There's a saying in the business world that goes something like this: “You’re only as good as the last deal.” What this really seems to mean is that loyalty is the exception, not the rule. How this tends to play out in the real estate realm is that any repeat business points you think you’ve scored for flawlessly closing hundreds of transactions vanish with a *poof* the instant you make a mistake at the closing table today.
It wasn’t until I began working escrow in Whitefish, Montana that I began to fully grasp the harsh reality of this locution. And boy did I learn it the hard way. Yet how was I supposed to know going in that the title insurance company I was hired to work for had a nepotistic staff of substandard title officers who were never held accountable for the quality of their work?
It wasn’t until I began working escrow in Whitefish, Montana that I began to fully grasp the harsh reality of this locution. And boy did I learn it the hard way. Yet how was I supposed to know going in that the title insurance company I was hired to work for had a nepotistic staff of substandard title officers who were never held accountable for the quality of their work?
My
experience saw the title officers of Security Title routinely and apathetically shrug off substantial
errors in the title reports they prepared, and then become righteously indignant
when I dared to become upset, even though everyone knew that I was totally
dependent upon those preliminary title reports (called “prelims” for short) to
do my job well. And how well I did my job was pretty important since it directly
affected the branch’s profitability and long term relevance. Oh duh.
For
the sake of an insultingly low paycheck, I endured six stressful months of defensively
dancing the quick-step in an attempt to parry and subdue the screaming machine gun fire of demanding
and irritated real estate agents, which
was inexcusably exacerbated by the inadequacies of my own colleagues in
Kalispell on a regular basis.
Call
me crazy but I tend to take my livelihood pretty seriously, and the Whitefish buck I needed to earn started
and stopped with my reputation. It was hard not to feel at times as if the
careless crew at Security Title was going out of its way to sabotage my diligent
efforts to develop a solid book of business within the real estate community
under its banner as they repeatedly abandoned me to the time-wasting task of damage
control for mistakes over which I had no control.
In
the end, management’s callous indifference toward my professional reputation
ultimately cost Security Title its branch office. How could the management of a
company who arrogantly treated the bulk of its employees as disposable know
going in that I would be nigh impossible to replace? Apparently that was a
lesson Chef was destined to learn as
well.
They
say (even in today’s insanely tough job market) it’s easier to find a new job
when you already have one. So let the record show that I took that old advice to
heart and didn’t waste one moment working whatever edge I might’ve had to my
advantage the afternoon I had my “Maryanne”
moment on the phone with Deidra.
Joan may have been convinced that it was necessary to loyally endure years of poor
treatment by the likes of Security Title in exchange for the illusion of job
security, but I was not so compelled. Security Title had done absolutely nothing
to cultivate my loyalty, and frankly, any points it may have scored for hiring
me in the first place vanished with a *poof* the second Deidra brushed off that last prelim closing crisis with impotent nonchalance
because the title officer happened to be her sister.
Part of my routine during the six months I spent working for Security Title was to listen to Joan recite the weekly stats for the valley’s four title companies as published in
the Flathead County market share report, and her ending commentary was always
the same ... she’d wistfully acknowledge the consistent and
significant hold of Citizen’s Title onto the largest piece of the market share pie, and then she’d
begin to pine on about how she always wanted to work at Citizen’s Title for they clearly were the biggest and the best. Well, it seems all it took to make Joan’s career
dreams come true was for me to have one “Maryanne”
moment because as soon as I hung up the phone on Deidra that fateful afternoon, I proceeded to dial up Vern Burton, the
owner of Citizen’s Title, and leave a message.
Burton called me back within the hour. He couldn’t believe his luck actually. He told
me how Citizen’s Title had been seriously contemplating opening a Whitefish
office for years but Whitefish was a very cliquey market and next to impossible
to break in to without the right person. Apparently he’d been watching me progressively gather up local
market share in spite of myself and Security Title’s self-inflicted roadblocks,
and he was impressed enough to now expand into Whitefish with me at the helm.
Of course I recruited Joan to make the transfer with me.
Citizen’s Title was underwritten by First American Title and ownership was controlled by Burton’s holding company, Kalispell Title Services, Inc. The holding company had
strategically acquired ownership of Flathead County Title sometime earlier
because it offered the expansion benefits that come from having another title
insurance underwriter (Old Republic) and title plant at its disposal. This
acquisition also made the company’s combined market share insurmountable by the
competition.
Kalispell
Title Services, Inc. leased an office on 3rd Street next door to the
Buffalo Café and across the street
from Mountain Bank, and established a new office for me under the name of Whitefish
Title Services, Inc. (WTS). In a maneuver designed to ensure the loyal lending
business of the biggest bank in Whitefish, Mountain
Bank, Burton and his corporate cohort, Dan Black, brought in the president/owner of Mountain Bank, Buster Schreiber (aka Mr. B.S.), as a 10%
WTS investor.
While Joan and I did receive
a nominal pay raise for transferring title companies, our meager salaries were expected to be supplemented with a monthly commission based upon
our closing volume as reflected in collected escrow fees. The total escrow fee
being charged on a sales transaction at the time was only $75. Typically this
escrow fee was split in half and $37.50 was charged to each side (seller/buyer)
of the transaction. Aside from the obvious fact that this flat fee was obscenely
low, nothing about it made sense to me so I logically decided it was time to increase the
escrow fee by $25 – time to make it an even $100.
Well, the local real estate agents squealed in protest
like a sty full of stuck pigs. You’d a thought I was trying to drain them of their
own life’s blood for an extra $12.50 that they themselves didn’t even have to pay
for. Yes, I know. Even at $100, the fee was still obscenely low, especially
when compared to what I knew was being charged for the same services in The OC. I could only push the envelope
so far however, and given the heated reaction, it was clear anything over $100 would’ve
just pushed too far.
I suppose raising the escrow
fee proved to be one of my undistinguished claims to fame. When the local swine finally stopped squealing, it was ironic to watch the four title companies in Kalispell (Citizen’s Title and Flathead County Title included) safely slip through the door of opportunity that I alone had the chutzpah to kick open as they all fell in line behind me and increased their escrow
fees to $100 as well. And I'm talking quick, quick and with tacit enthusiasm.
The
good news is that the fast dancing I was forced to learn at the onset to the stressful
tune of screaming machine gun fire eventually
turned into what later came to be called the “funding dance.” At least that’s
what everyone who ever worked with me called it. Probably because I’d make
them all dance around my office to the tune of the big funding bell I was known to grab from the corner of my desk and ring with the swing of Quasimodo every time a transaction funded. We have a funder! Whoop! Whoop!
Believe you me, everybody wanted to hear my funding bell ring for that meant all parties concerned would soon be dancing their way straight to the bank or into a new home.
Living The Big Sky LifeTM
© by DK King