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Become a GREAT mortgage broker / underwriter / lender / processor. They are few in numbers. Most are mad their business has changed and loans are now hard to do. Shame. I can say this because I owned a mortgage company about 4-5 years ago. Want to be even more successful? Figure out how to do real estate investment loans. You’ll be an overnight millionaire! OK maybe not. But if you can figure it out, return calls, and put a smile on your face, you’ll probably make more money than you can handle.

Yesterday I was fortunate to be on the receiving end of a mortgage lender who has given up. He’s still “trying” to close out a couple loans but this is really means he’s turning them down one by one. What’s even more interesting to me is the number of lenders who are not really thankful when they receive more business. It is the new Rubik’s Cube.

The economy is definitely picking up steam but it seems mortgage lenders are going after the easy loans. The investor loans are going on the back burner(often never to return). Did they not forget before the government tax credits and bailout cash that investor loans were keeping many of them afloat? If you are offended at this blog, then turn it into an opportunity. I’m always looking for lenders to refer clients to.

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If you’re in business that’s worth being in, you will likely have competitors.   I have several of them.  In fact my primary business “real estate investment sale” has a low barier of entry to the marketplace that any Joe off the street can do it.  In fact most that are in this business don’t even have real estate licenses.   Scary thought huh?

Service businesses often see a tremendous number of competitors leaving few that stand out from the crowd.   Now add the fact that you are a creative entrepreneur.  You probably are if you read this blog (smile).  Now take the fact that your competitors are not creative, even a little sluggish.   You’ve probably noticed these dudes copying you.  Maybe the lexicons you’ve dreamed up, the branding, the product, the system, etc.   Why shouldn’t they if it works.   They’d be idiots not to.   The sad thing is this is too common.  What can you do to stop them?   Precisely nothing.

If you own a patent, a copywright, etc then you can do something if they’ve violated these terms.   A common one is them snatching up a domain as if it was a prize.  More common and often more mosquito-like is them just stealing a business methodology that is in your advertising or they’ve mystery-shopped.   My all-time favorite is when they lift a business practice, then call it their own because they SHOUT louder.

If this is happening to you, then you are likely changing the world.  And Changing the world is tough especially because few others are willing to do so.  It’s much easier to sit back and let someone else change the world.  And when they do, just copy the idea at the early stages.   Small business marketing theory says this won’t work over time.  I’m convinced.

Usually if a competitor is copying you they are too busy studying you and not the customer.  This regularily happens in my field.  Competitors are all copying while their customers are calling and telling me about their bad experiences with them.  Trust me they’re not copying your service.  That’s too difficult.  Ripping off a slogan or a lexicon is much easier.

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Over the last few weeks I’ve turned a new leaf on social networking.  I feel like less should be more.  The common theme tends to be more.  More profiles, more networks, more connecting.  Problem statement = more means less time.  Less time means less quality.  Less quality means less impact.   No, I don’t want to have 20,000 friends on my facebook profile.  I don’t want to follow thousands of people on my personal Twitter profile.  Nothing against you but if haven’t personally met you why should I care what you just ate?

Therefore I’ve pared the folks I’m following on Twitter.   However you’ll see my company account is using the courtesy of following follwers on my company Twitter profile.   Mixed emotions, mixed purposes, I guess.

After attending multiple marketing conferences, I’m learning that no one actually has all the answers.  Social networking seems really cool.  And everyone is like, “How do you monetize?”   Maybe you don’t.   Social networking is really the same as normal human interaction, only online.   Have you always asked how to monetize every handshake?

I’m just not sure we are prepared to have good follow up on thousands online handshakes.

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I’m pretty excited this month to see the team really putting in effort into bloggigng.  We already know that blogging wins big in search so we integrated it into our overall strategy at the office.   A while back we broke out with a contest that went very well.  We produced record blogs, around 50 in a month which I felt was an amazing feat.

The next month was a big let down.  No contest, no blogs.   I realized that a contest wasn’t good enough.  We talked through it as a team.  This month I set an initial goal of 60 relevant blogs for the team which broken down was digestable.  However the team spoke and they each committed to individual goals that added up to 80!   Keep in mind this is with the commitments of 6 people.   MTD we’re at 64!  So we are 16 short of our goal and 7 days to make it happen.  I know we’ll do it.

This month there is no tangible reward.  Blogging is residual lead generation, buyer confidence, expertise, and a bunch of other intangibles (at least at time of publishing).  The win for the team is them reaching a common goal.  It’s huge.   If we can consistently produce high numbers of blogs, improve quality, and relevancy, the residual rewards will come to the company.   Creating aggressive goals in a team environment and reaching them…there’s little more that is satisfying.

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At a birthday party yesterday across the street from me, I happened to be in the room with a group of people all who have traveled internationally on an extensive basis.   My tales of Europe, South and Central America were no match for their travels to Siberia and beyond.  However one particular story was shared by 2 people in the room neither of which have traveled together.

The story was about the Northwest Airlines World Club in the Tokyo airport.  Appently there is a Sappor draft beer mechanism of which every time you pull the tap for a beer, a robot arm extends at the perfect angle giving you no head on the beer.  The story was some memorable that both people could describe the details of the robot and the description of the 3 German dudes who couldn’t stop drinking beers to get another look at it.   Both stories included, “Norwthest World Club”,  and “Sapporo” beer.

I couldn’t help but think how minor that was in the grand scheme of things but yet it told a memorable story which branding was good not only for Sapporo but for Northwest as well.

Is the story about your product as memorable?

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I was thinking this morning of how goals are achieved.  I think this builds on yesterday’s blog, Return On Effort.  Frankly, I just don’t know if intensity can be taught.  I think it has to come from within.  I’ve come to the actualization that life is extremely short and slothing around isn’t going to allow you to create something great.   Great companies, accomplishments, feats, whatever, come from individuals or groups of individuals that have a high level of intensity.

Notice I said “groups”.  Companies don’t become great because of a few select people with intensity.  They happend with a collectively high level of intensity.   Intensity in everything you do both on the clock and off the clock.   Simple task this month,  Blogging.   I set a personal goal of one blog per day, then decided it was boring.  One blog per day?   Reasons (excuses) for not being on pace include;  on vacation,  not feeling well, busy with other goals, blah, blah, blah.  All of us do all of these.  Do you let your thoughts control your actions?   Why not just start blogging?  Just do it.

Guy Kawasaki says that too much time is spent by entreprneneurs planning and strategizing and not enough time “doing”.   So why not crush the blogging goal?   Why not crush the sales goal, the lead gen goal, the appointments goal.   When did hitting your goals or even falling short become good enough?

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TWTRCON 09 was an great experience.  Being the first major Twitter Conference, attracted several big names in Silicon Valley such as Guy Kawasaki, Seth Greenberg (Intuit), Adventure Girl, MC Hammer, and more.   My big takeaway was being able to build a sound Twitter strategy for my business.  

Twitter is becoming part of the American lexicon almost immediately and that requires people having policy and procedure in place especially if you have employees using the service.  Over 50% of the people surveyed at TWTRCON are making money using the tool (myself included).  We also were able to hear from Animatra at Twitter who was talking about the future of Twitter and some of the enterprise applications that will be coming out.  

If you aren’t already using this tool, consider adding it to your belt.  Prior to doing so, create a strategy for attracting and engaging customers.   Drop me a line if you need some help.

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In the past I’ve talked a lot about posting on free classified sites like Craigslist and BackPage.  These sites offer a category for pretty much anything.  The only cost is your time and your commitment.   I know several people that I’ve specificially given time and training to in order to show them how to boost their visibility and potentially bring in some business. 

None of these people stuck with it.  What if they had?  I know of several people who have consistently posted on places like Craigslist.  They formed a good habit of doing this despite the tummult of spam.   They win, they consistently drive leads to their company.  The others still complain about business being slow.  It’s amazing.   

As a small business owner are you creating the good habits necessary?  Good habits don’t require large budgets.

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Everyone in my office is talking about our lawncare/landscaper.   His name is Jim Windisch.   Jim lives across the street from me.  He was able to get his foot in the door through persistence.  Last year he always asked for our real estate business.  I had another company handling our lawncare business at my real estate company that prevented me from allowing Jim in.  

Then one day I needed some work done to my own home.   Jim handled it with a smile.  He was always upbeat.  Two days after he was finished the neighborhood association gave me Yard of the Month!   I still didn’t give him my real estate business contacts.  But fast forward 9 months.  Something happened where it became a conflict to use our other company.   The door was open….

During the 9 months and prior, many lawn care companies had called on us for the business.  They all had the same consistencies.   One call, then never hear from them again.  Jim of course was persistent.   He received our business. 

Since then he’s done many lawncare jobs and landscaping jobs and is looking at hiring a crew.  Brian at my office says, “The guy seems like the happiest guy on earth!”.   He always is that way.   It’s amazing what the positive attitude and the persistence can yield.   Rarely does this work on the first go around.  It takes both items to yield the equation.  

How many people do you know that are the opposite?   What does this equation give you?   Bad Attitude + Gives Up Easily = ?

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