Author Archive for The Renno Team – Page 2

Industry Insider – Five Keys for Forging Client Trust

By The Renno Team · Comments (0)
Thursday, October 6th, 2011

Five Keys for Forging Client Trust – Oct. 2011

Creating client trust is an underpinning factor in all sales success. You need to ensure that your clients trust what you say and in the products and services you stand for in order to ensure that you will not only seal a deal, but cement long-term relationships.

That said, it’s not easy to come by. There are various factors that go into creating the kind of trust clients need to feel in order to sign on the dotted line. Let’s look at five essential elements in building that trust:

1. Understand trust. No doubt you are an honest person with integrity, but trust is a bigger concept than that. To create the kind of trust that will make the sale, clients need to have faith in your abilities and experience, and your ability to help them solve a problem or accomplish their goals. They need to trust your advice and insights. So it is important to constantly reinforce that confidence by maintaining professionalism and functioning as an expert resource for your clients.

2. Be the client’s ally. The best way to provide your clients with the kind of counsel that builds trust is to ask many questions to help flesh out the client’s needs and get them to provide as much detail on their situation as possible. Then start providing them with advice and options so that you can help lead them to possible product or service solutions that will help them attain their goals. But by acting as that advisor, and offering them options, they remain in the driver’s seat. By working for and with your clients in this capacity, you ensure their trust.

3. Always be up front. There are bound to be pros and cons to the options you offer. Always be up front about the pluses and minuses involved in the options you are providing your clients. Similarly, always disclose any other obligations or variables that are involved in the options the client is weighing. The goal is to help the client make an informed decision, rather than putting the client in a position where he or she feels like she is getting any last-minute surprises. Those “gotchas” — even if unintentional — completely undermine trust.

4. Manage expectations. In the same way that you want to be up front about pros and cons, you want to ensure that the client has a realistic expectation as to what his or her success will be with the products or services you provide. Work in as objective terms as possible to project what that product or service will do for the client. The last thing the customer needs is hype.

5. Be dependable and always follow through. It sounds obvious, but doing things like returning messages in a timely fashion; providing materials when you say you will provide them; and showing up on time to meetings are pivotal in ensuring client trust. By demonstrating that the client can rely on you, he or she will have confidence that you are responsible and worth their trust. Moreover, you’ll deserve it.

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Homefront Finance – Picking the Right Painter

By The Renno Team · Comments (0)
Thursday, September 15th, 2011

Picking the Right Painter – Sept. 2011

While plenty of homeowners are happy to take on various do it yourself projects, painting the house is one many are only too happy to leave to the professionals. Painting a home is messy, time consuming and sometimes dangerous business. It also is expensive.

The key is to pick the right house painter. You want to not only ensure you are getting a good deal in terms of price, but you also want to ensure that you will get quality work from a responsible professional. The last thing you want to do is pay big money to avoid a headache only to wind up with an even bigger one.

Here are some things you want to keep in mind when house painter:

•Start asking your neighbors. Chances are there are some homeowners in your neighborhood who have recently received a new lick of paint. Ask the owners who did the job, and if they are satisfied with the work and if they would recommend their painter. (If not, your list of possible contractors just got shorter.)

•Inspect the work. If they can recommend the painter, ask your neighbors how long ago they had the work done, and look at areas like the trim, windows and doors and other places where the painters would have had to pay attention to detail. How’d they do? Also ask how old the job is. If it’s just a few months ago, it might be too early to tell if the job was truly a quality paint job, but if it is a couple years old and looking new, that might be a good painter to consider.

•Ensuring proper licensing and bonding. Many states ensure that painters be licensed as a contractor and some require that they be bonded. These are good protections for you as a consumer. Make sure the painter is insured to cover any workers that will be on the job, and protect you, the homeowner, from any liability. If the painter is not bonded, avoid paying any large up-front sums. (If the painter argues that up-front money is required to purchase supplies, consider accompanying them to the paint or home store to make the purchase.)

•Ask for references. When you finally start talking to painters, ask them for at least three references. A true professional will have good customer success stories he or she is happy to share, and customers who are willing to speak on his or her behalf. Make sure to contact those homeowners and see how they liked the work and the painter. Is the job holding up well? Can you come over and take a look at the job? How was the painter in terms of professionalism, communication, timeliness and courtesy?

•Learn about the process. Ask the painter to describe the painting process that would be used on your home. Have them walk you through it step by step. This will help you ensure you are getting quality work. Signs they will do a good job include prepping external electrical fixtures; caulking any hole or gaps; power washing; providing sufficient drying time for the wash; masking off key areas of the home exterior and surrounding areas; identifying which areas should receive trim paint as opposed to the main exterior color.

•Get a warranty. A true professional is one who will stand behind his or her work. Seek painters that offer at least a three-year warranty, so that you have some reasonable assurance that the work will hold up over time. Make sure to carefully read any limitations on the warranty (which should be clearly stated).

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Homefront – Take Some Years off Your Bathroom

By The Renno Team · Comments (0)
Thursday, September 8th, 2011

Take Some Years off Your Bathroom – Sept. 2011

The bathroom is one of those areas of the house that can quickly show its age, and quickly be revived with a little TLC and elbow grease, but not a ton of money. If you’re intending to sell any time soon, don’t forget that bathrooms and kitchens tend to have the most impact on potential buyers. If you’re not ready to endure a stem-to-stern bathroom upgrade, but still want to take some years off a room that’s showing its age, there are plenty of ways to freshen things up.

Here are a few tips to whip your bathroom into shape:

•Caulk — Remove all the cracking, peeling and faded or yellowing caulking around your tub, inside your shower, around sinks and anywhere else and replace it. White and clear caulking packaged in easy-to-use dispensers is available from any hardware or home store and the look new caulking gives is immediately satisfying.

•Tile and grout — If you have tiles with white grout that are showing their age, spray the tiles with cleaner and scrub them down with a pad that won’t scratch the surface. For the grout use a cleanser with bleach to return it to its original white color.

•Shower dispensers — Create a more organized, attractive shower space easily and inexpensively by replacing worn and possibly rusting hanging shower organizers and racks with simple, elegant wall-mounted soap, shampoo and conditioner dispensers.

•Drains and traps — Take a second to remove the drain stoppers from all sinks and clean them thoroughly with a scrubbing pad to restore their shine. Unscrew the u-shaped trap from the drainpipe under the sink and clean it out. Reinstall the trap and pour some drain cleaner through the whole system to ensure it’s completely clean and chase that with some hot water. Then return the newly cleaned drain plug. Your sink will perform like new.

•Matching fixtures — Create a designer look by installing matching towel bars, toilet paper hangers, door hooks, light fixtures, drawer pullers and knobs and hinges — or items that complement each other in terms of finish and design. Your home stores will sell sets of all these items to give a unified look.

•Showerheads and faucets — If you like your current shower dispense, but it’s not functioning well, try removing the showerhead and submerging it in white vinegar for a couple hours to remove mineral deposits and restore its shine.

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Industry Insider – How to Speak and Succeed

By The Renno Team · Comments (0)
Tuesday, September 6th, 2011

How to Speak and Succeed – Sept. 2011

A great way to market yourself and establish your expertise to your clients and partners is through public speaking. The problem is that public speaking isn’t something that comes naturally to most people. You might be a silver-tongued networking pro when it comes to one-to-one communications, but it’s another thing entirely to speak in front of a large group of people.

The problem is a fear of failure and public embarrassment. However, there are multiple steps you can take to not only remove the fear from public speaking, but ensure you excel at it. Let’s review some key ways you can drop your fears, gain confidence and use public speaking to further your success:

•Speak with a purpose. If you walk into your presentation with an objective — a message that you want to get across or a point that you want to teach your audience — that singular purpose will always keep you on track. If you make an error and start to get distracted and worried, ask yourself, “Why am I speaking here today?” If you came to the podium with a purpose, you’ll instantly remember and get yourself back on track. Moreover, this purpose will keep you fired up and engaging for the audience.

•Prepare and practice. You can’t walk into a public speaking environment unprepared and expect to do a good job. You need to build a presentation that you feel is strong and that motivates you, and then start practicing it regularly. A great way to practice is not just in front of the mirror or a family member, but to break off pieces of your presentation and use those lines when you are interfacing with clients, coworkers or partners. Consider it some real life road-testing for the main event.

•Keep things simple. Don’t get bogged down in overly complex or numerous presentation slides. Have a direct and logical outline to your presentation that keeps you from going off tangents. You want the audience to follow your ideas and they can’t if they have to continually go from reading your slide to listening to what you have to say. Keep it simple and you’ll do a much better job of getting your message across in a memorable way.

•Remember, the audience is your ally. If you have fears about making a mistake, drop them. Your audience is actually very forgiving. In fact, they are rooting for you. When a person decides to commit his or her time to come see you, he or she wants you to do a good job, because then the trip will have been worth their while. Moreover, chances are they see you as a peer and will identify with you when you do a good job, and when you stumble.

•The audience can still be rude. It’s not that they mean to, but audience members of conference sessions or seminars don’t feel they have to live up to the same niceties of, say, those attending the opera. They’re there on their own time and might need to step out to make a call or catch a cab. The key is to not let that behavior throw you or to take it as a commentary on your performance. They’re just doing what they have to do — just like you. So keep your head on your presentation and not what the audience is doing.

•Own your mistakes. Everybody fouls up on stage. Period. Shakespearean actors make mistakes. Movie stars make mistakes. News anchors make mistakes. And you make mistakes. It’s the nature of the public speaking beast. So, if you flub your words or forget a point, simply say to the audience, “You know what? I didn’t say that clearly. Let me go back and make that point again so I’m sure you get it.” You’ll score big points with the audience for wanting to do a good job for them.

Remember and follow these tips and you just might find on your next public speaking opportunity that you not only lose your fear of getting up on stage, but you just might come to enjoy it — break a leg!

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Homefront Finance – Getting Out from Under Credit Card Debt

By The Renno Team · Comments (0)
Thursday, August 18th, 2011

Getting Out from Under Credit Card Debt – August 2011

While Americans are borrowing less and saving more in this difficult economy, there are still many U.S. households that are wrestling with the nagging financial problem of credit card debt. Overall U.S. credit card debt is smaller, but Americans still consumed $793 billion in revolving debt (i.e, credit cards) in May of this year alone.

Relying too heavily on credit cards can be an alarmingly easy habit to build. When your income is flowing, using a card as a simple catch-all payment method becomes a habit. This is especially true if the card carries incentives such as airline miles or other benefits that keep you using the card.

But if cash flow narrows or doesn’t keep pace with the spending on the credit card, then carrying over a balance to the next month becomes the default position for too many American households. The second your credit card balance starts showing up every month like an uninvited — and growing — guest, it is time to bring things under control. Here’s how:

1. Halt all unnecessary credit card usage. Some items, such as recurring charges for child care, might need to continue hitting your credit card, but eliminate everything else.

2. Start budgeting. In the same way that you can nickel and dime yourself into debt, you can nickel and dime yourself out of it. Outline all your recurring monthly expenses, as well as expenses you expect on a quarterly, half and annual basis. Consider other unforeseen expenses, such as car repair, and estimate averages for such expenses by looking through old receipts.

3. Narrow your budget. Now that you have your budget, how can you get lean and mean so that you can divert additional money toward paying off your credit card debt. Do you really need that sports package on your cable TV? What can you do without?

4. Do you have savings? Do you have a credit card balance? If you answered “yes” to both, then something is wrong. Compare your savings account’s interest rate to your credit card’s rate. You should notice a massive disparity between the two. While you want to maintain a certain amount of rainy day funds for the aforementioned unforeseen costs that can crop up, everything else should be diverted toward paying off your credit card.

5. Come up with a payment plan. Assuming that you still have a balance left on your card, you need to use your budget to determine how much you can pay each month to start paying down your credit card balance back to zero.

6. Unload. Now is a good time to go through your house and see what items you can get rid of. No, we’re not kidding. That unwanted exercise machine in the basement that’s doubling as a laundry drying rack could be one Craig’s List ad toward becoming debt free. If you’re serious about getting rid of credit card debt as quickly as possible, there’s no shame in unloading unwanted items to generate liquid cash you can use to pay off your debt. Whether its online classifieds or a garage sale, turn clutter into cash you can use to pay down your debt.

7. Come up with new ways to save money. If you don’t already, start clipping coupons and using Groupon and other online tools to save. Think hard about how you can take advantage of sales and any other opportunity to reduce your costs. Every penny you don’t spend is money you can use to get you one more step toward freeing yourself of your credit card debt.

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Homefront – Tackling Termites

By The Renno Team · Comments (0)
Thursday, August 11th, 2011

Tackling Termites – August 2011

Do you have some wood that appears dried out or rotten? That could be a sign of termite trouble. Before you go to repair or replace any wood that appears rotten, you want to make sure you don’t have termites, and if you do, you want to get rid of the pests before you do repairs.

For starters, don’t dismiss the possibility of termites out of hand. While the classic drywood termite typically lives in warm areas that do not get below freezing in winter, subterranean termites inhabit every state of the Union, and formosan termites enjoy the Southeast. So, make sure to look for these signs of termite infestation:

•The damaged wood. If some wood appears to be dried out, rotted or hollow, and you can pick at it or puncture it with a tool such as a screwdriver, that could mean termites. If it is a large section of wood, try knocking on it to see if it is not dense, as wood should be.

•The bugs themselves. Termites look like ants with longer abdomens. The flying termites you often see can either be drywood termites or subterranean termites. Drywood termites live in the wood and often infest a specific area or piece of wood, whereas subterranean termites must live in the ground.

•Piles of tiny silver wings. If there are little wings left on floors, windowsills or other flat areas near dried out or rotted-appearing wood, that could well mean termites. That said, flying ants also leave these wings behind.

•Termite poop. Otherwise known as frass, termite droppings are tiny, beige- to brown-colored pellets near a hole or crack in the damaged wood. The termites burrow into the wood, and expel their frass from the nest as they chow down on your timber.

So, you’re positive you have the critters — what do you do to get rid of them? This is a tougher question to answer, because it depends on the severity of the infestation. For instance, if you have a small piece of exterior wood trim that appears to have very localized damage, you might be able to get away with replacing just that wood. But if that wood is connected to other wood on the home, or you find signs of termites on the interior, then you could have a deeper infestation.

The way that termites are professionally treated is typically with chemical extermination, termite bait, or fumigation. There are some do-it-yourself offerings available, but given the possibility of a deep infestation, it usually makes more sense to go with professional exterminators. This can get expensive. Each of the aforementioned solutions can range as high as $2,500.

So, you want to do your homework and get bids from at least three exterminators for whom you’ve received recommendations from friends or neighbors. Make sure each is a member national or state pest control associations and guarantees its work. The termites work slow, which buys your time to do your homework and due diligence when deciding on an exterminator.

Note that some exterminators offer a contracted annual termite control service to detect and prevent any future incursions. You might want to look into this. Each year the pest control company will come to your home to inspect it for termites and abate them as needed.

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Industry Insider – Maximizing a Networking Opportunity

By The Renno Team · Comments (0)
Thursday, August 4th, 2011

Maximizing a Networking Opportunity – August 2011

While you might think of Facebook and Twitter when it comes to social networking, the real venue for forging solid relationships is at face-to-face networking events. And chances are, if you are a success-oriented sales professional, you try to slate as many networking opportunities as you can.

The question is, are you making the most of the networking events that are filling up your calendar? Here are some ways you can make sure that you master the fine art of working a room:

•Walk into the room with an agenda in mind. That agenda could be to meet certain people at the meeting, develop leads, meet new people, meet with a specific prospect, or it could be a combination of different objectives. Whatever your gameplan is, stick to it.
•Your work begins well before the meeting. Start researching who will be attending the networking event and what they mean to you as a prospect. Identify key targets and start thinking about not the ways you can start conversation with them, and how you can direct that conversation to how you can help them.
•Set some goals for yourself. In the same way you might sit down and try to handle X number of sales calls in an hour, set some performance metrics for this networking meeting. How many new prospects do you want to develop? How many pre-identified targets do you want to meet with? How many business cards do you want to collect? How many do you want to distribute.
•Practice an introduction for yourself, as well as some conversation starters. The last thing you want to do is waste valuable networking time thinking of how you are going to approach someone. Instead, leverage some rehearsed ice breakers that can help you introduce yourself and get a conversation rolling.
•Keep your ears open. As you mingle you might hear snippets of conversation that apply to you. Don’t be afraid to say, “You know, I don’t want to come off rude, but I couldn’t help overhearing that you mentioned …” No one will fault you for offering your insights, expertise or witty banter on the subject. In fact, they’ll most likely appreciate it.
•Remember the key is to connect, not sell. Don’t go to the networking event expecting to close deals. You are there to make connections and lay the ground work for future business development. Trying to work a deal while networking can be considered poor form at many events, and can quickly get you uninvited. Instead, leave your connections open-ended so that you have opportunity for follow-up.
•Keep follow-up reminders. As you offer your follow-ups, maintain a system for noting all the follow-ups you will need to make so that you can quickly send them the next day, and keep your new relationships rolling.

Of course, despite all these tips, it’s easy for even the best networkers to get lost in the moment and feel a little nervous or out of place. If you find yourself feeling awkward at a networking function, don’t drift toward the door. Instead, walk up to the first available person you see, smile, look them straight in the eye, offer a handshake and introduce yourself. A simple, congenial introduction works wonders!

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Homefront Finance – 529 Accounts: A Smart Foundation

By The Renno Team · Comments (0)
Friday, July 22nd, 2011

529 Accounts: A Smart Foundation for your Children’s Future – July 2011

If you’re ever feeling like a good scare, skip the horror movies and go take a look at the cost for a year’s tuition at any private or public university — they’re terrifying.

Public schools charge on average more than $7,500 for a year’s tuition, and chances are, if your children are young now, those tuition fees will look like a pittance in comparison to the cost of a college education in 10 or 15 years.

If you haven’t already, now is the time to start socking it away for your children’s college education. Even if you can’t pay for all of it, at least you can pay or some of it.

Sure, it’s tempting to believe your child will be able to get an academic, athletic or artistic scholarship, but chances are you’ll need a more grounded financial plan. That’s where a 529 account comes into play.

A 529 plan (named for the section of the IRS code that allows for them) is a tax-deferred savings plan that lets you put aside money for college education at universities across the nation. It doesn’t matter if the school is out of state, just so long as it qualifies under the 529 plan.

When your child is ready to attend school, you are not taxed 529 money used to pay for his or her education, but your child could be. It depends on how much is distributed to your child. If the amount falls below the annual gift exclusion limit (currently $13,000), then your child’s funds will not be taxed. Fortunately, this is likely the case for most of us.

And for you, the donor, you can protect between $13,000 and $65,000 of your money in annual contributions from being taxed. Or, you can opt to treat a contribution as though it were made over fiver years. This offers a tremendous level of flexibility in terms of sheltering your money.

If the 529 funds are not used at the time of withdrawal, you can still withdraw, and only the earnings will be taxed a 10 percent penalty. However, if the reason you didn’t need the 529 plan was because your child received a scholarship, then you can claim an exemption from that penalty. Similarly, if your child experienced a tragedy and was killed or disabled in such a way that he or she was unable to attend college, you could claim an exemption, as well.

Don’t wait to see what tuition is like five, 10 or 15 years from now before you decide how you are going to approach funding your child’s college education. Go online or talk to your financial planner to review some of the best performing 529 plans on the market and start one up today. Even if you start small, you will have a huge impact on your child’s future.

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Homefront – Six Easy Bathroom Upgrades

By The Renno Team · Comments (0)
Thursday, July 14th, 2011

Six Easy Bathroom Upgrades – July 2011

While the bathroom sees a lot of use, it doesn’t always see a lot of tender loving care. Who can blame us? Cleaning up the bathroom is an onerous chore to begin with, but after a while, a bathroom can start look a little drab and long in the tooth.

Fortunately, there are some easy upgrades that can give your bathroom a fresh, new look. In a weekend, you can put together a pretty dramatic makeover with these six techniques:

1. Match your fixtures — You can create a seamless, designer look by installing matching towel bars, toilet paper hangers, robe hooks, light fixtures faucets, drawer handles or knobs and hinges. Most manufacturers of these products offers sets of all these items. See what’s available at your local home store.

2. Caulk — Inspect all the caulking around your tub, inside your shower, around sinks for mildew creep, or dryness, cracking and peeling. Remove the bad caulking and replace with white or clear caulking.

3. Tile and grout — While removing tile and replacing with a more up-to-date material, such as stone, is the optimal option, you can breathe new life into your bathroom with a good cleaning. Spray the tiles with cleaner and scrub them down with a pad that won’t scratch the surface, and use grout cleaner with a stiff brush to freshen up the grout. Make sure to seal the grout afterward.

4. Mirrors — If you have a large, unframed mirror above your bathroom sink, consider swapping that outgo for a framed mirror for a more modern look. Or, have your existing mirror framed.

5. Designer shower heads — While rainfall showerheads mounted above are very hot right now, re-plumbing your shower can get expensive. Instead there are various options that can thread onto your existing shower pipe that approximate the effect.

6. The walls — Last but not least, don’t forget that you can greatly change the look of your bathroom with a fresh lick of paint. Having trouble deciding on a color? Consider all the upgrades you have in the queue — fixtures, mirrors, etc. — and that should help you envision a complete picture. Also, consider wall paper or a unique wall paper trim to complete the look. Add some color-coordinate towels and you have a brand new room!

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Industry Insider – Smart Business Means Educating Your Clients

By The Renno Team · Comments (0)
Thursday, July 7th, 2011

Leveraging Value Marketing – July 2011

Many sales professionals face the dilemma of trying to keep marketing messages fresh while reaching out to past clients, as well as prospective customers. Simply pitching them about what you offer over and over again accomplishes little. Your customers will begin to tune them out. How do you keep you client base engaged? How do you keep the messages feeling “new?” The answer is simple: Provide value.

“Value marketing” is a concept that basically hinges on the idea of that whatever marketing material you distribute, it should offer some piece of information that they will benefit from, or be able to use in some way. If your marketing pieces offer some kind of “takeaway” for your past and future customers, you gain a few key benefits:

•You are able to market more frequently and on a more regular basis, which means you will more regularly stay at the fore of their minds.
•Your clients will associate your name with something that they value. Moreover, if your marketing materials provide truly valuable content, some might even begin to look forward to it.
•You establish a reputation as an expert resource, and a service provider who cares about his or her customers enough to regularly provide them with something useful, even when they haven’t called upon you to do so.

So, how to get started? Think of your clients and the type of information they might want. Perhaps you work in healthcare. You could offer information on diet, healthy living, prevention or physical fitness, for example. If you work in the automotive industry, you could provide information on proper vehicle maintenance, local car events, or great family road trips.

Next consider the way you will deliver your value marketing to your customer base. Obviously, email and newsletters are proven ways to deliver value marketing campaigns, but don’t stop there. Consider other media, such as blogs or social media, which let you not only communicate your marketing messages, but dialog with your customers.

Lastly, be dependable. Once you’ve committed to a value marketing campaign, there will be an expectation on the par of your customers that they will see it regularly. If you infrequently or haphazardly send your messages, your clients could draw the wrong conclusions regarding your dependability. Have a regular schedule and stick to it — you’ll be amazed at the results when you do!

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The Renno Team of Pacific Funding Mortgage Division, A Direct Lender.

Keith Renno (661) 513-3118
Jason Renno (661) 513-3112
rennoteam@pfmd.com
V.P. of Sales/ Sr. Loan Officers
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