OCTOBER 2009 O
MONTANA MORTGAGE PROFESSIONAL MAGAZINE
O www.NationalMortgageProfessional.com
Frederick L. Assini, President and Chief Executive Officer of Franklin First Financial Ltd.
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Each month, National Mortgage Professional Magazine will focus on one of the industry’s top players in our “Mortgage Professional of the Month” feature. Our readers are encouraged to contact us by e-mail at newsroom@nmpmediacorp.com for consideration in being featured in a future “Mortgage Professional of the Month” column. This month, we had a chance to chat with Frederick L. Assini, president and chief executive officer of Melville, N.Y.based Franklin First Financial Ltd. At just 27 years of age, Fred created Franklin First Financial with a vision and determination to build one of the country’s finest lending institutions. Today, as company president, CEO and sole shareholder of Franklin First, he oversees a 40-state business operation with sales of more than $2 billion annually. A native New Yorker, Assini attended St. John’s University, focusing his academic attention on the field of finance. He began his career as a sales manager for a successful home improvement corporation with an exclusive partnership with Sears. It wasn’t long before he rose to the position of president, supervising all sales, finance and investor relations. It was during this period that
the idea of running his own company took form. In 1993, he opened Franklin First Financial in a small building in Elmont, N.Y. Since then, Franklin First has moved to a three-story facility in West Hempstead, N.Y. with a staff of more than 250 employees. Credit for the company’s growth is widely given to Fred’s executive marketing strategies and personal philosophy of customer service, together with a commitment to leading-edge technology and financial product diversity. Through Assini’s philosophy of treating every customer as if they were the company’s only customer, Franklin First Financial enjoys a large percentage of repeat business, as well as referrals from real estate professionals. Tell us a little about your background prior to entering the mortgage business. My family was in the remodeling business, and much of our remodeling projects revolved around financing. Because we had to do a lot of financing, I was always somehow involved in running credit reports and calculating debt-to-income ratios. In the early 90s when home improvement loans became scarce, we had to seek out professionals to do mortgages.
When we started seeking out mortgage brokerages back then, we weren’t too happy with the service we were getting, so we stared doing the mortgages ourselves. When we did a mortgage and the client wasn’t happy with the broker, it would reflect poorly on us. We ended up doing the mortgages ourselves as an adjunct to our remodeling business. The mortgage business remained a side business until about 1993, when I saw that not only the business was growing by referrals and the hiring of loan officers, but the leads were coming in more than with our remodeling business. I knew how to do a lot of sales. I felt that selling a mortgage became a lot easier than selling a kitchen remodel. I saw it as a cash flow that was easier because you didn’t have to lay out money for labor and materials. Those factors swung me more to the mortgage side of the business. What sort of marketing techniques did you use when you first launched Franklin First Financial? Do you utilize any of those same techniques to this day? When we first launched, we used a lot of referrals and we were doing some direct mailings. We also had an inbound call center that took applications. Today, we still keep our face in home visits and appointments. We sit down with the clients and explain the entire mortgage process. We also still do a lot of training of loan officers. We are able to train loan officers into the business, instead of hiring LOs from the outside. That was always one of our strengths. We hire people who weren’t in the mortgage business and teach them the business. One of the gentlemen recently hired in our retail centers was a financial planner prior to joining Franklin First. He was hired three months ago, and he’s been closing four loans per month in a three-month span so far. I cannot say that one particular marketing method has brought in the largest number of calls, but I feel a mar-
keting mix is very important. I think you have to be very versatile. We had a TV commercial and I didn’t like the quality, and the same went for our radio spot. You need a wide array of testing to see exactly what works. As you grew professionally or in your business, what are some the practices you still maintain to this day as you’ve grown? My philosophy is still the same to this day. I didn’t try to grow the company too quick. It’s has been organically grown from within. We never went outside to borrow capital to grow. We used our own money to grow. We have people here who have 12-plus years with the company. That was my basic principle. I’m 43-years-old and realize that I have a long time to keep growing successfully. I never tried to go too far and have offices worldwide. I’m pretty laid back. We are a mid-sized company and didn’t grow to compete with the Flagstar Banks, and Option One Mortgage Corporations of the world. Is there a long-term goal of the company to get to those levels? You’ve experienced steady growth over the years and are licensed in over 40 states. Right now, there is the opportunity to get to that level one day, and it will take a few more years to think like that again. The company is set up to go nationwide. We just got our Fannie Mae approval, an approval that is very hard to get as you need the proper net worth requirements, etc. We are going to be the seller/servicer, which means we actually can compete with banks like Citi and Chase. That is our goal. We are set up to do loans for the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD) and Fannie Mae, and with our upcoming Ginnie Mae platform, we will have all the irons in the fire.