Tag Archive for: culture

Why Shake Shack’s Founder Is So Inspirational! “Hospitality vs. Service”; Success Recipe!!

/in ,
60% of restaurants fail in their first year of business, and 80% are gone in five years. That is why people are so inspired by Danny Meyer, the founder of Gramercy Tavern, numerous other restaurants, and the entire Shake Shack chain. Virtually ALL of his restaurants thrive and his net worth is close to $700 […]Read More

JVM’s Hiring – The Most Talented People in The World :)

/in ,
We are often asked how we so consistently foster such great client experiences. And while it is partly a result of our training, systems and culture, it is mostly b/c we hire extraordinarily talented people. And right now, b/c we are growing so quickly, we are aggressively looking for additional qualified candidates. Our current compensation […]Read More

Retaining Talent – Culture & Profit Sharing; Not About The Money

/in ,
Recruiters from other mortgage companies constantly call our team members to lure them to their firms… and it always elicits chuckles across our office b/c the recruiters are so clueless. They don’t understand our model or why our top performers stay. Heejin and I used to be even more clueless when it came to retention […]Read More

Team Building – Freedom, Profits AND CLIENT EXPERIENCE; Awesome Testimonial

/in ,
We constantly tout the need for effective team building as a necessity for all leaders and business owners. Hiring team members to do every task better than you can is the only way to expand free time and profits and to enhance service levels. In fact, we are planning a huge Lunch & Learn in […]Read More

Team Building Done Right; Safety, Purpose, Fun, and Tahoe

/in ,
We take enormous pride in our team building at JVM, and it is one of the reasons our service levels are extraordinary. Everyone backs each other up, and nobody gets stuck in their “silos.” Internally, we do this by making sure everyone knows JVM’s primary purpose – closing loans as efficiently and friendly as possible. […]Read More

I Was Wrong About Coaches; Belichick Wins! Consistency

/in ,
A few weeks ago I blogged about how effective Coach Swinney’s looser and friendlier coaching style was at Clemson after Clemson won the National Championship. JVM’s Stake In College Championship Yesterday, however, my observation looked silly when the Patriots won, as Coach Belichick is the king of hard-nosed, serious coaches. He doesn’t care about millennials, […]Read More

How Do We Build & Maintain Culture? Don’t Hire Jay & Heejin

/in ,
We constantly tout JVM’s “Super Culture” as our secret sauce in our blogs, website and conversations. In response to a blog last week, several people asked what we do to cultivate our culture. We do far more than just talk about it. It starts with the interview process. We make it very clear how our […]Read More

How Our Culture Obsession Helps Everyone

/in ,
“Culture Eats Strategy for Breakfast.” We feature this quote by Peter Drucker on our website’s career page b/c we know it is true. Our internal culture of psychological safety, communication, congeniality, openness and inclusion is JVM’s secret sauce. We never lose focus on it. Last week a team member sent this email to the entire […]Read More

Cal Baseball Coach on Team Culture; Great Business Lesson

/in ,
Our excellent office manager recently reminded me that she shares the below blog on “teamwork” with all new employees as part of her on-boarding process. B/c extreme teamwork is the absolute life-blood of JVM and most businesses, we thought the blog was worth repeating. A close friend has a son who was a top baseball […]Read More

Retaining Talented Team Members/Assistants; Profit Sharing & Culture

/in ,
We constantly see loan officers and realtors build and train highly talented teams only to see them leave as soon as they hit their peak. In contrast, we have many friends who have extremely talented team members who never leave. Here are the reasons why: 1. Sharing the Wealth/Profit Sharing: This was one of the […]Read More

Culture Eats Strategy For Breakfast; Cliché But Very Necessary

/in ,
“Culture Eats Strategy For Breakfast”. When I used to hear that I thought it was just more 1980s-business-management-BS. I thought efficiency, hard work and monetary incentives were all a small business needed. And I was ridiculously wrong. When Heejin and I first shifted JVM to our current super-service, team-oriented model, we had ample talent and […]Read More

Elements of Best Place To Work? Pebbles In Shoes

/in ,
I recently mentioned trying to make JVM the best place possible to work. Here are a few of the things we did to improve our culture. 1. Hire really, really nice people. This is key, so everyone loves working with each other. We only hire “nice” no matter how talented someone might be (will discuss […]Read More

Comment from Cal’s Baseball Coach: Valuable Business-Culture Lesson!

/in
A close friend of ours has a son in high school who is a top baseball recruit with the option to play for some of the best colleges in the country. What makes this story so interesting, however, is the school he is focused on and why. When he visited Cal with about 50 other […]Read More