Lori Mesta

I would say the amount of networking I began doing and building good, solid relationships with different community leaders and businesses to pull in business. My constant follow-up and the trust level I've built have been crucial. Where I'm at today, I'm definitely a trusted advisor, and I have a lot of centers of influence that trust me and know how I am with my clients. A lot of referrals are sent over to me because they trust me to take care of their customers or their people that they are involved with, whether it's family or businesses. A lot of my business that I get is referral-based. I also think it's about continuing to work and thinking outside the box. There's a bank on every single corner, you don't always have walk-ins, so a lot of it is me being out in the community and doing whatever it takes to build relationships. I always strive and always work really, really hard, and I go above and beyond to be successful.

I would advise women or men that are new to banking to learn everything that there is to know about the products and the services and relationship building. I think that is probably one of the biggest and most important things, especially if you're in a sales position. Learning how to build solid relationships and build trust with the customers is one of the most important things. I also think that coaching and being a leader and leading by example is very big. Not being afraid to put yourself out there and to be involved, and learning how to be a great coach is very important in this industry, well, in any industry I feel. Everybody should have a mentor or a coach that's going to lead you and give you corrective criticism and praise when that's deserved. I'm very big on coaching.

Integrity and trust are very important to me. I'm very big on leading by example. I volunteer a lot in my community, and I'm involved in multiple mentorship programs and serve on quite a few boards within my community. I spend a lot of time with my family - I have two children and three grandchildren. I make sure that I carve out time to spend with them. I'm a single mom, I've always been a single mom, but we have family dinners, we have family get-togethers, and I get my grandkids every other week. I spend time with my friends too, because you do need to have that work-life balance, family balance. I'm very big on that because you don't want to get burned out. Volunteering really fills my cup. I love to volunteer and give back to the community. I feel like that's important because we have to have people that really dedicate and volunteer their time. I watched my grandmother throughout the years volunteer - she was never in the workforce, but she always volunteered her time for church, making pies, working at our fireman's festival in my little community. I watched her volunteer, and I get a lot of gratification from volunteering and helping.