We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Joanna Perry. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Joanna below.

Hi Joanna, thanks for joining us today. Early in your career, how did you think through the decision of whether to start your own firm or join an established firm?

I was a 22 year old college graduate with 7 years of sales experience working at CitiFinancial as a personal and real estate loan officer. This was an hourly position with company benefits and a lucrative commission/bonus structure. After the housing crash in 2008, many of the branches began to close and loans began to default. I was able to keep my branch profitable and one-by-one they began closing down all the other branches around me and sending their files into my branch. Within a 60 day time period, I had acquired the largest portfolio in California and was helping the clients who were past due get caught up. I was mitigating expenses, funding new loans, and adjusting terms for clients who were in a hardship on payments. In 2010, I won “The Biggest Company Impact Award” for the entire United States and was presented a wonderful trophy and speech opportunity at a conference in Dallas. It was during my years as a micro-managed loan employee that I realized how difficult politics were with respect to getting ahead. There were times were ethics and company goals were not congruent. I also began to gain insight and understanding surrounding discrimination in lending. I am bilingual and spoke with many clients who simply did not understand the terms of their home loans. They had been lied to and deceived by their sales person. This led me to desire a position as a fully secured mortgage loan originator versus being a personal loan agent with real estate loans on the side. One Day, Dean Adams from Wells Fargo Home Mortgage called me. It was a headhunting call. At the time, I thought my salary and title was really good for my age, and here was this Wells Fargo guy wanting to speak to me about a 100% commission job. I thought he’d lost his mind, but I agreed to one interview. Looking back on how silly my ego was at that age, I could have never imagined that the opportunity would change my life and the lives of over 3,000 future clients for many years to come. I had a knowing that I was supposed to take this new Wells Fargo Loan Originator position. It sounded crazy, but I chose to have faith in my higher power and trust the voice inside. I accepted the position. Six months later, I bought my family our first home. 6. Months. Wells Fargo taught me every aspect of the home loan process and how to handle every single department. After 6 years with their firm, I was ready to try a life without the Stage Coach emblem, and just rely on the name Joanna Perry. It was very disheartening when the same men who hired me and “loved” me told me, “You are only successful because of the company name recognition and consumer confidence. They want the brand, they do not want you. If you leave here Jojo, you will be on to the next employer and then another employer and we do not want that for you. You are too passionate to go out on your own. You will fail.” That really stung. I cried incredibly hard…for weeks. However, I chose myself and decided to wager my full bet on ME. I quit WF and went out on my own accord. And guess what……
I very quickly learned that people were following ME. My success was not my company. My success was that people wanted to work with ME. Those managers who’s praise and atta-girls that were so important to me, were just a growing lesson. They unfriended me on social media the day after I quit and never spoke to me again.
As the next 5 years of my career would unfold, I would watch managers try to retain their female loan officers in the very same way – Fear. That is when I had the idea to build my own company that was majority female operated. A place where we could tell the truth, be authentic, and not need to share our commission with any of these non-producing “managers”. In 2018, I incorporated and filed by DBA for The Loan Lady Club.
Over the last 5 years, I have mentored 8 women with very little experience to grow their businesses and become highly proficient and successful loan originators.
Something key that I have come to understand is, “You can only grow your business to the extent that you have developed personally.”

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I have had a love affair with math since as far back as I can remember. I grew up loving puzzles and algebra. Back in algebra class, solving for “X” meant getting a good grade. In my professional area today, solving for “X” actually identifies the price point a consumer can safely shop for a home and keep a comfortable housing payment. The output of the algebra formula can change a family’s life forever. They can achieve the next level of wealth. A home loan is simply a math puzzle and the pieces are specific to the applicant’s real life income, debt, assets, and other variables. Most clients do not have every piece of the puzzle when they come to see me. I partner with them to reverse-engineer these puzzle pieces until the full potential of their financial ability is realized! I am set apart from others because I tell the truth regardless of the impact on my pocket book. I have spent the last 12 months actively telling my clients NOT to refinance their mortgage loans until the market is able to offer them better terms. I also have a super-power: I can tell people difficult feedback about their relationship with money in a way that they accept and appreciate. I am willing to be unliked or uncomfortable for a brief time because the overall result with be a successful and happy client with a great financial portfolio. The truth in lending is a actually quite rare. Many of my competitors are true sales people. I think of myself as a data provider. My job is not to steer clients or sell them on dreams they cannot afford. My job is to show people the concrete data, the good and the bad, and help them choose what will work best for their families. Sometimes, the most loving thing I do is tell a person, “No; wait”. Because I am from a modest upbringing in Modesto, CA, and have successfully built multiple businesses and diverse income streams (investment properties), I am a living example of what is possible for others. I do not wear a suit and tie; but rather, I work authentically and resonate with the every day mom and dad who wants to secure the American dream.
I am most proud of my ability to give any person who follows my recipe a customized path/plan to homeownership. I have no need to decline anyone because I’d rather work hard upfront and stick out the journey with my clients to achieve each milestone step by step.

What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?

The best source of new clients is often from my direct competitors. It is very difficult in my industry to have a platform that truly supports your ability to offer all sorts of loan products and programs without extra hoops, restrictions, and well….shenanigans. I am committed to helping my industry competitors who have clients that need specific loan solutions that their current lending platform will not support.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

I was made to feel that I was too animated, too passionate, and too demanding by many middle-managers. They would try to exploit and attack personal characteristics about me in an attempt to deflect from other actual root causes of problems i.e. lack of resources, knowledge, skills, or discipline. It was much easier for them to gaslight me into thinking that I was part of the problem. Once I got out on my own and had full autonomy, I was able to see the light and the truth. My expertise and expectations were simply higher than the lending platform could contend with. Rather than let me know how great I truly was, they’d prefer to “manage down” and dim some of my light to keep me calmly in the corner. This is a very common tactic in the corporate world.
I’d like people to know that your passion and expectations are not a weak point, but rather, a sign of a superpower.
It turns out that I began to eliminate folks with lower frequency vibrations and was actually able to build an army of a network & team that was equally yoked. I was not too anything…I was just, well, being gaslit.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.loanladyclub.com
• Instagram: @joannaperryloanlady
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JoannaLoanLady/
• Other: -check out our google reviews -also check out this other version of my website: https://the-loan-lady-club.business.site/ -my personal facebook has a lot of my clients on it too: https://www.facebook.com/JoannaLoanLady/