker by helping him finance his last alimony payment. By him, he fulfilled other brokers. The indigenous Floridian experienced frequent ground with yacht lovers, from house owners to captains.

“I grew up on the drinking water finding out boats, fishing, and diving as a young child,” he said. “The pleasure and love of the water drew me to this current market and market.”

In 2015, Yates utilized to the private bank coaching software and got approved. He has constructed on his stable of yacht clientele, from athletics team owners to actual estate moguls, largely by means of phrase-of-mouth. He receives referrals from content consumers, these types of as just one he assisted get an unsecured personal loan to acquire a stake in a sports activities franchise past September.

“The yachting group is a very modest community,” he explained. “Your identify and status is the only factor that holds benefit in the local community.”