Latest / Open The Gate / Ep. 22- Mike Swaleh: Social Media Balancing Act and Culinary Adventures

Transcript

Ep. 22- Mike Swaleh: Social Media Balancing Act and Culinary Adventures · Open The Gate

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: lights gotta be red before you drop f-bombs okay, we don't even want any free ones kaylee, this one's free dan how the f are you?
• 0:29
  Speaker 3: I'm, I'm effing great.
• 0:31
  Speaker 3: You had a good weekend.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: Some open houses slammed.
• 0:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it was love it.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: It was good, love it it was weird.
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: You know, I hear people are.
• 0:38
  Speaker 3: It's always hit or miss.
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: Some are great and some are busy and some are slow AF.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: What's the what's the buzz, I mean, what's what's the most?
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: I mean, is it affordability?
• 0:54
  Speaker 3: Is it availability?
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: Is it price point?
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: What, what do you?
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: I think it's a mixture.
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: I think we're seeing a lot of reservation because people want to know what's going to happen with the election.
• 0:59
  Speaker 3: People are waiting for feds to do their thing, obviously.
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: I mean, affordability has been the main topic of housing for a while, so that's a huge issue.
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: But you know also this huge commission thing.
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: I think buyers are trepidatious about having to sign agreements with people.
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: You know, like hey, we just met, let's get married.
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: It's a little.
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: It's a little interesting, so there's a lot going on.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: That being said, it's a lot like a junior high high school relationship where you want to just jump into this thing and solidify it.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: You're like, sign right here please.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: Well, I'm glad you brought that up because, yeah, it's like from our side, from the inspection side of the business, when I'm looking at it we're going, oh cool, they just did the biggest change to the purchase contract and the way the agreements are written in probably ever.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: And then, oh, coincidentally, we've had, you know, inventory and affordability issues for the last two and a half three years.
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: So let's just drop rates about a half a point the same week and see what kind of chaos that creates.
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: They love to create a cluster, you know, and we're just trying to find our way through the mud.
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: Did you?
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: Did you so?
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: Did you get?
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: Did you get a day off this weekend?
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: You work Friday, saturday, sunday.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: That welcome to that you.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: You quit your nine to five so you could worry about your business.
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: 24 seven yeah.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: Right, that's, it's a common theme.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: That's a common theme.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: I don't expect to, I don't expect to hear any different from you.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: You're one of the hardest workers that I know of.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: So, um, so, yeah, so um me.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: On the other hand, um, I, my wife will get mad if she listens to this.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: I don't know if she listens anymore, but super, super proud dad moment I shared with you my.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: My daughter made the varsity volleyball team at Rockland high school as a freshman and they had their first game Friday night and we went and you know, it's kind of like we don't know how much the team's stacked.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: They're really good.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: The junior class is loaded and we're like okay, we're just going to take what we can get if she gets on the court.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: So she gets in and she ends up getting the kill for the last point of the first game and it's so cool, cause, it was like cause the and I get goosebumps already, but the student section is chanting she's a freshman, you know, and I'm like that's so fricking cool, right, I'm like so, like so.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: Afterwards I told her I was like hey, that was pretty cool.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: She goes, yeah, it was like well, it was equally as cool for your mom and I, like, we're very proud of you.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: So that was.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: That was super, super cool, and her name is Kaylee.
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: No coincidence, she's a fellow Kaylee.
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: The closer, kaylee, the closer, yeah, yeah.
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah, she's, she's she's got some killer to her.
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: She's upholding the name.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: Absolutely.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm proud.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: Also proud, yes for sure.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: Well, for those of you that are that are not here to hear Kaylee and I talk about our weekend activities, we do have, we do have a guest this week, mr Mike Swale, with fairway mortgage.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: We're going to, we're going to get into what what Mike does and why he does it and how he does it, but until then, we've got to, we got to walk, we got to walk Mike in.
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: So let's get it going.
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: Let's hear my song.
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: How does it feel to have a song that just chants your name over and over again?
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: It feels amazing and it would feel better if I didn't discover that song on a Taco Bell commercial in 2011.
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: And that is absolutely a hundred percent true story.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: You can go look up that commercial.
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: I'm minding my own business watching tv and then all of a sudden my tv is yelling at me for some reason.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: I thought it was great so yeah, I mean like, well, and that's, that's the beauty of it.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: Right, the walk-up song we talk about it a lot on this.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: I have a baseball background, so the walk-up song has always been a big thing.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: And now I have a 12 year old and I mean he changed his song every week, so it's just, but it's cool.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: Like boxers use it, it's, it's the way to kind of, it's a form of expression.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: A lot of people outside of the sports world don't necessarily always get it, but they're like, oh, that's, that's really cool.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: I can find something that I can relate to as an intro.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: So I was.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: I was stoked.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: Mike sent.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: Mike sent it over in the group text before the show and as soon as I heard the chorus I was like, well, we're going to have to let this one play for a little while, because I don't want to just jump right in?
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, we were building the anticipation, you know.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: So very, very cool.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: So, mike, tell us a little about yourself.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: Unlike Kaylee, you are not a Sacramento native like myself.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: You moved to the area, so tell us how you got here and kind of why you're here, and all your favorite things about Sacramento.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: Tell us everything.
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: Everything All right.
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: So, truth be told, I'm a little bit weird, as you may have already picked up at this point.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: I just never told anybody that.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: I thought that I just decided to come out as weird today.
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: No, I did kind of grow up here here and then I left for 17 years, which uh took me like basically my entire adulthood.
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: So I moved out of my parents' house at 17 as a senior long story uh went to Santa Clara university.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: Where were you?
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: Where were you?
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: That was in Roseville, okay, so Roseville Okay.
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: I went to Wood Creek high school.
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: I lived here.
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: I feel like you've been hiding this part of yourself.
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: How did I not know that?
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: You know, I've got so many layers, it just takes time to unpack.
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's just never enough time, is there?
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: So it's just a matter of people wanting to sit around and listen.
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: He was never willing to admit that he was from Roseville, until just now.
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: Well, my style of meeting isn't hey, come meet me so that I can talk about myself for the whole time.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: So it takes a while, shit that's what I've been doing wrong the whole time.
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: No wonder I have no friends Okay.
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: I'm a great listener, yeah.
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: So I moved away and I moved back.
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: So I never lived in Placer County as an adult until about two years ago, let's call it and so I've been kind of re-acquainting myself with this place.
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: I grew up from a completely different perspective and so Looks a little different.
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: Huh, it does?
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: It looks very different.
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: Feels different as an adult.
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: They let me in the bars now which?
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: They should probably stop doing.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: I mean Wood Creek used to be essentially as far west as oscar went yeah and now it's now you can go.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: You can go 20 minutes past wood creek on on pleasant grove or wherever so in those 17 years, where were you?
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: what were you doing?
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: so I I went first to texas for a couple years.
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: I bought my first home in arlington, texas, when I was 24 and then, yada, yada, yada, ended up in Missouri, got engaged to the wrong girl.
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: She dragged me from Texas to Missouri and for 17 years I was going to move back to California next year, and for 17 years it was one more year.
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: Stick it out, missouri, or do they call it misery?
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: Get out all up in Missouri, or do they call it misery?
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: It's a state of misery.
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: Some Missouri, missouri, missouri Dan, knows yeah, I lived.
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: I lived in the state of Missouri for a year myself and then five more in Kansas, in Kansas.
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, greater Kansas city yeah.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: Mike and I could diatribe on barbecue and you know you'd have nowhere to be but just listening.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: Kaylee, oh.
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: I'd be eating while you guys were talking.
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: That's what I would be doing.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: I think we've laid the groundwork for a party, we know about we've had a barbecue guy on the pod as well before.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: So Chris Hunt, Chris Hunt with Oak house barbecue.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: He does a fantastic job and his is Texas style.
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: So you've got experience with Texas barbecue and all the Midwestern barbecue, I'm sure, as well.
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: So I'm picturing another episode where we just mansplain barbecue to Kaylee and she just eats and pretends to be interested.
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, Sure does yeah, it's the best way to keep me distracted, that's for sure.
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: Just keep feeding me more food.
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: You guys could talk the whole time.
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: What were we talking?
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: about?
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: I don't know, but I'm craving barbecue.
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: You had relocated from Arlington to Missouri.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: Yep Met the wrong girl.
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: Before you met the right one A couple times, yeah.
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: Okay, so St Louis correct, you were in St Louis.
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: St Louis and my wife and I met in 2015, and we were happy in St Louis.
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: Honestly, we actually really enjoy St Louis.
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: Isn't there a movie called Meet Me in St Louis?
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: There is.
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: It's the old one I know nothing about it, but yeah.
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: Okay, all right.
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: Wow, I just aged you guys a little bit.
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: Now we're learning.
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, interesting, it's a classic.
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: You should watch it Continue.
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: Have you seen it?
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: I have.
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: I'm into classic films.
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: Oh, as a thespian, you know it's something that we do.
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: Okay, you're just trying to add layers.
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: Had to drop that in.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: I have layers.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: There's no competing with the guest for layers of the end in okay, it's rule number one, all right.
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: So we got she.
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: My wife got pregnant in 2020 with our son, and we looked out at California and saw 15 nieces and nephews that are cousins to my son, and we were kind of on an island from a family standpoint in St Louis, because my wife was not from there either, and at some point we just felt like we were doing our son a disservice, keeping him from his family, and so that's why we ended up finally pulling the trigger and moving here.
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: I don't know if left to our own devices without that extra pull, if that would have happened.
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: Well, I love that your, your, your aim was more because you were taking away from your child.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: I was just so tired of paying for all the childcare and not having any nights and weekends that we could go on a date without, like, uh, hiring a babysitter.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: I was like, let's get back.
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: No wait, I'm just kidding, we love, we, I've.
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: I've made it abundantly clear Like I, I, I love Northern California and everything about it.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: So, um, so, very, very cool.
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: Um, yes, I am actually one of the morons who's actually moved out of Northern California twice and also moved back.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: Just keeps pulling you back two times.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so learn my lesson, learn my lesson.
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I in our industry, moving across the country is just something that you don't want to do, unless you really really have to do, because for most of us in this industry it's just, it's a complete reset.
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: It's a complete starting over and I found a way to do it that limited the damage.
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: The market turning certainly didn't help that, but we did it intentionally and St Louis is still a big part of my life and my business and we spent a lot of time back there and my oldest stepson is still there and so it's never going to be gone completely, but I do love this area, that it just felt like home really quickly here.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: I've always been amazed that when we lived in the Midwest, people weren't really scared of tornadoes, but they were terrified of earthquakes when they found out you're from California and in my head I'm like you guys.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: It's so backwards I go.
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: Tornadoes are super scary and earthquakes not that bad.
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: Not that bad, not that bad.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: And I was, and I I'm a quake of 89 survivor I've seen the.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: I've seen what that does now.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: I was eight at the time, so where did?
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: you live?
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: Uh, I was in.
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: I was in the bay area on the peninsula yeah, me too, I was.
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: I was in South San Francisco, I lived in.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: Half Moon Bay during that.
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: So yeah, wow.
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: Pretty wild.
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: You guys have so much, mike and I have been, we've been.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: We've been running parallels, which, well, I'm glad that we got here, because this is something I really wanted to touch on, because I've been just in your two to three years since you've been able to make an impact and get in front of people and build relationships in such a short amount of time and in such a challenging market.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: And the fact of the matter is, I think the greater Sacramento area is a very personable, relationship-based market where you're going up against tons of really, really solid, intact relationships.
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: Deep relationships, yeah.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, do you want to talk about some of that?
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: I mean, obviously your social media is great.
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: I was trying to do a deep dive on you.
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: It took me like 40 minutes just to scroll through your Facebook to get to the old shit.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: I'm like where's the good dirt?
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: I know all this stuff.
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: I love how Dan's first move is always to go to your Facebook and find dirt.
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: Pod know all this stuff.
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: I love how Dan's first move is always to go to your Facebook.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: So, podcasters, beware, you better clean it up.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: Exactly no, I got Brian Ho from his LinkedIn.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: Okay, there's no hiding there's no hiding.
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: I when I got here uh, from St Louis it.
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: It was remarkable.
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: I sort of had this quote for a while that was like hey, california didn't need another mortgage guy.
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: When I got here, it turned out I showed up at P car and Kaylee was one of the first people I met at P car.
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: Like she grabbed me as soon as I walked in the door.
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: I can tell a newbie from a mile away she was mid sandwich, yeah.
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: It's usually around the food table that I get.
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: It's a pleasant aroma.
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: And I was shocked to find how good the lenders are here it you know, a lot of the things that I did in St Louis that were unique or special were just par for the course here, just common practice, and so I was like man, it's going to be really hard to stand out here because of the embedded relationships, because of the skill level of my competition and now I've got to know most of them and it's really hard to say competition because we all get along so well but at the end of the day we only get paid on what we close ourselves.
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: So there is a level of competition there and I'm remarkably proud and of the of the people that I've met through that P car community.
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: So I'm curious and if you're, I'd love to you know if you're comfortable sharing cause.
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: I've always been impressed by your ability.
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: It feels like you've done a phenomenal job by appearing on the scene and diving in very quickly, which you know Dan and I both have experienced.
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: A few of us in the in the affiliate world.
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: We understand exactly how challenging that is.
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: You really need to be kind of seemingly everywhere and meeting everyone and really facilitating that image of hey, I'm here, I'm committed, I'm not going anywhere.
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: Would you be comfortable sharing what you've done to differentiate yourself in that sea of what everybody was doing that you thought was unique in St Louis?
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: Uh, it is.
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: Some things are easy to talk about, Some things are hard to talk about, but uh, first and foremost, I'm old, Easy.
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: Hold on a second.
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: We're not allowed.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: Are you older than me?
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: December 3rd 1980.
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: No, Okay, so you're not old asshole, I was a direct front to you Dan.
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: Insulting your interviewers.
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: Well, I didn't say that.
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: I never said I was the oldest person at the table.
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: I've been around a long time.
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: I'm a 12-year-old at heart.
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: At heart.
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: What were we talking about?
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: How do you differentiate?
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, what you've been doing.
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: Sorry we're being old.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: We are loose today.
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: We're squirrels, we're going to get you off track real quick.
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: I have that effect on people because you know why.
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: Do you want to be too serious, right yeah.
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: But the age gives you perspective, and I've survived several markets before, and the one thing that the decisions that I've made along the way has given me is time, and my approach in this market has been play the long game, take your time, don't rush, don't ask anybody for anything until you've given them more twice as much as what you're asking for.
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: And so when I showed up here, it was really from a perspective of I'm going to have to give, give, give, give, give, give, give before I can ever respect, ever expect to receive anything back where you could plant yourself to be asked of right.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: Like you can't just walk into PCAR and be like I'm going to do this and this and this, I'm going to give everything away.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: Like you've got to actually figure out what, what those committees are or where those places of need are.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: How did you, how did you go about that?
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: That is a really good question and for me it was a happy mix of intentionality and go with the flowity.
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: Is that a word?
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: Go with the flowity.
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: So in a lot of ways I was intentional about hey, I want to spend time here with these folks, I want to spend time here with these folks, and a lot of it was just meeting people through meeting people, through meeting people.
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: So a lot of it was just letting one thing lead to another.
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: And you look up two years later and it sort of develops into these spheres that you have.
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: And so the way I describe it is now I've got these, you know probably four or five spheres within my sphere and where I succeed in getting business now and this is kind of something I didn't really know going in, but it's kind of worked this way after two years where I'm getting the business is in the overlap between the spheres.
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: So when I join this organization, it's not with the intention of necessarily monetizing that relationship.
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: It's hey, I'm going to go, I'm going to find my people in this room, and then I do the same thing in a different room, and then, lo and behold, there are people that are in both of those rooms too, and same thing in a different room.
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: And then, lo and behold, there are people that are in both of those rooms too, and so you've got that overlap on the Venn diagram and those end up becoming your people.
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: Because you're spending the most time with them organically and before you can ask them for anything, you have to give and you have to expect a little honestly, especially in a market like this where not everybody has a ton to give it.
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: You just have to be willing to bring people up and you know if you want business for them, help them get business.
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: So, for sure, there's a lot to be said for the reciprocal effect.
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: You know the more you give, the easier it is to ask and people will be more likely to oblige you.
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: When you say hey, I really need a favor, I want to work with you, I want to earn your business, and you've given them so much up until that point, you know it's not even going to be a second thought.
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: They're going to be like yeah, I know you, you've come through for me Absolutely, and that's really what this world is about.
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: It's like an exchange of favors.
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: It's just as well as an exchange of goods, right, yeah?
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: Well, and I think I think what, what ties into that a lot too, and is is being respectful of, of preexisting relationships, like Mike's never kind of forced his way into a situation, versus putting himself there and being available, which is which is, which is fantastic, right, because then you're just, you're not that guy, like you don't have the sales breath and all that.
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: We don't, we don't like cringe when you walk up and say oh, he's going to ask us again.
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: There are some people.
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: There's even a method to asking honestly.
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: And then you're absolutely right, there are some people.
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: There's even a method to asking honestly.
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: And you're absolutely right, there are some people.
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: And it makes me uncomfortable Because you know what it's about the relationships, and it's also about what works and what doesn't work Right and what's authentic to you.
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: Right, not everybody's compatible.
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: Not everybody's compatible and not everybody's aggressive, and some people are aggressive and I've never been one of the aggressive ones, I always.
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: Just my approach has always been add value, add value, add value, and then they will want your value at some point.
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: And not everybody will.
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: And one of the ways that you added value, which was really unique, you did something for PCAR.
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: Well, it was kind of through a different organization, but it happened at PCAR for the veterans.
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: You put on a big event to raise some money to get a support animal for a veteran.
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, tell us about that.
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so supporting the veteran community has always been a big part of well, not always.
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: It became a big part of my life when my next oldest brother so I'm the oldest of eight siblings- Wow.
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: Eight.
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: Well, actually nine, so sorry it's me and then eight siblings.
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: I'm the oldest of nine.
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: Bless your mother.
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: It's a little bit of a year's mind and hours, so I have a few mothers but bless all of them.
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: God bless every single one of them.
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you can't use your mama jokes on me Cause I'm like which one?
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: Maybe you're right.
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: Can you tell me which one you're talking about?
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, checks out no.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: Yes, but can you tell me her name?
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: Oh man, what were we talking about?
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: Can you tell me her?
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: name.
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: Oh man, what were we talking about?
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: Awi?
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: So my next oldest brother his name is Sean and then actually three of my brothers went into the military, but he was the first.
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: And when he got out of the military I saw firsthand what that transition from military to civilian life is like for a person that has seen combat, for a person that has seen combat.
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: And when I got to Fairway years later, fairway had an organization that they started called the American Warrior Initiative, which seeks to help military veterans transition to civilian life.
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: So it was very, very on point for my experience.
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: And then since then I've had two other brothers go and one of them is out now, one of them is still in.
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: So what the American Warrior Initiative seeks to do is help people make that transition.
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: Now there are a lot of different ways you can help.
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: There's a lot of different needs.
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: Over the years it has evolved to where we are focused on bringing service dogs to military veterans that could use the support if they're battling PTS or whatever it might be.
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: Along the years we've done business grants, housing grants, other stuff too, but we have now I believe we're getting close to 400 service dogs since the inception of the program.
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: And today's national dog day.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: Oh is it?
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: Yes, I didn't know that.
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: I almost brought my dog with me today.
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: I just had this feeling.
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: I was like, do you want to come to work with me today?
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: But then my morning I told you got a little sidetracked and now I feel like I've let him down.
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: Dang it.
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: That's all right, you can just love on them when you get home.
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: Well, Dan didn't tell us it was BYOD.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: Well, you guys obviously don't follow me on social media because it's you know, I'm, I'm, I'm promoting.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: Okay, Always be branding.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: It's out there, it's out there.
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: Bro, it's Monday.
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: I love that support for the veteran community though Um Dan and I actually served together on a board for an organization within real estate called the veterans association for real estate professionals.
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: Shout out VA rep.
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: Shout out.
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: Va rep, we were able to do some incredible things lobby at a state and federal level and really just kind of fight for the rights of veterans.
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: I think for those of us who have family that have served it's we take so much, our patriotism becomes so much more of a priority.
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: We want to do whatever we can to help and support them, knowing obviously like these hands were not built for war, so like I will do what I can to support you in any way that I can on the home front.
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: But it's a really incredible way to give back these veterans, especially in our industry.
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: It's insane that they're still legally discriminated against in so many ways.
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: They're not protected by the fair housing act and, um, that was one of the things that was wild.
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: I mean even and I think we we've touched on it in the past before, but I'll bring it up again Like even the way that we do promote, like VA veteran home ownership in, in, in my eyes.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: I have a hard time with it like that, that mpma 33 form, where all you're basically doing is checking a box saying there's no termites there's no active termites yeah, there's no active, there's no active head to the forty thousand dollars worth of pest relief.
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we don't, we don't care about that.
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: Well, here we'll strap these guys, this house, with forty thousand dollars of dry repair that needs to be done.
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: So it's um, and it.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: It's not a, it's not a simple fix.
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: Obviously there's and, um, you know, and, and 10 years ago when, when that came about and that was when I was sitting on the board like we were just stoked that that, that that opened the door.
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: It was just one less piece of red tape that had to be cut to get these guys to the fin and gals, to these former service people to the finish line, and uh, uh, you know.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: And then you look back now and you're like, okay, well, we can still go back to the drawing board, we can still make this better, yeah.
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: I think that there is a underappreciation for the role that real estate agents play in making these kinds of things better and worse.
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: And you can take it all the way back to the civil rights movements and one of the things that living in St Louis gave me a unique perspective on, because St Louis was very much a place that was geographically drawn up on a board of where races were going to live and real estate agents paid, played a huge role in that.
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: And I think, uh, you know, for better or worse, and and that in those times worse and hopefully today better, but it's, you know, drawing a parallel here to the way veterans are treated and being in that room for four hours that day, being a part of that program that you're talking about, the AWI, it was remarkable to see the light bulbs go off for the realtors in that room of what their role really is and how they, you know, as small as it may seem, accepting or not accepting, or promoting or not promoting a contract or, you know, refusing to or serving incorrectly a veteran family.
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: What the downstream, downstream impacts of that are, I think are widely underappreciated.
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah Well, and especially like, like I said, going back to that MPME, so many people are just groomed and coached to oh, just get, this is all you need because this is going to get us to this is going to get us.
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: They don't even know that it's a workaround or the pothole that they're sweeping around.
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: It's super scary, you know, and I think that it requires attention like this for those changes to happen, because we really tell our guys we're like hey, like make sure these vets know, like that's it's still there, like it's still there, it's not going anywhere, it's not, and it's not going to stop like.
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: I think it really boils down to.
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: In my opinion, it boils down to two things like motive what is your motive?
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: Are you really there for the client and their best interest, or yours?
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: And also, how well do you understand the implications of this, not just that form and what that's going to do for the buyer once they take possession of the property, but VA in general, right, like, how are we understanding?
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: I know it's had so many negatives and stigmas and we're kind of going down this VA rabbit hole right now.
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: I could talk about for hours, but I think we all as an industry we could do better to fully understand how we can support them generally.
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: And, and I'll back that up by saying when it's about the veteran, it's one thing, but if you're worried about VA loans, va loans are like the easiest ones to do.
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: If you're worried about VA loans, va loans are like the easiest ones to do.
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: They're just, they just are.
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: So don't worry about it, get in the hands of professionals.
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: We'll take care of you guys.
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: And I think a lot of those, a lot of those fail safes are acts, are there in place to protect the vet and and and, ultimately, they're there to protect the bank as well, and they're in their investment too, right, I mean, let's be completely transparent.
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: So, mike, I wanted to go back a little bit because we were talking about when you kind of got into this market and I've always been really fascinated with your ability to network, both personally, but also to utilize your social media presence and things like that to build those relationships.
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: Do you kind of use one to springboard the other?
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: Are they talk about that a?
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: little bit Sure.
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: So again going back to my overall mentality, is if I'm not walking in the room to tell you, tell you about me, I'm just not right.
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: I'm walking in the room to get to know you, to develop a relationship, see if we have a connection, and then I'm letting my social media tell you about me right.
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: You're going to learn.
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: I don't need to tell you I do mortgages.
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: You're going to find that out as soon as you add me as a friend on Instagram or Facebook or whatever.
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: So therefore, I don't really have a need to blast you with mortgage stuff.
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: If you want to know something, you're going to be triggered to ask me a question and then it'll come up.
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: So that's more alluring.
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: You know, if you're not talking about it, people want to be like well, why don't you, why don't you tell me about it, like I have questions, it's.
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: It kind of brings an air of mystery too well, that's whatever you can do to make mortgages sound more interesting.
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: Let's freaking coming from the title world.
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: If I can make that sexy, you can definitely mansplain and title well, it's so funny because, like when we, when I really dove into the social media stuff too, it was like my, my, my premise was I don't want to put anything out on social media business-wise, that's not a value, like it doesn't have some sort of inherent value.
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: And then six, the first six months were pretty cool, and then people were like okay, dude, like really like this is just, it's just constant beating us over the head with information and you know these things.
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: So it's like so do you balance a personal and professional account?
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: Do you have just one account and that's everything.
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: Good question.
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: So I used to have one of each because actually my original Instagram account came from the Ticket to Get Taco days, which we might get into here.
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: I have so many questions about that.
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: It was so different, so different.
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: But then I just got tired of managing both.
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: And I really just realized that I'm not two different people.
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: This is me, this is who I am.
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: Um, and a lot of us these days talk about work-life balance, and then a lot of others of us talk about how there is no such thing as work-life balance.
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: All you can choose to achieve is all you can hope to achieve, is work-life harmony.
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: I can't separate in my the way I do my business.
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: I can't separate my business life and my personal life completely Right, and so why do it on social media?
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: I respect that.
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: I actually that's something that I struggle with.
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: I to be totally transparent, because that's what we do on this podcast.
• 29:42
  Speaker 3: I have two accounts.
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: Still, I feel like my life is.
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: It's anything but conventional.
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: There is a lot that people could get upset about, triggered by, and I never want that to interfere with what I do as a service for the people that I work with.
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: And it takes a lot of courage to say like this is who I am, you're going to work with me and love me for who I am or not?
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: I am apparently not brave enough to get there yet, but, you know, hats off to the people who can combine it and just say like this is it, it's all out there.
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: Well, what's wild is when you go in and you find all the people that follow both of those accounts and you're like all right, you know, you know like for for us.
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: I mean, obviously our company's a little different.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: We have 30, 30 ish employees, um.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: So I have to do kind of filter and I'm responsible for majority of the content that gets out for the, for the business page, and then obviously Kaylee and I work together on the on the open, the gate page, and then I have my personal stuff.
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: But the hardest thing for me is remembering which fricking one I'm on when I go to post something I'm like.
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: Oh, I want to post a picture of my dog, and they were like the Finley home service.
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: People could give two shits about your dog, buddy.
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: I mean, I don't think any account would be wrong.
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: It's true.
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: It's true Now, now that you say that, I'm remembering that that was the nail in the coffin on the two account thing is I wasted a really good work.
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: Post on my personal account because I didn't realize and I was like, oh well, we're going to solve this and I'm going to push back on what you said earlier just a little bit, please push back.
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: I love that.
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: Because when you were in the title world, you very much probably had to have those two accounts oh, absolutely.
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: Very, very separately.
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: You weren't really given the opportunity to merge your business and personal identities completely.
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and you've really just been given that opportunity now.
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: The golden handcuffs of title, and you wouldn't be surprised to know that even during that period, I would still receive complaints of people that followed my personal page and things that I posted on my personal page that I would get talkings to about at work.
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: And I'm like how is this, first of all, even legal or relevant?
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: when I, when I do on my personal time.
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: You know, as long as it's not breaking the law, I'm still representing fidelity in a great way.
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: Um, I think I'm allowed to live my life.
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: Maybe question mark, I don't know.
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: It got a little gray there at the end, which is it was one of the large factors of why I was ready to take the jump.
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: So there there's a thing, and I don't know if it really fits in right here, but I want to interject it because I wanted to.
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: I've, I've wanted for the longest time to start interjecting, like some pop culture happenings into this, into this podcast.
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: So did you hear about this one?
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: I might catch you guys both off guard with this, but there's a Disney Plus lawsuit going on right now or being threatened, and here's what happened.
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: A woman had a food allergy and went to one of the Disney resorts and ultimately ended up dying.
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: Apparently, they communicated very clearly that she had a food allergy.
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: That was very concerning and the immediate.
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: The initial response from Disney was that this family had signed a waiver when they were signing up for a free Disney Plus streaming service trial subscription that null and voided their ability to sue Disney.
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: Oh, to sue Disney, to sue Disney.
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: Now it gets a little deeper and the lawsuit they were only looking for like 50 grand and I'm like if I go after.
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: Disney if I go after.
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: Disney I'm looking for yeah, like you know, my wife died at your resort, so Disney has since walked it back and their legal team is digging in a little more, but I thought it was interesting.
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: You know, I think that's a huge cautionary tale.
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: We all need to pay attention to the fine print, like when we're signing up for those things you know we think it's so innocent.
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: We're like, yeah, agree to terms, conditions, whatever.
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you want to talk about predatory.
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: I mean, how many pages is the RPA now?
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: I think, we're at 26.
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we won't ask incriminating questions here, but I would venture to say that a portion of the real estate industry and this is probably on a national level has never read a page or cover to cover and doesn't know.
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: You know, there are some analytical minds out there that do know that thing, frontwards and backwards.
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: Thank God for them.
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: That's one of the huge reasons why I went to the place that I'm at, because they take.
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: Every week after our team meeting we have contract class and Jeff goes by.
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: He goes through each contract page by page, literally section by section, breaking it down.
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: It's so important to really understand, to be able to explain simply to our clients what they're signing up.
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: You know the contract, a legally binding contract that you are about to sign and get into.
• 34:34
  Speaker 3: You need to fully understand the implications.
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: Am I mistaken, and that people can sign like all their loan docs and their purchase docs on their phone?
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: like through docu sign.
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like all of our well wild.
• 34:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, obviously you're totally understanding reading what you're reading in the 67 seconds.
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: When you hit next, it skips 120 pages.
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: You're like ah, I think.
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: I think, matter of fact, jeff, jeff Culberson brought that up on on on the episode that he came on.
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: He was like, yeah, he's like, wait a minute, you signed the entire thing.
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: It's been six minutes since.
• 35:06
  Speaker 3: I sent it to you.
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: It's like one of his biggest pet peeves.
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: He just he thinks that how can we do a good service to our clients if we're not fully explaining to them, making sure they understand exactly what they're signing.
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: And I've always, I've always jokingly said you know why that contract keeps getting longer?
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: Lawsuits Cause.
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: There's more lawsuits Right Every time someone gets sued.
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: Expect another page on the RPA, More liability exposed.
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the lending industry over the last 15 years.
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: Also, welcome to California, that too.
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that too, although I will tell you, I do like California's RPA better than I like Missouri's contract.
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: Probably yeah, do they do it through lawyers?
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: Right On the Kansas side we purchased our home through lawyers.
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: There was a realtor, but ultimately it was a lawyer who executed the contracts Not in Missouri, gotcha.
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: Gotcha, wow, interesting.
• 35:51
  Speaker 3: Okay, I feel like, just because I'm hungry, probably we need to talk about the tikka tikka taco.
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: Let's go.
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: All right, all right.
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: Tell me everything about this.
• 36:01
  Speaker 3: Tell you everything, yeah.
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: Okay, Well, this whole thing came about.
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: So, for those of you who have no idea what we're talking about and it's funny because so many people don't know, because, again, I don't go in the room and talk about myself and and also like, how do you just it?
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: starts to how do you work this into conversation?
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: It starts to feel like super self-serving and disingenuous, if I even stretch it a little bit, so I just shy away from it, but it oftentimes it is relevant to what we might be talking about.
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: So in 2013, my brother and my uncle and I got invited we were trying to raise money to and actually this actually ties into the AWI story so we were trying to raise money to start a food truck so that my brother, who just got out of the army and was really struggling to find his purpose in life, would have something to own.
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: And it was going to be his thing to do and I was going to fund it and run the business aspect of it.
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: And my uncle just got dragged into the whole thing because he, along with me, came up with all the recipes for this stuff.
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: So we sort of invented it, and it's really hard to say no to family, right, yeah, so he was yeah he did not want to go on the food truck race but he did and he had a great time and he was very, very popular on the show.
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: But we invented a type of food that got us some notoriety at the time and we got invited to be on this food truck race and we didn't know at the time whether we were going to be gone for one week or eight weeks, because every week one team got eliminated and we ended up making it all the way to the finale.
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: So we were gone and we were on Food Network for two months.
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: Wow, so it was a big deal at the time, but it was also a long time ago, yeah.
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: You got your 15 minutes.
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and some.
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: So tell us about the tacos, and also, do you still make them?
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah.
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I actually had the Aspire group from from guide, don Reddick and Jen Shuri.
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: I had them over.
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: Uh.
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: They brought the team over for a team meeting at my house one time and I made them all uh the tacos and it was uh something I'll probably do again at some point I thought that was good, so you created this cuisine.
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so this sounds crazy now because, remember, this was 11 years ago we we probably didn't like invent Indian fusion, but we did it in a very unique way and we got it on TV 11 years ago.
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: So now the food truck that I ate lunch at today is sort of you know, I don't know if they ever saw the show, probably not, but it was kind of before all that and it.
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: You know, we made Tika tacos, but we sort of have a unique spice blend for our Tika Tandoori chicken.
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: You know, we started getting some influence from Greek food, from Mexican food, using pickled jalapenos, using feta cheese.
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: I should have eaten Haley's over here squirming.
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: I am salivating so hard.
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: Make sure your mic stays pointed.
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: We don't want to hear your stomach rumble.
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: I'll make it at some point.
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: We can do something.
• 38:48
  Speaker 3: I'm going to hold you to that?
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and we didn't know.
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: Humble, we can.
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: I'll make it at some point.
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: We can do something I'm going to hold you to that.
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it was.
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: We didn't know cause we on the food truck race, we literally drove across the country in the food truck that.
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: That, that's real.
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: And so we went to places like Pocatello, idaho and rapid city.
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: I know Pocatello.
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: The smile capital of the world you drive-thru.
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we were there for a week.
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: Plenty of stories from that week.
• 39:16
  Speaker 3: But yeah, people loved the food everywhere and it was sort of a revelation was there a a region of the nation that either embraced or didn't embrace that food?
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: more or less I think that everywhere that we went embraced the food.
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: I think the hardest struggle that we had was in our and I don't know if it was the place and it might be, but it was our first stop and it was Beverly Hills.
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe it was the place, kaylee, maybe it was the place.
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: Exactly Screaming food truck down Rodeo drive yeah.
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: That's.
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: Maybe it was the place.
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: So everywhere else after that just loved it, Because our whole thing was that we wanted to be the gateway drug into more ethnic food.
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: I love that.
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: So, whereas most of the Indian restaurants you go to are worried about how authentic they are, we took the opposite approach.
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: We wanted to be more like the Chipotle of Indian food, where it's not necessarily worrying about the authenticity.
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: In fact, it's by nature inauthentic because we're mixing it with different cuisines and cultures from around the world.
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: So we wanted it to just look and feel like something you've had before.
• 40:22
  Speaker 3: Hence the taco but tastes completely different?
• 40:25
  Speaker 3: Was the taco shell more of like a non style when?
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: we were able to find it.
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's how it works best.
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: There is a good substitute and it's the extra fluffy Mission.
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: Taco-sized tacos you got to be.
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: Look, the bread is a big part of this right.
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: Of course, oh, I know that's like the vessel, so you got to have the right stuff.
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh.
• 40:45
  Speaker 3: I am going to be thinking, dreaming about these tacos for a while.
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: The tacos are sort of like the mids.
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: The game stopper, the show stopper, here is the nonchos.
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: So one day, one day, we were Are you kidding me?
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: I wish you could see the look on Kaylee's face.
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: It's like agonizingly delighted.
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: We accidentally left a naan in the oven too long that we were warming up and it like toasted too much and it became crispy so I had the idea to break it up into like chip sized pieces and then pile the chicken and the cilantro and the jalapenos and the feta and some raita all in a all on top of each other and serve that and people were like what is happening right now?
• 41:33
  Speaker 3: And this is how you turn a seemingly failure into a massive success, like come on, I need to applaud you.
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: Right now You're getting blown away, okay.
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: He's okay at loans too, guys.
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: He doesn't just screw up and create culinary masterpieces.
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: Just know that if things go wrong in your loan, he'll still make massive success out of it, absolutely.
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: I think that that's how most of the great successes happen.
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: Like just yeah.
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so many great stories, discoveries.
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: Discoveries.
• 42:03
  Speaker 3: I love that.
• 42:04
  Speaker 3: Okay, where are we at?
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: I'm referring to the board right now, so I want to go.
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: I want to go on your on your LinkedIn.
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: On your LinkedIn profile, you list humility.
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: Humility first, right yeah, humility first have fun.
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: And speed, of speed to response.
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: The speed to response really speaks volumes, especially these days.
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: I always kind of jokingly say you know the rocket campaign, push button, get mortgage.
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: Because I've always joked that no matter how fast the other components of the real estate industry get like, the inspection side is always going to be kind of analog, like you can't just push button and have inspection.
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: You may be able to schedule them that efficiently, but like to actually go out and physically inspect something is a different deal.
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: So when you talk about that speed to response, what are you talking about there?
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: Really two things.
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: Number one we get things done lightning fast and we do that by removing layers, removing the need for extra approvals and by delegating a lot of the authority down to the street level.
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: We call it the street level, so I'm the street versus my corporate.
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: Backbone is corporate and I have a lot of autonomy in my decision-making If I want to rush something, if I want to prioritize something, if I want to get something done in 10 days.
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: Had a conversation with an agent this morning.
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: We're working on submitting an offer and we decided, hey, we're at our max on price, so we're going to compete on speed and timeframes and things like that.
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: So having the ability to do that is what we mean.
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: But it also means getting back to people extremely quickly, and one of the ways I manage that is by literally getting back to people extremely quickly, even if I don't have the answer or if it requires more research.
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: I send a lot of what I call why emails and texts and the why stands for we hear you and it just means, hey, got it, can't answer it off the top of my head, I'll look into it and I'll get back to you and to me.
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: What that does is.
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: It removes what I believe to be the number one killer in real estate transactions, which is anxiety.
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: Anxiety makes people make bad decisions.
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: It makes people treat other people badly.
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: It makes you not listen to advice.
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: So if I can work to reduce the level of anxiety in that transaction, I'm going to have a better client relationship, better agent relationship, all of the above.
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: Well, you're going to have the client.
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: I'm a firm believer.
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: We talked about this with my pest control guys this morning.
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: A lot of times we've got two guys who have added area codes on their phones so when they call a client, oftentimes it doesn't get answered because they think it's a spam or a bot call or something like that.
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: And I said, okay, guys, what do you do?
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: And they go oh well, sometimes I'll leave a message.
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: And I was like, sometimes why only sometimes?
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: I said you've got a freaking weird ass number.
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: You've got to leave a message.
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: Every time I said and then, as soon as you, as soon as you end that text or that, that voicemail, you need to send a text, say, hey, this is so-and-so with so-and-so, I need to speak with you about this.
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: And it's amazing because, uh, I get anxiety, like when I'm in something where I really don't have accessibility to, to be unplugged and respond to texts or emails or any of those things.
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: Um, because every second on that clock, you're losing almost to an extent.
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: In today's day and age, you're almost losing credibility.
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: It's like if you can't have it right now, somebody else the next call down the line probably will.
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: And you know, and it's, it's, it's almost like that that rat race to take such a tough thing to manage your business.
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's, you know, and it's, it's.
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: It's almost like that, that rat race to take such a tough thing to manage your business.
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's.
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: I mean, we often don't get the chance to really unplug because of that.
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: And so I don't have an answer of how to solve that, but do you set hourly boundaries?
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: Do you what?
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: What's the?
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: What's the latest?
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: You'll respond to a a work related text.
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: Call email.
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: It really depends Um.
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: I turn off my note.
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: Well, this is, this is you're seeing behind the curtain here.
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: So um 9, 15 PM, my uh sleep mode automatically goes on and I don't even receive the notification.
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: I'm nine 45.
• 46:02
  Speaker 3: So, yeah, um so if I see it, I'm like eight, 30.
• 46:06
  Speaker 3: Oh nice.
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: Nice, I mean, that's what.
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: Whatever works for you.
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: So if I see, Mike and I are just a little more desperate.
• 46:14
  Speaker 3: I guess maybe I should be more desperate.
• 46:16
  Speaker 3: I just got started.
• 46:17
  Speaker 3: I should probably be more desperate.
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: Haley is open for business.
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: What about?
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: What about balancing now?
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: How old are your kids?
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: One of them is 23.
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: Okay, uh, doesn.
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: One of them is 23.
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: Okay, Doesn't require much.
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: So adult child yeah, and my baby boy is going to be four in about 30 days.
• 46:33
  Speaker 3: Okay, so exciting.
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: Okay, so the four-year-old.
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: So you're TK.
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: Not yet.
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: Not yet Cool Next year?
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so I would imagine.
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: So I mean you know he's probably going to bed eight or nine somewhere in there nine, somewhere in there I try to have them by eight.
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's nice having a conversation with your wife for a little while after that.
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: So yeah, absolutely the distractions from the professional world.
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: You don't really want to share too much with time with that, right.
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, to be to be frank.
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: So my wife and I, you know, just have very, very opposite personalities in a lot of way ways, and she really drives that so left to my own devices.
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: I would probably just be responding to everybody all the time, but knowing how she feels about that ends up being the reason the brakes go on so if I'm with my son, forget about it, and if I'm with my wife, forget about it under penalty of death.
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: So it's important.
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: That's good.
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's a good boundary, it's a good way to stay alive.
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: And when my wife watches this.
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: I'm not perfect at this right.
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I know She'll be in the comments I got to be authentic, like I'm a still a work in progress.
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: Well, you're only human, as we all are.
• 47:47
  Speaker 3: we all are, and there are some circumstances that require us right and it's not always, but I totally get it.
• 47:54
  Speaker 3: I will say, when I was on vacation in Italy earlier this year, you know, we made an agreement we weren't going to bring our computers, we were going to be unplugged.
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: But there were several days that I was staying up till like 1 am to communicate because the time difference over there, you know, and I had files that needed my attention.
• 48:14
  Speaker 3: People closing, people waiting for notification, like hey, you just got your home.
• 48:18
  Speaker 3: I'm not going to fall asleep and leave them to wait for 12 hours to figure that out.
• 48:22
  Speaker 3: So you know, there are times.
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: I think that always ties back to set special circumstances and setting those expectations and managing your expectations, one with your client, but two with yourself.
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: Um, as a as a, as a, as a and I air quote entrepreneur, business owner, whatever we are like, you have to choose those battles.
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: There's, I know, a handful of people that go away and they hand over their entire book of business to whoever's covering for them while they're gone.
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: I'm way too insecure to do that.
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: Like I'm still too insecure to do that.
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: I still take the calls, I still take the text messages and my family kind of understands that, I think for the most part.
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: Again, like Mike, there's boundaries.
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: You're not going to sit there for three hours or whatever, doing this one thing while you're on vacation, but at the same time they get it.
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: Some of us might.
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, some of us might and where you're at in your career, that's imperative, right?
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: I mean, Dani, probably you had that conversation before.
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: Oh, she gets it.
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: I'm going to do my best, but at the same time, we're not just going to turn our back on this business, because the amount of downfall we want to keep taking vacations right Right absolutely that was a nice vacation.
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: I need this to work because I have to be able to do it again.
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: I get that.
• 49:31
  Speaker 3: Okay, I'm really loving this conversation.
• 49:34
  Speaker 3: So far, I'm not going to lie.
• 49:35
  Speaker 3: The food the food theme here is so strong.
• 49:38
  Speaker 3: You guys, it's hard to let go Is there anything else you want to cover?
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: Dan, before we get to your favorite question, I don't know what advice would you give to somebody who's looking to start a career in the mortgage arena of real estate right now.
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: I mean today.
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: They called you today and said I want to be an NMLO, A mortgage loan.
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: You want to be in the middle of the alphabet.
• 50:12
  Speaker 3: A dance, mandatory stutter, just a little speech impediment coming out at least one time an episode.
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: So you ask everybody this question.
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: We're eating s'more.
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: That sounds amazing.
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: Now I'm thinking about s'mores.
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: So this is a question you ask everybody, right?
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: For the most part yeah.
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: It usually comes up advice.
• 50:31
  Speaker 3: And it's mostly real estate professionals everybody right For the most part.
• 50:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it usually comes up advice.
• 50:32
  Speaker 3: If we feel like your response is going to be interesting enough, we'll ask you the question.
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: We have more of a real estate following than food truck following, so we're not looking.
• 50:37
  Speaker 3: But you might have converted a couple followers.
• 50:39
  Speaker 3: It's true, kaylee might actually be toe in the water.
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: I used to do a lot of podcasts on food truck or food related podcasts, but how many people have said run in response to that question?
• 50:51
  Speaker 3: None, really, is that what you would say?
• 50:53
  Speaker 3: No, yes, a hundred percent If you need advice, if you're looking for a good mentor.
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: I could actually use a lot less competition, so just throw the fuck out, my, my my answer is run.
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, unless you have the means, the patience and the personality to do exactly what I said earlier in the show, which is play the long game yeah.
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: If you think you're going to come in right now and turn around immediate results, there are going to be outliers, but for the most part, no.
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: The people that are going to succeed, that are new here, have the patience and the wherewithal to play the long game and to work on long-term relationships again, without thinking that you're going to come in and disrupt everybody's relationships and get a bunch of leads Like it's just.
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: I don't see that being realistic.
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: However, I think this would be a great time to start if you could afford to play the long game.
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: Is there a?
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: Uh, is there a?
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: Is there?
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: Is there a former career or profession that leads to that?
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: You're aware of?
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: That could lead to success as a mortgage loan originator.
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: Other than food truck specialist.
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: Well, we know, that's the trump card, that's obviously a path for success.
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: We know that's the trump card.
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: The main lobster brothers are coming for your business.
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: I'll tell you you learn how to work hard, hustle, Lob hard and mortgages.
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Lobsters and loans, I mean yeah.
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: I'd spent 15 years in the restaurant industry.
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: I mean, if you want to, you want to talk about hard work, rolling your sleeves up and getting your hands dirty, or you people who come out of that industry, you're typically pretty tough, thick skinned and willing to work hard.
• 52:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I a hundred percent.
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: It's definitely the the work ethic uh part.
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: If you had again the means to not make money for six months.
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: And so I think that's the really important part is just having it.
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: Really, it's a privilege, Honestly.
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: It's a privilege to not have to look at either of you and go.
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: This is a waste of time if you're not giving me loans, Right.
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: Like that's and there are people that are in that position and that's not a fun position to be in, and so if you're going to be putting yourself in that position, do something else If you can.
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: Again, I use the word afford specifically.
• 53:00
  Speaker 2: You have to be able to afford and have the patience to pay.
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: And that's, and that's financially, socially like it's not just a four mentally Right and we talk a lot about.
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: We talk a lot about the mental implications that this industry can have on you If you haven't got some going or cooking in the in the pipeline.
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, ain't got nothing coming.
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: It's.
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: It's very hard mentally to to be in that position and you're not the best version of yourself.
• 53:28
  Speaker 3: If you're in that position, it means you're compromising your ability to get more business.
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: And you talked earlier about being able to give the good advice that may not be in your best financial interest to your clients.
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: Like you, need to be in that position where you can say, hey, the best thing for you to do is to walk away.
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: Exactly, even if it defers my paycheck for 60 days, like if it's the right thing, it's the right thing.
• 53:54
  Speaker 3: I couldn't agree more.
• 53:54
  Speaker 3: I think more of us need to remember that, at the end of the day, it's not about us Like.
• 53:57
  Speaker 3: We need to put the interest of our clients first and foremost, always, and sometimes that means saying we should walk away from this especially if we're going to call ourselves advisors.
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: right, then it can't be about us, yeah.
• 54:09
  Speaker 3: Interesting concept, but you're crushing it.
• 54:12
  Speaker 3: You're doing so great and you're very well loved in this industry.
• 54:15
  Speaker 3: I'm really glad you chose to come back to your.
• 54:18
  Speaker 3: You know your origin, place of origin.
• 54:20
  Speaker 3: Thank you man, roseville is much better with you in it.
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: I appreciate it, yeah, absolutely.
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: Okay, we're going to get down to it, we've, we.
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: Okay, we're going to get down to it, we've, uh, we've, we've almost chewed up a full hour of your time.
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: So thank you so much for for being generous with your time and your experience, cause that's ultimately like that's what opened?
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: The gates about like we're just trying to lift the veil.
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: Absolutely.
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: Show people what it's like before the chaos begins Really.
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: Last question we ask to everybody if you could be anyone for a day, who would it be and what would you do?
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: Oh, so many answers to this question.
• 54:55
  Speaker 2: So, now that we've just talked about how it's not about us and we need to be able to afford to not have to worry about the next deal sometimes, let's see, let's go through the options.
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: So I would definitely want to be Dua Lipa for a day.
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: Dua.
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: Lipa yeah, undisclosed reasons.
• 55:09
  Speaker 2: Definitely want to be Dua Lipa for a day.
• 55:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, undisclosed reasons.
• 55:12
  Speaker 2: Uh, next it would be maybe Warren Buffett, so that I could introduce him to a young man named Mike Swallow and have him hire me to do something, anything, whatever, um, but yeah, I mean, I, I think, uh, I think somebody that can make me independently wealthy, that I, so I can just spend my time giving back and pursuing passion projects, I think that'd be great.
• 55:34
  Speaker 3: That'd be amazing.
• 55:35
  Speaker 3: I like that Warren Buffett.
• 55:36
  Speaker 3: I haven't heard that one yet.
• 55:38
  Speaker 2: I also it's very selfish yeah.
• 55:40
  Speaker 3: So I have questions for you when these mics turn off.
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: But we'll talk.
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: I mean not to be a dick or anything, but the green hair might be a challenge.
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: Hey you said I get to be anybody.
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: That's true.
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: That would be great to feel what having hair feels like.
• 55:58
  Speaker 3: It's a blessing and a burden.
• 55:59
  Speaker 3: I will say that.
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: Oh, I remember.
• 56:05
  Speaker 3: Well, we are very stoked to have you.
• 56:07
  Speaker 3: Thank you for taking the time to join us today and tell your story.
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: We appreciate it Absolutely.
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: We're going to play you out of here, I think.
• 56:14
  Speaker 3: Any moment, Dan there it is Until next time.
• 56:17
  Speaker 3: There he is.