I took a little heat last week about a post that complained about the HVCC appraisal process.  "Hey," said the email, "you didn't answer my comment."

Here's the reason for that:  (It took a little time for it to percolate in the old brain.)

I'm a newbie.  I've only been in the lending business since 2003.  My relative inexperience is one reason that I'm so active on Active Rain.  I learn from colleagues who have been at this for decades, and I appreciate them for their knowledge and willingness to share it with people like you and me.

Prior to April, 2003, I was National Sales Manager for OPEX Corporation, a Moorestown (NJ) company that designs, manufactures, sells and services high speed automation for the payment processing industry (banks, insurance companies, credit card companies, mortgage companies) and for the United States Postal Service. 

The product?  Think $400,000 letter openers the size of your office that suck in envelopes and spit out data files, image files & cancelled checks at the rate of three envelopes per second.  With one operator.  Chase Bank has seven of these machines, last I knew, at a processing site in Phoenix.  They run seven days a week, 24 hours per day, so long as the mail keeps coming.

If I'm not blogging to impress potential clients with my level of expertise, why would I spend an average of two hours a day on Active Rain and my outside blogs?

I do it for the RELATIONSHIPS. 

Relationships are the key to a successful business.  People expect competence, and if they don't find it, they won't ever refer business.  But competence isn't what attracts people to do business with us. 

It took me a long time in sales to learn that truth. 

When I found Active Rain in 2007, I knew I had found gold.  It was the Active Rain Real Estate Network that allowed me to reach out to the world with my business in a way that made me comfortable, and at a price I could afford: FREE!

People refer business because they have come to know, like and trust us. 
My blog on Active Rain is designed to let you:

1. ...know who I am.  If you're one of my regular readers, you have a sense of my character from what I say, and in particular, how I respond to criticism in a public forum.
   
2. ...like what they see.  People find us on the internet by accident.  They click a link, and there we are, on their computer screen in their office, at Starbucks, or in their home.  Photos on my posts are designed to arrest your attention.  (I spend another hour a day taking photos of anything and everything.  I catalog them on my computer and use them to engage my accidental viewers.)
   
3. ...come to trust me.  I can't tell you how many times my phone has rung, and a total stranger on the other end says something like this:  "I've read your articles on the internet, and you seem like someone I can trust."

 ___________________

I'm Mike in Tucson, your preferred Tucson, AZ Mortgage lender.

Call me if I can help you with a purchase or refi mortgage;
(520) 349-9090

Cactus blossom photo copyright Mike in Tucson