REMALO Marketing Blog

Maintaining control of your business!

Sam Collins — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 22:16:16 +0000

Maintaining control of your business!
post by Sam Collins

This past weekend taught me a good lesson, as I watched for 24 hours as the snow fell and left its mark of 30 inches. I realized there are some things in life we have very little or no control and we just have to deal what is dealt to us.

So, what do we have control? Surprisingly, we do have control over much of our business success. We are in control of when we start and stop each work day. We have control of how many people we meet and speak with each day. We have control over keeping good records of our clients and reaching out to them daily. All these things are in our control and will make us more successful than imaginable.

So, what is holding us back from taking action over the things we have control. Yes, many of talk the talk, but very few actually walk the walk. The old saying, “you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink” is ever so true. Then why is it many of us tend to lose control? Because I am not you, I can’t answer that question? Maybe you are one of the lucky few who do have the control, but in case you are not, here are a few suggestions you can use:

1. Start your day with a purpose
2. Have a plan who you are going to speak with
3. Speak to at least 3 old clients every day
4. Speak to at least 2 new clients every day
5. Mail something to at least 3 old clients every day
6. Mail something to at least 2 new clients every day
7. Meet one on one with another discipline at least twice a week
8. Put your old, new, and potential client list in some order
9. At the end of the week, see how close you came to the above 8

I did some quick math and computed if you followed the simple formula above you will have 552 touches a year, not including the “just happened to come to you” touches.

This is what I call CONTROL.

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REVERSE MORTGAGE LEAD EXTRAVAGANZA!
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Reserve your Reverse Mortgage Lead Extravaganza Event Seat NOW!

Join Sam Collins and special Lead Providers for our two hour special “Reverse Mortgage Lead Extravaganza”, February 17th. contact information and lead sources to help you generate moreopportunities to close more reverse mortgages.
Please don’t miss out on this great opportunity.

Title:   Reverse Mortgage Lead Extravaganza

Date: Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Time: 1:00 PM - 3:00 PM EST

The lifeblood of our industry is LEADS. Join the Extravaganza for our 2 hour event, featuring six (6) different leads providers. After the event you then make the decision which lead provider will provide you the leads you need to keep your pipeline full.

As an added bonus , upon completion of our Lead Extravagana, you will receive a video/audio download of the entire presentation, providing you with contact information for each lead sponsor!

Remember, keep moving foward to stay ahead in reverse.

REMALO, LLC
800-283-1323
www.remalo.org
sam@remalo.org

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PS
We expect this event to sell out quickly. Leads are in high demand and you
don’t want to be left out. Go ahead, REGISTER NOW! to reserve your seat.
Early registrants will receive over $49 in Free Bonuses, just for signing up.

How Can Lead Nurturing Win Over Senior Clients?

Sam Collins — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 03:35:29 +0000

How Can Lead Nurturing Win Over Senior Clients?

Have you noticed your marketing response is not what it used to be? Don’t feel bad, you’re not alone. Why do you feel your response rates are down?

There are several reasons:

1. Competition

2. Your marketing area

3. Saturation

4. Lack of education

5. Same old stuff

6. New guidelines
7. Client fears

There is one big thing I did not mention. Yes, things are changing among our senior client base. Clients are expecting more from you than ever. That is to say, I just don’t want to know you are a reverse mortgage specialist, I want to know more about you and how you are different than the other ten loan officers who called me today.

keep reading…..>

REVERSE MORTGAGE LEAD EXTRAVAGANZA!
***********************************************************************************
Reserve your Reverse Mortgage Lead Extravaganza Event Seat NOW!

Join Sam Collins and special Lead Providers for our two hour special “Reverse Mortgage Lead Extravaganza”, February 17th. contact information and lead sources to help you generate moreopportunities to close more reverse mortgages.
Please don’t miss out on this great opportunity.

Title:   Reverse Mortgage Lead Extravaganza

Date: Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Time: 1:00 PM - 3:00 PM EST

As an added bonus , upon completion of our Lead Extravagana, you will receive a video/audio download of the entire presentation, providing you with contact information for each lead sponsor!

Remember, keep moving foward to stay ahead in reverse.

Did you miss our workshop yesterday?

Sam Collins — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 22:09:21 +0000

Building Relationships and getting more referrals?
workshop by Sam Collins

If you were unable to attend yesterday’s workshop, you can view the video download on the REMALO home page. The reviews from members were great and those attending walked away with tons of great information, what to do and how to do it examples!

If you need more leads, you won’t want to miss this opportunity!

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The lifeblood of our industry is LEADS. Join the Extravaganza for our 2 hour event, featuring six (6) different leads providers. After the event you then make the decision which lead provider will provide you the leads you need to keep your pipeline full.

As an added bonus , upon completion of our Lead Extravagana, you will receive a video/audio download of the entire presentation, providing you with contact information for each lead sponsor!

Remember, keep moving foward to stay ahead in reverse.

Take less than 60 second to build relationship with your senior clients!

Sam Collins — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 02:59:27 +0000

Last Chance, Sign Up for Building Relationships and Referrals Workshop

Last to chance to sign up for another free training session with Sam Collins on February 2, 2010 at 2:00 PM. This workshop being brought to you by REMALO, Sam Collins Marketing, and Reverse Mortgage Daily.

Sam will show you how to build solid relationships with your seniors that increase originations, loyalty, and get more referrals.

You’ll discover the value of building relationships and keeping them, along with the 5 relationship circles and the importance of connecting all the circles to your success!

Space is limited so register today!

Date: Tuesday, Feb 2, 2010
Time: 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM EDT

Sign up now!
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Remember, keep moving forward to stay ahead in reverse.

Information that pays for you to know

Sam Collins — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 01:23:59 +0000

post by Sam Collins

Taxes and Retirement… True or False?

Do income taxes go away when you are retired? True or False.

Answer…False

Remember that all monies contributed to pretax retirement plans, may be taxable when that money is withdrawn.

Social Security are not sheltered from income taxes? True or False.

True…

A portion of your Social Security benefits may be included in your taxable income. It all depends on your gross income.

There are no tax consequences if you don’t start to withdraw your pretax savings at the age of 70 ½?

False….

There is a 50 percent tax penalty on amounts that the IRS requires to be taken out after age 70 ½ that are not withdrawn when required. In tax terms these are called “minimum required distributions.”

(source NCOA)
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Remember keep moving forward to stay ahead in reverse.

Reverse mortgage consultants must have curiosity!

Sam Collins — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 02:19:52 +0000

Curiosity!
by Sam Collins

Curiosity is one of the most important elements you use in your marketing efforts and that curiosity must be linked to something that arouses the interest of your senior prospect. When your senior’s interest is aroused, it will naturally want to find out more. The element of curiosity can add fuel to your flame of interest and transfer that interest into a burning desire for your seniors client to want to know you and learn more about the details of a reverse mortgage.

Here are 35 key emotional turbo chargers you can use in your marketing efforts and messages to arouse curiosity:

To save money
To achieve comfort
To enjoy health
To live longer
To be popular
To gain pleasure
To be admired
To be independent
To be successful
To be social
To protect future assets
To be a good parent/grandparent
To be liked or loved
To own things
To live in clean environment
To renew vigor and energy
To get rid of aches and pains
To bring back pleasant memories
To enhance travel and leisure
To relieve boredom
To avoid certain lifestyles
To gain freedom from worry
To escape drudgery
To be in the in crowd
To be “one up” on others
To avoid troubles
To avoid loss of money
To replace the obsolete
To find love
To feel intelligent
To be benevolent
To be independent
To work less
To get more money
To feel happy

List your curiosity emotional triggers:

Once you understand the key emotional charges your senior experiences, then you are are positioned to the need to get fired up. You need to convince your senior prospect you have what they want.

Be the expert, be compassionate, be the one with the ultimate answer to your senior prospects dreams, hopes, and desires.

Remember, keep moving forward to stay ahead in reverse.
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1. Join us on Tuesday,February 2nd when RMD and Sam Collins present “How to Build Solid Relationships with your Senior Clients” that increase origination’s, loyalty and get your more referrals. You will find out why it is so easy!

You will discover the value of building relationships and keeping them, along with the 5 relationship circles and the importance of connecting all the circles for your SUCCESS!

2. Look for this very special event, February 17th. This is a 2 hour event and is a SCM special marketing event, with special attendance for REMALO Members. Stay tuned…

Reverse mortgages are not the next subprime

Sam Collins — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 19:36:27 +0000

Finally someone is telling it like it is.

The Mortgage Professor

Reverse mortgages are not the next subprime

By Jack Guttentag

Saturday, January 23, 2010

Reverse mortgages are for seniors who don’t have enough spendable income to meet their needs but do have equity in their homes, which they don’t mind depleting for their own use rather than leaving it for their heirs. For reasons not clear to me, reverse mortgages are being bad-mouthed by an unlikely source: consumer groups that are supposed to represent the interest of consumers in general, and seniors in particular.

Reverse mortgages have always been a tough sell. Potential clients are elderly, who tend to be cautious, especially in connection with their right to continue living in their home. Fears about losing that right were aggravated by some early reverse-mortgage programs, which allowed a lender, under certain conditions, to force the owner out of his house. These actions are the reasons why, until recently, reverse mortgages never caught on.

In 1989, however, Congress created a new type of reverse mortgage called the home equity conversion mortgage, or HECM, which completely protects the borrower’s tenure in his or her house. So long as he pays the property taxes, maintains the property and doesn’t change the names on the deed, he can remain in the house forever. Furthermore, if the reverse-mortgage lender fails, any unmet payment obligation to the borrower is assumed by the Federal Housing Administration.

The HECM program was slow to catch on but has been growing rapidly in recent years. In 2009, about 130,000 HECMs were written. Feedback from borrowers has been largely positive. In a 2006 survey of borrowers by AARP, 93 percent said their reverse mortgage had had a mostly positive effect on their lives, compared with 3 percent who said the effect was mostly negative. Some 93 percent of borrowers reported that they were satisfied with their experiences with lenders, and 95 percent reported that they were satisfied with their counselors. (All HECM borrowers must undergo counseling prior to the deal.)

But while all is well for almost all HECM borrowers, some of their advocates in consumer organizations, alarmed by the program’s growth, are bad-mouthing it. I hasten to add that there is a major difference between bad-mouthing and educating. Legitimate issues exist regarding who should take out an HECM and when they should do so. Seniors face hazards in this market, as in many others. Advice and warnings to seniors from authoritative sources on issues such as these are useful. I try to provide useful advice and warnings myself.

What is not useful is needlessly and gratuitously fanning the flames of senior anxiety about losing their homes. In its September issue of Consumer Reports magazine, Consumers Union warned: “The Next Financial Fiasco? It Could Be Reverse Mortgages.” The centerpiece of its story is a homeowner who is “likely to be evicted” because of an HECM balance he can’t pay off. How is that possible?

It was his wife’s HECM, not his, and when she died, ownership of the house reverted to the lender because the husband was not an owner. At the outset of the HECM transaction, he was too young to qualify, so he had his name removed from the deed so his wife could qualify on her own. She could have lived in the house forever, but as a roomer in her house, he had no right to remain.

This was painted as a reverse-mortgage horror story, but it was nothing of the sort. HECMs are for owner-occupants, not roomers, which was what the husband had made himself into. The correct moral is that the program should not be misused.

Even less useful are spurious claims that growth of the reverse-mortgage market has major similarities to the growth of the subprime market, and could lead to the same kind of “financial fiasco.” The major source of this nonsense is an October monograph by Tara Twomey of the National Consumer Law Center titled “Subprime Revisited: How Reverse Mortgage Lenders Put Older Homeowners’ Equity at Risk.”

In fact, the two programs could hardly be more different, and there is no chance of a similar fiasco.

Subprime loans imposed repayment obligations on borrowers, many of whom were woefully unprepared to assume them, and which tended to rise over time. The financial crisis actually began with the increasing inability of subprime borrowers to make their payments, and as a result, defaults and foreclosures ballooned to unprecedented levels.

But reverse-mortgage borrowers assume no repayment obligation at all. Their only obligations are to maintain their property and pay their property taxes, which they have to do as owners whether they take out a reverse mortgage or not. They cannot default on their mortgage because the obligation to make payments under an HECM is the lender’s, not the borrower’s. There are no reverse-mortgage foreclosures.

Subprime foreclosures imposed heavy losses on lenders and on investors in mortgage securities issued against subprime mortgages. Such securities were widely held by investors, which included Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Losses by the agencies on their subprime securities played a major role in their insolvency.

In contrast, no lenders have suffered or will suffer losses on HECMs because they are insured against loss by the FHA. The FHA assumes the losses when HECM loan balances grow to the point where they exceed property values. However, this is an expected contingency against which the FHA maintains a reserve account supported by insurance premiums paid by borrowers.

It is true that the unprecedented decline in property values over the last few years has increased losses and eaten into the FHA’s reserves. But the FHA has responded to that by reducing the percentage of home values that seniors can access. According to a recent study by New View Advisors, who are seasoned experts on HECMs, this should allow the FHA to break even over the long run.

In sum, the current state of the HECM market has no resemblance whatsoever to the conditions in the subprime market that led to disaster.

Jack Guttentag is professor of finance emeritus at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He can be contacted through his Web site, http://www.mtgprofessor.com.

Building a Reverse Mortgage Power Group!

Sam Collins — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 18:13:18 +0000

Build Your Own Power Group
post by Sam Collins

Combine the resourcefulness of a think-tank with the promotional power of cooperative advertising and you get the muscle of a power group. A power group is a network of professionals who meet once a month to enhance their personal and group success. The idea is to capitalize on the combined talents, knowledge, and experience of the members. Herein lies the power: synergy!

Build Quality Into Your Group. Select top producers in your community. Establish a performance benchmark (e.g. must attend meetings, must be willing to share and give referrals).

Set A Date and Call. Be patient. It is not uncommon to spend three to six months organizing a group. Call each prospective member and explain the concept: “…an exclusive network of the highest performing disciplines in the area. We will meet once a month to combine our resources to tackle challenges that we all face…” Our meeting will be held on…”

Send A Sample Agenda. Follow up phone calls with a sample agenda that shows the activities planned: networking, developing a priority list, brainstorming, etc.

Create A Priority List. At the meeting, the group should create a list of topics that they want to explore, such as prospecting, presentations, advertising, assistants, direct mail, etc.

Share Together. If something is working for one person in a discipline, don’t be afraid to share the same tactic and strategy. Be sure to include your power group and have them attend and join your event or strategy.

Remember, keep moving forward to stay ahead in reverse.
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You will discover the value of building relationships and keeping them, along with the 5 relationship circles and the importance of connecting all the circles for your SUCCESS!

2. Look for this very special event, February 17th. This is a 2 hour event and is a SCM special marketing event, with special attendance for REMALO Members. Stay tuned…
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Who’s counting?
This is my 500th blog?
Do you have a blog or a web site?
If not, we can help: http://www.remalo.org/products/item11.cfm
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It’s time for your annual checkup!

Sam Collins — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 21:59:02 +0000

It’s time for your annual checkup!
post by Sam Collins

Have you had your 2010 annual checkup? If you haven’t, then you can bet your senior client’s have not either.

Here’s what to do? Go back through your data base and see the last time you contacted your old stale leads. I suggest going back at least 2 years. Why? Because your senior’s live change, and a NO last year may be a YES today.

If you don’t have your leads sorted, you may want to put them in a cvs. file (excel) format. Next, you will want sort by last name, etc. down to phone #. Next, create a letter to send to them, along with a relevant free report. Something of relevance to seniors, such as the state of the economy, etc. Thirdly, along about 4-5 days and call them by mentioning your letter and free report. Fourth, try to determine the interest, then move forward to close another reverse.

If you want to see an affordable solution, go here: http://www.vforms.com/samcollins/

If you want some great content to use in your follow-up, including scripts as to what to say, go here: http://www.remalo.org/products/item10.cfm

Remember, keep moving forward to stay ahead in reverse.
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1. Join us on Tuesday,February 2nd when RMD and Sam Collins present “How to Build Solid Relationships with your Senior Clients” that increase originations, loyalty andget your more referrals. You will find out why it is so easy!

You will discover the value of building relationships and keeping them, along with the 5 relationship circles and the importance of connecting all the circles for your SUCCESS!

2. Look for this very special event, February 17th. This is a 2 hour event and is a SCM special marketing event, with special attendance for REMALO Members. Stay tuned…

REMALO Member Call in WED 1/20

Sam Collins — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 00:21:18 +0000

Please join us on Wednesday, January 20, 2010 at 2:00 p.m. EDT. This is your chance to learn from other member experts. Maybe you have questions on RESPA changes or how can I reach my full success potential in 2010. Or just run an idea past the group. No question is too dull or uninteresting. This call is for you - our REMALO members.

If you don’t want to talk, just listen in. You’ll be amazed to see and hear the synergies and knowledge of our Members.

Check your local time zone below:

2:00 pm EDT 1:00 pm CDT 12:00 pm MDT 11:00 am PDT

Click the link below to access the call in:

http://attendthisevent.com/?eventID=10702722