Home Sweet Home

The first question is…how did I get this loan in the first place? Why did Countrywide do the deal? The answer is simple and now a part of history…Countrywide was doing bad deals.  Thanks to them, I was able to get the house! No hard feelings here!! I had two choices on that day in October 08.  I could continue paying my mortgage and watch the principle grow above the value of the home or I could try to negotiate a loan modification. I chose the latter.

The next day I called Countrywide to discuss the loan mod process.  They said I fit all the requirements: negam, adjustable rate mortgage, etc., except, I was current on my payments!  I made the toughest decision in my career that week…I skipped my payment. I’ve never missed a payment on anything in my life prior to that day, so it was a scary decision. After the due date, I called them again and wouldn’t you believe that they told me I now fully qualify for the loan mod. Unreal!

Over the next 11 months I waited and waited and waited and waited and waited…you get the drift. I didn’t make a mortgage payment for 11 months. Yes, it did affect my credit rating, but it just seemed worth it to keep the house and the gain in value over the period. I have a great company that I hope to sell some day and cash out, so I had to take the chance. I figured I could explain the situation to a creditor down the road; they’d remember the worst recession in 40 years. I also figure I can get Bank of America to reverse the reporting to the credit agencies once I get back on track (working on that now). I’m an entrepreneur, I’m used to living on the edge.

On Sept 2nd 2009, 11 months later  (the day before my birthday), I got a Fedex from Bank of America (who acquired Countrywide). I opened it nervously thinking they were about to foreclose and to my surprise, they offered me a reduced interest rate from 8.25% to 2.375% for the next 5 years, effectively reducing my payment by over $10,000/month and eliminating the neg-am!  Long story short, I took the deal. Whew!!

Would I recommend that you follow in my footsteps? I wouldn’t wish the frustration or restlessness I experienced over that 11 months on my worst enemy. But it sure feels pretty good now!  We still have our home and we can easily afford our payments now. Sometimes things do work out…thanks Bank of America!

To the moon!

-Eric Greenspan

I spent my week applying the new skills I obtained from attending conferences, reading and engaging in Twitter activities.  I literally have been switching from my Blackberry, to my iPhone, to my PC, back to the iPhone and on and on it goes.  From TweetDeck to Yammer, WordPress to Twitter, Google Adwords to Yahoo Search, Facebook to LinkedIn, throw in a little AllTop, MyYahoo, Outlook, Powerpoint, Quicken (had to pay some bills)…my head is spinning.  It’s been an interesting week to say the least. I finally broke down and bought a Twitter marketing application that automatically adds followers for you.  The limitations of Twitter make this process painful, but I’ve had some success.  I think what I have to share on the Twitterverse is interesting enough, but I still need to establish the key relationships with top Bloggers, Twitterers, and other social media pros.  Also, as you know, I launched my blog along with the rest of my team.  You can read their blogs on my links.  We are also getting ready to re-launch blog.makeitwork.com which will provide a landing page for all things tech, both from our hundreds of daily appointments solving consumer electronic problems and our content from Tech News.  This is an important piece for Make It Work as it allows us to post all the emails, tweets, and FB posts we share with our followers and customers daily.  Things like virus alerts, system updates, new programs and gadgets, other threats, discounts, etc., are all soon to be found on our blog in one centralized place.  I think our customers will appreciate it.

Yesterday was Halloween.  My son was grounded and didn’t get to go to the big 7th grade party.  If you know me, you know why.  As usual, we setup our light show, smoke machine and scary music from our poolside Sonos system (get one, now you can tweet the song you are listening to).  The problem however is this year the kids avoided the long driveway as our neighbors, both at the top of the drive, turned off their lights and avoided the annual holiday cheer.  This in turn limited our trick-o-treaters to three groups of kids.  After an hour, I shut off the lights, the smoke, music and pulled the candy inside and called it a night.  Bummer.  My wife however is elated…three months pregnant and three full bags of candy complete with Reeses (every type), Snickers, M&Ms, Jolly Ranchers, Take5s, and many many more!

Well, it’s Sunday and I’m going to watch football with the wife.  She is a Fantasy nut and it’s really hard to concentrate with her shouting out stats and player names.  (While I was typing this, Manning handed the ball to Joseph Addai, who THREW a touchdown to Reggie Wayne…she’s pretty excited as Wayne is on her FF team…Manning is on mine, but gets nothing for that play!)

I leave you with a few questions, feel free to respond in my comments and I’ll talk to you on Monday:

1. What success have you had with Twitter? Facebook?
2. What kind of mobile device do you use and why?
3. How often do you drop the F-bomb each day?

Here’s a couple of tips for you from the CEO of a tech services company (that’s me):

1. Sonos just released an update (iPhone app due out shortly) that allows you to Tweet the song you are listening to.  Kinda cool, I guess.  I’m posting this again, as I really love my Sonos and I PROMISE you will to.  My favorite gadget ever!
2. When trying to reach someone where email, Twitter and Facebook have all failed, try calling them or send a fax (it will be the first one they received in a while)!
3. In Facebook, switch to Live Feed and go down to the bottom and click “edit options” and enter 5,000 for Number of Friends.  Now you will see what you’ve been missing.

TOMORROW’S ENTRY: In tomorrow’s blog post, I will discuss how I got Countrywide/BofA to reduce my mortgage payment by $10k/month.  I’m not in the mortgage modification business, so don’t worry.  I’m just going to share my experience so you can learn how to do the same.

To the moon!

-Eric Greenspan

As promised, today’s blog entry will be about our culture at Make It Work…

Make It Work is a very unique company.  Employees first, customers next is one of concepts and I recently learned that Virgin America and Sir Richard Branson share this philosophy.  Nice to know.

Simply put, if your employees love their jobs, they will love your customers.  We offer back massages on Mondays, we have a “flip flop required” policy in the office which translates to comfortable clothes, great seating, bring your dog to work, enjoy lunch at your desk, Facebook, Twitter, email and whatever else floats your boat while you work.  Our employees work in an environment that is fun, lively and productive.  They all have wireless headsets and may often be found talking to a customer on the phone while bowling on a Wii.  Why not?  Do you honestly believe productivity is hampered by these activities?

While we can’t spend the entire day playing Rockband, we all need some fun in our day.  If coming to the office at Make It Work is fun, then you look forward to it, rather than dread it.  If the environment is warm, healthy, happy and positive, doesn’t this translate directly to productivity?  Yep!

Make It Work is all about DELIGHTING our customers.  We offer instant response, same day service, constant communication, real appointment times, no question refund policy–Virgin America-esque, Nordstrom-like, with an extra helping of In-N-Out Burger.  We’ve been imitated, but never duplicated.  We stick by these principles and we thrive as a result.  Richard Branson said at a recent conference when asked what he looks for when starting a new venture, “We look for dumb, lazy companies that offer a product or service that we believe we can deliver better.”  I couldn’t agree more!

We have over 32,000 cult-like customer testimonials at  Make It Work and now you know why!

To the moon!

-Eric Greenspan

So, I’m starting to get the hang of this bloggin thing.  I have to say, that it feels great to put my thoughts down in a place where I can get some critical feedback and hopefully not anger anyone in the process.  I will keep it brief, but I wanted to add some more color to the week…here we go…

I saw U2 this past Sunday night with the wife.  Also in attendance was my ex and our 12 year old son Jacob.  Jacob is learning the guitar and is getting pretty good at it.  He has the Slash signed model of a Les Paul along with a Mexican built Stratocaster.  He will get the US version after he proves he will stick with it.  Anyhow, so he and his mom are at U2, the wife and I are there but sitting pretty far back.  Jacob and his mom are in GA/Field and standing near the stage.  The Black Eyed Peas get on stage and were amazing.  Most of the U2 fans where thinking, “wait, there are black/asian/hispanic people on the stage singing hip hop, will there be a riot?” They didn’t dance, they just watched and told themselves to be patient, U2 would be on soon.  Then Slash walks onto the stage.  Remember, my son has a Slash guitar.  He had to be going nuts (later I found out he was) and Fergie and Slash sang “Sweet Child of Mine.”  Epic moment in our lives.  I was happier for Jacob than for myself (at least that’s the story I’m telling).

After a great performance by BEP and long wait in the line at the bathroom, a beer, some chicken strips and fries, U2 shows up and really got the place going.  This is why most had come. As a long time U2 fan, I thought BEP was pretty amazing and actually enjoyed it as much if not more than U2.  Now let me clarify my position.  I’ve been a U2 fan since I was a kid, from their first MTV video “Gloria” and every song and album since (except the latest one, bleh). I saw U2 24 years ago in a tiny theater of 3,000 people in downtown Cleveland. They returned to sell out the Richfield Coliseum only a few months later.  This is when they went from small underground new wave band, to top 40 icon in the making.  I was lucky to see them then.  I saw the Pop tour 10 years or so ago and now the 360 degree tour.  Both were amazing, but more of a production than a concert.  Don’t get me wrong, I loved it, but the rocket ship and the shear size of the stage and speaker stacks were over the top.  The music however was still fantastic.

After the concert, we walked two miles to our car in Old Town Pasadena.  We stopped and had a midnight pizza at a great little spot on the way.  Then, we hopped in the car and drove to the Ritz-Carlton in Marina Del Rey to get some sleep before the Perfect Pitch Conference the next morning with Sir Richard Branson as the keynoter and Christian Audigier (Von Dutch/Ed Hardy) as the closing speaker.  It was quite a day.

To The Moon!

-Eric Greenspan

If you’ve ever received an email from me, you’d know that I always sign my emails with “to the moon.”  Borrowed from The Honeymooners, I’m shooting for the moon in my business venture.  There really isn’t much else to it.

Just a reminder to myself of my goals and ambitions.

I’m the CEO of Make It Work, Inc. We make stuff work “from computers to iPods to home theater.”  Our fleet of Mini Coopers are cruising all over Socal.  It’s a fun company, but customer acquisition is the biggest challenge we face.  We have 34,000 customers already, but we need more more more.  Our Tech News radio show on both CBS and ABC radio networks are going great.  Check out www.cbstechnews.com or www.abctechnews.com.

Anyhow, for more on that visit www.makeitwork.com or my about page.

Today I spent learning as I usually do.  I typically spend my mornings in emails, then a few calls, then I tweet, then I check and respond to Facebook and Linkedin.  Throughout the day, I typically refresh our new customer tracking to see how many new customers have been booked for the day.  Tweetdeck and Yammer are always running in the background.  It’s a little overwhelming at times, but I’m getting it down.  If not at my desk, I have my iPhone in one hand and my Blackberry in the other.  I call and email using my Blackberry and I tweet, Facebook, and the rest on my iPhone.  It’s a bit much, I know, but when the company sells, they both go in the ocean.

This week has been amazing.  I spent Sunday night at the U2/Black Eyed Peas concert and awoke on Monday to attend the Perfect Pitch with keynoter Sir Richard Branson.  Pretty cool day.  Met a guy you might know named Lewis Howes, who sat on a social media panel and gave some great info.  Lewis is a meager 26, 15 years my younger, but the kid knows things.  Since we are both from Ohio, we had a nice chat and became friends.  I need his help, but I hope he knows I’ll return the favor whenever and wherever possible.

The next day was the 140 Conference at the Kodak Theater.  I couldn’t make it (appointment at the OBGYN with the wife, 3 mos!) but our Director of Clever Ashley went.  She came back Tweeting like a bird…great experience for her and we are lucky to have her on the team.  She get’s really excited about her job, which is the key at Make It Work.  We have this employees first, customers next philosophy.  I think she gets that.

So Thurs rolls around and I’m all about using my new found skills from the PP and Ashley’s from the 140 and meet with the team to discuss the next marketing step.  We need to tie our tweets, FB posts and emails into a blog.  A sort of repository for all we do.  Our customers seem to like the info we send them, so now we will make it easier to find the history of every message we send in the blog.  In addition, all team members are starting their own blogs, this is mine.  Our hope is to bring our personal experiences into the company blog and build a great, human, technical, information system that our customer, partners and competitors will enjoy and find useful.

Anyhow, this is the beginning.  Let me know if you think I’m wasting my time.

To The Moon!

-Eric Greenspan

P.S. During all the haps this week, our dog was rushed to the vet with a limp on his rear right leg.  Seems ok now, hope its not a chronic, age related problem.  Oh, and we think we are having a girl.  That’s all the doc could tell us.  Guess she saw some girlie parts on the ultrasound.  Can you see girlie parts?

How the hell do I work this thing?

To The Moon!

-Eric Greenspan