Take the Emotion Out of Relationship Management
Commercial banking runs on relationships, but too often, “gut feel” drives decisions and muddies results. In this episode, Q2’s new VP of Product Management, Nick Koutouras, shares how to take the emotion out of relationship management without losing the human touch. We dig into a simple, repeatable operating rhythm—account planning, pricing, measurement, and stakeholder readouts—that builds consistency, confidence, and better outcomes for bankers and leaders alike.
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[Blog] Commercial Loan and Deposit Pricing Market Update: August 2025
[Blog] Commercial Banking Leaders: Becoming a Smarter Bank Requires Smarter Pricing
[Website] Q2 Relationship Pricing and Profitability
Transcript
Cheryl Brown
Welcome to The Purposeful Banker, the leading commercial banking podcast brought to you by Q2, where we discuss the big topics on the minds of today's best bankers. I'm Cheryl Brown. Welcome to the show.
So can you really take the emotion out of relationship management and still build strong relationships? Nick Koutouras says the answer is a resounding yes. And so Nick is joining me on the show today to talk about removing bias from relationship decisions, scaling consistency, and how data and coaching can make bankers more confident without turning them into robots.
That sounds like a tall order to me, but I'm ready to dig into it. Nick joined Q2 just last month to lead product management for our relationship profitability business, which includes PrecisionLender and Premium Treasury Pricing. And he's a longtime believer in the power of well-rounded relationship management. And he was a Q2 customer before joining our team. So welcome, Nick, both to Q2 and to the Purposeful Banker.
Nick Koutouras
Thank you, Cheryl. Thrilled to be here and excited to talk about relationship measurement and bringing it to life.
Cheryl Brown
So I mentioned that you were a Q2 customer before you crossed over to join our team. So tell me a little bit about the path that led you to where you are now.
Nick Koutouras
I'm a two-time PrecisionLender customer, and as a customer, we adopted PrecisionLender to really move from anecdote to evidence. We wanted to shift that conversation from, “Hey, what can we do? What else can we offer this client” to really, “What can we do to improve the full relationship?” So that experience convinced me that good tech should feel like a great coach in the moment.
Cheryl Brown
So what problems in commercial banking have you been obsessed with solving? Is it it really all about this emotion situation or is there more to it?
Nick Koutouras
Yeah, you know, it just … commercial banking can be very emotional when you have relationships that are forged over time, usually by individuals that they have a close bond either through their personal network, and that relationship can be very emotional. But what we want to do is really turn that conversation to manage to our financial reality and really make the math transparent and easy to understand. And for me, making that math transparent and easy to understand helps unhook the emotion and then moves us to a conversation about this is our reality.
Cheryl Brown
So when it comes to your product philosophy, is that really, you know, is it really about making the banker's day-to-day world easier or what is your product philosophy? If you could summarize it in just, like, one sentence?
Nick Koutouras
Sure. And it's going to be a long one, I think, you know, because commercial banking is complicated. And what we're trying to do is bringing consistency and simplicity to the tools to help power the bankers. So I'm not sure that that's a real tight philosophy sentence. However, the tools we bring will help the bankers win.
Cheryl Brown
So yeah, like we're talking today about emotion and the part that that plays in these complex commercial relationships, especially when many teams lack transparency. They lack a consistent framework for, you know, spotting those opportunities for growth or better profitability. So where do “gut calls” most often derail relationship performance? Is it in the planning? Is it in the pricing? Is it in the portfolio reviews?
Nick Koutouras
Sure. You know, gut calls are made all the time. But if they're made blindly, without regard to the data, you know, or absent a plan to improve the outcome for both the customer and the FI, and they're repeated over and over, that's where your performance will lag.
So a couple examples. You listed out planning, pricing, and portfolio reviews. So in planning, when you just have goals without outcome targets or, said differently, there's no link to returns or relationship deepening or some of the other metrics that are important for a commercial bank. The other part, pricing. Sometimes we believe that pricing concessions will help unlock product opportunities. And, you know, the data shows it's actually different. So people that are able to demonstrate the premium that the bank offers the client, they're usually able to also unlock those fees or those relationship opportunities.
So it's absolutely the opposite. So when you're able to discuss candidly the pricing on the credit instrument, you're usually able to have that healthy relationship with the client that helps you find those additional revenue opportunities in the form of product portfolio reviews. They tend to be backward looking, and if they're backward looking and you don't have an action plan, then that becomes also problematic. What are you really trying to solve?
So if the if the goal is well, we want to improve cross-sell. Well is it $1 or $10? What is it? So if you really don't have a goal or don't really have that clarity on what you're trying to solve, then those things fail.
Cheryl Brown
So if you could take a red pen to the RM process, you know, what would you cross out first? Would it be this, you know, this gut call? And where have you seen this work? Have you actually been able to do this and you've seen it work in your past experiences?
Nick Koutouras
Yeah, absolutely. I think the biggest thing that I've seen that—and it was the biggest enabler and it was actually the simplest—is replace inconsistent measures with transparent measures. I think everyone wants the same thing. And I want to be able to be judged on a level playing field. So if we're deploying a large credit to a larger client, I want that measurement to be the same as that smaller client. And so when you have inconsistent measures, then you have inconsistent behaviors. And then you sort of fall back on the gut decisions. And that compromises everything. So the very first thing I would do is cross out inconsistent measures and bring in, introduce consistency.
Cheryl Brown
And you know that, to me, just to my untrained ear, sounds like process improvement. And I think what happens a lot of times is instead of focusing on process improvement, we focus on the technology, right? And we've all seen tools get force-fit into broken processes. So what are some of the telltale signs that a bank is trying to use technology, a technology Band-Aid, instead of just fixing the process?
Nick Koutouras
So my experience when I hear a phrase, “We need to comply with … “ That, to me, is a signal that they're more interested in checking the box and not changing the process. Our CEO uses the question, “Are you using technology as a weapon or as a shield?” And if you're trying to comply and when the mood in the FI is, oh, this process is ceremonial, we're just checking the box. Why are we going through the motions or something similar to that? I would suggest that they are just using this as a shield and they're really not deploying the technology to fix their process and drive their business.
Cheryl Brown
So about that process a little bit. So, you know, in our discussions since you've joined Q2, you've kind of outlined this continuous relationship cycle that includes account planning, pricing, measurement, and stakeholder readout in no in no particular order, right? It's a continuous circle. And then within that you have in-the-moment coaching layered through it. So can you just walk us through, like, account planning, when it's benchmark-driven instead of instinct-driven? What does that look like?
Nick Koutouras
Sure. So I think if you take a step back and you really look at that continuous cycle and account planning is what you do before you're actually preparing a binding offer to a client. And this is where you're looking at your portfolio and using data from what the bank's strategy or the FI’s strategy is suggesting are areas of improvement. You can then identify which relationships you want to talk about. And in those relationships, the banking teams will get together with their product partners, with their credit partners, and really shape a credible account plan. And that is where you then begin the conversation of identifying those opportunities and coming back to, yes, this is a credible plan that we feel will be balanced for the FI and also for the client.
And then you kind of move into the next stage where you're preparing a binding offer and you compare your account plan to what you really believe is going to happen. You discuss that, you review, challenge that if you need to, you gain support for it. Then you kind of move into the third phase, which is boarding the opportunity, identifying any process bottlenecks. If you're having difficulties either executing one of the product opportunities like a foreign exchange trade or a swap, but really kind of understanding how we're implementing that account plan that we just agreed to.
And then kind of stepping back and looking at a stakeholder briefing where you look at the performance relative to the rest of the portfolio relative to the market, and then really understand what the strategic drivers are for the institution at the moment. And then you start the process again, and then you look at your relationships that you need to craft account plans that look toward bringing more products from the institution into the client.
Cheryl Brown
And so, within this cycle, you know, you talk about the in-the-moment coaching that's layered through it. So how does real-time guidance help an RM in the moment? Say for example, they're having a challenging pricing conversation.
Nick Koutouras
Sure. I think there's a couple different ways. You can have a challenging pricing conversation with a client, or you can have it also internally as you're trying to gather the support. But it's really there as a guide to help the officer understand what the market is suggesting would be a price for, like, kind exposure. And then you can then have that informed conversation with that client internally. Then what you also do is you can have that conversation and explain the rationale for any pricing sacrifices or concessions are made in exchange for some other cross-sell opportunity or other product that the bank can offer. And so that in-the-moment coaching is really intended to help guide the client and really deliver a better outcome for all.
I think we had one example that that I can speak to where we were doing exactly that, sitting around the table discussing a relationship in an account planning session when the banking team said, “We'll ask the credit team, do we like the relationship?” And the bank did. And we were able to make an unsolicited bid to move up in the bank group, take the entire syndicate and then sell that back down. So the fee generated off of that single conversation was enough to support the entire program for a year. So it's those kinds of examples where having that data and that information can then help shape the conversation into what's the business outcome that we're trying to go for.
Cheryl Brown
And so how do you know when the process is working? What are the benchmarks to look for? And, you know, you've instituted this this process. It's an improved process. Maybe you've got the technology to go along with it. So you do have the in-the-moment coaching. How do you know when it's working? What does the end state look like?
Nick Koutouras
So, I mean, I know when it's working when I start measuring my portfolio results. And so that's the first place I look to. And that really kind of gets into a backward look. And you take a look, you sum all your relationships and the revenue profile off of those relationships over—we typically look through a business cycle for our typical relationships—and we were able to go 24 or 36 months. You measure the returns on that same period. And if you see your medians moving in a larger and improved direction, then you know you're making improvements.
The other two ways that I would look at it, you really reveal yourself in the financials. So when we talk about deal sheets and pricers, really, what you're doing is creating a simulation of how that opportunity will present itself in future financials. And so if you're starting to see movement in your non-interest income or in your margin on assets, those measures, then you know that it's also working.
And then finally, you can look to benchmarks and say, “This is the new issuance for this period of time. And that’s how did we price relative to market. Are we narrowing the gap? Are we pricing premium?” Where we can and really the way that was positioned internally is that if the institution was able to offer additional advice to clients, offer additional services to clients, that really was the rationale for commanding a premium. But when you look at that metric on how you're pricing relative to market, those are the quick ways to understand if it's working or not.
Cheryl Brown
So I want to shift the conversation just a little bit to the perspective of the RM. You know, behavior change is never easy, particularly for someone who's been following their gut for a long time, and especially if they've been successful with that approach in the past. So how can a leader coach around this transparency and accountability and consistency that you've mentioned without putting the burden on the RM or making them feel like it's making their job harder?
Nick Koutouras
Yeah, I mean, this is difficult. This is really the challenge. But I would say it's probably equal parts of change management and linkage to the bank's goals. So from a change management perspective, I kind of think about it in four stages. Stage one—and we jokingly call it the rejection phase—where there's lots of challenge on the results that are being shown. And I think that that's natural. It's healthy to have a review and challenge process during that stag, because that helps get people comfortable that what's being measured is complete and it truly is the truth. But that is where, on my teams, we focused on being spot on and tight. So we have to be absolutely flawless there because that's how we gain credibility with the numbers. Because the numbers are the numbers.
And then we move into the next phase, which is this reluctant acceptance where people will say, fine, if that's the number, then we'll work toward that number. I'm still not quite comfortable. And then stage three is active acceptance. It's like, OK, I like this number. Let me try to launch some campaigns to make improvement. And then, finally, my favorite stage is appropriation. When the banking team ultimately says, this is my idea. And that's really what we'll do, is this is your idea. We just put together your idea. This is really what you had. And, you know, that's kind of how you get that, you get through the change management.
I think the other bit that's really vital here is to make sure that we're not just doing process for sport. That there's actually an intention behind it and it's you .... A lot of us have been in banking for a while, and if we look back, it's really our priorities on this side of the operation. On the front end of the distribution group is really focused around capital management, liquidity, NII, and fees. And if you can link those goals of the institution at that moment back to the process that we're implementing, then it becomes a lot easier to gain that acceptance.
And then maybe the way you put it all together is then you create, you place those into scorecards so people can really understand these relationships. And this process is going to drive the business goals.
Cheryl Brown
Yeah. Because you can change process all day long, but we all know that, you know, like people are motivated by their compensation plan. So if you do the process change without changing some of those fundamentals, you know, it's going to fail every time.
Nick Koutouras
Yeah. And I think what's really vital here is simplicity and transparency. And some of that stuff sounds like cliche, but just keeping it simple for the bankers so they don’t have to really conduct a massive analysis or really a deep probe to make sure that their financials are sound. If you keep it simple to things that are not controversial—this is your revenue on the loan. This is your revenue on deposits. This is the book revenue. This is your RWA. This is your capital hold—You keep it simple. And if you keep the measure simple, then you can get acceptance.
But what was really the most powerful element in one of my deployments was being able to show that in the moment when we're pricing that relationship or assessing a relationship, we could instantly tell whether that was accretive or dilutive to the financial plan. And everyone knew that performance against the financial plan was tied to their incentive plans. So people really understood. Look, if we're going to make a concession on this client, we're willing to do that, but know that we have to also then find ones that are accretive if we're going to make a dilutive decision. And so that data and that measure, by it being simple and noncontroversial, was able for us to power the behaviors of the officers.
Cheryl Brown
I mean, it's really about just getting everybody around the table, right? And giving everyone a voice in the decisions instead of operating in these silos where Treasury is operating over here and Pricing is operating over here. And it's just kind of getting everyone on the same page, speaking the same language. Right?
Nick Koutouras
Absolutely. And really the easiest way to do that is common goals. So if a commercial banking unit has a loan long growth target and a treasury or deposit target and rates paid target and FX and wealth, etc., when everyone has common targets, then it's a lot easier to bring everyone to the table and have those conversations to show, hey, we need to find more wealth opportunities or we need to go find more FX opportunities. So it's all very much aligned. But having that fidelity of unified goals across all that touch clients is powerful.
Cheryl Brown
And you know, you mentioned a minute ago metrics and, you know, the banker scorecard. And I feel like we could spend 30 minutes just talking about things like quarterly summaries and delivery to promise. So maybe we save that for another episode, and we stop there because I think we can really dig in deep to that topic and it will be …
Nick Koutouras
Absolutely.
Cheryl Brown
… interesting. So, Nick, thanks for joining me today. I think this was a great beginning to maybe a series of conversations we're going to have here on The Purposeful Banker. So I hope to see you back here soon.
Nick Koutouras
Thank you, Cheryl, for allowing me to share a few of my views on measurement and really where we're working with FIs to zero in on the metrics that move their plans and make those visible at the moment of decision.
Cheryl Brown
Well, that's it for another episode of The Purposeful Banker. Thanks for tuning in. And you can find us wherever you listen to podcasts, Apple, Spotify, and YouTube, of course. And you can also find our archive of podcasts at hub.q2/podcasts. Until next time, this is Cheryl Brown, and you've been listening to The Purposeful Banker.