High interest rates? Inflation? Try overcoming spinal/brain injuries
In the mortgage industry, scores of brokers have endured higher interest rates, inflation and even the Great Recession yet somehow overcame the challenges. However, Allison Thenhaus (pictured) has had to overcome far greater challenges than mere economic shifts.
Senior mortgage loan originator at Colorado-based C2 Financial Corp., Thenhaus suffered an accident in her 20s that left her with spinal and brain injuries – the former requiring six surgeries. In a dramatic example of the strength of the human spirit, she is thriving today in spite of such trauma.
“It happened long ago,” she said matter-of-factly when her interviewer expressed sympathy for her past plight. “It’s in my past, and it all led to where I am today.”
Her path was altered after accident
She had gone to a good school and gotten good grades, which set a path toward a good career, she said. Despite an enviable academic pedigree, she realized the ongoing surgeries and years of rehabilitation would not be conducive to a conventional career.
“Because of that, I became a very unreliable worker,” she said. “I went to a Tier II college [Bucknell University], got super good grades, had kind of a good thing ahead of me for work but that kind of changed my whole trajectory,” she said of the accident. “Because I had a brain injury and had to go to rehabilitation and had a series of surgeries over the course of a decade, it made me an unreliable worker for corporate America because I would have some bad weeks.”
Her presence as a panelist during the recent Hall of AIME event in Naples, Fla., powerfully illustrates how far she’s come since those dark days and weeks of recovery. She took time to chat with Mortgage Professional America after her presentation at the event staged by the Association of Independent Mortgage Experts that celebrated the group’s top producers.
A love of things equestrian lead to business
Having always loved all things equestrian, Thenhaus launched an equestrian goods store on various sites – Amazon, eBay and Facebook. “I was very successful in that space,” she recalled of the early part of the venture. But then it got complicated. As the business grew, it required more capital – both financial and human – to keep it going. And once seeing how well the equestrian niche was doing, she said Amazon bolstered its efforts in offering similar wares of its own.
“It became very apparent that it was very hard to scale because I had to have six figures worth of inventory,” she said. “It was very money intensive, plus the space to do it and hire enough people to support it. It was so intensive cost-wise. This was more in the beginning stages of Amazon and it became clear from their business model that they would figure out which items were a cash cow. When an item becomes a cash cow, they would sell it themselves. It became very clear they were going to shrink our margins. I don’t fault them at all; it’s genius on their part.”
Plotting her next move
She brainstormed with her husband – who had a job in corporate America, she noted – about what her next job might be – having narrowed it down to real estate and mortgage broker. Her real estate friends’ suggestions that she would have the luxury of more family time while in the mortgage field proved to be the tipping point for the mother of one: “Literally, that’s what pushed the envelope for me to be a mortgage broker over being a real estate agent.”
Read more: How to become a real estate agent with no experience
A newcomer to the industry, Thenhaus is undaunted by the current economic shifts that have altered the mortgage industry: “I had spent a decade in the other business, and it was really hard,” she said. “People complain about the market now, but I’ve worked a heck of a lot harder for way less money so for me it’s not a big deal to turn to this market. I know what’s coming out on the other side. A lot of people have gotten lackadaisical in this industry You need to be a wolf and get good at your craft and be a lean machine.”
She ended up at Elite Financial Team, posting $12 million in volume in 2019. Soon, however, she felt like she had outgrown the company – prompting her to join C2 Financial. Her first year out, she would post $44 million. “I increased my business by 400% just being plugged into their system,” she said, noting she remains friends with the owner at Elite Financial Group who gave her a start in the business.
The mortgage industry has allowed for more family time as her real estate friends advised. In a recent video, she shows how she’s able to travel so her daughter can show horses in a specially outfitted horse trailer/mobile office.
She credits AIME for its support
She credited AIME for aiding her nascent career. “The biggest benefit of AIME is the network of people who are willing to help you,” she said. “My favorite part of AIME is all the people I get to talk to. They’ve done a good job marketing, bringing brokers together. We have a common enemy – the banks. And by doing that, they’ve allowed all of us to work together instead of against each other. As a community, we don’t see another broker as a threat. That has been the genius of it.”
At the end of the day, it’s about soldiering through – even if it means having to learn to walk again. “A lot of it is perception,” Thenhaus said. “Either feel like a victim or use that experience to motivate you. It’s funny because I see commonalities in this market where you have people who are reeling in this market who are caught like a deer in the headlights instead of using this as an opportunity to hone their craft, give better service, and see opportunity in it. I think a lot of is it just a mindset – whether you see it as a hurdle or an opportunity. Those people that see the opportunity versus those who are not are going to be successful.”
Such an attitude has buoyed Thenhaus in her new career, where she is galloping with the confidence of one of the horses her daughter now likes to show at equestrian competitions.
