Mortgage Jumpstart Day #2- Today’s Lesson: Building the Foundation of Your Business - Your Database

I'm Mark Maiocca, founder of the Core7 referral system and author of the Amazon bestseller "What's Your Rate: How to Buy a Home and Secure Your Financial Future at the Same Time." I teach real estate, mortgage, tax, and financial professionals how to form structured mastermind groups to generate referrals and provide a greater impact with their clients.

The first thing you do today is write down everyone you can think of: friends, family, former business contacts, high school teachers, and anyone else. Don't exclude anyone at this point. The more information you can add to your database, the better. This can include hobbies, birthdays, interests, etc. However, this can take a ton of time and hold you up from launching your business.

Here's my advice: Shoot for a name, mailing address, cell phone number, and email address. That is plenty to get started. Put all this information into an Excel spreadsheet. Why Excel? Because it’s easy to use and uploads to all database software programs. Starting with Excel will accomplish this.

You can opt for a more sophisticated database management system right away. Some great ones are ACT, GoldMine, or your company may have a proprietary one. They are all good, but I always recommend starting with Excel for its simplicity and the fact that it uploads to any other database or social media you will need.

Now, some people like to sort and segment their database by importance at this point. Honestly, I don't recommend it because it can add delays. Remember, the goal is to launch as soon as possible, so add everyone you can think of and treat everyone the same for this initial startup time.

If you do decide to sort and segment at this time, keep it very simple. Here is what I recommend:

- A+ Clients: Referral machines who are constantly referring you loans that close. A benchmark would be at least four per year. If you're just starting, you probably don't have any A+ clients yet. Don't worry; it can take a while. I have nine, and I've been in business for almost 20 years.
- A Clients: People who have done business with you or referred you any loans that have closed. Again, if you're just starting, these are people you know will use you if they need a mortgage and will refer you if they know someone who needs a mortgage.

After you put this together, send a simple email to this list and your social media network. The email should have the header: "VERY IMPORTANT, PLEASE ANSWER," and the body should say:

"You may or may not know this, but I'm a mortgage originator, and I'm trying to grow my business by referral and give extra quality service to my best clients. Please be honest with me on this. If you were buying, refinancing, or had someone to refer for a home loan, would you refer me?"

Don't overthink this; just do it and people will respond.

After sending out this initial email, there are other great ways to build your database of quality clients, especially if you are somewhat tech-savvy and comfortable with social media. Check out these internet resources that will be incredibly helpful in consistently building your database:

- Lead Pages and Megaphone: Both are opt-in software.
- Aweber and Infusionsoft: Autoresponder software.

Once you get these programs started, they run on their own, which is called evergreen. These programs are not expensive. Check them out; there are great tutorials on the websites for all of these programs.

I hope you enjoyed Day 2. We'll see you in the next module, where we do something really important: creating your mortgage information gathering process for when you get a referral for a home loan. Most managers will say just go get the loan and we will help you close it. This is the wrong advice when you're just getting started. There is nothing more important than doing a good job, adding value, and creating a smooth, predictable process by taking a great loan application.