The funny thing about being a mortgage broker is that everyone else wants to sell you something.

Over the last month I have been phoned by newspapers, wanting me to advertise.  I have had calls from the people who put lightboxes in shopping centres, wanting to know if I'd like to spend $180 a week for a year to have a lighted sign in the local stores.  I have even had several calls from various people telling me that I should pay them some money so that they can SEO my website.  SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation and certainly sounds very impressive, and expensive.

If I had gone with every marketing improvement that has been offered to me so far for the month of January, I would have spent over $15,000.  No kidding.

That's a lot of money.

Don't get me wrong, I'm more than happy to spend money on marketing my business, but I think that it can be done cost effectively.  I've seen so many brokers over the years treat their mastercard as their marketing strategy.  If I spend enough they will come (sorry Kevin Costner, I think I misquoted Field of Dreams there.)

The best brokers (and I'm not talking about the aggregator groups, but the individuals who succeed) aren't necessarily those who spend the most money, they are the ones who find ways to market themselves.

Now, I'm pretty forward in my approach.  If I meet someone who I haven't met before, then I give them my business card.  That person then knows what I do for a living.  I've set myself a quota every day and most days I hand out far more than my quota demands.  I even gave my card to the guy who served me in the Seven Eleven the other day.  Does it hurt to do that?  No, it's pretty painless.  And what if that guy is thinking about buying his first home?  Well, he'll remember me (I hope).

I think that you just need to get out there and be talking to people about what you do.  Market yourself and see what happens.

You might just be surprised.