You're richer than you think....

Perhaps its just me, but one of the most difficult things is to find financial institutions that represent my interests as an entrepreneur? I'm not going to name names here, since there is only FIVE major banks that have a oligopoly in T.O. (To be fair the title of this post is NOT the bank I'm sadly associated with. But it always makes me giggle, because it is quite simply true.)

Case in point. The other day I make a sizable deposit at my friendly self-serving bank to my business account since I needed to get more deposit slips. Now these wonderful deposit slips are a handy way of tracking your deposits and from what I believe a necessity to make a deposit. This is mainly because at whichever branch I go to they give me unending grief that I don't have a filled out deposit slip with my deposit. Despite the fact that they have boxes of this stuff at each local and do not have them out within easy reach. (At least at the local branches I visit) But I digress, so my visit goes like this:

Optimist Me: "Hi, I'd like to make this deposit and get new deposit slips."
Teller: "Sure sir, though generally you get more for your account regularly."
OM: "Uh, no I haven't' received any since I got my order of cheques."
T: "We could order more for you sir."
OM: (Smiling) "So you mean I need to pay for slips for the right to deposit my money?"

So that's the gist of it, and its pretty ironic to me. Its a little thing but its one more thing why I'm so disillusioned with the big financial institutions. There is something I learned recently, its called ETDBW or "Ease to do Business with". If you're going to do a service for someone you might as well make it as easy as possible, as painless as possible for them to get that service from you. Something that the new Credit Union I just signed up for sounds like it has. I'll let you know how that goes.

Entrepreneur tip: I've found its much better to be signed up with more than one bank/credit union. Better to have that than to be at the mercy of one bank/credit union. It also simply pays to know more about your banking options and get the most "service bang" for your buck.