ALPH LOVUOLO
THE MORTGAGE GODFATHER
Train To Be Flexible And Accept Change Being ahead on technology also important for mortgage brokers BY RALPH LOVUOLO, SR. | CONTRIBUTING WRITER, NATIONAL MORTGAGE PROFESSIONAL
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t’s Aug. 16, 1971 and it’s time for my first inclusive weekly sales meeting. Inclusive will be explained in a bit. It’s 8 a.m. and I’m sitting in a glass walled conference
room. I had come to the office early at Bill’s “be there” invitation. He had called me at home the night before to let me know we had to discuss my raise, prompted by the President of the United States. Well, President Nixon hadn’t actually called Bill, but what had been on TV had changed my life forever. The day before, as I recall it, on that Sunday evening, the president, in a televised address announced, “I am today ordering a freeze on all prices and wages throughout the United States.” The announcement kicked me in the gut. The effect on me and my family was going to be catastrophic, a serious blow to my future and the plans I had for our growth, both for me personally, and the other three members of my burgeoning family. Financially it would cause a bit of a strain. The
previous week Bill had let me know that he was going to give me the raise we had discussed. That was a big deal to me. It meant that my future was tied to him for the foreseeable future. I respected his business skills more than anyone I had yet worked with. His personality was not something to be copied, but the trust I had in his business skills were very high. My salary on that Sunday was $12,500 a year. It was double what I had been earning five years before when I took my first job at a “real” mortgage company. My previous mortgage experiences had been with my father who started his mortgage brokerage business in the late ‘50’s.
LIFE CHANGING That salary was adequate, maybe even more than that. Well, I’m not counting the credit card bills that needed to be brought under control. But overall, we were fairly comfortable with that income, living with a $20,000 mortgage and one car payment. You can imagine how much sleep I had that Sunday night, not knowing what to expect. Meeting with Bill about half an hour before the weekly sales meeting, he showed me the approval that had been signed by the president of our parent company. Little did I know that that half-hour would change my life forever. He did his best to mollify
me, but I was inconsolable. Getting raised to $15,000 a year would have been the fulfillment of all my wishes. [That’s about $96,000 in today’s money.] I would have been almost 30 years old and content. My raise was effective on Monday morning. Bill said there was nothing he could do. He had called the corporate president right after the announcement and was told I would have to wait until Nixon lifted the ban. Our discussion centered on not knowing when that would be and then Bill suggested that maybe there was a way for me to earn the kind of money I felt I deserved. The circumnavigational way to foil the gods of Washington D.C. was to become a salesman! No, no, no, no, NOOOOOO! I didn’t want that. It was the farthest thing in my mind. It was impossible. I was not going to be a salesman. I was not a salesman! I knew my life was predetermined by the God I worshiped. He had my whole life planned. I was NOT going to be like my father. I was not going to be that blue suede shoe operator that my father represented. I guess Bill said he understood. I don’t remember. But what he then said immediately made the conversation turn in his favor. He had planned the meeting down to the number of words it would take to get hooked.
COULDN’T REFUSE Paraphrasing, “So, here’s what I
