Real Estate Industry Blog

We all know that our client database ought to represent our #1 source of business.  However, I’m often asked how much one ought to budget toward marketing to existing clients. My recommendation: An easy rule of thumb is to allocate $1 per month toward your Mortgage CRM budget.  So if you have 500 clients in [...]

Big shout out to Dustin Dempsey of Playforward Designs and Mark Madsen for creating an easy-to-use and robust site for us. I’m going to keep this blog alive but if you’re looking for 10x the ideas, execution strategies and straight dope on mortgage CRM, be sure to subscribe to our RSS feed at the Top [...]

Happy Holidays everyone. One of the most common objections I face in selling Top of Mind Networks comes from the “do it yourselfer” who prefers keeping CRM activity in-house.  What follows is a brief overview of the main reasons people typically give me for doing it themselves along with my rationale for outsourcing as much [...]

I don’t think it’s right to just talk about success stories in a blog.  I think there’s just as much, if not more, to be learned with our failures. Top of Mind Networks’ Surefire System features a component we call our “One to One” email solution.  This solution features three email “Themes”, each with quarterly frequency: Theme #1:  [...]

Last Tuesday, the Fed announced that they’ll purchase up to $600 billion in mortgage backed securities.  Mortgage rates plummeted dramatically for a short while, but began heading back up later in the day.  You probably got a few refi applications, but not as many as you’d have liked. I’d like to thank Scott Evans of [...]

One of my earlier posts discussed the events of Tuesday, November 25th, and how the Top of Mind Networks Surefire System helped our clients identify literally thousands of refinance opportunities – automatically. I guess we at Top of Mind learned what seems like a funny lesson now – our system is so powerful that the [...]

As I write this post, the Fed has announced they’re buying Mortgage Backed Securities and rates dove 75 basis points on the news – almost instantly.  Needless to say, there’s some gold in your database. If you had Top of Mind Networks’ Surefire System, you’d be receiving “Opportunity Alerts” notifying you which borrowers could benefit from [...]

In speaking to originators all over the country, I’m hearing that many of you are struggling to make ends meet.  Inevitably, when facing declining revenues we all tend to pull back the reins on spending – and for good reason.  To be honest, we at Top of Mind Networks have reduced our operating costs by nearly [...]

I just got back from Mortgage Success Source’s Mastery Business Plan (MBP) event in Las Vegas.  If you’ve never been, I highly recommend you check it out.  The site is www.masterybusinessplan.com.  I always come home inspired and ready to implement new ideas. Perhaps my favorite thing about MBP was networking with many of the industry’s top [...]

At Top of Mind Networks, we’ve asked hundreds of mortgage professionals what they give borrowers as a closing gift.  Here are the three most common answers: 1)  Nothing 2)  Gift Basket 3)  Gift Certificate None of the three ideas above are ideal.  Here’s why: a)  They’re expensive – a nice gift basket/certificate will typically set [...]

I thought I’d share a success story told to me by one of our mortgage CRM clients, Tim Davis. Tim’s company, Titan Home Loans, based in Nashville TN has executed on our Surefire System, the industry’s only turnkey mortgage CRM solution including postal mail, email and a database monitoring function.  One particularly powerful component of [...]

We’re in sales – and we’ve all been trained on the “ABC’s” of sales. Always Be Closing.  And I think that works when you’re trying to supersize a customer’s order at McDonalds.  But I believe that mortgage professionals are bound by a much higher standard of fiduciary responsibility. The strategy I’d like to cover today will work [...]

Q) What makes email such a fantastic marketing vehicle for mortgage professionals? A) Ease of Use: Basically, anyone with a computer and internet access has the ability to reach their database via email. Not to mention email marketing is also cheap – or even free. Q) Why are we all getting inundated with email marketing [...]

One of our clients at Top of Mind is an LO in Atlanta, Georgia. Let’s call him Bob. Bob is what I consider to be a “low cost provider”. He gives his borrowers very aggressive pricing. He’s not the greatest customer service guy you’ll meet. But if you’re looking for a deal – Bob’s your [...]