So when I work with someone I look at probability of a project funding and closing.If they meet x,y,z criteria then chances are high of success.If they fall into other categories the chances of success are very low.There are exceptions but you run a profitable business by sticking to what works the most.Everything you do needs to bring a quantifiable return on time equaling money.I personally like to run my business working with serious individuals and creating a lasting lifelong relationship.You learn their expectations and vice versa and create a team with great results.I do not work residential.

Perhaps Brad can give us some examples of deals closed where their "free" can actually be quantified.

I'm working on a product geared toward wholesalers and haven't been able to quantify the market to see if this will make financial sense.

Again, the immigrants also contribute to GDP, which is much harder to quantify than taxes and insurance costs, but is just as important (actually, I'd say it was more important).

It depends on the quality of the information he or she is selling and whether or not it has quantifiable monetary value using normal metrics that a layman can translate into profits, not whether or not they are utilizing proven marketing techniques to sell a product.

For now, it's important for you to understand that there really is a method to the madness, and that there is a way to use real numbers to quantify how leverage can work for/against you.

And that, regardless of who spent them, and I don't wait for the media, liberal or otherwise to tell me that money have pushed the banks out of the red, I still think it was moronic.And yes, I too would like to see the benefits of this program quantified but I'm afraid it's too early for that after only a week, and when the real data will be available several months from now, it will probably be twisted to fit some partisan agenda, so I wouldn't put my faith on it.

the reason that lenders generaly do not go that low.. is you simply cannot make enough money on the file to make it worth the time or risk.when I had my HML company it was my specialty but I had flat fee of 3 to 5k per file.. so its hard to advertise your charging 10 to 15 points.. but when you quantify that to dollars its just a few grand on these small deals.. and if your deal craters.. the HML put out 30k to make say 2 or 3 points that's not even 1k.. and the cost of foreclosure would be far above that.. and the HML would lose their butt on those deals.. 

And could you quantify the term high return?  

What other quantifiable numbers do you look for?