Mortgage Marketing & Lead Generation Blog

Maybe the reason you aren’t getting enough done is – you simply don’t have the time!

By JC Kiadii, Internet Marketing for Mortgage Professionals

If you ever feel as if an entire week passes and you don’t get anything done, this article is for you. 

Have you considered the possibility that you simply don’t have enough time?

A tool I use when my schedule is jammed packed is a time log. It’s a simple spreadsheet with rows for 30-minute periods.

Start by blocking off time for your appointments and other obligations. Remember to allow enough time for travel, preparation, and other activities related to your appointments.

If you are hosing a homebuyer’s seminar, for example, don’t forget to block off the time to follow up with attendees.

Once you’ve blocked off your appointments, estimate how much time you’ll need to complete each task on your to-do list, and block off the time on your log. If you run out of time before you run out of tasks, you simply have too much on your plate. Now is the time to start re-scheduling, deleting, or delegating tasks.

Don’t forget to block time off for rest and entertainment!

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JC Kiadii, Mortgage Internet Marketing Services . 770-469-7385. Are you reaching out to the 87% of new buyers who start their search online? Our team provides results-driven mortgage Internet marketing services. Visit our website and sign up for the More Closings email newsletter to receive the report 6 Steps to More Referrals.

Marketing your Mortgage Business on LinkedIn – Tip 5 of 5

By JC Kiadii, Internet Marketing for Mortgage Professionals

The last tip in my 5-part series on marketing your mortgage business on LinkedIn is this:

Show your expertise by answering questions.

Linked in has an answers section where members ask and answer questions. When a member asks a question, they can also choose an answer as a *Best Answer*.

Here are a few advantages to answering questions on LinkedIn Answers:

• Visibility. Answering questions gives you visibility, because your answer is visible to all LinkedIn users, forever.
• Credibility. Answering questions well will boost your credibility. Give some thought to your answers and provide links to additional resources, if at all possible.
• Lead Generation. If you provide great answers, people will reach out to you for help.

Finding LinkedIn Answers.

To get to LinkedIn Answers, click the More tab at the top of your screen and select Answers.

Answers are divided into the following categories:

    * Administration
    * Business Operations
    * Business Travel
    * Career and Education
    * Conferences and Event Planning
    * Finance and Accounting
    * Financial Markets
    * Government and Non-Profit
    * Health
    * Hiring and Human Resources
    * International
    * Law and Legal
    * Management
    * Marketing and Sales
    * Non-Profit
    * Personal Finance
    * Product Management
    * Professional Development
    * Startups and Small Businesses
    * Sustainability
    * Technology
    * Using LinkedIn

A good place for mortgage professionals to start is in the Personal Real Estate section, which is under the Personal Finance category. If you offer commercial mortgages, consider the Commercial Real Estate section, which is in the Administration category.

Homework: Explore LinkedIn Answers and find a couple of places to start.
In tomorrow’s blog post, I will share a time-saving tip for LinkedIn Answers.

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JC Kiadii, Mortgage Internet Marketing Services . 770-469-7385. Are you reaching out to the 87% of new buyers who start their search online? Our team provides results-driven mortgage Internet marketing services. Visit our website and sign up for the More Closings email newsletter to receive the report 6 Steps to More Referrals.

Excel 2007 Tip – Highlight Duplicate Values

By JC
Kiadii, Internet Marketing for
Mortgage
Professionals

If you’ve worked with Excel 2007 for a little while, you’ve probably
noticed how much easier it is to delete duplicates.

What if you wanted to take a look at the duplicate values before you
deleted them?

This is also very easy.

Simply highlight the range of
cells you want to check for
duplicates.

Click Conditional Formatting
on the Home
tab.

Click New Rule.

Click the line that reads format
only unique or duplicate values.

Make sure duplicate
is selected under format all.

Click the Format
button to set your formats.

Click OK
until you are back on your Excel screen.

That’s it!

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Productivity Tip – 15 Minute Friday

By JC
Kiadii,
Internet Marketing for
Mortgage
Professionals

In “How
do you keep track without your head exploding?”
I explained using Outlook Tasks as a “Brain Dump List” – everything
that I think of doing now or in the future goes on the list. (I also
call this list my master task list).

Such a list can become unwieldy. I use “Task
List Thursdays” to review my
master task list and decide if there’s anything on there I need to move
to my active task list
(the items I intend to accomplish during a week) or just delete.

Now, it’s time to introduce you to 15
Minute Fridays. When you are
reviewing your master task list on Thursday, highlight those
tasks that can be completed in 15 minutes or less. On Friday,
simply cycle through the list and get your 15-minute tasks done.
 

You do not have to spend the entire Friday, but think of the potential!
You can get through at least 4 items each hour. Imagine your sense of
completion and accomplishment – what a wonderful way to end the week!

By putting in, on average, one 15-minute Friday a month, I am able to
keep my master task list from growing out of control.

By the way – don’t forget to
create next week’s active task list before you leave your office on
Friday.

For additional information:
Webinar
- Mastering Outlook Tasks

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Outlook 2007 Tip – How to Use Email Templates (with Attachments & Text)

By JC
Kiadii, Internet Marketing for
Mortgage
Professionals

In a previous blog post, I explained how you can use Outlook’s
Quick Parts feature to insert text you use repeatedly
(ex., closing instructions, directions to your office, etc.) 
The downside to Quickparts is that you cannot include attached files.

In yesterday’s blog post, I gave a step-by-step
process for creating an Outlook 2007 email template.
The great thing about Outlook 2007 templates is they can
contain attached files, email addresses in the BCC and CC
fields, and more.

In today’s blog post, I will cover the steps for using an Outlook
template.

It’s simple really.

• Click the File
  menu.
• Click New,
  then Choose Form.
• Under Look
  In, select User
  Templates in File System.
• Select the email template.

Did you know Outlook had this feature? How do you plan on using it?

For additional information:
Mortgage
Training Webinar – Outlook 2007 Lead Management Skills

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Outlook 2007 Tip – How to Create Templates (with Attachments & Text)

By JC
Kiadii, Internet Marketing for
Mortgage
Professionals

In a previous blog post, I explained how you can use Outlook’s
Quick Parts feature to insert text you use repeatedly
(ex., closing instructions, directions to your office, etc.) 

What if you wanted to attach a file? You may not know that Outlook has
a template feature that allows you to create a template with
attachments and names in the CC or BCC
field.

You could use this feature to send clients attachments that you send
often, such as general authorization forms, documents needed
checklists, etc. I realize that most LOS systems come with these forms,
but sometimes you may need to send them out of Outlook.

I’ll explain how to create an Outlook template in this blog post, and
how to use your template in tomorrow’s post.

Step 1 – Create your email
message, including:

• Text
• Attachments
• CC and/or BCC

Step 2 – Save your template.

• Click the File
  menu, then Save As
• Under Save
  as type select Outlook
  Template.
• Name your template.
• Click Save.

I use this feature to send documents I share often, such as my summary
of qualifications, a credit authorization form, or my company’s W-9
form.

Did you know Outlook had this feature? How do you plan on using it?

For additional information:
Mortgage
Training Webinar – Outlook 2007 Lead Management Skills

http://www.twitter.com/mortgageva

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miss the next post – Subscribe
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Excel is an extremely powerful application with database capabilities. While you can use functions to extend the database capabilities of Excel, Access is much better suited to handle databases. A task that takes 3 Excel functions, for example, is accomplished very easily with Access.

Access 2007 Training in Atlanta, GA

 Here are 7 signs that it is time to upgrade your Excel spreadsheet to an Access database.

1. Your spreadsheet has several hundred rows. The larger your spreadsheet, the more complicated it becomes to update and analyze.
2. You’d like to control the kind of data other users enter. With Access, you can limit what users are allowed to enter. You can specify that the data must be of a particular type (ex., numbers only) or length, and more. If someone tries to enter information that doesn’t fit, they get an error message.
3.  You’d like to control the values other users enter.  In addition to restricting the types of values users can enter, you can also restrict the specific values.
4.  You want to quickly find matches between two sets of data. Excel uses functions to find data matches. In my opinion, the process in Access is much more intuitive.
5.  You want to quickly find which values in one set of data doesn’t exist in the other. Again, this is a task you can accomplish using Excel functions. Access has a Find Unmatched query that is simple to create and use.
6. You want to quickly identify and/or delete duplicates. With Excel 2007, the process of deleting duplicates is easy. Identifying duplicates requires a few more steps: you have to use Conditional formatting. By contrast, Access has a Find Duplicates query that makes identifying duplicates easy. 
7. You want to prevent users from entering duplicate values. In Access 2007, you can set a field to prevent users from entering duplicate values. When they try, they will get an error message and Access will prevent them from adding duplicate data.

 
As I mentioned earlier, Excel will accomplish some of these tasks – it just takes extra effort.  Access, on the other hand, takes care of these tasks easily. Why not do things the simple and straightforward way by upgrading your spreadsheets to Microsoft Access databases?

For Advanced Excel training in Atlanta, check out our classes in Excel Functions & Formulas, Excel PivotTables, and Excel Lookup Functions.

 If you are ready to upgrade to Microsoft Access, our Access Comprehensive Course (offered in Atlanta) provides all of the training you need to master Access 2007. The next class starts soon, call 770.498.7333 or click the link for details.

Want to quintuple your closings? 2 words you should live by.

By JC Kiadii, Internet Marketing for Mortgage Professionals

Yes, I know. It is easy to distrust the words “simple” or “easy.” Yet, there is 1 simple way most mortgage professionals can close 5 times more loans, and it can be summed up in 2 words:

“Follow up!”

That’s it.

Here are some figures that illustrate the importance of following up.

• 80% of sales are made after the 5th contact. This means a mortgage professional who isn’t following up is only making about 20% of their potential sales.
• It takes, on average, 7 reminders to get someone who is interested in your products or services to buy. This mean that you must personally follow up with each prospect until 1 of 3 things happen:
  1. They say “Yes, I’m ready to get a mortgage.”
  2. They say “No.”
  3. You’ve followed up 8 times.

Once one of these 3 things have happened, the prospect should be stay on some sort of automatic marketing system, such as your mortgage email newsletter. Why? See the next point.

• Each of us has, on average, 200 people in their sphere of influence (SOI). These are the people we work with, the parents of our kids friends, the people in our sports leagues, etc. Following up with your mortgage prospects keeps you front of mind not only with your prospect, but with their SOI (up to 200 potential referrals!). 

It doesn’t if you use Outlook or a custom-designed solution – it’s just important to follow up. Who knows how many closings you lose if you don’t?

For additional information:
Mortgage Training Webinar – Outlook 2007 Lead Management Skills

Are you following up with each prospect?

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JC Kiadii, Mortgage Internet Marketing Services . 770-469-7385. Are you reaching out to the 87% of new buyers who start their search online? Our team provides results-driven mortgage Internet marketing services. Visit our website and sign up for the More Closings email newsletter to receive the report 6 Steps to More Referrals.

Mitch’s title says it perfectly. His post is great reading, and inspired me to write one of my own on the importance of following up.

Jackie

Mortgage Internet Marketing & Virtual Assistance

770.469.7385