"Optics.......

....the way in which an event or course of action is perceived by the public"

As of January 3rd, I have been in the mortgage industry for 23 years. On the left is the cover of the Rolling Stone magazine from my first month as a loan officer…that’s where I used to get all my news from back then. I'm beginning to accept the fact that I will shortly start hiring people who were born after I became a loan officer. My sincere apologies, I digress.

My first 16 years in the business were spent with 2 companies; the first one for 6 years, they taught me the basics and then some. My second one for 10 years. In true transparency, I owned the second one. It taught me a whole lot more than I ever wanted to know about mortgages, management of people and the true meaning of happiness. It was still a great little mortgage shop and we had a terrific run for 10 years.

A while back it hit me that I was currently with my 6th company since 2010. I'm not sure if two of the six companies should be counted, since I was there for less than 6 months. But in the pursuit of 100% honesty, I have counted them.

August 2015 was a very confusing time for me. I had joined a mortgage company and six months later found my employer and I were not in sync with one another as how to best grow the company. I had a few conversations with key business leaders at Pacific Union and found the business model to be a great fit for me. Along with the opportunity that was being made available, it seemed like a perfect choice. Even with all that information, I was very concerned about moving to another lender so suddenly. I was unsure how that would be looked at by my team who had followed me to that company just six months ago. There was also the thought of how I would be perceived by my colleagues in the mortgage industry. I decided to throw my caution to the wind and JUMP! Thank God I did...best decision I had made in several years.

So what's the point of this article? Well thanks for asking.

Over the last year I noticed more and more of my industry colleagues had been moving around as much, if not more, as I had in these past few years. Not because we enjoy chaos and confusion but for a myriad of justifiable reasons: business model changed; comp plan was revised lower; slower turn times due to not hiring Ops staff, etc. All of these could be seen as valid reasons to consider other companies.

Then I noticed another group in our midst, they seemed to move with no concern of how it looked to the public. It seemed like they were looking for a new company the moment they got their new email passwords working. In speaking with them, I heard the same complaint: The current company had not delivered on what had been promised.

Ok...so maybe one company doesn't deliver.. my own experience on this matter was evident to that. I get it. But how could I overlook the fact that one candidate had worked at nine different lenders since 2014, that's an average of 2.6 months per company. And another candidate wanted me to believe that three separate mortgage companies had misled them in 2016 alone.

While I try my best to not judge people, I couldn't help but judge these candidates. Why would they leave so many companies in such a short period? What were they wanting from a mortgage company? How come they weren't concerned how their numerous moves would be perceived? Who in their right mind would do business with these guys?

To make matter even more confusing, I knew some of the companies they had been at. From what I knew, these companies were good shops with good business models. I soon began to realize I was about to become another company on their ever growing list visible to the public eye. Most likely in 3 -7 months they would be telling a prospective employer that Fobby had misled them. So I did something I had never done before in my career....I decided to take a pass on them.

Being a salesman for almost 30 years, my instinct is to close the deal. In my current position, hiring a mortgage professional is closing the deal. So when I have to pass on a possible candidate, the feeling is very odd to me, like brushing my teeth with my left hand instead of my right hand. I can hear my father saying "Being responsible is not easy, but being irresponsible can be expensive" Hiring those candidates would have been expensive in more ways than just my bottom line.

In the big picture, I know that Pacific Union's value proposition can increase the market share of a mortgage professional. The "Ops-Centric" platform that Pacific Union utilizes to support the sales team can also help improve the work/life balance that so many of us juggle daily. My adjusted perception is while I need to always be hiring mortgage professionals, I also need to verify that they can add value to my team by more than just volume and units.