Is the Good Old Boys Network Still Alive and Kickin’?

I talk with mortgage girlfriends almost every day of the week, and within the last month or so I’ve heard from women who are frustrated with the Good Old Boys in the mortgage industry (again).

Several women told me that their company had required them to attend the latest Sales Mastery event. Most of the sessions were run by men preaching to the masses on how they should run their mortgage business, get more leads or make more money.

I don’t know about you, but I think women do business differently from men—and I would be personally upset if my company made me spend four days listening to men telling me how to conduct my business.

By the way, I looked up the agenda – 42 speakers were listed, 7 of them women (mostly on some sort or panel discussion group) and only 2 of them as “featured” speakers.

Next, several women have mentioned that their companies have been sponsoring hunting and fishing trips for the executive and loan officer “guys” in the office—with nothing offered to the women executives or women loan originators.

I get it. There may not be many women who want to hunt or fish (personally I love to fish). But here’s my point. Let’s say the company is spending $1,000 per person to send them on these little trips. That’s $1,000 that is an “additional benefit” that is not being offered to the women in the company. Are the women getting a check for $1,000 as a benefit?

Another woman told me that she believes that the male LO’s get preferential treatment when it comes to files in underwriting.

I have a ton of my own “good old boy” stories that I may share with you some day. It’s one of the reasons I started the mortgage girlfriends network in the first place.

Yeah, we may never get rid of the good old boys network—but we can band together, create our own network, and ask the companies that you work for to be more aware of the differences between the way each gender does business and pay equal compensation—regardless if it’s in the form of commissions or intangible benefits.