🎤 What are you willing to sacrifice? - The Letter X

Mar 01, 2021 8:23 pm

THE LETTER X

MONDAY IS FOR WINNERS

ISSUE #42

Presented by: EPM

 

Always Be Changing and Set Expectations!

 

As I have mentioned many a time, I will never stand pat with TLX. I will change it up when I feel like doing something else and based on the feedback from all of you. There will always be some core elements that remain, but certain things will change from week to week to keep it fresh!

 

This week’s commentary is about sacrifice.

 

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Everyone’s definition of success is different. So as you continue to read this, I was hoping you could think about what that means for you.

 

Regardless of your definition, your journey will present you with times when you need to accept change and times when you need to create it.

 

These times of change will take many different forms, some big, some small, but here is one thing that you need to understand.

 

Change does NOT happen without sacrifice. And like change, the level of sacrifice will vary from big to small.

 

Whether you are starting or continuing your journey on the path to success, you will need to as yourself two things:

 

1)   How bad do you really want what you want?

2)   What are you willing to sacrifice to get it?

 

Today happens to be the start of a new week and a new month, so what better time to ask yourself these questions as you get going.  

 

 

Event Announcement 

EPM's Broker Success Summit

 

It is the last week!

 

March 5th is the last day for tickets and booking your rooms for EPM’s Broker Success Summit.

 

We only have a handful of tickets left!  

 

Join some of the best in the industry such as Barry Habib, Christine Beckwith, Katie Sweeney, Todd Bitter, Chasity Graff, Jackie Dunlap, Chris Griffith, Michelle Dugan, Ashley Miller, and many more as we mastermind around creating modern broker success in 2021.

 

Also, who can pass up a chance to hang out with Ric Flair and David Pollack!

 

This will be an in-person event with very limited seats so make sure you get your tickets today!

 

 

Say Yes Every Day 

Laura Brandao - President of AFR Wholesale

 

Say YES to connecting with our youth! Whether it’s supporting your local sports teams, or speaking at your local high schools or Universities we all have a responsibility to share our knowledge and our gifts with our younger generations. Be generous with your time and Say YES to making a difference.

 

Did you know that Laura Brandao wrote a book about Say Yes? Well, she did and you can get your copy today by going here. Make your days better by Saying Yes!

 

 

Next Level Mindset


If it is important to you, you will find a way. If not you’ll find an excuse.

Posted by: Sean Zalmanoff, Next Level Loan Officers 


 

MBS X

Diana Bajramovic of MBS Highway

 

Housing

Pending Home Sales, which measures signed contracts on existing homes, came in for the month of January and gives us a real-time feel for the appetite of the marketplace. While we are down on a month over month basis by 2.8%, the year over year number is still higher, up 13%, in the face of low inventory. The National Association of Realtors’ Chief Economist, Larry Yun, stated that, “Pending Home Sales fell in January because there are simply not enough homes to match the demand on the market,” as we’ve been saying for a while now. Larry Yun is optimistic about Pending Home Sales in the year going forward.

 

Jobs

Initial jobless Claims came in with a strong headline number with a decrease of 100K in new claims. This is measuring last week where the country experienced bad weather and Texas was almost completely shut down, so take this number with a grain of salt. Continuing Claims decreased by 100K, but for those that fell off, Continuing Claims expired and they moved into Pandemic Emergency Claims which is up by 1M. The total number of people receiving some type of unemployment benefit is up from the previous week by 700K, so there was not a drastic improvement here.

 

Inflation

Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE), which is the Fed’s favorite measure of inflation, came in for the month of January more muted than the market had anticipated. The Headline number was up 0.3%, and the Core rate, which strips out food and energy prices, was also up 0.3%. The year over year number on the Headline rate went from 1.3% to 1.5%, and the Core rate went from 1.4% o 1.5%. These are both well below the 2% inflation benchmark that the Fed has set. Overall, these are very tame inflation numbers.

 

We continue to monitor this data and more in our Daily Morning Update.

 

 

// Have you signed up for TLX-M? TLX Masters is a new opt-in membership where you can receive more specialized content from me on a more frequent basis. If you would like to sign up for the new subscription you can do so here. //

 

Bowtie Economist Quick Hits

 

Though wildly unproductive in the amount of meaningful legislation passed, the just finished 116th Congress resulted in members of Congress posting 1.57 million tweets and 680,000 Facebook posts, up from 1.03 million and 484,000 in the 114th. In the 114th there were 10 members with at least one million followers; there were 30 in the 116th. With 21.70 million followers, Bernie Sanders is the most followed member.

 

In 2020, Idaho enjoyed the highest percentage of net migration, with 70% inbound and 30% outbound, a net of 40%. SC followed at 28%, then OR at 26%, AZ and SD at 24%, and AL, FL, NC, and TN at 20%. AR was 10th at 18%. CA at -18%, CT at -26%, IL at -32%, NY at -34% and NJ at -40% struggled most. Americans continue moving south and west.

 

While Producer Price Inflation is rising, since 1991 its correlation with core CPI is just 15%. Moreover, unemployment is high and global inflation is weak. Finally, while we are experiencing supply constraints, input prices have risen before. Recall that in 6/08 oil was $138/bbl, and as recently as 6/14 $111/bbl, yet since 1/1/94 core PCE, the Fed’s favorite inflation measure has never exceeded 2.55%/annum! Temporary inflation, probably, sustained inflation, no! 

 

While GDP will return to its pre-pandemic level in 21Q3, absent expansionary fiscal policy the labor market will take until 2024. Correcting for worker misclassification by the BLS boosts the reported unemployment rate from 6.1% to 6.9%. Correcting for the sharp labor force participation rate decline unique to this recession further raises it, depending on the assumptions, to between 8.3% to 9.3%, near the Housing Bust peak of 10%.

 

January is normally a weak month for home sales. But not this January. Thus, the seasonal adjustments that are always made to allow for month-to-month comparisons are not valid. For example, had last month’s sales occurred in October, the season adjustment would have resulted in 4.3 million seasonally adjusted sales, not the 6.69 million reported. The delayed selling season is in large part why the headline number looks so good.

 

 

Have you joined the Mortgage X Mastermind yet? It is our FREE Facebook Group. 

 

 

The Vieaux

Brian Vieaux - President of FinLocker

 

Benefits of Using Consumer-Permissioned Data in the Lending Process


As today kicks off Consumer Protection Week, it’s an excellent opportunity to explore the benefits of consumer-permissioned data in the lending process.

 

If you’re not familiar with the term, consumer-permissioned data is personal transactional data that a consumer grants permission for a business to access on their behalf. Examples include online banking or bank transaction data such as checking, savings, and investments.

 

In our industry, the consumer would provide permission to the lender to securely access the data on their behalf by entering their username, password, or other authentication credentials directly into the lender’s online application or loan processing portal themselves.

 

At first glance, the idea of giving a lender access to their personal and financial information might make some consumers cringe. The reality is that consumer-permissioned data protects a consumer’s information during the lender process significantly more than faxing, emailing, and mailing their personal and financial documents for their mortgage application.

 

Consumer-permissioned data is really a win-win for both consumers and lenders. Consumers don’t need to track down, copy or print hard copies of bank statements and W-2s for insistence. Instead, the consumer provides their lender with electronic access to retrieve the specific financial data from their financial accounts, which they need for a lending decision. Having all personal and financial information provided electronically gives the lender the ability to make faster, more accurate decisions.

 

Empowering consumers to control what data they share, when they share it, and to whom they share it can help establish an additional layer of trust between the consumer and lender. When consumers are convinced an organization is protecting their personal data, 40% of consumers increase their transactions, 39% increase spending, and 49% go on to tell friends and family about their positive experience with an organization, according to Capgemini

 

FinLocker uses consumer-permissioned data to provide consumers with an extra layer of protection when deciding to share their personal and financial documents with their lender for a mortgage application. The process provides consumers with an accurate and seamless way to securely transfer documents directly from their FinLocker app to their lender. The consumer can decide to provide their lender with access to other financial data by signing in to their financial accounts by entering the credentials I mentioned earlier.

 

Building trust with our consumers is an integral part of establishing a long-term relationship. Any way that we can reduce the friction caused by obtaining the necessary documents required for a mortgage application and reducing the requests for documents to be sent again can only benefit our industry.

 

Learn more about FinLocker www.finlocker.com

 

 

Be Empowered

Think Team First!

 

Don’t let your ego or personal agenda get in the way of doing what’s best for the team. Be there for each other and be willing to step into another role or help a co-worker do what’s required for success. 

 

 

The Edumarketer

Ginger Bell - Author, Speaker, and found of Edumarketing

 

Write Your Script

Writing out a script or outline for your video is a key component of your pre-video production planning and unfortunately one that is often not done.

So many times I see videos posted online with really no thought into the message or outcome.

 

Yes, I know, you are a loan originator and not a script writer. I know that you did not just walk off of the screen writers set for Jerry Seinfield. And, yes, contrary to popular belief, not just anyone can write a script. Often, someone on the team will dash off a script and think it's ready to execute without several rounds of critiquing and revising. It's important to get input from other members on your marketing team who speak to borrowers individually.

 

Don't worry if the script for your video goes through several drafts by the time you're ready to shoot. Even Martin Scorsese revises his screenplays many times. Having a solid foundation to work from will form a large part of your production and post-production schedules.

 

We advise our clients to begin with a list of topics. Think about the questions you are always answering. In our Edumarketing Media content in a box program, we have four different video scripts that we give our members every month. We have a refi script, a purchase script, a product script and a process script. We do that because not every consumer is looking for the same information, so you want to create videos around different topics.

 

To identify what your borrowers want to know about, you must first understand who your customer is and what are their needs.

 

Fact: 86% of consumers say personalization plays a role in their purchasing.

Knowing what your customers’ needs and the questions they may have about making a purchase or doing business with you is the first step in writing a script.

Let’s start with step one, which is identifying your ideal customer.   

 

Step One: Identify Your Ideal Customer

Here is what that may look like if you are a mortgage originator.

1.        Someone who wants to buy a home.  

2.        Someone who wants to refinance their home.


Pretty basic huh? Once you have identified your customer, you can break it down into segments, such as first-time homebuyer, retiree, someone who wants to up-size, down-size, etc. 

 

If you don’t want to write out a full script, that’s ok, you can write an outline. Be sure to include your topic and three points and always close out your video with your name and how they can reach you.

 

If you need help coming up with ideas, you can get our Mortgage Video Planner Guide on Amazon. Click HERE to order today. It’s 52 weeks of video ideas in a workbook that will help you create your scripts for your weekly videos.



Beyond The Numbers

Fobby Naghmi, EVP, National Sales Mgr. of First Option Mortgage

 

 

How often have you heard about the power of manifestation? If you’re a cynic like me, you just shake it off and keep walking. If I were in one of my extreme cynical moods, I would even see the praying mantis (Manny) from the movie “A Bugs Life” as he would say “Behold METAMORPHOSIS!!!” Which has nothing to do with manifestation, but it would make me smile. 

 

But wait, aren’t we transforming something when we do use the power of manifestation. Could it be as simple as saying we would like something to be different than it is. Most often that something happens to be me. To be even more precise, my current circumstances.

 

The simplest way for me to understand it was to see that my actions really were the final result of my thoughts. If I thought about eating a Five Guy’s cheeseburger (fried onions and BBQ sauce please!), my actions could in fact manifest the cheeseburger by placing the order with Five Guys. If the universal law prevailed, the cook would transform ÂĽ lb. of ground beef into the cheeseburger exactly as I had requested it and had envisioned it. Now manifestation began to taste really good to me! 

 

While this may be an oversimplification of this amazing universal law, it doesn’t have that much more difficult. You can substitute whatever word that will make it easier to understand. Because at the end this is about your journey and your metamorphosis.

 

 

 Mortgage X Marketing Manifesto

Andew Pawlak, CEO of Leadpops


7 Powerful Digital Tools & Resources to Level Up Your Online Game

 

Knowing about key tools and resources available online can help you turn ideas into reality. These are

some of my favorites:  

 

1. SEMrush — SEO research and competitive intelligence for all things related to search engine marketing,

keyword research, domain name analysis, pay per click ads, and much more.

 

2. Figma — a free, online UI tool where you can create, collaborate, prototype and handoff all in the same place.

Say goodbye to Photoshop and a whole bunch of other tools.

 

3. Dribbble — the go-to resource for discovering and connecting with designers and creative talent around the globe.

 

4. Upwork — the world's largest talent marketplace for freelancers and agencies to find more clients.

 

5. Builtwith — technology lookup and information profiler tool. Find out what a website is built with.

 

6. Confluence — is a team workspace by Atlassian where knowledge and collaboration meet. Dynamic pages give 

your team a place to create, capture, and collaborate on any project or idea.

 

7. Loom — record and share video messages of your screen, cam, or both. There are many similar tools available,

but Loom has some great features I haven't seen elsewhere and a nice UX. 

 

Thanks, and I'll catch you on next week's The Letter X! 

 

I hope you enjoyed TLX #42! Now go crush this week!

 

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