Exterior Paint Tips
Summer is an excellent time for clients to paint their homes. The hot weather ensures faster drying times and minimizes weather-related complications and delays. Here are some good tips for your customers:

1-Inspect the exterior. Before painting, check for bad patches, stains or rot. Damaged wood siding or trim could indicate water damage. Repair the damage and find the problem's source. It could be a small roof leak, or poorly sealed surface or joint somewhere in the structure. You can't fix problems by painting them.
2-Pick the right color. A home's color can influence its property value, as well as the neighbors'. Go with shades of white, gray, beige or tan, and limit any stronger colors to shutters, trim and other features. (Keep them complementary.) Moreover, the home's style, local code and association covenants, conditions and restrictions can dictate the color palette.
3-Test some samples. Before diving in, apply some test patches of various shades to less conspicuous parts of the home. See how they look after they dry. See which colors best complement one another, and how they look against the other colors in the yard and in the neighborhood.
4-Interview contractors. Ask neighbors with recently painted homes for referrals. Get quotes from multiple contractors and ask them for referral customers, as well. Ensure contractors are properly insured and licensed.
5-Get a group discount. Canvas the neighborhood for other homeowners who want to repaint their homes. Pooling together creates bargaining power that will attract painters and force them to offer group discounts. Besides, clients can share ideas and make new friends.

Build Business by Rewarding Customers
A token of appreciation or special attention can go a long way in building your business. Here are some ideas for generating referrals by rewarding your customers:
1-Simple gift-giving as a token of your appreciation can spur customers to refer your business. Consider two different levels of gifts: one for the first-time referrer and one for your brand advocates. For one-time referrers offer movie tickets, free car washes or Starbucks cards. For those customers who continually tout your service or product, consider dinner for two, a fruit basket or a gift card.
2-Consider a referral reward system, which offers your customers points based on referrals and results. For example, offer two points for each referral and 10 points if the referral purchases something. The more points they collect, the larger the award they can claim.
3-Start a VIP referral program that extends exclusive invitations to people referred by your established customers. Make these newcomers feel special by offering exclusive discounts or private product showings. The referred customers will be impressed by the treatment and your advocates will be pleased they made the referral.

Finally, most customers won't go looking for your referral program. You have to tell them about it. Also, make your program enticing by making it friendly, simple and rewarding.

How to Write a Joint Business Plan with another person or business
When partnering with another business or person, it's important to draw up a joint business and marketing strategy.

Here are some tips to help you co-draft your strategic marketing plan.
1-Have a joint objective. Map out your mutual goals together. Is this person/company the right model match with your business strategy? Are you partnering to gain referrals? Is your goal to provide additional services to new or existing clients? Outline what makes the partnership unique from your competition.
2-Refine your strategy. Determine how working with this person or company will help you achieve your planning goals. Outline responsibilities and timelines. For example, if your marketing strategy includes mailings, who will design them, who will pay for postage and when will it be mailed?
3-Define your marketing methods. There are several ways to market your partnership. Decide which advertising methods will work best to achieve your goals. You and your partner can send mass e-mails to existing clients; address a direct mailing to a targeted and untapped client base; create a print ad campaign; or hold joint seminars. Whichever method you and your partner choose, ensure that the marketing material stresses the strengths of your partnership and its benefits. Performance Indicators. Set a timeline for your goals and criteria for measuring success. Perhaps it is as simple as keeping a computer log of new clients obtained through the partnership or advertising campaign. Set a time for a review each quarter and adjust your joint business plan accordingly.

Today's home sellers need more guidance than ever before, especially since many are unwilling to face the reality of falling property values in many communities across the nation. Here are some tips for helping your sellers succeed in today's market:

1-For customers with an over-inflated estimate of their home's value, begin your price discussion by listing items that don't always determine property value:
-Homeowners' paid price
-Amount owed on the house
-Money needed to buy the next home
-Neighbor's estimate of house value
-Money invested in improvements
-Appraisal for last refinancing
-Price a neighbor's home sold for last year
-Suggestions from Internet sites, such as Zillow.com

2-Ask your sellers how they see their real estate market going forward. In today's market, most will say they see it getting slower. Then, ask your clients what they're prepared to do, and give them the following choices:
-Price your home at the top of the market and chase it down?
-Price your home aggressively and have the opportunity for buyers to bid it up and sell it quickly?
-Lease it out and carry the negative?

3-Produce very detailed prior-sales information that will give sellers a realistic picture of recent neighborhood home sales. Stress that this objective data is a good indicator of what the market will bear for your sellers' homes.

4-Clip local newspaper and magazine articles that talk about local market changes. Make copies and hand them to your sellers, and remind them that savvy buyers are reading the same stories.

These are just a few of the things that we thought would help with the changing market.

How to Be a Good Business Partner
Any business partnership can see big results with a little work and attention. Whether you are partnering with a financial advisor or a divorce attorney to expand your consumer base, it's always beneficial to support your team with healthy partnership skills.

Here are some tips to positively impact your business partnership:
1-Communication: Always keep the lines of communication open. Promptly return all phone calls and e-mails. Consider inviting your partner out for coffee, lunch, or a game of golf on a monthly or bi-monthly basis to collaborate on selling ideas. Be sure to let your partner know that you are always available for business discussions.
2-Honesty and Trust: Trust takes time to build. At the start of a business partnership, take time to get to know your partner. What are your partner's business goals? What are their strengths and weaknesses? Speak openly and honestly about yourself.
3-Respect: Always be respectful of your partner's ideas. Listen when they speak, look them in the eye, and always take their opinions seriously. Provide constructive criticism, even if you don't necessarily agree, and provide praise for good ideas.
4-Tolerance: Everyone makes mistakes and there are appropriate ways to deal with them. If for example, your partner provides the wrong information to a client, constructively relay the error to the partner and politely request that more care be taken in the future. Always be ready and willing to apologize when you are in the wrong.

With these simple tips you'll start every new relationship off right – ensuring that both parties benefit from a long and fruitful business partnership.

We are very excited to work with new referral sources. Do you know anyone that would benefit from working with Brian and I-please have them give us a call or give us their name and number.

Remember: If you or anyone that you may hear of is looking to do any financing concerning their home whether it is refinancing, tapping into their equity or even purchasing that first second or third home Brian and Jamie Frampton (The Frampton Team) at Mortgage Team 1, Inc. is here for you. Brian's cell 251-680-5010 Jamie's cell 251-709-1010 or toll free 866-684-8326.

Your most precious resource is your time. It is time to reclaim YOUR TIME!!!

Brian and I really strive each day week and month to continue implementing the following steps and disciplines in our life. I thought that as your individual businesses grow you may find like I did that you continue to run out of time on more occasions. You find yourself left with these lingering tasks that start to control you instead of you controlling them. Try this for 30 days I swear your life will improve:

1-Outline your phone calls to minimize chit-chat, skip writing emails when a quick call will do, set personal time limits for conversations, and have an assistant sort your lower-priority communications.
2-Stifle personal procrastination, tackle difficult tasks when you have the most energy and adopt a "just do it" philosophy. Focus on results rather than activities. Avoid wasting the first hour of each day browsing email or hobnobbing with coworkers. (This is the hardest for Brian and I - we love our co-workers, but we must remember that commodity that we cannot have more of is our time-use it wisely.)
3-Keep a daily "action diary" and manage your work. Take 20 minutes to 30 minutes each Monday to plan the week, and finish each day by taking 10 minutes to map the next day's to-dos. Instead of multitasking, practice spotlighting by intensely focusing on singular tasks that move a project toward completion.

Remember: If you or anyone that you may hear of is looking to do any financing concerning their home whether it is refinancing, tapping into their equity or even purchasing that first second or third home Brian and Jamie Frampton (The Frampton Team) at Mortgage Team 1, Inc. is here for you. Brian's cell 251-680-5010 Jamie's cell 251-709-1010 or toll free 866-684-8326.

Construction of new homes in May fell to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.47 million units, a 2.1% drop from April and a 24.2% decline from a year ago, the Commerce Department reported June 19. The decrease matched economists' expectations, and reflected weakness in the South and West, which offset construction gains made in the Northeast and Midwest.
Housing permits, considered a good barometer of future activity, rose 3% in May, but the increase followed a 7.1% plunge in April. Last month's stronger activity originated from a rebound in permits for apartment construction. Meanwhile, mortgage applications for single-family homes fell 1.8% and have been down four of the past five months.
The National Association of Home Builders reported on June 19 that its survey of builder sentiment sank two points to 28 in June, the lowest since it hit 27 in February of 1991. Readings below 50 mean more builders view market conditions as poor rather than favorable. All three major components of the index -- sales, sales expectations and buyer traffic -- posted declines.
Rates on 30-year mortgages, after rising for five straight weeks, edged down slightly for the week. Rates have been pressured by rising yields on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note.
For the week ended June 15, unemployment claims rose by 10,000, to 324,000, the highest level since mid-April. While the increase was unexpected, analysts said the labor market remained strong.