It is not enough that mortgage origination firms have to differentiate themselves to consumers. These companies, especially those in the branching business, must also differentiate themselves to industry insiders in order to hire the people who are the best fit.
Semper Home Loans, Providence, R.I., might be the extreme case in terms of culture, which is something more akin to a Silicon Valley company than a mortgage company.
It is a "boutique branch operation," focused on the personality of the person being brought in said chief strategy officer Raymond Duquette, with these people known internally as the "in crowd."
The person Semper is seeking is on one hand fun and laid-back, he said, but also has attention to detail. "We work hard but have fun while we're doing it."
President and CEO Matthew Sullivan said many branch operators out there feel underappreciated. Duquette said Semper takes a more personal approach, including sending a basketball rim in its opening package to potential new branches. At the Providence office, it is not unheard of to see people riding a scooter in the aisles.
They take the branch managers out to dinner, to get to know them on a personal level. "We're more focused on the individual, not the production that you have," Duquette said.
A mortgage broker that became a mortgage banker, its growth is prefaced on the model that it did not want to treat its branches like the large wholesalers had treated it.
The founders of North Carolina's Integrity Mortgage Group, Dean and Kelly Wolfe, have only worked for branching companies and have used their experiences in order to build their company.
This comes from how they've been treated by branch companies, including firms which have shut their doors and filed for bankruptcy; basically the whole gamut of things which could have and did happen to them, said Dean Wolfe.
Many of those problems, he added, always came at the branch operator's expense. They have not forgotten what it is like to be the branch operator.
So, their answer is transparency. They reveal who their investors are to the branch managers. Furthermore, said Dean Wolfe, they have a certified public accountant on staff to oversee that function, even though they are a small (eight branches in seven states) company.
"In our area, we've seen more failures related to how other companies handle their finances," followed by loan quality problems, he said.
Louis Tesoriero, the business development manager at Guaranteed Home Mortgage Co., White Plains, N.Y., said his company has been in the branching game since 1992, and that is its advantage. "We treat our branch managers like the entrepreneurs that they are.
"We get it that there are all different personality types and we like to capitalize off that. We are not a cookie-cutter operation. We will develop a plan that is custom and tailor-made to that situation," he said, adding it likes to leverage off of the different experiences to make the company better.
They will strategize with their branch managers to see what it is that is working as well as what can be tweaked based on what some of their other branches are doing.
"We take a vested interest in the success of each and every branch that comes to Guaranteed," Tesoriero said, adding it is more than providing the platform, it is about how the parent company can make its branches become better.
Foundation Financial Group, Atlanta, recently saw its CEO Paul Scott become chairman and take on more of a strategy and planning role, while its executive vice president, Mark Boyer, moved into the CEO slot.
At the end of January, the company opened a regional sales center in Rochester, N.Y., and will open centers in Illinois and Texas later this year.
It is hiring on all levels from entry-level telemarketing through licensed loan officers up to high-level management positions.
"Everything we do here is really about the people," from training through benefits and more, Boyer said, adding Foundation wants to be the place where people stay their entire careers to work at.
"All of our growth is based on our people, it is not growth for growth's sake. And everyone doesn't fit here," he said, but for those that do, the company treats them like they are working at a destination employer.
At Real Estate Mortgage Network, River Edge, N.J., Rick Floyd, managing director of retail sales, commented, "We focus on hiring experienced mortgage professionals looking to thrive in an organization that is sales-centric, but also driven by a commitment to providing top shelf service across the board. New team members come to REMN well vetted and are committed to our way of doing business."
