PHH mortgage (aka Cendant Mortgage) was one of the first to offer individuals the ability to apply for a mortgage over the phone. It was really a giant leap in the industry. A individual could get pre approved for a mortgage in as little as 20 minutes. We added web enabled capabilities as technology allowed. With the leadership of an amazing CEO, PHH Mortgage was a growing at an incredible pace. How fast was it growing? Their goal was to hire 100 people a month for the foreseeable future. When I joined PHH Mortgage in 1997, they were a company of 1200 employees. when I left in 2001 they had approx. 7,000. As they grew, it meant a lot of moving and shuffling. Our department, moved to five different building in 4 years. To be a part of a company that grew that exponentially was an amazing experience and challenge. At one point I believe we were spread out in 17 buildings in a 10 mile area of New Jersey. They were acquiring and then modifying any open space they could find. They desperately needed usable office space, while their 300,000 square foot, new headquarters was being built. Before the headquarters was even finished, PHH had outgrown it. One of the longest lasting accomplishments was a tag line I can up with for them, The Fastest, Simplest, Most Convenient Way Home” They started using that in about 1997 and I remember checking their website in 2010 and it was still being used. Their mortgage process truly embodied that philosophy.
I am so lucky to have been apart of this company and its juggernaut growth. At the time it seemed like we could barely stay ahead of the demands paced on us. When you have a great team everything seems to work out.
When I started with PHH, they had no designers. I was asked to build their graphics department. I think there were five people in the marketing department. All marketing was produced by photo copy or printed through a broker.
I remember my first day… actually first 3 days was intense orientation. Every new employee received a crash course in the mortgage process. There were strict milestones that enabled them to quickly and efficiently identify employees that would graduate the program and those dropped out or were not be asked to stay. Also the word employee was replaced with the word “Teamember”. It set the tone of what was expected. You were now part of the PHH Mortgage Team. We operated as a group not as an individual. I really embraced this as it encourages people to work together towards common goals of the company.
Copy writers and designers generally work hand in hand. One surely fails without the other. If you have a great design, but the copy is lacking, or worse missing critical details your team has failed. The same goes for a bad design that neglects to draw someone in. The best copy in the world is useless, if its never read. I refer to this as the yin and yang of marketing. The best team is one that recognizes this and works together. A copy writer should be comfortable challenging a designer and a designer should be comfortable suggesting copy alternatives. Each is crucial to the success of the other and ultimately the success of your marketing.
Ive worked with many great copy writers. One that comes to mind was while I was working at a mortgage company. Kimberly Brook was an amazing copy writer. She had a journalism background and could write beautifully written copy with what seemed to me no-effort-at-all. We would meet as a group and discuss the project. Very shortly, thereafter, Kim would have a first draft. Normally that was close to, also being, the final draft. Occasionally I would have an idea in mind, and would ask for a headline that would compliment the design. I remember Kim saying, “Curt just tell me what you want it to say”? It was that easy. I would suggest something to grab the reader. Kim would then refine it into a great headline that complimented our design. We both were adaptive to each other and as a result our small department pumped out an amazing amount of marketing collateral that was also incredibly successful.
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