As Social Media grows it also grows around Northwest Indiana and the the need to be…Well, social grows as well!
It is not merely enough to just sit in your office, your home or the bunker and expect business and new friends to just roll in. There are so many opportunities out there for networking with local chambers, BNI, other lead groups across Northwest Indiana, but the one that I am really enjoying that meets on a monthly basis is the local TweetUp. You can do a search for it #nwitweetup on Twitter. We meet the 4th Thursday of every month. And, they are popping up around the world with ones being held in Chicago, LA and even just 20 minutes down the road.
This month however, I decided to bring my camera and let everyone that wanted and make the ones that did not want to introduce themselves. I think next month, I will narrow it down and try another angle. Here are some of Northwest Indiana’s local Tweets.
NWITweetup – Where the social part is for the Social Web
For more information on our local TweetUp just follow me on Twitter and I will make sure you that you all the information that you need. If you are a local business that would like to host a NWITweetUp, just let me know and we can help you set it up.
If you are sitting in a bar with a couple of buddies telling old college or “war” stories and each one keeps getting wilder and harrier than the next one then you are “1 upping” each other. Perhaps, that is the one place that is allowed and even forgivable.
Not sitting in a networking meeting such as a BNI or a Chamber event. I have noticed more over in those events that are open to those that open to more than one person in a profession. I tend to prefer those “open” networking groups as opposed to the closed of BNI. I like having a choice of who to use and I am so confident in my abilities that once you use me you will keep using me.
Well, I made a quick video to show you what I am talking about.
I know we all have done it. I have done and the times that I have not done it have worked out great for me. When I first got out of collge (go boilers). I went to work for a 55 and over retirement community in Grayslake, IL. called Saddlebrook Farms. I loved it there and learned a lot of good and bad habits there. I remember the first day I was there. I had never met the owner. I was being interviewed by the president of the company and this homely looking gentlemen walked in and started talking to me while the president was taking a phone call. I thought he was yard mower. He had grass stained shoes on, a tear in hes jeans and a sweater shirt that looked like it was from the 70’s. He was the owner. But, you know what I treated him like he was. Not judging the book by the cover worked that day.
A week or so ago, as I was preparing to go for my morning walk/bike ride. I was tooling around the yard a little. I hate doing yard work. Well. I did a quick video for it.
My yard has never looked better and all I have to do is water it and mow it, and lately God has been watering for me
Creditors typically write-off or charge-off debts that have had no payments on the account for more than 180 days, or six months. However, this does not mean the consumer is no longer responsible or accountable to the unpaid balance. A charge-off is an accounting procedure used for tax purposes by the creditor to report losses due to un-collectible debt and/or charge-offs.
If you have charge-offs on your credit report, your ability to obtain credit will be severely impaired and will require an active effort to restore your damaged credit scores. Charge-offs remain on your credit report for as many as seven years from the date of the initial missed payment that contributed to the charge-off, also known as the original delinquency date. Even if payments are made later on the charged-off account, be aware this doesn’t remove the charge-off from your credit report.
The status of any payments after the charge-off will be updated to “paid charge-off”, but will still reflect as derogatory comment on your credit report. To qualify for some loans, including a mortgage loan, you must address these charge-offs.
Disputing the account is the first step in removing it from your report. If after the disputes the credit bureaus still verify the account, you will need to contact the creditor. All negotiations should be made in writing; however, you will likely begin with a phone call to determine who your contact person should be for these negotiations. Once you know who this person is, memorialize everything in writing and request the creditor do the same.
Negotiate with the creditor or collection agency for removal of their listing on your credit report. A charge-off is negative – paid or not. Ensure you get this agreement in writing as well. Remember, that debt collectors will pretty much say anything to get money out of you – that is their job – so getting it in writing will assure that they do what they say they’re going to do.
I will admit that I am a chronic procrastinator, but I thrive under a deadline. If I have weeks to do something. I will wait to the last possible moment to get it done. However, under a deadline. I kill it. I come in under most times or nail just as the clock strikes the deadline.
I am, also, a very impatient person. I know exactly where I get that from, Mom and Dad. I make the joke that my brother got the best of my parents and I got the worst. What I hate with working with the public is that they are impatient and must have it now. So, when I accommodate and hurry right over they are lounging back as if nothing is going on and nothing needs to be done.
This is the same guy who will call my office line at 930 in the evening. I have learned to ignore my phone over the years and I can go to be not worrying about it. Really, at 930 at night, there is not a lot that I can do about it anyway. My wed guys are all doing something else, my underwriters are asleep and I know my processor will kill me if I call that late.
Learning to squelch the “hurry up and wait” monster is hard. It is not an easy monster to defeat. I battle it every day. I learned to make a list, use my calender function on my blackberry and just have that “I don’t care” look on my face. I know that last one really gets people, but it is fun to watch the look on their face when you roll up with a completed project done right and done way before time is up.
Making it all happen in the required time frame and then some
I think I have let it be clear that I am Mortgage Broker in NW Indiana and a pretty damn good one at that. I specialize in Indiana FHA I am sure you all can read the news that being one is not all that easy today. Well, they are right and so wrong at the same time.
Well, to be honest with you. There are days that I do not want to get out of bed. I am wiped out, tired, depressed and so on, but I have been trying to lose weight. So, I will drag myself out of bed and get my daughter ready for school and then I hit the gym. Wow, what a difference a couple of weeks make. I have lost upwards to 14 pounds and kept them off. I am no where near my goal weight, but I am inching my way there. The tunnel rats in “The Great Escape”did not escape in one day.
At my absolute heaviest, I think I topped out @ 301 lbs. I will dig up an old pic and post it on here before the day is over. Today, I am @ 265 lbs and my goal is 225 lbs. I am 5′11, I carry a pretty stocky frame and I think @ 225. I will look pretty damn good.
Back to today, tired, I want o nap. I have worked out, I am dragging ass all day. I got up, I worked on what, I cleaned the house. I am now back here in the basement that is where is my home office is or as I call it the Mortgage Bunker. banging out this blog while I wait for one of my clients to drop off a packet of information for me.
The lesson here is today. Action, get up and start, the motivation will catch up to you. If you don’t feel like working out go anyway and once you are there you will be glad you went. Well, at least, when you are done you can sit in the hot tub or the steam room.
I have been toying around with the idea of a blog for sometime. I have one on Activerain as the Mad Mortgage Machine. It was a name I thought up after hearing Paul Douglas Boyer do the Mad Money Machine. I want to share my thoughts and insight with the world. I will have a Board of Advisers most likely consisting of a few friends and people that I respect for which they will be paid next to nothing outside of my friendship and gratitude.
A little about me…I am
A Graduate of Purdue University
A local and Internet business owner (yes, the lines will skew here a lot)
A husband
A father
A Christian (though, I think that line will skew as well) We are not all perfect
Opinionated
I will offend you, and I will not apologize for it
I am ME
I am in NW Indiana (yes, that is a fly over state)
I am Dave Woodson
I look forward to teaching, entertaining and being Me each and every day. Will I always make sense? No.
Will try to sell you something? Yes, this will be an ad based site, but I am not a shill. I will use and recommend each of the products. I am not here to help you. Don’t ask for money, won’t happen. Don’t take my advice without first checking with some sort of out counsel. I will disappoint you. Just ask my wife.
Remember that song “love hurts”. Well, integrity hurts, but I would not have it any other way. Does anyone get recognized for having it any more? Do you sit in your office and say that guy has a lot integrity or is it the opposite. I know the common saying in my office has been, “I would not trust that guy as far as I can throw him”. I am glad that no one says or could say that about me. I think mostly it has been, “Dave is brutally honest”.
Here is a story off of Tahoo! about a golfer who was disqualified for using a ball that was wrong. No one caught him, he turned himself in and was then disqualified. I had heard on Paul Harvey some years ago in England a foursome was playing a round, and one of them lost his ball. So, when everyone else was looking he pulled a ball out of his pocket and chipped it onto the green. Well, what he did not realize is that he had hit a hole-in-one.
So, now he had to fess up that he hit an illegal second shot. Well, he lost his hole-on-one and his job. How did he lose his job. Well, he was the Head Rules Keeper for his club in England (lack of a better term been years since I heard this yarn) and he blatantly broke the rules.
Do you follow the rules that you are asked to keep as a prt of your profession? Do you keep the people around you honest when it comes to violations? Just some fruit for thought!
Remember as we come to the holiday season. That homes are still being bought and sold every day are you helping out. If you would like some hints and helps give me a call at (219)872-8000 or email me at Dave@MadMortgageMachine.com.
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