Good Morning Lenderama! Sorry it has been a bit quite here, but both Todd and I have been traveling around in the *real* world, meeting with *real* people. It is one of the important things we forget in the blogging, twittering, facebooking world. At any rate, we are moving around the last few pieces on the back-end and I am diligently planning the way forward.
What a great time to take the reigns of Lenderama.com. There are finally some positive indicators in the market and the survivors of the industry are starting to blast-off in whole new ways. I am excited to make Lenderama.com a part of that new opportunity.
I know a lot of you, but I thought I would give you brief introduction and start the conversation about the future of Lenderama.com.
I, like the rest of you mortgage and real estate survivors, have dramatically changed our game over the last couple of years to stay strong in the industry. This has me involved and invested in a fair number of things. If you understand my passions all of my interests will make sense:
- I am the VP of Content & Business Development at MortgageLoan.com-a consumer mortgage news and rates with one of that largest online mortgage lender directory
- I own a software company, Kaleidico-a mortgage & real estate web-based lead management , marketing automation, crm company
- I own two other blogs: BetterCloser.com and LeadMarketwatch.com-focusing on sales management and the Interent lead generation industry
- I play more Fantasy Baseball than I should (ask my wife)-BTW, DM @jbinfrisco or @bnix if you want to be in a RE/mortgage fantasy league we are quickly tossing together
Where was I before all this? I’ll make this short. I ran sales teams and national home equity at QuickenLoans for awhile and before that I started and sold DeepGreenBank.com a 100% Internet Bank that 100% automated online home equity loan orignations–you couldn’t sell that paper anymore.
So, that gives you a pretty good picture of my passion for writing about and trying to help people be successful in the mortgage and real estate business. This was the orignial vision of Lenderama.com when Todd told me about his idea way back in the beginning. I intend to build on that fundamental idea.
My number one mission with Lenderama is to serve you, the readers and subscribers. So, start the discussion–you are my clients!
- What do you need to do you job better?
- Who do you want to hear from on this blog?
- What news and information do you need covered?
- What do you like best about Lenderama.com?
- What do you wish would go away on Lenderama.com?
- What do you hope is in the future for Lenderama.com?
- How are you willing to help?
Since you are my clients, and I am always accessible to you–join me and contact me directly:
Twitter: @billrice
FriendFeed: Bill Rice
LinkedIn: Bill Rice
Facebook: Bill Rice
Email: wmrice [at] gmail.com
Mobile: 734.775.4487
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{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
Congratulations, Bill. I’ve enjoyed a number of high quality discussions on this site and I’m sure you’ll bring a lot to it. Best wishes!
Rick,
Thanks! You have always been a great voice for the industry. Your guidance on the often confusing and complex world of mortgage technology has always been valuable.
Folks if you haven’t checked out RickGrant.net yet or followed him on Twitter: @nyrickgrant you should.
-Bill
Welcome to the helm, Captain!
Glad to see that Lenderama is moving forward. I know I’m not the only one.
How am I willing to help? Anyway you see fit. Just say the word. : )
I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don’t know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.
Alanna
http://www.craigslistguide.info
Congrats again, Bill. As Rick stated, I’ve also enjoyed the great discussions on this blog.
I guess for future ideas, I’d love to hear more about the Bailout / Stimulus Plan, and how mortgage professionals can work together to re-build our industry.
I can help in any way – what do you need is the real question?
Thanks,
mm
Mark,
I think the first step to figuring out how to work together to re-build the industry is to help bring up everyone’s game. That is why I am going to call on industry experts to help me in getting great strategic and tactical content to the community.
What are the top 3 lending strategies you think are working in this market?
-Bill
Top three lending strategies that are working in this market -
1. Database management / development
2. Niche marketing
3. Facebook
*Emerging trend – online / search engine marketing
*Not very many people will be successful at that though, so it doesn’t really qualify as a “Top” lending strategy.
Hope that is enough to get the conversation going.
mm
I agree Mark!
In regards to FB…
Friends are one thing. Implementing a complete FB strategy (including key demographic ads) is on a different level.
Although I’ve just started, I’m seeing great results for some of my clients in development of their Fan Page(s), Facebook Connect on their blog, and targeted ad campaigns to the right demographic.
All three have to be in sync.
LinkedIn is another arena that goes virtually untapped. Finding and connecting to the right people, in the right way, is a great way to add new contacts (the right contacts).
Mark and Mike,
I would love to hear more about Facebook strategies for mortgage lenders. I have heard a lot of people saying this has been a growing channel of business, but I have not seen any meat on that statement (i.e., how-to).
Could one of you write-up a post for the Lenderama community on how to use Facebook and it’s exploding popularity?
Its all you, Mike. I can contribute some positive testimonials from my blog authors who are already having success with FB, but I am not the expert in that area.
I’m giving my fha blog a face lift in the next month and I’ll be integrating a Facebook community plugin. So, I’ll probably be able to come back after that with nice spread of results from about 50 or so loan officers. It would at least give us some real statistics to analyze in a controlled environment.
Actually, I was all over 4realz.net last night trying to wrap my head around the recent pages vs profiles. Things change so quick with social media that it is hard to find the balance between playing on the Internet and closing mortgage business.
Mike, shoot me an email if you want to collaborate on something.
mm
This will be an awesome piece guys. Let me know if you need any help–pulling in examples or writing it up. If you want to get on a call to talk through it this week I am happy to contribute. Maybe we should record it on blogtalkradio.com and publish that too. I think this could be really valuable to the community. Let me know if I can help.
Sounds great Bill. Maybe we can schedule a quick call towards the end of the week. I would love to have a technical guide to FB from a lender’s perspective. A full tutorial on the applications, pages, and integration with WordPress. Something that included a top 10 RE and Mtg groups to join list would be awesome as well.
mm
Sounds good. I’ll be available as well.
Great speaking with you today Bill, looks like we’re going to have a great Facebook resource put together for loan officers.
Mike – I’ll shoot you an email mid week with an outline.
mm
I’m a new reader and love all the information shared here. I have to say my favorite part is hearing your takes on the mortgage markets . I’d enjoy hearing more about social networking how to’s