Back in 2006 (or so), I walked into a Yuma BNI breakfast armed with two things: a track record of award-winning mortgage marketing and an oversized dose of confidence. I’d come mainly to catch up with the Arizona state director, but the moment I spotted a new face—a mortgage professional named Derek Egeberg—my inner, and rarely seen, salesman kicked in.
With a quick handshake I skipped the small talk.
“Hi, I’m Jon,” I blurted. “You should hire me. I know exactly how to market mortgages.”
The look on Derek’s face said Who is this guy? He was polite, but I’m pretty sure “jerk” was the kindest word running through his mind. I’d committed the cardinal sin of networking: pitching before listening.
Months passed. I joined that same BNI chapter, humble pie in hand, and started showing rather than telling. During weekly presentations I broke down branding principles, explained why a unified visual identity crushes random flyers, and shared examples such as “A Tale of Two Brothers,” the sales piece that once earned me an ADDY for illustrating how buying beats renting on the road to independent wealth. Derek watched, asked questions, and realized I wasn’t just spewing buzzwords. Trust grew in tiny increments—brief hallway chats, a quick critique of a postcard, coffee meetings where we scribbled solutions on napkins. No single epiphany—just steady deposits in the relationship bank.
Our first big collaboration became the standard within Academy Mortgage: a Mortgage Concierge Package—part workbook, part roadmap, part team intro that guided borrowers through readiness checklists, moving-day timelines, budgeting worksheets, and friendly bios of Derek’s staff. The design blended Academy’s brand standards with custom iconography and a warm, step-by-step voice. Borrowers loved it. So did other branches—so much so that some lifted it almost verbatim. Flattering, yes; a little infuriating, absolutely.
When Derek moved to Mortgage One, the canvas widened. Unlike Academy’s tight playbook, Mortgage One had few brand rules, so we defined a color palette that balanced national identity with a Yuma flair, refreshed Derek’s personal brand—photography, logo variations, punchy value statements—and rolled out collateral from rate-sheet templates to “Concierge 2.0,” now including down-payment assistance and renovation-loan tips. Through market swings and regulatory shifts, Derek’s production numbers stayed in top-producer territory. He credits solid processes; I like to think the right storytelling tools helped, too.
If I could time-travel to that breakfast meeting, I’d tell younger me: Ask before you pitch. Show your work steadily. Design tools, not trophies. Confidence opens the door, but curiosity keeps it open. Derek now jokes that my “premature solicitation” was the best worst introduction he’s ever received. Eighteen years later, we laugh about it while fine-tuning the next iteration of his concierge guide. Relationships, like great brands, aren’t built overnight—but with patience and purpose, even a rocky start can turn into a legacy of creative wins.