Business View Magazine | Volume 8, Issue 11

131 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE VOLUME 8, ISSUE 11 “Our approach has been to keep our heads down and our hands on the plow. We just keep pushing forward. Once you repeat that over and over, you’ve made some pretty good progress. Then we go plant some more, pull a few weeds, and manage the growth. To me, that ethic of hard work is the part a lot of businesses have all but forgotten. “I think a lot of our success is due to the fact that, while PPP [Paycheck Protection Program] was a challenge for all banks to deal with, it also gave clients an opportunity to see which banks were truly relationship banks – banks that were going to hold their hands to get them through it – and which ones were not. That is the approach we took, and we did just over 1,300 PPP loans. Of those, 645 were non-clients, and over the past 20 months, we’ve already moved about 250 of those relationships [to Prime Meridian]. That’s a generational change for a community bank.” PR IME MER IDI AN BANK BVM: Have you made significant changes in technology or otherwise? Dixon: “Not really. From a technology standpoint, we upgraded our mortgage platform, but that doesn’t affect clients. It affects our team. We continue to make enhancements in our remote deposit, remote capture – but not big changes. The secret is to stay true to who we are and focus on the client. If you do, good things are going to happen.” BVM: Has your Bank’s culture changed during the pandemic? Dixon: “No. Our culture is not something we change in response to outside forces. It is something we cultivate. It’s true our culture requires us to always consider “change” and