As interest rates on fixed-rate mortgage loans continue to slide into uncharted territory, demand for refinances has picked up but applications for purchase loans are still at about the same level as a year ago.
Rates on 30-year fixed-rate mortgage loans averaged 4.01 percent with an average 0.7 point for the week ending Sept. 29, a new low in records dating to 1971, Freddie Mac said in releasing the results of its latest Primary Mortgage Market Survey.
Rates on 15-year fixed-rate mortgages averaged 3.28 percent this week with an average 0.7 point, down from 3.29 percent last week and 3.75 percent a year ago, Freddie Mac said. That's also a new low in records dating to 1991.
Last year at this time, rates on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages averaged 4.32 percent, before rising to a 2011 high of 5.05 percent in February when expectations for an economic recovery were running high.
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Friday, September 30, 2011
10 Tips for Stretching Your Marketing Budget
When is the last time you felt confident in the health of the global economy? While there has been some marginal growth over the last year, today’s financial news points to a second economic decline; whether it’s the US debt ceiling crisis or the threat of a Greek default, all signs point to a double dip recession.
But don’t lose hope. Whether we’re on our way up or sliding back down, with careful thought and planning, you can cut costs without limiting your goals.
Below are ten tips for stretching your marketing budget in uncertain economic times.
1. Cut where you can – This is the first and most obvious step. But it is important not to cut arbitrarily. Doing so may lead to greater hardship in the long run. Instead, analyze past campaign performance and cut from the areas that were least successful.
2. Renegotiate contracts – Nothing is certain in life except death and taxes. It doesn’t hurt to attempt renegotiating vendor contracts, even if the expiration date isn’t near. If market prices are lower than when you initially signed, ask that the price be lowered to today’s rate. Chances are good that your vendor values a contract renewal more than the higher rate.
3. Share resources – Many organizations, especially within marketing departments, have moved to a shared services model. One of its benefits is greater accountability around resource management. Think about your own finances. If you pay for your water bill, you are more likely to turn off the water while brushing your teeth. But sharing resources doesn’t have to be all about pinching pennies. It can offer an opportunity to utilize services you can’t afford on your own.
4. Lean on PR – If your marketing team isn’t already working closely with the PR team, set up a meeting tomorrow. A partnership profits both parties. PR can benefit by utilizing marketing created content (although it may need edits to fit a media outlet). And marketing can ensure it gets the most out of PR by helping to identify the publications most likely read by potential buyers. Even adjusting the links in articles, press releases and boilerplates can help drive potential leads deeper into the sales funnel.
5. Ask for discounts – It’s easier to pay full price with money in your pocket. Likewise, when your bank account is low, it’s easier to walk away. Don’t be afraid to ask for deeper discounts. And if you have to say ‘no’ all together, you’ll simply have more money to put toward another budget item.
6. See where you can spend to save – Stretching budgets isn’t all about cutting. You may find that increasing your spend in one area allows you to reduce costs in another. For example, if you’ve had a strong return on investment with SEO and online advertising, increasing this budget may allow you to reduce spend on other lead generation efforts.
7. Expand roles – No one wants to be overworked, but most will welcome the opportunity to build the skills that will help them meet their career goals. Talk to your employees and find out what they want to be doing that they aren’t.
8. Go vintage – A fashion trend from two years ago is ‘old’, but a trend from twenty years ago is ‘vintage.’ Take a look back at those forgotten marketing campaigns to see what you can reuse. Pay particularly close attention to campaigns from before your tenure. A fresh pair of eyes can pull out the best features of a previous campaign and turn it into something new and exciting.
9. Barter – Tough times call for creative measures. Renegotiating contracts and asking for discounts aren’t the only way to save money with vendors. Where it’s feasible, don’t be afraid to ask for a barter arrangement. Just make sure to crunch the numbers to ensure you don’t lose out in the end.
10. Make better use of technology – From teleconferencing to digital asset management to workflow tools, sometimes we need to get in the habit of using something to see its benefit. And sometimes we just need a little help in learning how to use it. Spending a few hours reviewing help documentation, online tutorials or engaging in a user community can save exponentially more time.
How have you stretched your marketing budget? Please share your tips in the comments.
But don’t lose hope. Whether we’re on our way up or sliding back down, with careful thought and planning, you can cut costs without limiting your goals.
Below are ten tips for stretching your marketing budget in uncertain economic times.
1. Cut where you can – This is the first and most obvious step. But it is important not to cut arbitrarily. Doing so may lead to greater hardship in the long run. Instead, analyze past campaign performance and cut from the areas that were least successful.
2. Renegotiate contracts – Nothing is certain in life except death and taxes. It doesn’t hurt to attempt renegotiating vendor contracts, even if the expiration date isn’t near. If market prices are lower than when you initially signed, ask that the price be lowered to today’s rate. Chances are good that your vendor values a contract renewal more than the higher rate.
3. Share resources – Many organizations, especially within marketing departments, have moved to a shared services model. One of its benefits is greater accountability around resource management. Think about your own finances. If you pay for your water bill, you are more likely to turn off the water while brushing your teeth. But sharing resources doesn’t have to be all about pinching pennies. It can offer an opportunity to utilize services you can’t afford on your own.
4. Lean on PR – If your marketing team isn’t already working closely with the PR team, set up a meeting tomorrow. A partnership profits both parties. PR can benefit by utilizing marketing created content (although it may need edits to fit a media outlet). And marketing can ensure it gets the most out of PR by helping to identify the publications most likely read by potential buyers. Even adjusting the links in articles, press releases and boilerplates can help drive potential leads deeper into the sales funnel.
5. Ask for discounts – It’s easier to pay full price with money in your pocket. Likewise, when your bank account is low, it’s easier to walk away. Don’t be afraid to ask for deeper discounts. And if you have to say ‘no’ all together, you’ll simply have more money to put toward another budget item.
6. See where you can spend to save – Stretching budgets isn’t all about cutting. You may find that increasing your spend in one area allows you to reduce costs in another. For example, if you’ve had a strong return on investment with SEO and online advertising, increasing this budget may allow you to reduce spend on other lead generation efforts.
7. Expand roles – No one wants to be overworked, but most will welcome the opportunity to build the skills that will help them meet their career goals. Talk to your employees and find out what they want to be doing that they aren’t.
8. Go vintage – A fashion trend from two years ago is ‘old’, but a trend from twenty years ago is ‘vintage.’ Take a look back at those forgotten marketing campaigns to see what you can reuse. Pay particularly close attention to campaigns from before your tenure. A fresh pair of eyes can pull out the best features of a previous campaign and turn it into something new and exciting.
9. Barter – Tough times call for creative measures. Renegotiating contracts and asking for discounts aren’t the only way to save money with vendors. Where it’s feasible, don’t be afraid to ask for a barter arrangement. Just make sure to crunch the numbers to ensure you don’t lose out in the end.
10. Make better use of technology – From teleconferencing to digital asset management to workflow tools, sometimes we need to get in the habit of using something to see its benefit. And sometimes we just need a little help in learning how to use it. Spending a few hours reviewing help documentation, online tutorials or engaging in a user community can save exponentially more time.
How have you stretched your marketing budget? Please share your tips in the comments.
Do You Have What it Takes to be Part of a TEAM?
Team, in business terms, is defined as a group of people with a full set of complementary skills required to complete a task, job or project. “Team members operate with a high degree of interdependence, share authority and responsibility for self-management, are accountable for the collective performance and work towards a common goal and share rewards. A team becomes more than just a collection of people when a strong sense of mutual commitment creates synergy, thus generating performance greater than the sum of the performance of its individual members.”
WOW – What a cool concept!
What better way to excel in any business model than to assemble a team to highlight ALL team mates strengths! There probably is no better concept…Throw out the me’s, my’s and I’s and get back to basics. We all grow up, throughout our younger life on teams- whether it be a sports team, an intellectual team, the team-teaching concept in school, our family is even a team of sorts. All these “teams” groom us for success, always providing a type of parachute of people to help us not fail. So why not apply this thought to business, as a fun and inspiring way to live in our adult world – It seems so basic!
Monday, September 26, 2011
Think, Act, and Lead Like an Executive
Thinking skills, strategic management, leadership, broad interpersonal skills, communication, motivation, adjustment, and scale and scope. Some of these components are easier to encompass in your daily routine more than others, while some require training and practice.
As your career progresses, so do your thinking skills. Experience plays a large role on how you think. Early on, your judgment may not be as informed as a person with many years of experience, but the way to develop this skill is to learn from others and consider what their options there were at the time. To be thoughtful in an executive sense, you need to consider your future, finances and your perspective of the world around you.
And the world around you will require a great deal of planning and execution. You will need to develop broad business strategies, translate them into objectives, and ensure these objectives are executed. Execution also involves dealing with issues when they arise, and fully understanding a problem so you can revise it.
This requires leadership, and so will your career if you want it to go in the direction you envision. Having the right leadership can lead to attracting and developing talent around you, while also empowering your staff to recognize that they have the potential and ability to do more as well.
If used correctly, your leadership skills will turn into motivation for not just your staff, but yourself. You will become more ambitious, and aggressively pursue your goals. This will be evident to your stakeholders, employees, customers, the community, and will benefit your business greatly.
With your staff and clients, your interpersonal skills with be challenged and will evolve drastically. The sooner you realize how important it is to show respect and understanding to the people around you, the sooner it will be for you to attain success. Having broad interpersonal skills will help you network and communicate with the people who shape your world.
To adjust within your ever-changing world is also essential to your lifelong success. Your ability to mature and adapt to your surroundings will allow you to feel more comfortable, work more efficiently, and have less stress in your life.
And as you adapt, and communicate more clearly with an open mind, you’ll have a greater understanding of the landscape of the business that surrounds you. You’ll have a greater knowledge of the industry and what it takes to be successful. This will allow you to be more prepared and successful in future endeavors.
As your career progresses, so do your thinking skills. Experience plays a large role on how you think. Early on, your judgment may not be as informed as a person with many years of experience, but the way to develop this skill is to learn from others and consider what their options there were at the time. To be thoughtful in an executive sense, you need to consider your future, finances and your perspective of the world around you.
And the world around you will require a great deal of planning and execution. You will need to develop broad business strategies, translate them into objectives, and ensure these objectives are executed. Execution also involves dealing with issues when they arise, and fully understanding a problem so you can revise it.
This requires leadership, and so will your career if you want it to go in the direction you envision. Having the right leadership can lead to attracting and developing talent around you, while also empowering your staff to recognize that they have the potential and ability to do more as well.
If used correctly, your leadership skills will turn into motivation for not just your staff, but yourself. You will become more ambitious, and aggressively pursue your goals. This will be evident to your stakeholders, employees, customers, the community, and will benefit your business greatly.
With your staff and clients, your interpersonal skills with be challenged and will evolve drastically. The sooner you realize how important it is to show respect and understanding to the people around you, the sooner it will be for you to attain success. Having broad interpersonal skills will help you network and communicate with the people who shape your world.
To adjust within your ever-changing world is also essential to your lifelong success. Your ability to mature and adapt to your surroundings will allow you to feel more comfortable, work more efficiently, and have less stress in your life.
And as you adapt, and communicate more clearly with an open mind, you’ll have a greater understanding of the landscape of the business that surrounds you. You’ll have a greater knowledge of the industry and what it takes to be successful. This will allow you to be more prepared and successful in future endeavors.
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Giving back to the Community
The Butler Team last weekend had a blast at the Main Street Winter Haven Kids Feast and Beach Party. It was a beautiful humid Saturday morning and getting ready for all the excitement to come. There were sand sculptors, 15 truck loads of sand, fire trucks spraying water to keep kids wet, hampster balls for kids get into and roll and much more. Our booth had lots of give-aways, frisbees, water bottles, candy, toys, a raffleand ice cold water and boy did we have fun! Just to see the kids expressions, fish for toys was so much fun. Being able to give back to the community has always been a passion for our team. Even though the rains came in late afternoon we still had alot of fun getting wet ourselves and look forward to doing it again!
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