Professor Elam

Dr. Elam,

I meant to tell you that what I have found in my limited experience of
going on business calls with executives and potential loan prospects is
this.
I’ve found the most important thing to these meeting is keeping up with
your current events. I’d venture to say that the majority, say 80% of
the conversation, is all current events-be it Michael Vick,
Mortgage/sub-prime dilemma, the DOW Jones, Dell, Longhorns, Aggies,
Baseball, Enron, etc. Most of any article in WSJ, BW, is normally the
topic of these meetings. I’d say the another 5% is talking typical
family business, trips, etc. Another 5% is talking/criticizing mutual
friends, and the last 10% is actual business that pertains to the loan
and the financials. This is the main reason why I visit your blog and
to show you that your style plays very much into the business roles
students will get in to. The business weekly is helping me
tremendously, not to mention, having a few books under my belt, is
never a bad thing.

Well thats just an observation I’ve made, but it seems to be right on
point. I might add that it feels great to know what you’re talking
about in these meetings when you’re opinion is asked for. I was
recently in a meeting with a Jr. Lender and his $2M customer. I was
present for meer support, should the lender have any concerns with the
statements, the customer presented. The customer made a comment about
the business of sub-prime loans and how “bad” a business it is to grant
such loans. I noticed the lender just nodded and said “yeah” in a not
so interested matter. Looking for some reply the customer turned to me
for some reaction. I looked at the lender and I saw that he knew
nothing of it. He basically said, “save me with his eyes.” I gathered
my thoughts and borrowed from BW by saying, “Well Sub-prime lending
isn’t necessarily bad business if the lender had done their homework on
the customer. It’s when the lender has recklessly abused their sub-
prime lending power, that they get in trouble.” I added some examples
of companies that abused their power and tied ethics into the whole
conversation. I could see the lender wanting me to change the subject
and prompt him back in where he was more comfortable with talking
ethics and he resumed the conversation.