These are some of the ads and letters that we used in Choice Mortgage. But I found the best advertisement was word of mouth. If you do well, your name gets passed on to friends and workers and soon you have clients that call you.
I remember one of the agents we were training wondered why I never had to cold call for clients, that is why because I had built up a good reputation for doing a good job and your name gets passed on.
The mortgage broker business was new in the mid-eighties. People went to their bank for a loan. That was all they knew. But when banks started selling their loans into the secondary market such as FHLMC and FNMA a whole new business was opened up for independent brokers like ourselves. I learned right along with all the others in San Diego learning a new business. It was one time when my curious mind opened up a whole new life and career for me.
Richard never did learn the secondary market of first grade mortgages. He stuck with the second mortgage side of the business, making loans with individuals who had money to invest and wanted a higher interest rate than they could get at banks, etc.
One person was very frustrated with all the information we needed to get from them. So I wrote the following to my clients. Richard and I were both meticulous about sending out referral letters to old clients. And it worked. At one time I had so many nice letters that I received complimenting me on my good work. Of course, there were a few that did not turn out so well, too.
And at the beginning when I was learning, there was the shysters who stole my loans away. I learned a lot from guys already ahead of me in the business. Most guys like to share their knowledge and I appreciated soaking it up. But there are always those who take advantage as well. I learned. I toughened.
This was Suzanne, a very faithful secretary to Richard. She followed him over from Jones Mortgage when he left. So did Candy, I don't have her picture. Both were very good workers and served Richard very well.
Richard's nephew came to work for Richard with the promise that if he could do well in commission only sells, Merrill Lynch would hire him, and Richard gave him that opportunity. He did very well and left for Merrill Lynch.
Some of the agents Richard tried to train. Some made it. Some did not. Commission only business is very hard and not for every one.
Here was our rock, he was such a great teacher of the computer, a great helper in everything that was needed. He really loved working with Richard and was so sad when Richard passed away.
He was my greatest help at learning the computer. Later we all took classes but at first there were none. I was fortunate in that a loan processing developer told me he would teach me the computer if I would use his program. I did and he did and it was a mutual good thing for both of us. But he often became frustrated with my literal approach and inability to listen well to instructions. His favorite phrase was "the computer is not forgiving".