# He Beat My 1.34 With My Own Script

> My old trainee had my roofer on speaker at 1.29, with rain due at 2 PM. Then he started reading my own script back to me.

By MCAFax · Published November 3, 2026
Section: Brokers & Harassment › From the Notebook · Series: Confessions (https://mcafax.com/notebook/series/confessions)
Canonical: https://mcafax.com/notebook/he-beat-my-134-with-my-own-script
Source: MCAFax, The Broker's Notebook (https://mcafax.com/notebook). MCAFax is not a lender or a law firm.

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"Your guy just offered me 1.29. Can you beat it before the tar cools?"

Augustin was shouting over a compressor. He was forty feet up on a strip mall roof, and I could hear nail guns going off around him like popcorn.

"What guy?" I said.

"The other guy. He's on the other line. Hold on, I'm merging you."

Then there were three of us on the line: Augustin, me, and a voice I knew better than my own, because I had built it.

"Hey, boss," said Sully.

Two years ago I hired Sully off a used car lot. He was the kid who sold eleven minivans in one month and couldn't spell "receivables." I gave him the desk next to mine, a headset with a cracked earpiece, and a three-page script I'd written in green ink on the back of a rate sheet. Fourteen months later he left with the headset, the script and about forty of my renewal leads. I never got the headset back.

Augustin needed $90,000. He had a crew of nine, a commercial reroof due by Friday, and $41,000 of white roofing membrane sitting on a supplier's dock that wouldn't move without a wire. Rain was forecast for 2 PM. If that membrane wasn't on the roof before the rain, the property manager had a second bid in his drawer and a clause that let him use it.

My funder had approved him at 1.34 over eight months. My commission was $7,200. It was 10:40 AM.

"1.29," Sully said. "Same term. I can wire by three."

"Who's the funder?" I said.

"Does it matter?"

It did not matter, and we both knew it, because I taught him to say that.

I muted myself and called my funder on my cell. A rep named Okafor picked up chewing something. "Can you go to 1.30 if I cut my points in half?" I said.

"Cut them and I'll think about it."

"I just did."

"Think, I said."

I unmuted. Sully was mid-pitch. "And honestly, Augustin, the rate isn't the real question. The real question is who picks up the phone when the debit bounces on a rainy week."

That was my line. Page two, under "Objections: price." I could still see the green ink where I had underlined it twice.

"Good point," Augustin said. "Who picks up?"

"1.30," I said. "And I'll drop my points to four." Four points on ninety grand was $3,600. I was handing back the other $3,600 because a kid from a minivan lot was reading my handwriting back to me.

"1.28," Sully said. "Four points."

"You can't do 1.28."

"Watch me."

Here's what Sully didn't know I knew. Only one shop matches anything under 1.30 inside an hour, and they do it with a fee buried on page nine. They call it a "stewardship charge." It's 6 percent. On $90,000 that was $5,400 off the top, so Augustin would get $84,600 and pay back like he got ninety.

"Augustin," I said. "Ask him what's on page nine."

The compressor kicked off, and somewhere behind him a guy yelled for more screws.

"Sully," Augustin said. "What's on page nine?"

"Standard stuff."

"Read it to me."

I heard paper rustle, and then I heard Sully breathe, the exact breath I taught him to take before a hard close, count of two and then talk.

"There's a processing charge," he said.

"How much?"

"Six."

"Six what?"

"Percent."

Augustin did the math out loud, faster than either of us. "Fifty-four hundred. So your 1.28 is really what, a 1.36?"

Nobody answered, and I knew I had him and my $3,600 back, maybe more. I pulled up the contract on my laptop and put my cursor on Send.

"Okay," Augustin said. "Here's what I'm doing. I'm hanging up. Whoever texts me the lowest real number in ten minutes, no page nine, wins."

He hung up at 10:58 AM.

At 11:02 my phone lit up. Not Augustin. Sully.

"Is Okafor still your guy over there?"

"Why?"

"Because that's my funder now too. I'm calling him. I'll do it at 1.30, two points, through his shop, no page nine, and we split the commission down the middle. You keep the merchant. I get to say I beat you."

I stared at the screen. Nine hundred dollars, on a deal I had approved first.

At 11:05 Augustin started a group text with both of us and named it ROOF.

"Rain moved up. Noon now. Whoever wires first."

I called Okafor and got a busy signal, because Sully was already on with him. Of course he was. I gave him that number, too.

At 11:41 the wire confirmation hit my inbox. Sully's name sat on the submitting broker line. Mine was underneath it, smaller, like a co-signer.

At 11:58 it started to rain. Augustin sent one photo to ROOF: nine guys on a gray deck, holding a white sheet down at the corners, soaked to the skin and laughing.

Sully hearted it first.