CAAMP Atlantic has wrapped for another year. For me, it started on Saturday with a small social gathering involving a couple of brokers from NL. Sunday was the annual Invis/Mortgage Intelligence Boat Cruise around Halifax Harbour, followed by the Verico Cocktail Mixer, supper with the Home Trust team, capped off by a visit to a packed Lower Deck. Monday was the trade show and symposium. Lots of great presentations, but best of all was the time to see our brokers at the trade show. Monday night was the TMG mixer followed by another team supper and another trip to the Lower Deck. Tuesday was the windy golf day at Glen Arbour. Get time in the sun.
One of the big messages coming out of CAAMP was marketing and networking...how to grow your business. If you are not on to social networking today(Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, etc.) then you will miss the boat tomorrow. CMHC estimates that only 3% of all business today comes from social networking. However, that is based on all age ranges. I would guess that if you broke that down to buyers between ages 25 and 35, that number would jump a lot. The "new buyers" are using social networking so much that they are not using traditional methods of communications (mail flyers and landlines are becoming a thing of the past). Think of a YouTube video that goes "viral" and gets 100,000+ hits within hours. How do you think word gets out about it...that's right, social networking.
The book I just finished is called The Purple Cow, and it has opened my eyes. The premise is if you drive by a field of brown cows, none of them stand out. But put a purple cow in that field and you will notice it. The same goes for marketing your business. If you jump on the social networking bandwagon too late, then you will be a purple cow among thousands and never get noticed. Social networking is going to catch on even more within months. So don't delay, have a go at it today.
Last thing is rates. We have seemed to have stabilized on the rate front. With the BoC rate hike really turning into a "non-event" and bond yields being fairly stable after the EU/Greek economic crisis, we hope to see rates stay this way through the summer. So let's get those clients off the fence and into their dream house today.
