There are always two ways of looking at every situation.  And your success depends on which way you look.

What do you do when adversity stares you down?  There are some people who are SO negative, that it’s a wonder they even get up in the morning.  You know the type - always sounding the alarm.  Oh, it’s too cold to go skiing; I can’t possibly go to the office on a weekend - they’ll just have to wait until Monday for me to take the application; darn, I just won the lottery - now I’ll have to pay more in taxes!

Affiliate Training Center Goes Down

I had a real “bump” in the road this week.  As many of you know, one of my new web platforms, the CCU Affiliate Training Center, went down for several hours this week.  Not only did it go down, but it brought several of my sites down along with it!

Needless to say, when websites go down - I start losing money.  Not fun.  But an amazing thing happened….  Many people from around the world quickly pitched in to track down the problem, came up with a resolution within hours, and developed a plan to avoid similar problems in the future - all without ONE negative word, thought or action.

Now THAT’s a team.  The failure was due to an overload of traffic, thanks to the successful roll-out of the new affiliate marketing platform.  Good reason for it to go down .  Our affiliates wrote, called, and posted their support - and understanding.  We QUICKLY got an e-mail out to the thousands of people who were unable to access our sites, and the e-mail responses proved my point -

99% of the people were impressed with the level of customer support (and our response), even though they were inconvenienced by the event.  Some didn’t get orders in, some had service issues, and many couldn’t register for events or the new affiliate marketing center.  Nonetheless, they came back.

So what do you do when disaster strikes?  Does your team instantly come together to solve the problem - or spend hours thrying to assign blame?  Do your customers “feel good” - even though they were inconvenienced?  I’m fortunate enough to be able to answer YES on both accounts.

As you get ready for 2007, spend some time working on a disaster recovery plan.  Hopefully you’ll never have to use it, but if you need it - it helps to have the support of as many as possible.  I feel blessed by the number and QUALITY of my customers (friends), team members, affiliate partners and associates that I have the privilege of working with.

May you and your family be safe and happy during this holiday season, and I look forward to spending some quality time with you in 2007!

- Chip Cummings

P.S. - I DID buy myself several new web servers for Christmas to make sure 2007 is smooth!

Welcome to this weeks Marketing Minute!  I hope that you are ready for the holidays – me – well I still have 5 days to shop…..

Here’s a picture of me and my family getting our Christmas tree!  (I’m the one in the hat!)  Each year, we travel to a tree farm near us and cut down our own.  Joe (my 5 yr-old) is good for about 15 seconds on the saw

I am settling down for the holidays with my family, and hope you are doing the same.  I have some great plans in store for 2007, and will be ready to fill you in after the first of the year – including a few new product releases!

Affiliate Marketing Center!

I am pleased to announce that we are just about ready to roll-out the new CCU Affiliate Marketing Training Center!  The programmers have been working overtime, and the National Affiliate Director – David Pearson – has some great things planned to help you create a diversified, residual income stream.

For more information on the Center, and to register for free as an Affiliate Member – go to http://www.ccuaffiliatecenter.com/ and click on REGISTER

The first “kick-off” conference call is scheduled for January 3rd!
Be Prepared To ASK For The Sale!

This week’s message is about ASKING for the sale, and overcoming objections.  As you get ready for 2007, you need to start with a new mindset – one that can overcome simple prospect objections on demand.  To learn more about how to prepare yourself, click on the link below to watch this weeks video:

CLICK HERE TO WATCH THIS WEEK’S VIDEO NEWSLETTER!

Those of you in the mortgage lending industry, have no doubt heard about the closing of Ownit Mortgage this week.  Ownit was run by industry guru Bill Dallas (of First Franklin fame), and partially owned by Merrill Lynch and some other industry vendors.

While it is sad to see this happen, especially for the employees and pending borrowers of Ownit - it can teach us a valuable lesson in the marketing structure of our business.

The Foundation

First, recognize the fact that know matter what your size, and how fast you grow (Ownit did $8.4 Billion in 2005), it all can come tumbling down FAST.  It is important to build a strong foundation for your business, through marketing to different niches and segments - which will allow you to withstand a hurricane!

While I certainly don’t know all the causes for Ownit Mortgage’s failure, I do know that they specialized in B/C paper, and hard-to-finance borrowers.  That segment of the industry has been taking a beating lately, and more are sure to follow.

Never rely on one source of lead generation or marketing for your entire business! By diversifying your marketing efforts, you spread out your risk when things get tough.  Put time and effort in developing a strong foundation both externally (marketing) and internally (your people) - they will both pay off when the waters get rough.

Monitor and Track!

Yes, you have to stay on top of things!  Monitor each one of your marketing activities, and make sure you can TRACK each one - if you don’t know how it performs, then how do you know if its profitable???  Use tools such as Simple Autoresponders to track the success of your DRIP marketing campaigns, and the Google Analytics Tool to insert tracking statistics into each page of your websites and stealth pages.

A company the size of Ownit Mortgage should have had resources in place to recognize the fall-out and re-position their marketing strategies.  A little too late perhaps, but a lesson for us all.

Yes, competition is tough.  People are out to get you and steal your customers.  You can use marketing strategies to work smarter than the next guy.  In fact you HAVE to - we all don’t have the budgets or the capacity to withstand those kinds of mistakes.

My hearts go out to the employees and customers of Ownit Mortgage, but my energies and strategies go out to you - my readers and loyal followers to help you follow a different path.  The one to building a long-term profitable business!

Have a great week!

Wow!  You missed an incredible 47 Marketing Secrets event in Clearwater Beach!  Pictures will be posted soon, but in the meantime - a friend of mine, Kevin Bracy stopped by to remind us to take time to WORK on our business!  Check out this week’s message by clicking the link below, and I’ll talk to you next week!

-Chip

Click HERE to watch video!