This issue, we’re excited to launch our jobs column. Today, we’re spotlighting Beth Deering at Pinnacle Financial Partners. A Nashville student interested in finance, Frederick Monroe, shadowed Deering for the day, exploring the world of a Financial Advisor at Pinnacle.
“If anything happens in the bank, Beth knows about it,” chuckled Woody Hartman — a music, entertainment and sports portfolio manager banker — as Woody, Beth Deering, and I chatted in his office. Deering gave a laugh — but from my day at Pinnacle Financial Partners, the sentiment was clearly true. We walked through floors and floors of Deering’s coworkers, and nearly every single one stopped to say hello.
Deering has worked in finance for 28 years. She’s worked at SunTrust Bank and has been working at Pinnacle Financial Partners for 11 years. She says her role at Pinnacle allows her to spend more time with her family.
“I have the opportunity to go to (my kids’) games and show up for my kids’ events.” Deering explained. Deering takes the same philosophy of connection in her work, calling it her “number one thing.” Her philosophy has clearly been successful, leading her to become a Small Business Financial Advisor and office leader at Pinnacle, where she manages three teams of bankers.
At the start of our day together, 8:45 a.m., Deering received an email about a client who wanted to cash a check for a large sum of money. It was up to the bank whether to release the money immediately or place a check hold for seven days, a decision based on the client’s record of repayment.
As we moved through her day, she met with her clientele-comprised book club group, founded by Pinnacle’s former CEO Terry Turner. We walked into a room filled with chairs set up in a circle. In the front of the room was a table filled with name tags for all members of the group. The group was reading a book called, “The E Myth Revisited – why most small businesses don’t work and what to do about it” by Michael Gerber. One of Deering’s coworkers, Lee Campbell, read aloud for the group from chapter 9 of the novel, beginning, “Your business is not your life.”
For the rest of the meeting, the group discussed how to function a business efficiently. They discussed the book’s rules of a business model, including that it should “stand out as a place of impeccable order” that could be “operated by people with the lowest possible level of skill.” At the end of the conversation, Deering asked everyone in the group to give me one piece of advice for college. My favorite was to “be around the people who you want to be.”
We spent the rest of the day touring the Pinnacle building, grabbing lunch at a restaurant called Earl’s across the street, meeting Deering’s coworkers, answering emails and checking in with her son. I met over 20 members of the office community, each with new stories about Deering, banking and Pinnacle. We ended the day in Deering’s office, a room decorated with pictures of her family, clients and books — including “Fearless Pricing” by Casey Brown, which is in every office at Pinnacle.
Deering’s compassion for her clients was clear. She says that the “most critical” skill to have in the workplace is, “the ability to connect to people in a genuine way… to really seek understanding with people, and appreciate the diversity of everyone you meet.”
She explained that this compassion does come with trade-offs — caring about her clients means telling them the truth. She says that the hardest thing she’s had to do in her career has been to be frank and honest with clients and team members, even when it’s difficult, explaining, “The most fair thing I can do is tell people the truth.”
Deering also offered advice for students interested in finance:
“Reach out to somebody who’s had a great career in the industry… learn from them, and just really put yourself out there and know that no one person knows everything. It takes all of us working together to do things and that’s true here, and it’s true in every industry, and in every facet of life — that no one has it all figured it out.”
She also spotlighted the importance of education, connection, networking groups and believing in one’s self.
Most importantly, though, she advised students to, “be a better version of yourself than you were yesterday.”
Are you a student interested in writing our next installment in the jobs column? Do you have a career you think we should cover? Fill out this form.
