Submit a T-Shirt Design & Win Providence Bruins Tickets for your whole class!*

Official Rules:

Must be Shamrock Financial inspired.
Please visit www.shamrockfinancial.com.
Must be unpublished, original artwork.
Contest is open to grades K-8.

Contest deadline is Friday, March 9 at 5pm.

Each class may submit one (1) entry for consideration.

You may also fax your submissions to 401-228-9628,

email to events@shamrockfinancial.com or

drop off/mail your design to

75 Newman Avenue
Rumford, RI 02916

*The winning class will receive tickets to the March 23, 2012 Providence Bruins Game at 7:05 p.m at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center
(maximum of 50 tickets).

Do you know how to really listen to those around you?

Shamrock Financial is offering a series of instructional video webinars designed to help you bring your business to the next level. This series is known as Back to School with Shamrock Financial, and the next webinar is Empathy Matters. This webinar is designed to show you how to better understand and empathize with those around you; rather than simply hearing them, you will be able to understand them.

Presented by Dean Harrington, CEO of Shamrock Financial.

Being able to communicate effectively is an essential tool for interacting with clients or referral partners.

Shamrock Financial is offering a series of instructional video webinars designed to help you bring your business to the next level. This series is known as Back to School with Shamrock Financial, and the next webinar is Facts Tell, Stories Sell. This webinar is designed to show you how to better communicate, whether it be public speaking or simply face to face discussions.

Presented by Dean Harrington, CEO of Shamrock Financial.

Direct Consumer Marketing Using Social Media

This webinar series is specific to business professionals who are already familiar with the available social media websites and are looking to increase and convert this knowledge into applicable skills to gain referrals.

The final webinar in this series is designed to show you how to find and market to your clients online. We want to show you how to reach your customers directly utilizing social media.

Personal branding, marketing, and the creation of online profiles and blogs

How to use the tools and resources available on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ to effectively market your personal brand

And how to use social media to generate business by direct consumer marketing, and by gaining relationships with essential business partners

Shamrock’s CEO would like to pass along his knowledge to you.

Shamrock Financial is offering a series of instructional videos designed to help you bring your business to the next level. This series is known as Back to School with Shamrock Financial, and the next video is 7 Lessons I’ve Learned as a Chief Executive Officer.

This webinar will be presented by Dean Harrington, CEO of Shamrock Financial. He will use this webinar to pass along the expertise and knowledge he has gained as a CEO to you to better improve your own business.

These are video webinars. No downloads are necessary, each webinar will be Web-based. We have designed these videos for all professionals, so we hope you will find these seminars helpful, no matter what industry you are in.

Would you like to learn how to generate more leads for your business?

Shamrock Financial is offering a series of instructional video webinars designed to help you bring your business to the next level. This series is known as Back to School with Shamrock Financial, and the first webinar is How to Kick Butt and Take Names, Literally. This webinar is designed to show you how to generate more leads effectively.

Presented by Dean Harrington, CEO of Shamrock Financial.

These are video webinars. No downloads are necessary, each webinar will be Web-based. We have designed these videos for all professionals, so we hope you will find these seminars helpful, no matter what industry you are in.

A Step-By-Step Guide to Social Media Profile Essentials and Personal Branding
This webinar series is specific to business professionals who are already familiar with the available social media websites and are looking to increase and convert this knowledge into applicable skills to gain referrals.

The second webinar in this series is designed to show you how to market yourself effectively on many different social media platforms. You will learn how to brand yourself in such a way as to make a lasting impression on those who visit your social media sites.

Personal branding, marketing, and the creation of online profiles and blogs

How to use the tools and resources available on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ to effectively market your personal brand

And how to use social media to generate business by direct consumer marketing, and by gaining relationships with essential business partners

Shamrock Financial will be offering a special free Webinar, which will help to inform you on the Risk Retention Proposed Rule and the Qualified Residential Mortgage (QRM) exemption. According to the National Association of Realtors®, forcing high down payments on home buyers could further harm the already fragile real estate industry.

Rod Correia, Suzanne Caldeira and Gregory Cambio will present.

Some points covered during this Webinar are:

*This webinar will address NAR’s call to action on the 20% down payment.
*Learn how this will really affect you & your business.
*Understand what’s the difference between the GSE’s & privately funded lenders & why this is important to you.

Government programs have a number of specialty products that allow you to serve more borrowers in a restrictive market. This 1-hour webinar, presented by Shamrock Financial’s President Rod Correia and Gregory Cambio, VP of Underwriting, can help you learn how these programs can help you finance today’s borrower.

The webinar will cover key points like:

* Explanation of FHA & FHA 203k loan programs
* Detailed update on FHA & MIP changes
* Program changes to expect in the upcoming year

…and much, much more

by Dean Harrington

A funny thing dawned on me as I was driving to Boston recently.

I know a lot about the people I know.

An obvious – and somewhat silly – observation, sure, but one loaded with vitamins, minerals and antioxidants. When I know someone, I know what they do for a living, if they’re married or single, the names of their kids, their likes and dislikes and even what cars they drive. I know if they rent or own, what town they live in and what their future hopes and dreams might be.

So what came first? Did I learn about them and then develop a friendship or did a friendship develop after I learned about them? For most it’s always the former – you learn some things and a friendship develops. It’s just how things work.

For example, I know what the girl behind the coffee counter does for a living. I know what my dry cleaning guy does for a living. I know what my mechanic, postman, priest and barber do for a living. Once we get to that stage, filling in the rest is easy and making a friend becomes the natural derivative.

But back to that ride to Boston. I was going to a nutritional doctor I see every six months. (I know what she does for a living: eliminates the food I like to eat so I stay healthy enough to work until the day of my funeral). I know what her two staff members do for a living. In fact, I learned all you would need to know about all three of them with just some natural curiosity. But what did they know about ME? I decided to ask:

“Hey doc, tell me, do you happen to know what I do for a living?” Her reply (peaking at my chart no doubt): “Yeah, you work at Shamrock.” Now, I could have launched into a discussion about the price of Leprechauns or the value of the Blarney Stone but she wouldn’t have had any idea that my actual career was helping people finance (and keep) the home of their dreams. Now, whose fault is that? Yup, mine. I never told her what I do for a living. I was being – as some in real estate say – a “Secret Agent.”

In hiding what we do from people, we deny them (and by extension, ourselves) access to that fundamental friendship building structure of learning about someone and then befriending them. We know people prefer to “buy” (give their business) to people they like over any other market-based decision process. So why do we deny ourselves access to the friendship building tools that sustain our pipelines? Why do we self-sabotage? You’re right, no good reason.

So stop being a Secret Agent! People want to know what you do for a living. Everyone’s curious so stop teasing them – tell them. And in doing so you’ll make a friend and a trusted referral source for years to come.

OK, time to go, my doctor’s on the phone and wants to know if I locked her rate………and if I passed on the jelly donut this morning.

by Dean Harrington

I had the good fortune of spending the weekend in Disney World with my wife and children. The weather was perfect, the hotel was beautiful and we had many friends down there as well. You couldn’t ask for a better split from the grip of late winter. Or so I thought.

For reasons that only biorhythms or lunar forces can explain, I found myself consumed all weekend with bouts of impatience, anxiety and occasional grouchiness. Nothing serious, nothing that entirely debilitated the fun, but something that made the experience a bit less than it could have been. Now, we all know that trudging small children through jam-packed theme parks can shorten your nerve-endings a bit and many of us can relate to vacation stress. I usually avoid this. Not this time.

Fortunately/unfortunately, I was scheduled to fly home early Monday – my family wasn’t returning until late Tuesday. So I got up Monday morning, packed and went to sit outside until I had to leave for the airport. The sun was shining, the temperature was perfect, the sky as clear and blue as a nun’s conscience. Heaven! And that’s when it hit me. I was crushed to be leaving. Yeah, leaving a place where my emotions couldn’t sit still, where my next mood was no more reliable than the last. Go figure.

I began to actually lust for a long line at a theme park, for the uncertainty of where to eat dinner with a large group, for cranky children exhausted beyond reason; the things that were trouble Sunday were opportunities Monday. Who (or what) changed the channel in my head? How was it that I had traded anxiety for grieving?

As I boarded the plane – and later when I had landed (to falling snow!) – every activity my family was enjoying in Disney struck a chord of envy in me. Each text, call or emailed photo brought indelible regret of how I had taken every single one of those things for granted all weekend. What an idiot I was. I had lost perspective and the price was coming due.

It recalled a time where I was unable to originate mortgage loans for a period of one year (Non-Compete Agreement) back in 1990 and felt so deprived that I sat around fantasizing about having a loan recession (a bad thing) because it meant I had at least closed a loan; the equivalent of longing for even a rainy day in Disney.

The lesson learned for me this weekend was a valuable one. Live in the moment, appreciate what you have, repel anxiety, mentally picture the alternative and let it grieve away your anxiety. Give yourself permission to enjoy what you’re doing.

I know the next time I’m in a long line to see Mickey (again!) or the next time my children are acting like “other people’s children,” I’m going to imagine boarding a plane and heading home without them. Just like the next time I have a tough day in the office I’m going to recall sitting out an entire year in business. Yikes!

Perspective is a great teacher, whether it’s being a carrot or a stick, and hitting you at the Magic Kingdom or at your desk.

by Dean Harrington

You can’t turn on the TV, read a newspaper or drive by your local statehouse and not be hit over the head with today’s battle over public labor unions, collective bargaining and worker “rights”. Everyone seems to have an opinion on this mess – some even supported by facts. Over here in our little corner of the cage in the mortgage lending world we have our own set of battles going on and maybe we’re all missing a great opportunity.

You see, 97% of all consumer mortgage lending today is either funded by or insured by vessels of the federal government (it was under 5% in 2001 incidentally). This pretty much means that most of us working in the mortgage lending world today are, in effect, (gulping hard) government worker bees. Not so you say? Well, how about this: Nearly every mortgage loan closed in the United States today is underwritten by lending rules and guidelines established by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. Need more? The Fed alone decides which of us has to be licensed (NMLS) and which of us does not when transacting mortgage business at the consumer level. They also make the call on who is exempt and who is non-exempt from the licensing requirements established by Washington. Don’t get me started on government sponsored entities, Fannie & Freddie!

But wait, there’s more: In April, the federal government will take over loan officer compensation in ‘our’ industry. That’s right, The Fed will set the rules on what employers can (and cannot) pay their mortgage loan originators. Some might call this wage fixing. Bureaucrats call it “shut up and be quiet”. The point is, the move to nationalize and run mortgage lending is nearly complete, – on virtually every level – so I came up with a grand idea to mark the occasion, to embrace it and to have our “rights” represented:

The Brotherhood of Mortgage Loan Originators!

Sound pretty good, doesn’t it? In fact, when testing the new acronym with a small group on the front steps of our office recently it sounded positively tribal! Imagine then, the beautiful chorus that will ring out as thousands of mortgage professionals line statehouse steps across the country bellowing BoMoLo! BoMoLo! It’s enough to bring a tear to a schoolteacher’s eye, isn’t it?

Look, next month, our feel good friends at the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) are set to become an official public labor union – Yeah, baby! Congress, never letting a (legal) tender moment slip away, is in full throttle support of the TSA’s come-together moment. So why not let the BoLoMo’s come along for the big “vote & grope’? Sounds like a no brainer, right? Besides……we dress better than TSA agents, we don’t (yet) require full body scans for mortgage approvals, you can keep your shoes on with us and we would never grope our clients unless it’s mutual. So come on, let’s do this people!

“BoMoLo! BoMoLo! BoLoMo!”

by Dean Harrington

“I never forget a face. I just can’t remember names.”

Now, if you hear this from, say, an undertaker or a forensic sketch artist then, sure, maybe it makes some sense, But when you hear it from someone in sales – SALES – it defies explanation. And we hear it a lot.

What is someone really saying when they say this? Think about it.

What they’re saying is that my eyes can recall your face but it’s not worth remembering. Nice! There’s a relationship-building starting line for you. As Dale Carnegie once taught us, the sweetest sound anyone can hear is that of their own name being spoken by someone. No extra credit points for saying their face looks familiar – you need to remember their NAME.

Here’s how:

Make it a priority. Often the best path to accomplishing something is to simply make accomplishing it important. When you first meet someone, remind yourself that knowing and remembering their name is important. Vanquish the self-doubt that you are somehow improperly wired to recall one and two syllable words. “Yes, I can and will remember his/her name.”

Use it or lose it. With the will to recall their name fully animating your efforts, now it’s time to charge your brain with helping out. You do this by simply repeating the person’s name back to them when introduced. “Hi Jim, nice to meet you” works far better than just “Hi, nice to meet you.”

Make sure you continue to use their name during the conversation – but be careful; don’t overdue this. My rule of thumb is once every three to four minutes of conversation. Lastly, always close the conversation with using their name one final time as you part.

Word associations. One classic way to ensure recall of someone’s name is to link them in your mind with another person you k now with the same name. This is easy and it works. If I meet a Tom, I picture that person briefly as being another Tom that I know. Sometimes this is best done with picturing famous people. I recently met a Quentin and made the association with noted director Quentin Tarantino. I even linked the guys face with Pulp Fiction. (Kill Bill was too freaky to do to this poor guy.)

Image associations. Another proven method is to create some pictures. The language of the human mind, after all, is pictures. For example, try not thinking about a pink elephant…pretty tough, huh? So when you meet someone, say, a guy named Paul, picture him wandering about the room with a large beach BALL tucked under his arm and carrying it wherever he goes. Or, if you meet a Barbara, picture her face completely wrapped in barbed wire with the barbs causing puncture wounds to her skin. Pretty graphic, right? The more detail the better; and trust me, you won’t forget them. Soon, every Ann you meet will have ANTS crawling all over her face and every John you meet will have an upside down TOILET on his head. But you’ll remember their names!

None of these methods is revolutionary or original. What really matters is that we understand the cost of not being able to recall someone’s name. Reverse engineer this and think of the casual acquaintances you’ve made in your life where the person instantly recalls your name. It so impresses you, doesn’t it? Just as impactful, it embarrasses and humbles you when you’re unable to recall their name. Consequently, you’ve already surrendered your best focus and effort. You’ve knocked yourself off your own game and isn’t that best left to the undertaker or the police artist?

Submit a T-Shirt Design & Win Providence Bruins Tickets for your whole class!*

Official Rules:

Must be Shamrock Financial inspired.
Please visit www.shamrockfinancial.com.
Must be unpublished, original artwork.
Contest is open to grades K-8.

Contest deadline is Monday, March 21 at 5pm.

Each class may submit one (1) entry for consideration.

You may fax your submissions to 401-228-9628,

email to shalimar.albanese@shamrockfinancial.com or

drop off your design to

75 Newman Avenue
Rumford, RI 02916

*The winning class will receive tickets to the April 1, 2011 Providence Bruins Game at 7:05 p.m at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center
(maximum of 50 tickets).