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Rebounding from a Dwindling Market
By Joel S. Pate
Do you have one, two, five referral sources sending you business? A level of business that you were comfortable with a few months ago, but is producing less and less? But, still, a book of business that has kept you from putting on your boots, taking out the machete, the bug spray, and the safari helmet and wading back into the underbrush to find more referral sources?
The Mortgage Bankers Association noted July 18th that its index of applications to buy a home or refinance a loan fell 3.6% from the previous week. According to the National Association of Realtors, sales of existing homes fell for the fourth straight month in June.
Are you frustrated because you KNOW that you need to do all of this heavy lifting again just to get your income back on track? I know that many of you are.
So what do you do? Quit? Go to work at Wal-Mart?
Hell no. I'm not going to start working for a living again. I'm going to fight the fight, I'm going to conquer this market, I'm going to get more referral sources sending me business, keep them sending me business, so that I can again enjoy the level of income that I deem necessary in my life. Are you ready to make that statement?
Are you with me? I hope so. There are too many quitters in this market. Too many that didn't save during the good times. Too many that can't continue to make their payments by standing around the inbox waiting on someone to send them an e-mail, hopefully with a contract attached. Too many originators waiting for the harvest from the seed they didn't sow or didn't sow in fertile ground or didn't tend to after they invested their time and money in the first place.
Sowing and reaping.
Over the next several weeks, I will concentrate this column on this well used but often misunderstood law.
To paraphrase a little scripture: In Genesis, God told Abraham, "when you get lands and houses, herds and cattle and when your gold and silver multiplies, don't forget, it was me that gave you the power to get wealth."
Wealth, as described here, is something that multiplies. Robert Kiyosaki will tell you that you only have real wealth when you have multiple streams of passive income.
As you know, nothing is actually completely passive. Yet, there are streams of income (business) more passive than others. I believe that the passage in Genesis is our key to understanding passive income. Houses, lands, herds and cattle, gold and silver that multiplies.
Since most of us are not agrarian, let's paraphrase Genesis even more:
• Do you have a website that produces qualified customers on a daily basis?
• Do you have a tried and true call capture program that brings in new prospects?
• Do you have agents that send you their best clients because they know you can handle them?
• Do you have builders?
• Do you have insurance agents, CPA's, lawyers, etc.?
• Having you been working your past clients in a systematic method?
Well, you get the point. These are the equivalent of the assets described in Genesis. Wealth produces income day after day, night after night, and week after week. My friend Greg Frost will tell you, when asked, ""where do you get all these loans?" "I get one or two from this marketing plan, two or three from this agent, and so on."
If you actually believe this law, and I think you must accept it for it to work for you, then you must accept the following statements and take personal responsibility.
1. Your phone is ringing to the exact level of:
• The land you chose to sow into.
• The level that you sowed.
• The level and experience with which you tended the crop.
• The diligence that you extended during harvest.
2. If your cattle have calves, and you don't gather them up, the wolf will get them.
3. If you have a corn crop but you planted it in the wrong ground, you will have a small crop.
4. If you choose the best ground but didn't work hard enough, didn't tend it well (i.e., didn't call agents back), then you will have a small crop.
5. If you planted well, tended well, reaped abundantly, and then spent it all, you might feel like an idiot.
If you failed to realize that the boom of the past several years would eventually come to an end, and you have gotten yourself in over your head, I want you to know, it will be hard, but, you can survive. It's time to make a plan and work it diligently.
Look around. What land is available? What seeds do you have? What are your strengths? Who do you know? Who knows you?
Remember: ONLY what you HAVE can help you. And, what you HAVE is always enough. You've just got to put it to work, in the right place, in the right way.
If you are interested in seeing more strategies like this, visit www.vadiumgroup.com/cpexpert.php.
Dedicated to coaching YOU to CP Loan Success!
Joel S. Pate
Joel S. Pate, a dedicated entrepreneur, has spent more than two decades in the building, mortgage, and real estate industries and has been involved in over $100 Million in construction loans and over $1.3 Billion of residential lending.
As the CP LOAN EXPERT columnist, Mr. Pate provides straightforward, unbiased advice about every aspect of Construction Permanent Lending. If you ever wanted to unravel the mystery surrounding new construction lending, then you should tune in.
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