Wednesday, October 18, 2006

early evening

Today, I Got A J-O-B - No Wait, I Got Two J-O-B-S

It’s been a crazy week.  Yesterday.  Wait, was it only yesterday?  Yesterday, I got a call from a job I applied for on August 30th.  It was a job I wanted so much that I spent all of the 29th, when TwoNz sent me the ad, redoing my resume.  I’ve been self-employed since 2000, doing internet affiliate marketing and search engine optimization with Leigh-Ann, so I didn’t need a resume.  However, months ago, Leigh-Ann and I decided to dip our toes into the water and see what it was like working with other people.  Yeah, actual real live people.  So, I applied for a job that, in short, is reading blogs.  I’ll be reading blogs in specific categories (alas, not blogs about tv shows or fantasy football) and asking bloggers with good content if they would like to sign contracts and be paid royalties to share their content with others.  Kind of like syndicating newspaper columns.  It’s a commission only job, so I need to be prepared to work for my money, instead of us getting good search engine rankings and watching the sales happen all by themselves.  Leigh-Ann is applying for the job too - we’re similarly, yet differently qualified.  We have really varied interests and between the two of us, we either know a little (or a lot) about a topic, or we’re able to find out about it online.  We work really well together.  Not a single work fight (not other ones either, but the work ones are important to those who want to do business with us) in our years together, which will be nine years next month.  And, we have lots of good ideas together.  We need a venture capital person who wants constant ideas, but without hassling us about the nitpicky details of a business plan.  We want other people to implement our ideas.  We have this fantastic idea for a website for career ideas for teenagers.  I digress, I signed a employment contract and a non-disclosure agreement today.  For a j-o-b.

While I was working out the details of the new job yesterday, Leigh-Ann was talking to a mortgage broker about a job for her.  Well, for both of us.  Two mortgage brokers need internet marketing help, we need the help of experienced loan people.  We’re a lovely blend of experience, the four of us.  So, we’ll soon be ready to do loans in all 50 states, online.  Yes, that’s right, we can get you a loan for a new home, refinance your current home, or get you a home equity loan, and you don’t even have to leave your computer.  You don’t have to make appointments to see us (unless you’re interested in coming to Vegas to meet us for lunch), you don’t have to drive anywhere, all you need to do is fill out the application online, fax or mail tax/financial info, talk to us by email (by phone if absolutely necessary, but it probably isn’t), and you don’t have to even leave your house to get the loan done until you sign the final documents at the title company.  We’ll be just that convenient.  And our partners, they have access to all kinds of loans - for good credit, for bad credit (we learned in mortgage agent class that you can get a home loan one day out of bankruptcy), for medium credit.  Whatever you’ve got, you’re almost sure to qualify for something.  Also, for those of you who don’t want people you kind of know in a personal or bloggy sense to see your credit report , we can work the customer service part of the loan, and the guys can do all the poking into your credit report.  You get a loan, we get a commission, no one leaves their home, no one has to look at anyone else’s credit report, and we’re all happy.  You get a new house or you remodel your old one or you pay off some bills, and we get to keep our addiction to buying books from Amazon.  Everybody’s happy.  Plus, we try to make sure it isn’t a tedious process.  Like my first home loan was with our home builder.  Ugh, the woman tried to give me a crappy deal and she was kind of mean too.  We promise to never be mean, even if you’re mean to us.  Perhaps that can be our slogan.  Mean Loan Officers Suck.

Friday, October 06, 2006

evening

Mortgage School - We’re Done!  We Are…Mortgage Agents

Leigh-Ann and I had our last evening of mortgage school tonight.  We took our final (we both got 100%+ - there were bonus questions that we rocked, we were happy to have those bonus points) and got our certificate of 45 hours of Real Estate Finance continuing ed that will be registered with the state licensing board.  All in all, we really enjoyed the class and learned a lot.  We would’ve been a lot happier if the class had been closer to our house, but I suppose we can’t blame the school for that.  Now, we’re looking for brokers to hire us.  We iz s-m-r-t.  We’re creative - for class everyone was supposed to make up “impact statements” for scenarios when meeting people at, say, the grocery store and trying to sell ‘em your wares.  That is so NOT us, and so NOT how we want to work this business.  We want to advertise online (no, not spam - we have never and will never, send unsolicited email - that’s skanky), in niche magazines, on various blogs, by word of mouth, etc.  Anyway, to demonstrate our advertising ideas, we came up with these flyers.  The websites on them are either not real or are not owned by us.  The ads sure were fun to think up.  By the way, the Sandy Murphy one might need a bit of explanation.  She was on trial for murdering Ted Binion.  Long trial, blah, blah, blah.  Convicted, overturned, set free, apparently owes the sugar daddy $4.5 million dollars now.  She’s working for a mortgage company and says she’ll have him paid back in two years.  That’s, uh, some mighty quick commission makin’.  Anyway, our ads - http://flickr.com/photos/mudpuppy/sets/72157594314845354/ - Leigh-Ann did all the artwork.  But remember, they were just thrown together for class, they’re not ready for prime-time yet, or even subprime-time, heh.  That’s the second mortgage joke I’ve been able to make.  Yeah, so what if it wasn’t funny?

Thursday, September 28, 2006

evening

Loan Officer/Mortgage Agent School - Days 3 & 4

Let’s just say that my brain is on overload, and that I can’t wait for the weekend.  I understand everything for the most part.  The fancy calculator that does loan amounts, terms, balloon payments, adjusts for debt, income, taxes, insurance, etc...totally amazing.  While we just learned how to use it tonight, I’d like to profusely thank the inventor for making my future calculations so easy.  Man, what an invention.

The drive is very very unpleasant.  It’s the most driving I’ve done, um, ever, I think.  My car gets terrible mileage.  Something like 20mpg, highway, although it’s really stop & go for at least half the trip there.  Have I told you how much I dislike constant driving?  I do.  For me, driving is only the means to an end.  It gets me from point A to point B.  While I enjoy music while in the car, I enjoy it a whole lot more when I’m at my desk.

Unlike Leigh-Ann, I can see myself doing this for a living.  I don’t particularly like math, but I like solving problems.  The math for loans is kind of incidental, once you get familiar with all the terms and rates - I’m not yet, but I will be.  But the idea of switching stuff around and playing with the numbers to help people get a loan they want, is kind of cool to me.  It’s the same thing I enjoyed about my job working in United reservations, doing international itineraries.  I liked figuring out the routing, the different flights to match up with connecting flights in various countries (sometimes they only ran a couple times a week), the challenge of getting people into the most cities possible on their around-the-world tickets. Plus, knowing how happy people are when they get a new house or get money to pay off debts or money for new landscaping, that’s rewarding.  Hey, this sounds like answers to questions for a job interview, huh?

I don’t know if Leigh-Ann is going to tell this story or not, but tonight as we were going on one of breaks, she told me she had to go tell our instructor something.  I had no idea what it was going to be.  I just left and went outside to chat with some classmates.  When she came back, she told me that she told the instructor that she had no interest in doing this for a living, that she took the class to be supportive for me.  That she wanted to be able to understand what I was doing, and to be able to help if necessary, but it definitely wasn’t what she wanted to do.  Our instructor is VERY rah rah - the class is like half mortgage, half motivational seminar.  Leigh-Ann doesn’t like the motivational seminar part because working to just make a lot of money isn’t what drives her.  It’s what drives me.  I don’t have any particular interests that would lead me to a high paying job.  The things I enjoy, like reading, surfing the web, playing fantasy sports, eating at buffets, having nice things, buying stuff for the pets...those aren’t jobs.  They’ll never be jobs.  I’ve finally accepted that I need to find a job that allows me to work independently and make a lot of money, so I can use that money to pay all my bills and give me time to enjoy the things I like to do.  I also like process of thinking of creative advertising.  I don’t want to be the person who slaps a boring ad on your shopping cart or sends a postcard with my picture on it (I wouldn’t do that to you) to you in the mail.  The thought of advertising like a realtor has absolutely no appeal to me.  I want to market to people online.  I’m comfortable online and I’m comfortable with people who are comfortable online.

Oh yeah, to finish up the story of Leigh-Ann and the instructor.  The instructor apparently laughed and said that she was really glad Leigh-Ann had told her that.  She thought it was nice that she was taking the class with me.  Everyone was happy.  Although, knowing our instructor, you could probably tell her what you ate for lunch or that the sky was blue and she’d just be damned happy about it.

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

late evening

Loan Officer School - Day 2

Still, not too bad.  The drive there sucks totally, but the drive home is only about 20 minutes, which is super pleasant compared to the bumper-to-bumper yuk of getting there.  We have noticed that there are more personalized plates than ever before.  That makes the trudging along slowly a teeny bit better.  Still, I wish the place was right around the corner, instead of on the other side of the city.

Class was okay today, but we had so much reading and quiz stuff to do before we left for school.  Gah, I don’t know how the people with actual jobs and/or kids are doing it.  Maybe their brains work better than ours.  Today in class we had to do a presentation on lending regulations.  You know how Leigh-Ann and I love our public presentations.    Wheee.  We weren’t supposed to work together, but Leigh-Ann was cranky and threatening to stab herself in the hand with her pen.  So, we worked together, with one other woman.  We had to name our group, so we named it “Two Cranky Lesbians & A Cranky Straight Girl” - the class seemed pleased with our moniker.  Go figure.  Leigh-Ann & Linda made lovely cute little pictures of the people we can’t discriminate against - ironically (haha), according to that form (it was from ‘95), we were allowed to discriminate against gays & lesbians.  I tossed out ideas.  That’s me, I’m an idea person.  I’d always wanted to work at that ad agency on “thirtysomething” where they played basketball in their office and tossed out ideas.  Seemed like fun. 

Anyway, I’m exhausted and I’m going to bed.  I have reading and homework tomorrow, and oh boy, an oral quiz.  I hate quizzes, especially oral ones.

Monday, September 25, 2006

evening

I Liked School, I Did, I Did!

The traffic getting there was horrible.  I thought that because we should be going in the opposite direction as normal rush hour traffic, that we’d miss it.  We didn’t.  We hit the Spaghetti Bowl jam just like everyone else, only we were surprised.  Whoops.  We still got there on time, but we intended to get there early.  It took us at least 45 minutes to get there, but maybe 20 minutes to get home.

So, the loan officer class - I thought it would be super dull.  Okay, lots of the terms *are* super dull, but the instructor is pretty cool.  She’s chatty, yes she is.  She’s also super goals, goals, goals, Go Oprah!-ish.  Hard to explain, I think.  Still, she made the class way more interesting than it could’ve been.  Plus, she told us how much money she made in her first six months (100k) and how much she made total in her first year (372k, I think it was), and she didn’t have any experience when she started.  Yes, she’s a much better talker than either Leigh-Ann or I am, but that’s not how we want to find loans.  We want to do it online, with a company that does multi-state mortgages, and we want to do it through email.  We have a website, we have marketing ideas, and well, we need your help.  Yes, you, whoever you are reading this.  Those of you who know us, know we would never cheat you.  In fact, in most financial deals, we often end up being more generous than we can afford to be.  With your help, we can continue our same path of generosity and honesty.  Don’t worry, we’re not soliciting loans yet, as we don’t have our licenses.  We need to find a broker to work for first, and I’ve already had contact with someone in email at a Las Vegas-based bank (who does multi-state loans) who was interested in working with us.  We’ll need to meet them and meet some other brokers, but if we can find a good fit right away, we could be in business, well, as soon as the state gets our licenses back.

I have one request for the next week or so - we both have homework that involves contacting people we know and getting their contact information.  You know, I say, “Lalalalalala, how’s the weather?  By the way, I’ll be a loan officer soon and if you’d like to refinance your house, here’s my cybercard.” You then say, “Well, I’m not necessarily interested right now, but take my name and contact me in a month or so.  Maybe I’ll have a friend who’s interested.” We need 50 contact names each before the end of class or we have to sit ina dunce chair or something.  So, if you’d like to help me and maybe someday I can help you, send me your name.  That’s it, your name.  Not your phone number.  Not your address.  Just your name and state.  I won’t spam you.  I promise.  I’m just doing mah homework.  And maybe someday you can have a loan done where you only have to leave your house once, to sign papers at the title company at the end of the loan, then wait three business days and get a direct deposit of enough cash to remodel your kitchen or put in a pool or to pay off credit card debt or to buy your dogs some nice grass and a doghouse.