Business Finance

Buying life insurance for yourself or your family can be a complicated process. Things like choosing between term life and whole life and the rates for both whole and term life insurance rates are all very scary and confusing for those who never dealt with them before. So where do we begin into this foray of life insurance?

The first thing to do is to learn the difference between whole life and term life. Term life is a very staright forward insurance policy. It amounts that once the person who is insured dies, the comapny then pays out that insurance’s coverage to whomever is named on the policy. On the flip side there is Whole life insurance which not only covers everything a term life covers but also combines it with an investment portion. This investment is usually in the form of bonds and or stocks. The key upside to this is as the policy grows in net worth you can then borrow against that cash. Read the rest of this entry »

When I told my partner that I would like to find an angel investor to help us with a new line we wanted to start, he was apprehensive. He had done some research on this kind of investor, and he felt that we would have to give up too much to be able to receive financial backing. I had done plenty of research on angel investors too, so I was not as worried as he was. I knew that it would be hard to find one who was willing to take the risk, but I also knew that our new line was going to revolutionize our type of business.

Since angel investors are more than just financial backers, I knew that they would see the potential in our line ideas as well. If we had to sacrifice a small portion of the business to get the money we needed to grow, it was a small price to pay. Otherwise, we would be stagnant, and that was just unacceptable to me. Once I explained that we would only partner with an investor angel that agreed that we would maintain control over the majority of the decisions, I had finally convinced him to at least meet with one with me. Read the rest of this entry »

Pipeline management is a sales process that recognizes the various stages of deals as they go from conversion to completion. Imagine a pipe where a mortgage applicant who has agreed to your terms enters on one end and ultimately exits on the other end once the deal has closed. Now imagine this same pipe with your entire organization’s current and pending deals moving through it. With multiple transactions in the pipeline, it becomes possible to predict cash flow as well as set sales goals using loan risk analytics.  A well-managed pipeline can keep your organization on track to meet those goals.

How Mortgage Pipelines Can Be Used to Predict Cash Flow

With multiple deals in the pipeline, all with different values and close dates, you can use this data to predict how much money your firm will make on a certain date such as month end. On a small scale, say three of four transactions, this information is easy to calculate manually or by using a spreadsheet. For example, if you have a deal closing on the 5th, 15th, and 28th with each netting $15,000, you can quickly figure out that by month end, you will have netted $45,000. However, on a larger scale, such as dozens or hundreds of loans, specialized mortgage pipeline management software is usually required. (Source: NYLX Mortgage Loan Servicing Software)

How Mortgage Pipelines Can be Used to Set Sales Goals

Like a water pipe, your mortgage pipeline should have a steady flow of transactions coming in one end and exiting the other. You can use mortgage software to determine the number of new mortgage deals you need to enter the pipeline each day or week in order to meet a specific monthly, quarterly, or yearly goal. Once you know that figure, you can determine how many mortgage leads you need to generate in order to close that many deals based on your sales team’s closing ratio.

Mortgage pipeline management is a valuable sales process that can keep your firm on track to make a profit consistently.