What is Really Important?

The most significant trend I have seen in my business career is that as companies have merged and businesses have gotten bigger, the less they care about people. They care less about their employees, less about their shareholders, and certainly less about their customers. I actually don't think that is good for the bottom line, and it sure makes life less fun.

I am one of the last hold-outs in my business. I actually believe that this is a people business. By that I mean that it is important who you spend your time with. I certainly care about myself and my staff. My assistant has been with me for four years now and we each know how the other thinks, so we get along well.

We also have to interface with lot of other people. In a typical purchase transaction, we have to deal with two agents, perhaps another escrow coordinator at their firms, an appraiser, an escrow officer, perhaps two, a title officer, and then four or five people at the lender we choose. In these cases, we can only choose about half of them but we have a great opportunity to see what happens to a transaction when we deal with a different set of people.

On a refinance transaction, we get to choose everyone. I have been using the same appraisers for, variously, from five to fifteen years and I know the high level of service and competence they bring to the deal. We have been using the same escrow officer for at least ten years. We never ask her to jump through hoops unnecessarily, but then she is always willing to drop something else and do what we need to have done on our transaction when we need it.

The same thing is true of title companies. I have been dealing with the same people there for over ten years and, in one case, twenty. When I call, they are always ready to help out "good old Randy." At least that's what they tell me.

At lenders it's a more complicated story because there are so many people involved. We have our own sales rep who we expect to act as our advocate, making sure that our deal gets proper attention. More important, from my standpoint, it is vital that I have access to the people who make decisions. When something goes awry with a deal, as happens more frequently than you can imagine, I want to be able to call up a person who can "fix" it. More to the point, I want to have a relationship with that person who knows that I can be trusted. On my part, I want someone who will listen and make a logical decision based on the particular facts of the case.

The sad news is that it is not easy to find such organizations, and it is getting harder. As big companies take over, the thicker the rule book gets and the distance to the person who is in charge increases. That makes access more difficult and increases the likelihood that no logical decision making will be done. They'll just follow the rules and try to avoid a situation where they might be criticized at some later date.

The good news is that the best lenders DO have the best employees. We have a stable of them from coast to coast, people we have enjoyed dealing with for years.

Conversely, when you find one idiot in a company, you are likely to find a bunch more. They seem to flock! When we find out that a company doesn't meet our standards, we avoid them in the future. The plain truth is that my customer ends up suffering in one way or another, and it sure makes my days more painful. So we do operate on a pain avoidance basis.

There are certain clients I don't want to deal with either, those who do not value the competence and trustworthiness I bring to their transaction. Some people don't tell me the truth! Others have different objectives than the ones the first tell us about. Others feel as if it is OK to play me off against some other lender. If you are a self-employed person, you can identify with that. Sometimes you have an unpleasant deal and when you get a check you say, "It wasn't worth it!" Life is simply too short to let people like that in your life.

The best way I have heard this said was from Jim Collins, in a statement he made in my alumni magazine. I'll quote.

"I used to believe that the critical questions in life were about 'what'- what decisions to to make, what goals to pursue, what answers to give, what mountains to climb. I've come to see that the most important decisions are not about what, but about who. The primary question is not what mountain to climb, but who should be your climbing partner. If you want to have a great life, the mort important question is not what you spend your time doing, but who you spend your time with. First who, then what - life is people."

Amen!