From Thomas Paine:

I do not choose to be a common man,
It is my right to be uncommon … if I can,
I seek opportunity … not security.
I do not wish to be a kept citizen.
Humbled and dulled by having the
State look after me.
I want to take the calculated risk;
To dream and to build.
To fail and to succeed.
I refuse to barter incentive for a dole;
I prefer the challenges of life
To the guaranteed existence;
The thrill of fulfillment
To the stale calm of Utopia.
I will not trade freedom for beneficence
Nor my dignity for a handout
I will never cower before any master
Nor bend to any threat.
It is my heritage to stand erect.
Proud and unafraid;
To think and act for myself,
To enjoy the benefit of my creations
And to face the world boldly and say:
This, with God’s help, I have done
All this is what it means
To be an Entrepreneur.

Woo hoo.   That’s some positive feedback.

But some people?  Got slapped around pretty hard.

Now I’ve churn out content.

I abandoned http://tendayteam.com and it became a PR4, so I guess I gotta do something with it.

Maybe courses to turbo charge your business in ten days?

From a fantastic email sent out from Dave Biggers, Chairmain… a la mode, inc.

Background:  I get a lot of prelegislation panic.  This happens all the time.  This, seems to be the real deal.

To:     All mortgage brokers
Re:    New regulation we need to stop
From: David Biggers, Chairman, a la mode, inc.

 

The two portions of the HVCC that most affect you are:

“The lender will not accept any appraisal report completed by an appraiser selected, retained, or compensated in any manner by… mortgage brokers…” and

“…any person… who is compensated on a commission basis upon the successful completion of a loan… shall be forbidden from… any communications with an appraiser”

Now…David talks about some of the issues:

The business relationships that you’ve spent years building with agents and appraisers are made worthless overnight

The entire regulation is biased toward the large institutions and against independent appraisers, mortgage brokers, and agents

If this becomes law, what part of your value-added role will come under attack next?

…By every means necessary, you need to contact the powers-that-be and tell them how opposed you are to the HVCC.

That’s all normal stuff, and I hear it all the time.  What we don’t hear all the time is this:

Why are we involved?  Any threat to you is a threat to me. Over 30,000 mortgage brokers use my company’s websites and tools.  And all told, over 100,000 agents, appraisers, and mortgage professionals use our products. 

That is candor and honesty, and leadership.  The REAL reason is that he’s self interested.  And this is good.  Many brokers are good.  Most are bad.  (Yes, most).I don’t know what the odds are that we can stop this regulation; there is talk that it doesn’t apply to correspondent lenders, so most of the good shops will get one or more correspondent lines.   But it worse than the disease, a big wet kiss to the banking industry (like Check  21).   This too shall pass.

However, I’m more optimistic than David.  This too, shall pass, and we will continue our roles and our excellence.   Don’t let this scare ya. Good people will survive whatever nonsense the bad people throw at us.

The problem is that the industry brought this upon ourselves.   Really.  We all did, bit by bit because inquiries became a bidding war to see what value what appraiser could get for what house.  

Now go conquer!

This is a fascinating take on Yahoo’s options by Netscape Creator…Marc…

I was being offered a job at Bank One.

The base was $28,000 and it rose I think to $32,000 when I got my series 6 license.  It provided me with some security, and since my lifestyle was arranged around a cash need of under $1,000 a month, it also would pay me well, particularly because gas was $1 a gallon.   The downside was an unusual-for-Columbus 30 minute commute, but it wasn’t the end of the world.  The bank, from the outside, looked like a Jiffy Pop tin. 

I could tell from the interview process that it was realistic to earn about 45,000 a year, and the possibility tapered off somewhere around $60,000 a year. A good looking tall manager was interviewing me, and his assistant was giving everything away. I had just decided my tour of writing (without selling what I was writing) and not growing up was to end.  $45,000 with awhat appeared to be low effort while at the bank was appealing to a 25 year old.  As close as I can tell, I didn’t undergo much scrutiny or a background check.

So when I was given my offer, I started on a Tuesday at the Polaris building (most of the fiasco was going to happen at the Brooksedge Center on Schrock Road here in Westerville, but the damage started at Polaris).  I drove my 1992 Geo Prizm (a corolla with a crapy Chevy interior) over to training and orientation.  We sat through some paperwork which was earnestly, if not efficiently handled.  Lots of people paraded in to listlessly tell us about benefits of being a Bank One employee (here in Columbus we could get a gym membership, we could get some golfing discounts, and probably more that was rather unimportant.)

Right after lunch, we were paraded into a room where we were sat to watch one of many videos.  This first video was radically different.  It was where I met Jamie Dimon, the then New CEO of Bank One.  He was on the video with seething earnestness.  You could tell he meant business, and he said, “Right now, Bank One, and even the new Job you just got is in some danger.  Right now, we are wasting money everywhere I look, with no benefit to the customers or our employees.  You are new to the company, like me, and I want you to help me find waste wherever you can.  This yellow paper is how you can get in touch with me.  I want you to protect this company and find waste, and I will personally ensure that there are no repercussions.  Any time you see waste, you have to cut it out, it doesn’t matter how small.” 

To this day, and despite what was to come, I believe that Jamie Dimon was sincere.  After sitting through in processing at the (even then) huge company, I was enthusiastic.  Someone understood that there was corporate cancer.  Someone was with my up or out ethos.   This wasn’t going to be an Initech situation.  I was thrilled about being in an organization that was ready to change. 

Mistake #1.

Training started on Wednesday, and after some more routine paperwork and disclosures (sexual harassment, no discrimination, what hotline to call for what problem), we shuffled off into an auditorium for training.  There were a hundred of us bankers.  You know who we are?  We’re people sitting in cubicles that glom on to anyone in line trying to get a transaction.  We tried to churn your worthless cash into valuable commissions for ourselves and the bank branch.  The training was about 3 weeks, and then there was more training to get my Series 6 and Life And Health licenses.  All of this was on the bank’s dime, and I was drawing $2350 a month, and done by five pm. 

So the hundreds of us bankers, about 80 if I recall, were shuffled into an auditorium for a presentation.  The after lunch portion–from 1-5pm was fantastic. The 80 of us, and four trainers spent the whole time shaking hands.  No kidding.  We spent the time practicing how to approach people (a little bit more quickly than they approach you), and when to extend your hand, how many pumps, and how to release. 

My enthusiasm was dissapated, but I did have a useful exercise, so during a break, I asked the trainer (I think his name was actually Shawn, and he seemed like a good guy that had been poisoned by really crappy culture).  

“Shawn, how often are these classes held,” 

“Twice a quarter here, and then twice a quarter in 3 other locations.”

“Do you teach them all?”

“No, there are other trainers.”

“Is this an average sized class?”

“No, they average about 100 people or so.”

“Really?  Wow.”

So on my first day, at the end of the day, I took Jamie Dimon at his word.  I didn’t see the need for annonimity because, if Jamie Dimon had just told me that he’d personally, if necessary, keep any repercussions from happening, then, who would go over his head.

I figured that the two trainers made about $61,000 a year, or $30 an hour. 

I figured eveyone in there made $14.00 an hour, so when you add benes, that brings us to a cost to the bank of $17.50 an hour.

I figured the real average was 88 people per class; I was told 100, but I wanted realistic figures.

So…

$17.50 per hour  * 4 hours  = 70 per person.   * 88 (average) people = $6,160.  Let’s add in the trainers wages of $120 per trainer * 2 = 240.  So we’re at $6400.

Now, we do this 2 times a quarter, or 8 times a year.  This means that it’s $51,200.

Now with 3 other locations that were teaching Handshake One-Oh-One…That meant that $204,800.

That was the cash benefit.  The noncash benefits?

• They would no longer be demoralizing smart people right out of the gate. 
• People would not have an attitude of complacency from day one.
• We could get to training more important and more specialized information.
• We could get to know each other.
• We would forever take training more seriously.

I had done a nice document in about 15 minutes.  I emailed it to myself, revised it, and sent it home.  I was no longer feeling demoralized.  I was excited–for on my first day, I’d saved my company $204,800.  My future was secure–if I could save this much money on day one, at 25, what could I do with more experience?  They were certain to be grateful at every level that I’d pointed out their folly. I was proud of my idea, and of my work, so I signed my name to it.  I submitted it up to the fax hotline the next day. 

Because of Jamie Dimon’s clarion call, there was a backlog on the wastebuster fax of about three weeks as his assistants   But I would send 4 other faxes in that time. 

—

Chris Johnson is the Author of Loan Officer Survival Guide, a $13.50 e-book that will give you more deals than you can count. 

That found me because Mike Mueller was being nice.   Have a poke around.   Check out the “best” up at the top nav bar to see what I’m abut, and subscribe for a little while to see if Im a flavor you dig.

I’m abandoning my “Ten Day Team” blog, so what to do with a PR3 blog you no longer want?

Part One Of 4.

I married GenuineWife in 2002.  We’ve been married 6 years, then, and she’s been fantastic.  Since our baby #2 is due next Thursday, I figured I’d put my sharp stick away and look at the past a little bit.  She was 22. I was still 25, nearly 26.

I was enjoying the normal post college vibe.  I didn’t want to be a flunkie for the World Bank so when I graduated from GW, I got a job selling ad space for a paper with a bootstrapping ethos.  That didn’t last, so I got a job training people with thick accents on a CodeBase built database.  That, too, didn’t last, so finally, I got a job waiting tables and doing free lance odd jobs for a couple of ad agencies.  That was cool, because I had enough to support myself, and I had ultra low expenses.  And, of course, gas was a buck a gallon, so nothing else really mattered. 

And I met girls.  I paraded one or more annually through my parents living room, looking for that magic moment when I knew that this one would be the one that stuck.  I had a series of stupid relationships with girls of varying character, beauty and quality.  I never really saw myself as a good fit with any of them.  Either they couldn’t dig my easy Christian metaphysics, or they dug them TOO much and I was gonna be prodded into attending an Abortion March.   A couple meandered into my orbit via facebook, bringing reality to Paul Simon’s promise of gathering all the girls I knew when I was single.  And he’s right about imagination, that’s for sure.  

It was the girls that didn’t dig me because I was ‘just a waiter,’ that made me take some action.   There was one girl that I didn’t like all that well that rejected a relationship with me BECAUSE I was a waiter.  “Can’t see this going anywhere…”  Nevermind that I took a title shot with my novel “Searching for Bedford Falls,” and nevermind that I’ll do it again when I get the chance, and nevermind that I’ll get the title.  Being a 24 year old waiter/writer/wanabe that’s content to have no responsibilities scares off some chicks.  And I got that.  Chicks only dig the roller coasters at cedar point.

I was incensed by the rejection!  Who was the woman to reject ME?   I wasn’t going to date her, not for long anyway.  It was the subtle comments that I picked up on that clued me in.  She wasn’t worth changing for.   After we stopped dating, she had the misfortune to sit down next to me at a party, and suggest that I ‘leave room for Jesus.’   I said something like, “Don’t flatter yourself, you living lovehandle, you sat next to me.”  Real charming.  Then I called her a tub of guts, and some other things.  She was barely overweight, but had a complex about it.  You can just tell with some girls.

I was dating, off and on, a 20 year old student.  She wasn’t for me and I wasn’t for her, but she was fun to pass the time with and have beer and pizza and drive around 270 burning $1.00 gas. She’d come over a lot, and we’d walk around Otterbein’s campus.  She put no burdens on me, but in when my 25th birthday came around, I had no desire to have her meet my parents who had come into town.  I planned it, and made up some lie as to why it wouldn’t work.  She saw through the excuse, and my 20 year old wandered off to someone that was more ready.

The next girl that rejected me, it was because of the fact that I had arranged my life in order to see if I could hack it as a writer.  I never properly found out because I gave it 7 months.  She didn’t dig the fact that I was an a tiny apartment, and was waiting tables for money.  She didn’t know that I had untaxed money around $700 a week.  I don’t know if I wanted her or not, but she was the caliber of women that I wanted to date.  I don’t know NOW if she rejected me because I was aloof, or because I had been waiting tables.  I figured at that point it was time to get a real job.  Most of the time men are motivated by one thing, and if I had something that kept me from attracting the caliber of women I wanted, then, well, I’d have to fix it.

That’s when I started job hunting, and it didn’t take long for me to find the job at Bank One, where it took about 80 days to cement the fact that there are differences between me and a corporation.

More to come probably next week. 

OH, IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:

Always Back Up: http://www.escapefromcubiclenation.com/get_a_life_blog/2008/04/the-biggest-los.html  Pam is right.

We’re not nearly through the worst of it.  Morgan Brown again on the Credit mess and stated income.

How To Save $$: A Guide For Freelancers.

This video?  Not safe for work.  Total mid 20′s vibe though.

Click for details.

Please subscribe..today.

…and there’s much more coming.  I can’t wait.