‘Traditional banks have equated advising with cross-selling’: Grasshopper’s Danielle Kane on why just 7% of SMBs see banks as trusted advisors

Banks have long focused on competing for small business accounts through interest rates, fees, and rewards programs, treating the relationship as transactional from the outset.

Relying on this approach alone is now losing ground. New research from Grasshopper Bank reveals that only 7% of small business owners see their bank as a true strategic partner. This gap points to a deeper disconnect between what banks offer and what business owners actually need from them today.

Tearsheet’s Managing Editor, Sara Khairi, spoke with Danielle Kane, SVP and Head of Small Business Banking at Grasshopper Bank. Kane breaks down why banks’ outreach to small business owners so often defaults to sales pitches rather than hands-on guidance, what’s missing from small-business banking products, and what SMB banking could look like five years from now.

Q: Why do you think only 7% of SMBs see their banks as trusted advisors today? Is this a trust problem or an engagement problem?

Danielle Kane, Grasshopper: It is fundamentally an engagement problem that has eroded trust over time. For decades, traditional banks have equated “advising” with “cross-selling.” When a traditional banker reaches out to a small business owner, the owner instinctively braces for a pitch about a new credit card or a line of credit. In our recent Beyond Small survey, we found that what small business owners desperately want is real-world strategic mentorship – both for their operational scaling and their personal growth. But traditional finance completely ignores the mental tax of running a business. If your engagement model only surfaces when there’s a product to sell or a fee to collect, you never build the relational foundation required for actual trust.

Q: What are banks getting fundamentally wrong; is it the products, the technology, or the relationship model itself?

Danielle Kane, Grasshopper: …