Childhood to Empty Nester

Life is a journey that builds our personality and character.  Our childhood experiences with siblings and  rules of our parents slowly define who we are as a person.  We live, fail and learn from our experiences and eventually get to the point of looking for independence.  Leaving the nest is terrifying as much as it is exciting; wanting to show the world who we are and what we can offer.  The trials and tribulations continue to mold our character and we shift priorities to selfish concerns.  Fulfilling wants, relationships and enjoying our freedom seem to be our only priorities. Hopefully our paths bless us with a spouse to walk this journey and have our own families.  Our children grow up under our guidance and we see them go through the struggles we had ourselves, smile and now understand what our parents were thinking.  I'm at this point in life with a recent college graduate back at home trying to save money so he can join the ranks of the independent.  I would not call him a rebounder as we asked him to come home and my wife and I love having him with us again.  Our family is back at full strength and the younger siblings love having their brother back to torture with their endless antics and questions.  Lisa and I know that soon enough he will be moving on and the next one will test his wings followed soon enough by his sister.  In eight years we will be Empty Nester's thinking about retirement, long term care and downsizing to manage our expenses but until then I will cherish my time with my children and give them all they need. 

If you know of someone who has exceptional people and problem solving skills, competitive and looking for an opportunity to work with a company that has received numerous awards for its workplace (or anyone looking to purchase a home or refinance a home loan as well!), please contact David Labbe at david.labbe@comcast.net

Dealing with Adversity

The mortgage industry has radically changed over the past four years and everyone that has chosen this profession as a career has realized that in order to be successful you must be able to manage daily chaos.  Making new sales, dealing with rejection and resells, managing existing clients, balancing priorities, meeting company expectations, processing files, and when it's all done fulfilling the needs of our customers and asking for referrals to start the process over again.  Every day seems to bring a new challenge driving some to the brink of insanity and others to be better professionals.  It's a never ending cycle that is incredibly challenging but at the same time highly rewarding.  How you deal with adversity will define your success or ultimate failure in sales.  Some foolishly avoid the problem only to make it worse while others embrace the challenge and tackle it head on. Do you get knocked down and take the 10 count or get right back up with new insight and inspiration to go the distance?  If you know of someone who has exceptional people and problem solving skills, competitive and looking for an opportunity to work with a company that has received numerous awards for its workplace (or anyone looking to purchase a home or refinance a home loan as well!), please contact David Labbe at david.labbe@comcast.net

Goals - Direction or a Dream

As we near the end of the year it's time to reflect on our annual goals we set last year and see where we excelled and where we need a little more work.  For many, myself included, it's a challenging exercise defining your own shortfalls and making the adjustments to meet your goals.  So where do you start?  A good place to start is to reflect on what you have accomplished in the past week, month, year and give your self a pat on the back for a job well done.  Then think about what more was possible if.  IF you focused a little bit more, IF you spent a little more time on that key project or asked for more referrals from existing customers.  Once you have an idea of what you think you could have accomplished, now raise the bar and challenge yourself to what you think you are capable of accomplishing.  With that frame of mind come up with a long term goal.  Long term could mean a year or a quarter but the time must be defined and long enough to make adjustments along the way.  This goal must be quantifiable and measurable.  Next, chop it up into smaller equal parts.  Months, weeks, days and define what would need to be done each segment to meet this annual goal.  Be clear and defined as to activity needed to meet each segments requirement.  Once you have the goal defined and dissected you need to mentally commit yourself. 

Write it down where you can see it every day and keep yourself committed to the plan.  Now here comes the hard part.  Hold yourself accountable every day to meet or exceed the needs. To quote Benjamin Franklin:  "Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve."   As time passes and you hit key benchmarks to your goal, reward yourself for a job well done and push yourself harder if you fall a little short.  So take the time over the holidays and figure out what your 2013 goals and reward yourself!

Please contact me at david.labbe@comcast.net

Putting things into perspective- giving thanks

This year Thanksgiving has a whole new meaning for me.  Last week I made my annual road trip to visit my family in NJ, chain saw and tools packed to help with the cleanup, to celebrate and give thanks for much more than usual.  I have family all over NJ and was blessed that although they lost their power for almost two weeks, forced to wait in gas lines on odd and even days for hours on end, lost income needed to pay their mortgage, that no one was injured or worse.  The devastation that Sandy caused through the region is so wide spread that it seemed no one was untouched.  Living up on the south coast of MA my area was relatively untouched by the storm but I feel it's impact through the stories of those I work with, family and friends.  It's been two weeks since the storm and the news has moved on.  The news has moved on to fighting in the middle east.  No more scenes from Atlantic City, Staten Island or Cape May but trust me they look like war zones still and will for years to come.  Homes that survived the storm have to be torn down anyway due to mold and contamination. 

Families lives will be forever scarred by the financial hardships and memories Sandy destruction left behind.  My brother in law and his sons have been donating their time delivering food and demolition seeing firsthand the hardship of the victims and outpouring of humanity form everyone else.  Thousands from all over the country have been offering assistance, hotels have slashed rates for families in need of housing, and many have opened their homes to those in need.  So this year I am thankful that God spared my family from this devastation and also for the hearts and generosity of all those that stood up and helped out their neighbor.  So please find a charity that supports the Sandy Relief effort and make a difference. 



Know, Care, Serve

Today we had a follow up meeting with our CRL training mentor to discuss out team meeting and the response.  Earlier this month our team met to share and celebrate each other’s achievements and struggles.  As the leader of the meeting I shared a very difficult personal challenge my family is undergoing and how this was affecting me in and out of work and opened the floor to others who wanted to share as well.  As expected, some individuals were not comfortable with opening up and sharing but to my surprise there were some that very unexpectedly that did it was amazing.  It was out of character for them and it caught others off guard.  They exposed themselves and others cared for their struggles.  As a leader I learned just a little bit more on how I can better care and serve and hope as we continue on this journey that everyone will open up and share and allow the rest of us to care. 

Please contact me at david.labbe@comcast.net

David

Carpe Diem

Seize the day!  This is the call to all my Loan Officers for the past three months as rates continue their plunge to historic lows.  Every current customer that we closed in the last year has been contacted to consider lowering their payments even further with new calls coming in at record levels adding to the frenzy.  As RMS looks to the future and Fed predicting low rates continuing into 2013, we have added support staff  to every sales team.  Today a loan officer assistant and a processor reside on every direct team to streamline the process and add to our dedication to compliance and quality assurance.  The sales process is becoming faster allowing LO's to maximize their potential and close more loans per month then every before. Please contact me at david.labbe@comcast.net

Focus on Success

Imagine the results you could have if you could be focused on a consistent basis.  How much more could you complete each day and possibly fee up more time for the personal balance we all strive to achieve.  The problem with most sales people is not that they don't want to succeed it's that they don’t have an organized plan of attack to get to where they want to go and remaining focused on the short and long term goal.  Here are some points from JUST SELL- Focus that will help you stay on track and focus your individual goals.

• Establish Focus Hours:  These are the "money hours". The highly productive times during the day your primary focus is new sales.  For me these hours were the mornings.  No one could divert my attention when I was in the sales zone.  Until I had my one sale every day I was in sales mode.  If I did not get my sale in the morning and had to shift focus to other tasks as the day progressed, the sale still had to be made before I went home.  Find your money hours and don’t let anything take you away from your daily sale.
• Avoiding distractions:  Distractions come in many forms; co-workers chatting, internet, social sites, personal phones, ect.  Anything that is not directly related to you completing your sale, processing your deals or networking your lead resource is a distraction to you being successful.  It's easy to fall into bad habits but if you keep your written goals in sight you can catch yourself when you get off track. Please contact me at david.labbe@rmsmortgage.com or 508-717-6108