In this Brandon Hall Group™ Excellence at Work Podcast, Spencer Johnson, Treasury Management Officer at Zions Bank, and Suzanne Santana, Regional Vice President of Sales for the West at isolved, explore how isolved’s Center of Influence (COI) program is redefining the way trusted business advisors like bankers and brokers deliver strategic value to their small and mid-sized business clients.
Key Discussion Points:
- Why Business Advisors Are Evolving Beyond Transactional Relationships: Today’s business environment demands that advisors like bankers and accountants zoom out from their core expertise and understand how payroll and HCM technology can drive retention, engagement, and growth for their clients. The key insight is that advisors don’t need to become HCM experts. They need the right technology partners to complement their services.
- What Prompted the Zions Bank Partnership: Spencer Johnson began hearing consistent frustrations from clients, including high payroll costs, disconnected systems, and too little time to manage it all. Rather than leaving clients to figure it out alone, Zions Bank went through a rigorous vetting process to find a partner aligned with their values, ultimately choosing isolved for its customer-first culture and commitment to white-glove service.
- Large Enough to Make a Difference, Small Enough to Care: isolved’s defining philosophy plays out in practice through dedicated points of contact, hands-on implementation support, and a platform that consolidates payroll, timekeeping, onboarding, hiring, and training into one intuitive system, eliminating the “juggling act” that burdens so many SMB owners and controllers.
- Trust Is Built Over Time and Worth the Investment: The first referral wasn’t an immediate win. It took a year of building trust with the client before they were open to the conversation. Once they met with the isolved rep, the platform largely sold itself, and a year later that client was raving about the experience and wishing they had made the switch sooner.
- Communication Is the Cornerstone of a Successful Partnership: Suzanne emphasized that when things don’t go perfectly, and in payroll sometimes they don’t, keeping partners like Zions fully informed before reaching back out to the client is what preserves trust and ensures a cohesive, unified experience for the customer.
- Advice for Advisors Considering a COI Partnership: Spencer encourages any banker or financial advisor to vet a potential partner thoroughly, ideally by going through the platform experience themselves. Suzanne adds that prospective partners should ask the hard questions upfront, such as what the client retention rate looks like, what service continuity means in practice, and how problems are handled before they escalate.
- The Ripple Effect of a Good Referral: A successful partnership doesn’t just benefit the referred client. It deepens the advisor’s overall relationship with that client across every product and service they offer. When a client sees that their banker has their best interests at heart, they become more open to every future conversation.
The discussion makes clear that the most powerful business relationships aren’t transactional. They are built on shared values, consistent communication, and a mutual commitment to client success. The isolved COI program is a compelling example of how the right partnership can expand what’s possible for advisors, clients, and technology providers alike.
isolved:
- LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/isolved/
- Website: www.isolvedhcm.com/
Spencer Johnson:
Suzanne Santana:
