Full Transcript is Below:
– It is top producer time. We are looking at the month of November and I want to say, this is a top producer, top person, special edition because there’s nobody more fabulous than JoAnn Rooney. She’s a Branch Manager at Palm Harbor. It’s about 20 minutes Northwest of Tampa, Florida. She’s been at NFM for five years. JoAnn, thanks for being with us and for being our top producer for the month of November.
– Thanks for having me Greg, I appreciate it.
– JoAnn, you owned your own mortgage company for 12 years. What made you close that down and come over to the branch side?
– Jane Floyd called me and said, I’m working for this company, you’ve got to come and work for them. And I said, why don’t you do it for a year, Jane? And then call me and tell me how it is. And she called me at the end of the year and she said, you’ve got to come girl. She said, this place is phenomenal. So I went up and interviewed and joined the company.
– I am really amazed by the reviews you get online, you’ve got over 240 happy clients that have went out of their way to recognize you. How are you able to deliver such incredible service? And what kind of importance do you put on that?
– It’s top priority first of all, I have a great team. We’re a small team, but we’re mighty. There’s a processor, Brittany and Mike in the office. It’s the three of us that take care of all the loans. My number one thing that I do is every Wednesday and Thursday, I call every client, every real estate agent on both sides and the title company. And by doing that and keeping them updated on the process, it makes for a very smooth closing.
– Yeah, JoAnn, I want to talk about your cancer battle. So in 2017, you were diagnosed with breast cancer and you were faced with a different kind of challenge. Can you tell us about that?
– It came out of the blue. I was on my way up to Chicago to see a girlfriend and got diagnosed a couple of days before that. Our family is always the same. You just deal with it head on, and that’s what I did.
– Was it also a time for reflection? What did you learn about yourself, and how did it change, how you are gonna move forward in your life?
– It made me a lot stronger. It made me a lot tighter with my family. I don’t like pity, so that was the one thing I told my kids and my husband don’t pity me, let me do what I wanna do, I know what I can handle. And they were very good about that. Unbeknownst to me, little Mike my son who works with me in the office, would watch over everything I emailed, he would check everything. He would listen to what I said. He was on the other side of my desk at this point. He really, really helped me, a lot more than I realized while I was going through that.
– Tell us a little bit about some of the things that your brothers and sisters did to help carry you through.
– Every single person in my family was awesome. My sisters, my brothers, my brother-in-laws, my sister-in-laws. I have a sister-in-law who went through cancer. So her and I were cancer buddies together. We decided if we were gonna take it for the rest of the girls in the family, we would do that. That was great. She made me a quilt, flowers came every day, balloons, plants, cards. The cards that I got, I have an a box in my bedroom and there’s probably easily 150 of them.
– Appreciate you sharing those stories. And how are you feeling now?
– Moving on, yes, cancer-free had one little setback, breeze through cancer, that was great. What they didn’t tell me was one of the drugs that I was taking, I would permanently lose my hair. That was depressing. That was the only time during the whole cancer thing, I ever shed a tear. So, but you know what? Life throws you, curve balls, you just learn how to hit them.
– JoAnn, before we let you go, you’ve been in the business 23 years. So, 9/11, financial crisis, now the pandemic, what do you think is on the other side of this? Obviously right now, we’re in the middle of a low interest rate refi craze, but if you tapped into your experience, having lived through all three of those, what do you anticipate the business looks like, a year from now?
– I think housing prices might come down a little bit, interest rates might go up. It’s just, you get through it. You help people, you get them in a house. People move, they upsize, they downsize, they move from other states, they move out of state, they’re just your clients for life. You just help them out, help them get in the house. It’s probably the biggest thing other than getting married and having a baby in somebody’s life. And if you can make it easy for them and transition them into a house where they give you a review that said that was easy, then we did our job.
– In other words, regardless of the environment we’re in, or what’s on the other side of this, if you do the right thing, the business is gonna come, right?
– Exactly, it doesn’t matter because it doesn’t matter if it’s a financial crisis, you just have to get people through it, that’s all.
– You are beloved by all who know you here at the company, you’ve been here for over five years now, continued success. JoAnn Rooney, we really appreciate you joining us and congratulations on being featured as our top producer for the month of November.
– Thank you, can I get a shout out?
– Of course.
– The employees at NFM Lending from the top, from the people who run the departments to the underwriters, the processors, the backend people, everybody is there to help you and make you look good. And your staff at NFM Lending is by far, the best company I’ve ever heard of. And I am just thrilled to be working with you. You make us look like superstars.
– That’s powerful and appreciated and right back at you. JoAnn Rooney, thanks so much, we appreciate it.
– Thank you, Greg I appreciate it, have a great day.
– That’s our Top Producer Series for the month of November, I’m Greg Sher from NFM TV. We’ll see you next time.