{"id":11494,"date":"2021-05-27T15:02:57","date_gmt":"2021-05-27T19:02:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=11494"},"modified":"2021-05-27T15:03:14","modified_gmt":"2021-05-27T19:03:14","slug":"meet-lakelander-sonji-coney-ceo-of-coney-funeral-homes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2021\/05\/27\/meet-lakelander-sonji-coney-ceo-of-coney-funeral-homes\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet Lakelander Sonji Coney, CEO of Coney Funeral Homes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Meet Lakelander Sonji Coney, CEO of Coney Funeral Homes (which she started at age 20). \"?\" After working with her friend Paul at Bank of Central Florida<\/a>, Sonji is now opening her business\u2019 second location. \"?\" Here\u2019s how Sonji grew her business with the help of the bank\u2019s commercial banking services (and how other local business owners can connect with a relationship manager).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Sonji Coney, CEO of Coney Funeral Homes<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLet\u2019s make it happen,\u201d said Paul Noris, CEO of Bank of Central Florida. Those were words Sonji Coney, CEO of Coney Funeral Homes, did not expect to hear as she shared some of the challenges she and her business were facing. This was the perfect example of what the term \u201crelationship banking\u201d means: sitting down with a Commercial Banker and CEO of a bank, laying everything out on the table and asking about financing options with someone you trust.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Starting her business at the age of 20, Sonji had worked hard over the years in Lakeland. She was involved in the community and had been in the same Leadership program as Paul through the local Chamber of Commerce. After some time had passed, her business needed an experienced Banker. She thought about who she knew at a bank and someone she could trust. Having already known Paul from serving in the community, she called him up and asked if she could share her story. Having that relationship with a Banker was life-changing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo many people depended on us in the community. Our love for the community was transparent, and people saw it. It is why we continued to push forward and do what we do. Knowing how Paul was invested in the community, I felt like I could trust that he would understand and have our best interests at heart.\u201d Sonji highlighted how having someone local and personal was vital in the timing of when they were looking for financial solutions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sonji continued to express her gratitude in saying, \u201cThat word relationship is immeasurable. Personalization is what got us. Bank of Central Florida has had personalization all the way from the top-down. It\u2019s nice to know that someone on the other end of the line will answer the phone or call us back. Dealing with other banks, we had niceties. Dealings with Bank of Central Florida are that of excellence.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coney Funeral Home is currently expanding and will be opening an additional location so they can better serve the community with greater capacity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWithout the team at Bank of Central Florida, we would not be where we are today,\u201d said Sonji.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Meet Lakelander Sonji Coney, CEO of Coney Funeral Homes (which she started at age 20). After working with her friend Paul at Bank of Central Florida, Sonji is now opening… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11495,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[9],"tags":[392,391],"class_list":["post-11494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","tag-ceo-of-coney-funeral-homes","tag-sonji-coney"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11494\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}