Matt Maczka knows the value of relationships. It’s one of the reasons why he returned to his hometown, Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 2012 and joined Team Financial Group. He was named President in 2015 and then succeeded his father, Tim Maczka, as CEO, in November 2020.
Founded in 2001, Team Financial Group has provided over half a billion in funds for businesses towards the goal of helping our customers’ businesses grow. Team Financial Group’s mission is to deliver efficient, flexible financing while applying common-sense lending principles. Matt leads Team Financial Group’s business operations and is heavily involved in the sales arena, where he develops strong vendor and client relationships.
Here, we catch up with Matt, who tells us a little more about himself and his goals for Team Financial Group in the future.
RELATED: About Us: Who Is Team Financial Group?
Can you tell us about your background before you joined Team Financial Group?
Prior to Team Financial Group, I worked as a Project Manager for a large, family- and employee-owned construction company in Indianapolis. My education is in civil engineering, and although I had an engineering degree, I was never really an engineer. I was more of a people manager. I went back to Butler University and got my business degree after about five or six years at the construction company with the idea that I would eventually become CFO.
How did you end up at Team Financial Group?
There was no succession plan at Team Financial Group at the time, and I wanted to move back to West Michigan. So, my wife and I decided to leave Central Indiana and give it a shot. It was a big change for our family, but it was a pretty low-risk move in 2012.
What was it like to transition to President and CEO?
I’m a fast learner, and I have no problem doing the work. For the first four or five years, I was really just learning the business. When I became President, I was comfortable. It was a good transition. I only became CEO about a year ago, and Tim still comes to work every day and is the majority owner of the business. We don’t really get too hung up on roles and titles. We run this as a team.
How have you seen Team Financial Group change in the past few years?
We’ve continued to build our portfolio and the size of our customer base. We’re really in the repeat and referral business. Always have been. We can only be in this business if we treat people fairly with honesty, dignity, and respect Business gets a lot simpler when you treat people with respect, and it’s snowballed over the last seven or eight years.
We measure ourselves like any bank or lender would in total outstanding loans. We went through a major milestone recently; we have crossed the $100 million mark in our loan portfolio.
The world has gotten a lot smaller. That’s something that’s changed a lot in the past seven years—we’re doing a lot more deals outside of the state.
What’s been one of your biggest challenges?
In many ways, what we’re trying to do is grow our book of business, find more of the right people, but not change our culture. That sounds kind of goofy, but what differentiates us is we take care of people. The challenge is how can we bring on more employees but still have the expertise and maintain the “we’ll-take-care-of-you” atmosphere. A lot of people say we can’t grow [and preserve that culture], and maybe they’re right—but we’re going to find out.
What’s the one thing you wish people knew about Team Financial Group?
What our customers value is we take care of them in an efficient manner, but we’re looking out for their best interests as well. A lot of lenders out there are more worried about getting the current deal done and then moving on. We want to take care of people because we know that they’re going to call us back year after year after year. We don‘t just act as lenders. Our customers see us as consultants, helping them address their business’ evolving needs and goals. We’re going to take care of them. We want our relationship to grow and stand the test of time.
What do you like to do away from the office?
I like to do stuff outside: hunt, fish, golf, play sports with my four boys. We’ve got a lot of kid sports going on right now. Lacrosse, basketball, golf, football, baseball, tennis. You name it, we’re doing it.
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