myRateTrack.com is back in Vegas.

After attending the Mastery Business Plan event last week at the Mirage in Vegas, myRateTrack.com is back in Vegas at the NAMB West Conference.  If you are in town, make sure to stop by the booth and say hi (or give me a call before the tradeshow on Tuesday and we can catch up live and in person).

Instead of commuting all the way back to the east coast and shipping my booth material back and forth and being forced to pay the $350 to the exhibit folks for “handling” my shipment (see post below on my recommendation for the US government to regulate the convention industry), only to turn around and hop a plane back to Las Vegas, I decided to take a few days to get out and get some fresh air.

So, I took a short dam trip with a bunch of other dam tourists and got to go on a great dam tour (Hoover Dam jokes are funny and seemingly never get old).  See great dam photo below.  And then from there, drove out to the Grand Canyon for a few days of great views and fresh air. 

Rest and refreshed . . . ready for NAMB West.  Hope to see you in Vegas!

 

myRateTrack.com is a web application system for mortgage professionals — to market to past clients and new clients — by keeping them READY and “in the know” with their refinance options.  Once SET up, the myRateTrack.com system generates and delivers (via email) detailed, customized, customer-specific refinance reports to clients (also available instantly).  The RateTrack report is branded with the mortgage professionals personal information and is customized with their rates and closing costs.  They system also includes a Target Refi Rate Notification System and a feature to offer advertisement space to Realtor and referral partners.  For more information, visit www.myRateTrack.com.  Ready. Set. Refi.

The un-message: we are not a pricing engine.

Mastery Business Plan in Las Vegas was a great success.  Over 1,000 mortgage brokers from around the world gathered in at the Mirage on the Vegas strip to hear from some of the best trainers, speakers and originators in the business.  That’s right . . . around the world!  I talked to a few guys from Canada (aay, thanks for stopping by the booth-aay) and a handful of Aussie-friends (shout-out to my mates from down-under!).  In addition to the early-morning breakout sessions, the key-note addresses, the panel discussions and the daily updates from MMG, originators had plenty of great opportunity to walk the exhibition hall to find out more about some of the best mortgage-related products and services out there.

It can be tough for exhibitors in this kind of situation.  Participants are already suffering from information-overload.  They exit the speaking hall hoping to utilize the breaks to check-in with the office, return a few phone calls, and grab a quick bite to eat and maybe a re-fresh on the coffee.  My job, to tell originators about myRateTrack.com in 30 seconds or less — messaging is critical.

In the past, I’ve tried explaining the sytem this way:

“myRateTrack.com is an automated web-based marketing tool for originators allowing you to market to your past clients with customer-specific refinance reports.  Reports are branded with your information and are exactly specific to your client’s current loan information.  RateTrack refinance reports are delivered by email to the customer automatically either weekly, monthly or quarterly depending on their individual preference or are available instantly on-line.”

This message, while good and accurate, when delivered to an already information-filled brain, generally returns the following listener error: “uhh . . . say that again.” 

So to help passer-byers decide if they wanted and needed to talk, I changed the message to the new un-message, written simply on a myRateTrack.com notepad. 

“myRateTrack.com — we are not a pricing engine.” 

The un-message worked great,  partly because our name can be easily misunderstood, partly because it made people laugh, and partly because people instinctively grad something that is handed to them.  Without the new un-message, the common (incorrect) assumption had been something like, “yeah, I know, you track my rates, I don’t need, I already have it with [blank], etc.”  But for myRateTrack.com, because the system is focused on marketing to the consumer, the “my” actually refers to them.  The loan officer helps the client track their rates and their refinance options . . . for example (correct assumption), ”I love my loan officer because he/she helps me track my refinance options with a personalized email report.  And, he/she walked me through setting my target refinance rate and set it in the system so we’ll both be notified when the time is right to lock-in and move forward.”

Maybe originators should try something similar? 

“[INSERT NAME HERE] — I am not a good-faith-estimator.” 

“[INSERT NAME HERE] — I am not simply an interest-rate-quote’er.” 

“[INSERT NAME HERE] — I am not just a loan-application-taker.” 

If you were in Vegas this week, you are well equipped to say any one of those with great confidence . . . assuming you implement some of what you know now!!  More on that next time.

 

Maybe I should consider a new disclosure at the bottom of each blog post.  myRateTrack.com is not a pricing engine.  For more information, visit www.myRateTrack.com.  Ready. Set. Refi.

Mastery Business Plan 2008

The credit crisis, the mortgage melt-down, bank failures, the sub-prime mortgage debacle, ever-growing billions of dollar government bailout, stricter underwriting guidelines, loan programs disappearing, home values declining . . . and on and on and on.  These are the points that have consumed most loan officer conversations for 2008.  At some point, dwelling on the negative (and especially looking backwards and dwelling on the negative) has to stop.  At Mastery Business Plan tonight — thanks to Barry Habib and Todd Duncan — it did.

For the next few days, a group of 1,000+ mortgage professionals will learn from some of the best in the industry.  The goal – to get their business plans in order for 2009.  My goal – to spread the word about myRateTrack.com – and to find out how it might fit well in to that plan.

Here are a few highlights of the night:

- (Barry Habib) – People WILL continue to buy houses, and those people will need mortgages, and they will need mortgage professionals

- (Barry Habib) – Things WILL get better

- (Todd Duncan) – Purpose is more important than profits

- (Todd Duncan) – Value creation is more important than value added.  You must take the value add INTO the relationship. 

- (Todd Duncan talking about the over-use of certain promises, one in particular of being a “Lender for Life”) – ” . . . if you want your clients for life, you need to talk to them during their lives.”

- And then on the point of not measuring success by past disappointments, failures, etc.  Did you know Michael Jordan missed over 9,000 shots in his career?

- Did you know that 26 times he was given the opportunity to make the game winning shot and he missed?

There was a lot more to what Barry said in setting the stage for the next few days, and to what Todd addressed in the key principles to success, but those were a few things that hit-home with me, that resonated with me as to why I created myRateTrack.com, and a few things that helped confirm why I traveled across the country to spend four days with some of the best mortgage professionals in the country.

 

myRateTrack.com is a web application system for mortgage professionals — to market to past clients and new clients — by keeping them READY and “in the know” with their refinance options.  Once SET up, the myRateTrack.com system generates and delivers (via email) detailed, customized, customer-specific refinance reports to clients (also available instantly).  The RateTrack report is branded with the mortgage professionals personal information and is customized with their rates and closing costs.  They system also includes a Target Refi Rate Notification System and a feature to offer advertisement space to Realtor and referral partners.  For more information, visit www.myRateTrack.com.  Ready. Set. Refi.