Is Sterilizing Your Brand Voice Killing Your Credibility with Credit Unions?

What does it take to actually break through in the credit union market? Kristin Marie has spent over a decade finding out.

Kristin most recently served at Curql, a mega fund that raised $360 million from credit unions to invest in fintech. In that role, she worked directly with founders and early-stage companies trying to figure out how to crack open a market that rewards trust, relationships, and preparation over pitch decks.

In this conversation, we get into the real reason most fintech brands stay invisible, why buttoned-up brand voice is costing companies deals, and how one hour a week of personal LinkedIn content can expand your reach for free. Kristin also breaks down the questions every fintech should be asking before they ever sit down with a credit union, and why the human element is the only thing separating brands that resonate from ones that blend in.

If your team is producing content that nobody cares about, or you're showing up to prospect conversations without a roadmap, this episode is the reset you need.

00:15 Common Mistakes in Fintech Marketing
01:35 The Importance of Authentic Storytelling
06:36 Legacy Challenges in Financial Services
09:17 Kristin's Background and Experience
10:47 Transforming Fintech Marketing Strategies
12:00 Engaging with C-Suite: The Art of Conversation
15:32 Leveraging LinkedIn for Brand Visibility
21:00 Rapid Fire Marketing Insights
25:21 Overcoming Marketing Challenges in Fintech

Connect with Kristin Marie: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristinmarieevans/

Watch Propagate Fintech Shorts: https://www.youtube.com/@PropagateFintech/shorts

More Episodes: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/4K2ndKqibM0 https://www.youtube.com/shorts/wKyNF6m1FiY

Want to work with Propagate Fintech? Fill out a contact form at www.propagatefintech.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

What's up, y'all? Think about the best ads and content you've seen recently, the ones living rent-free in your head right now. I bet they're funny, a little bizarre, maybe ridiculous. That's why you remember them. So why is the bank and fintech industry so addicted to safe, predictable, and boring storytelling and everything from websites to digital marketing? Today's conversation with Kristen Marie is all about this dynamic. How do you retain true humanity in your advertising? How do you keep it from being so safe, sterile, and boring? Kristen has spent over a decade in FinTech, most recently at Circle, where she helped early stage companies learn how to break into the credit union market and tell their story in a way that landed. She also walks the talk on LinkedIn, which is how she actually showed up on my radar to begin with. And here's the interview. Kristen, thanks so much for coming on the show. I want to just jump right into what you do and how you do it. So you work with fintech brands every day on marketing, storytelling. What's the number one mistake that you see a lot of these guys making right out of the gate?

SPEAKER_00 1:05

It's a good question. I think, and this is typically fair for large stage fintech, small fintech just coming into the space. Um, I usually like to just start with like, what questions are you asking? Because they can fall across a range of different places. Um, but that one question usually helps us to identify pretty quickly where they're finding the gaps within that sales process.

SPEAKER_01 1:32

So do you find big organizations like mature companies, the Pfizers, the Jack Henry's of the world, are making a lot of the same mistakes that like somebody doing getting their Series B funding is is as well?

SPEAKER_00 1:47

Um No, I think they're different. I think it depends on the person. So if you've sold into credit unions for a while, you likely know all of the terms, right? And you know how to speak to different executives from different seats. And if you're at a startup, that is still the same versus if you've been at Jack Henry for a little while. Um so I think it really does just buy by not just fintech, but by the people that are on your team and who's talking to the credit unions and what that experience has been from an individual level, even more so outside of the organizational level.

SPEAKER_01 2:26

So, Chris, and I'm sure, you know, with the time that you've been in the industry, you see a trend with the way branding, marketing, storytelling works. A lot of it's very safe, a lot of it really kind of like reverts to the mean. Why is that costing people visibility and growth?

SPEAKER_00 2:45

We have such a what's the word? Um we tend to focus so much on being widely acceptable, especially when we're talking from a brand standpoint, um, that we end up pulling out all of the value and diluting it into something that really nobody can relate to. And so a lot of times you're going to see even early stage companies when they have like the grit and they don't need to spend all that extra time on getting the brand just right. But what we do is we we spend that time on pulling out that human nature, perfecting it, getting it to look just right and the way that we want it to. And then when we put something out, whether it's on like LinkedIn company page, it is coming from that brand voice. And that brand voice is buttoned up and professional. Um, and in today's world with AI, I think we all are more than sick of seeing the AI slop on, you know, our feeds and having to scroll through it and just missing that human bit in there.

SPEAKER_01 4:02

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 4:03

And so it's really cool to see brands that are recognizing that they need to tap into the humans on their team to bring that element forward. Um, the ones that are doing so well are the ones that are leaning more into their sales leads, their founders, their marketers, and letting them tell their story with their flair. And each of those stories is a little bit different and a little bit different perspective. So it really rounds it out and it brings that brand front and center. I don't want to say accidentally, right? Because we definitely mean to do it. Um, but it it feels like it's not forced as a reader. Um, and that's that's a huge differentiator in today's market, is that that human element because it's the thing that drives the trust you so much.

SPEAKER_01 4:56

I totally agree with that. And I think there's there's a lot of there's so much truth in that. And I don't know why, but I feel like uh in bank in the banking industry and financial services, there's such a legacy shadow. Shadow has an ominous tone to it, which is not necessarily like the word I'm looking for, but it kind of works for this this example. But there's such like a legacy way that this is done that it really can is almost kind of sh like shackle like when it comes to storytelling and and branding. And this this the marketing stuff that is bouncing around rent-free in my brain is funny stuff. Yeah, it's weird stuff, yeah, it's thought provoking. They're not ads that are full of the word seamless and you know.

SPEAKER_00 5:48

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_01 5:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:50

No, and you see that in every deck and and on every website. Like I, as a marketer, am also guilty of using this. Like we we just default to it on accident, I guess, these days. So we think that that's how we're supposed to speak, just because of how we've like come up. Um, but to that point, especially like you and I is a good example, is we met professionally, but when we talk, I don't I don't feel like we're buttoning things up, right? And hopefully that comes across in this too. But um that I think is why we get along and why things flow because we're willing to just put that human element forward. Um, and I totally agree with you. I I also feel like the word shadow, it does have like a little bit of like an ominous like vibe to it, but it's so true. Like it's it's a really good prescription for it. Um we as an industry continue to default to legacy and how we've done it, even when we conversationally in the buttoned up tone will say, you know, can't always be focused on how we've always done it. We've got to be doing it new. But it's just that, yeah, that conversational collaborative bit remains buttoned up and we really have to just get past it.

SPEAKER_01 7:11

Yeah. If we're not going to do that, just other people will and they will win and they will continue to win. And that's the big risk that I see for our industry is disintermediation. And it's like a death by a thousand cuts to legacy institutions as well as like financial advisors.

SPEAKER_00 7:31

Oh my God. Um, like you see it too. Like, I think we we even try in that default buttoned up version to bring in the human element where uh it's a woman at the playground with her kids and she's smiling and everything is going well, you know, or like walking into the bank, it's like that stock photo, stock video vibe.

SPEAKER_01 7:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:54

No, there's you're still not getting it. We're still not getting that. That still doesn't feel human. Um I yeah, I appreciate what you said about um, I forget what that line was. Uh oh, it was in our last conversation, actually. Um about Mr. Beast. He's a good example of somebody who he like already had the human element, right? He built his personal brand doing really cool things on YouTube. He's got, I don't even know how many followers. You know how many followers he has?

SPEAKER_01 8:27

Oh my gosh. I think he has four hundred. Like I could be so wrong. I mean, he's got he's he's got it, he he must have hundreds of million, four hundred million, three hundred million.

SPEAKER_00 8:39

That's what I thought I hadn't read, but now it feels weird saying it because it's such a big number.

SPEAKER_01 8:44

It's such a big number. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he has a major platform.

SPEAKER_00 8:47

Yeah. And so you brought this up in the conversation last time. I had to look into it because it's I think it ties into this very well of like it's somebody who certainly wasn't in baking and probably had no intent of ever being in banking, but you know, ran into an obstacle at one point and decided, hey, I think I can do this better.

SPEAKER_01 9:08

Yeah. Yeah. And he's he nailed it and he uh stepped what you know, for those who don't know, he bought a company called Step Financial, which has really done a great job making itself into the bank for uh young, like emerging adults, if you will. You know, you could throw Gen Alpha, Gen Z in there. Um, but he used his celebrity as a platform, and you know, he has he owns so many different businesses. But anyways, the thing to watch there is if he's successful in converting his YouTube subscribership into customers of Step, if he even converted, I think, 4% of that population, Step Financial would have more customers than US Bank.

SPEAKER_00 9:54

Just so like that.

SPEAKER_01 9:56

Yeah, so it's all changing and it's always been changing, but this feels like a major acceleration and and the marketing, the storytelling, the branding is such a big driver of that. So, Kristen, I think it's important for people to know about your background because you have an you have an awesome background that's so relevant to this conversation and uh brands that are trying to sharpen their message. Would you tell us where you came from most recently and what you did there?

SPEAKER_00 10:22

So most recently, I worked First Circle. And so for those of you who aren't familiar with it, it is a mega fund now, but has really like made some history in the course of a very few short years. We were able to raise $360 million from credit unions to invest in fintech. Um, and so, you know, I've been in the industry for over 10 years, but most recently, and a really fun part of my career has been getting to partner with fintech as they're newly coming into the fund or even the accelerator program, which work it works with uh the earlier stage fintech within the circle. Um, and get to partner with them to help them understand how to break into the credit union industry.

SPEAKER_01 11:13

Awesome. And so I'm sure that you've got some examples in that experience where somebody came to you where this is kind of the classic scenario, really passionate founder, awesome product, but they need help on the marketing, the storytelling side of things, which you know also ties, of course, into business development, go to market. Can you share a quick breakdown on someone that you started working with and how you were able to kind of transform their operation? And you can anonymize it if you if you need to as well.

SPEAKER_00 11:45

Yeah, I think what I might do actually is share just where we start. Um, so the first question is what questions are you asking? And I mean that from a few different angles. The first one is before you are talking to credit unions, what questions are you asking before you sit down with them? So let's say you've scored an intro conversation with a key prospect credit union. What's their asset size? Um, what goals do they have this year? It's important to get to know them as much as you possibly can before you're having that conversation. And there are a few really cool solutions out there that don't cost anything that give you a lot of that data so that you can come better prepared. Um, so first question, are you asking the right questions before you even sit down? And are you coming prepared to that? Second question is when you're sitting down with your target, right? You've scored a call with the CEO, the CLO, CRO, whoever it is. You sit down.

SPEAKER_01 12:50

Awesome opportunity. There you go.

SPEAKER_00 12:53

That's what they all want. And you know, it can happen at events too, right? So you've got to be prepared to really quickly disseminate from a conversation what value you can bring. And you should be asking yourself that question. But when you're sitting down with this C-suite person, what questions are you asking throughout the conversation? And this has been a really fun way to quickly garner from them, usually where I'm able to identify, well, I'm not really asking a lot of questions or like, what do you mean? That's what I hear a lot. Um, I'm telling them usually about my product and what we solve, get to know them a little bit, but usually it stays pretty high level like that. And that in itself can be the problem, right? Like that conversation is an opportunity to have that C-suite member explain to you what their pain points are on a day-to-day basis. And then you're able to take that back and say, okay, well, if this is their problem, this is how I can help them solve that. What are your goals this year? What is your CEO thinking about? What are you guys talking about? Um, what is your board concerned about? Um, these parts of the conversation, they don't come out naturally, right? Those are weird questions sometimes to like feel like it's okay to ask, but it tells them that you're interested. It tells them that you're looking out for them and that your goal there is to provide value. And that in itself is gonna set you apart when everybody else in the room that they're having conversations with is just sitting there pitching their solution.

SPEAKER_01 14:28

I think that makes sense because a lot of times during the sales cycle, whoever is that initial beach head for you at the institution is also your coach and somebody who's gonna help you understand contextually who you're gonna be encountering next when you're trying to get established buy-in within the organization because ultimately they can only kind of like lead you around to the next conversation, but you need to be able to say the right things and ask the right questions, ultimately say the right things to the parties that you're encountering. And so what you're talking about is essentially you need to have a roadmap defined before you find yourself in that golden opportunity environment where you're in front of all the right people and you really want to say the right things, not just show up and throw up to use kind of a you know gross analogy.

SPEAKER_00 15:18

But uh, it's perfect.

SPEAKER_01 15:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:20

Um, yeah, that's that's it. And I think the questions ahead, right, help you to prepare for um what those statements might be when you're in that call or in person. Um, and when you're having that conversation and they're bringing it up, uh let's say our fraud is like through the roof and we're trying to solve for that. If you knew that before you came in, you're able to speak to it uh and how you can help solve for that. Even if your solution doesn't necessarily directly pinpoint on fraud, you can still speak to that, right? Or maybe you spend a little bit more time understanding how your solution can play into that. And maybe that's a you know, like more longer-term strategy.

SPEAKER_01 16:04

Um do your homework. Do your homework, boys and girls.

SPEAKER_00 16:08

Yeah. Um, preparation is is great. And you had said something really important in that last statement that I just let. I let it slip.

SPEAKER_01 16:17

I wanted to having a roadmap, having a plan.

SPEAKER_00 16:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:22

It'll it'll come back to you at 3 a.m.

SPEAKER_00 16:24

Probably will. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:27

Let me ask you about, you know, you do such a great job on LinkedIn writing content. And that's the f how you first showed up on my radar was through seeing your your content, which is funny and relatable and and you know, you clearly have a nice network. Talk to me about what channels you feel like are really powerful for scrappy fintech operators who are, you know, maybe don't have a huge marketing budget. They're trying to experiment with doing things differently because the customer acquisition costs are huge in our industry. What channels do you see as being really powerful?

SPEAKER_00 17:03

Man, uh, I'm gonna nerd out so hard on this.

SPEAKER_01 17:06

Get your nerd on.

SPEAKER_00 17:09

Um this goes really well with what you were talking about earlier, right? Uh, where we've just we continue to hit this wall on the brand side with not really bringing forward that human element, how we really want to and we want to resonate and we want to say the right message. And we can't really do it from the brand side. The channel that is converting the highest, and I mean leaps and bounds over other channels, is an unpaid channel, and that is a personal LinkedIn posting from a C-suite. So it doesn't just have to be a founder. I'll always suggest it, of course, but your sales team could be doing this too. Um, other C-suite, um, really honestly, anybody within your team, um, it doesn't have to be an executive level in order to bring a ton of value. Um, because like we talked about earlier, that is the human element. And so when you are um just talking about even your your day-to-day, like let's let's say that you didn't one time talk about your company, you are still bringing visibility to your company. Um you go back to channels, LinkedIn, personal brand, posting one time a week will drive, and I've proven this with my own page, and this was posting from a VP level, um, a C a handful of C-suite uh pages and a few founder pages. Just watching the data over the period of six to nine months, posting one time a week will expand your awareness, your reach for X. So when we talk about, yeah, we talk about getting for free. Yeah. I mean, obviously, like your time, it is a time commitment, and that tends to be the thing that holds everybody up, right? Is I don't have the time to do it. Um, but as we talked about, the buttoning up and the making sure it fits for everybody is the thing that you want to avoid. And so usually when we're posting, the editing process is taking out, scraping away that human element and perfecting it. And that is where I would push to just say it should be one hour a week. And if you're saying you don't have the time, if you were to just do the math or even- That's not true, you do. Yeah, you do have the time.

SPEAKER_01 19:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:42

Um, I actually worked with a coach too. I'm like, digress and squirrel for a second. Um, but uh I worked with a coach who she would literally tell people to pull out their phone and look at their screen time. And she'd be like, Did you just say that you don't have time? Because I see like four hours a week for Instagram. Like, how do you say no after that? Um yes, doom scrolling. But um, when we talk about not having time or, you know, having to focus on other business priorities, usually the ask itself from the beginning was how do I get in front of more people? How do I make more sales? And we're telling you this is the biggest channel. Um, so I think it really the the actual issue is like feeling really cringy and not wanting to be out in front of people. And like that is something to get over for sure.

SPEAKER_01 20:36

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 20:37

Um, and it's something I had to work through. Did it is it something I didn't?

SPEAKER_01 20:40

I still, I'm still right there. I'm like every now and then, you know, I'll find myself thinking some stupid thought of like, oh, what will my coworkers from 15 years ago think when they see this message? It's like, first of all, they probably won't. And if they do, they won't care, or they'll think about it for half a second and then they'll go back to their own, you know, busy lives. Yeah, cringe valley. That's the real thing you gotta get through. Um you just have to do it. You just you just have to do it. And you know, the way that I see the topic you're discussing right now is the customer acquisition costs for a fintech trying to sell to banks and credit unions are humongous. I mean, they've got to be north of $30,000 to sign to sign a deal. And if you can start having conversations that turn into the signing of institutions from LinkedIn posts, that makes your customer acquisition costs plummet, which, you know, if you're a fintech and you're looking for funding, driving those operational costs down is very important.

SPEAKER_00 21:50

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:51

So as we approach the end here, I would love to fire a handful of questions at you. Are you okay with that?

SPEAKER_00 21:56

Yeah, let's do it.

SPEAKER_01 21:58

All right, get ready. Here we go. So, best piece of marketing advice you ever got, what is it and who gave it to you?

SPEAKER_00 22:05

Best piece of marketing advice I've ever gotten was simply to be yourself and get over it. And it is Courtney Johnson. She is uh a LinkedIn pro and has completely built her career off of posting on LinkedIn and not being afraid to be herself. She's an absolute badass. If you haven't heard of her yet, definitely check her out.

SPEAKER_01 22:30

Ooh, okay. I will check that out. What do you think is just a totally overrated marketing tactic? Something that just feels uh passe.

SPEAKER_00 22:42

Uh buttoning up and removing the human.

SPEAKER_01 22:46

Okay. Sterilizing your content.

SPEAKER_00 22:49

Sterilizing.

SPEAKER_01 22:50

Okay. I like it. What is a very underrated marketing thing right now for fintechs?

SPEAKER_00 22:56

Tapping into your people and letting them shine, giving those personal brands an opportunity to get your brand in front of people they never would be in front of.

SPEAKER_01 23:06

So all right, let me draw you out on that a little bit. Pretend you've got five minutes with a C-suite leader, let's say the president of a company, and he or she has a very buttoned up perspective or lens on how this type of correspondence or the expression of their people happen. How would you coach them on recalibrating that?

SPEAKER_00 23:27

Yeah. It's the numbers that's going to win that game every time. It's it's very hard to mathematically walk yourself out of that. Then the numbers don't lie.

SPEAKER_01 23:38

Yeah, you know who I see doing a really good job at that right now is uh the folks over at uh Sunny Day Fund.

SPEAKER_02 23:46

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 23:46

They are they're all posting. They do they do a great job. And then the people at Candescent uh have somehow built a culture that's exactly what you're talking about. They really are allowing their people to get out there and do some like funny stuff. Like the page patron saint of fintech, check that guy out. He's he's a sales leader. Yeah, yeah. He's a sales leader there, and he's yeah, he's all sorts of hilarious. What is one thing that fintech brands should stop putting on their websites?

SPEAKER_00 24:16

End-to-end, seamless, any buzzword that you hear somebody like make sure your first hero statement, make sure your first sentence is something that people can understand what you actually do.

SPEAKER_01 24:35

Okay. I like that. Whenever I'm writing content, I always come up with the idea, but I will use ChatGPT, or I don't use ChatGPT at all anymore. I actually use Claude now exclusively, but I'll run it through there to extrapolate out more kind of nuggets from it and help me with the ideation phase. But if you just like drop it in there and then copy-paste the results back onto your page with, you know, 15 M-dashes, you're gonna be in trouble.

SPEAKER_00 25:04

That's a really good point. Yes. Definitely keep the human in there.

SPEAKER_01 25:08

Yeah, yeah. Uh okay, finish this sentence. A great brand story always has what?

SPEAKER_00 25:17

At the risk of sounding a little redundant by this point, the answer is human.

SPEAKER_01 25:23

Okay. That's such a good North Star, I think, to march toward when you're doing content creation. The other one that I always keep in my back pocket is adding value. I always try to add value. Whatever I do, I feel like if I've really zero in on trying to add value, for example, having these podcast conversations in a way that isn't just all theory, it's more tactical. I feel like just it works better. More people are interested in learning, listening to it, subscribing to your content, working with you.

SPEAKER_00 25:54

Um it's a solid point. I think that goes back to like what we were talking about too, right? Coming prepared to those conversations and being able to speak to the value that you can bring. Value will 100% always be important. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:09

Okay. Last question for you, Kristen. For the fintech marketer who feels like they're behind, you know, seeing all these new systems come out, you know, so much of the landscape is changing. What's something that you'd want them to hear and take away from this conversation?

SPEAKER_00 26:22

Yeah. This is a big one, I think, because we've all been that. We all feel that way. We see all the time how fast everybody is moving. And we, it's very easy to compare yourself to all these different tools and all these different solutions. And we have to remember that we're in a bubble for one.

SPEAKER_01 26:42

That's fair.

SPEAKER_00 26:42

I learned that pretty quickly coming out of conversation from people who are within fintech. And, you know, somebody at the grocery store, somebody in the parking lot, somebody at my kids' school. You're not behind. You're certainly not behind. Um find something that, like the thing that works and continue to lean into that. Don't spread out and try to do everything.

SPEAKER_01 27:11

Sure. I think uh this is my, you know, little believy on on the topic here. But you know, as long as you stay intellectually engaged on the topic and just pick these little singles and doubles of in terms of things that you're trying to learn, I feel like that snowballs and builds momentum. Totally. And versus like if you're trying to do everything like you said, you're in you're, you know, boiling the oceans, you're in trouble because there's just such a volume right now.

SPEAKER_00 27:38

Yeah, consistency is key. That's a good point.

SPEAKER_01 27:40

So, Kristen, it's been great having you on the show. Where can people learn about what you are up to now? Which I think you're you may be kicking off a new chapter here in the near future.

SPEAKER_00 27:50

Thank you so much. Um, this has been super fun, by the way. Um, thanks for having me on. Check out my LinkedIn. I can give you the link for it.

SPEAKER_01 27:57

Okay, awesome. Well, thanks for being here.

SPEAKER_00 28:00

Yeah, thanks for having me. It's been super fun.