 Welcome back, everyone. The geeks are sexy. It is time for our panel discussion. We brought back Michelle Leith and Jenny Fay. We're going to talk about some broader topics. We let them talk about their businesses and organizations. We're going to talk about a little broader topics here as we like to do the panel discussion and get that perspective of again, coming back to what's what does it take to be successful in Las Vegas, whether you're the city director for a nonprofit trying to help people in the sex worker industry or your mortgage lenders. So I always try to draw themes between what the guests do. This one was very challenging. However, I think I think I was able to do it. You're you're both in the business of helping people make big changes in their lives, just in different ways. Just stick with me on this question. Okay. I'm the people you're helping don't always want help or aren't willing to listen. How do you approach helping people when they aren't always thinking about acting in their own best interest? Is that something I ran into all the time ran into in the Air Force. Human beings are emotional. They make a lot of decisions based on emotion. They don't always act on their own best interests. Jenny, how do you how do you do that with cupcake girls? How do you help people who aren't aren't always interested in acting in their own best interest for whatever reason? One of the things that we try to do, like I mentioned earlier is we try to ask good questions. Because we really feel like if we can ask questions that can help us understand where this person is coming from. But sometimes that gives them the opportunity to have an aha of what about what they really want, where they really want to go and then we can start heading there. But also we realize, especially for our clients, a lot of our clients have experienced trauma. When extreme trauma happens to someone that flight fight or freeze part of the brain gets overdeveloped. And the the long term thriving part of the brain gets underdeveloped. So they're just thinking about surviving. They're not thinking about thriving. So also what it takes us for us to sit well with people recognizing that they may not be ready to do something with this information right now. They may not be ready to make a healthy choice right now. We're still going to be there. We're still going to sit well with them and know where they want to go. Keep asking the questions. Keep letting them know that we're here but ultimately it's up to them. But and you guys are the position where you can be patient. Yeah, you can be patient. You can you can let people figure it out from the cells. Michelle in your business, there are deadlines. There are closings. There are people want their money when they want it. How do you work with some of your clients? How do you help nudge them in the direction of what's in their best interest versus the short term choice that might make them feel good today? The same thing I we ask questions and sometimes throughout the buying process, you do borrowers get experienced buyers remorse or they get nervous or can I make this mortgage payments even though we fully qualified them. So again, I try to direct them back to what their goals were. You know, what what what are your goals? What are you looking for? What are you trying to achieve? And I try to narrow it back down. I I had this experience recently. Borrower wanted a bigger house needed more more space and then when it or less stuff or less stuff exactly but he wanted to keep his stuff. So so he he kind of got a nervous about the new mortgage payment because it's a bigger house with bigger mortgage than what he was used to. So again, I asked him, do you really like this house because I really want them to be comfortable? And he's like, I love this house. I'm like, do you think you're gonna find it later on if you wait a little bit? He's like, no. Do you think you'll have the same terms or the same purchase price? He's like, no. So he I can't eat and he sort of made peace with it and he could see that the benefits outweighed the the fear. So I kind of coach them as to what are your goals? And this is a way to do it or you can progress it. It's it's kind of up to you. But above all, I want them to be comfortable because this is a choice that they make. It's not an absolute need. Yeah. And that that brings to a question that we didn't really talk about is what do you do when someone's goals far exceed their capacity at this point? I've got champagne taste on a light beer budget for a new home buyer or for a home buyer in general. Basically, again, same thing. I ask them questions and I tell them, these are the numbers. And then I also give them a real life experience. If you wanted this house that costs X amount of dollars, this is what your mortgage payment would be. Are you comfortable with that? And what are you paying now, right? Exactly. Is there going to be a payment shot? This is $400 a month more than what you're paying now for your mortgage or what you're paying now for your rent. Are you okay with that? Exactly. And most times when they want to buy, that payment is more than four-headed. Sometimes it's double. And I ask them, are you comfortable? Okay. I guess we were gone and I guess we're back. So we were talking about just summarizing real quick. When you've got someone whose goals exceed their capacity, you kind of show them how much that is. And then you kind of say, is this that, you know, I'm not trying to lean you one way or the other. I'm just asking you if this is the choice you want to make. Exactly. You know, and questions are a lot and sometimes they'll come to their own conclusions if they're open to being coached. I like to say being coached because I don't want to tell people what to do. But I want to coach them into making good decisions and I give them options, you know, based on this is what you can qualify now. This is what you're, what you would like. The two won't meet. Going back to our themes of helping people change their lives, we don't want to put them in that house with that higher payment and then have them lose that house in a year, right? And that's what I also tell them. I tell them, you know, we want you to be a successful homeowner. Not one with big dreams and then real life reality sets in and then they can't make their payments or they're nervous or whatever, you know, do you want to change their lifestyle so much, whatever. So our main goal, part of the whole qualifying process is to make sure that they are successful homeowners. Awesome. Awesome. So we talk a lot about challenges here, how to overcome challenges, how to face challenges. What's a challenge that you faced that kind of wouldn't go away? And it may still be a challenge, but how do you, how do you tackle that or how did you tackle that? So for us at the Cupcake Girls, one of the challenges that I think we constantly face is the challenge of resources that we have versus what we want to be able to do. Yes, there's a difference sometimes. And for us, our resources are our three main drivers to be able to care for our clients. And that's our volunteers, our partners and our donors. And so one of the things that we've realized is it's not necessarily up to us to just get frustrated about where we are, but it's time for us to look and say what do we need and how do we get out there and do it. And then we talk with our current team and activate them and say who do you know who can help with this? Who do you know who can help with that? Just today, we realized that we've had some clients who need some help with their car, like mechanic stuff. It's really expensive. We've already had some clients get severely taken advantage of when they go to a shop. So we just put it out there to our volunteers and said, hey, would you be willing to just ask your mechanic if they'd be interested in partnering with us? So we try to really link into the relationships that we already have and leverage those to move forward our mission to help our clients. And then you know you're going to have the exact same conversation next month, right? Or next week or... Yep, only it won't be about a mechanic. It'll be about a dentist or whatever. And that's okay. Just coming to grips with that tension of we're always going to be striving for the next thing, but life would be kind of boring if you weren't always going after. It's okay to be pushing that rock up the hill constantly as long as you know this is the choice I'm making. Yes. This is the, you know, it'll be a different rock next week. Yep. Cool. What about you? What's a challenge what's a challenge that you have faced multiple times or continued to face and how did you tackle it? Well, in my business, the every loan, every transaction is different. We may have our lending guidelines and that kind of keeps us consistent, but each borrower is different. So every loan is a challenge. Every loan there's going to be an obstacle to get over or you know the level of their experience, the borrower's experience is going to be different. So sometimes I spend a lot of time on you know meeting with them on the phone with them sharing with them what is happening and other borrowers they know. So each time, so each loan I tackle it as it's the first one I've ever done because it is for them. It's maybe the first time we've ever worked together. So it's all about you know providing what that customer or that borrower needs and also our customers are also our realtors. Same thing, some realtors are real hands-on. Some realtors want to let you take over and complete the transaction and let me know when we go to closing. So it all depends on what you know so it's being custom and working with that individual. I think that's so great and I was having a conversation with a client about being customer focused a couple of weeks ago and I think that idea of looking at every single every single one of these loans or every every single every single interaction you have with someone being like the first time that makes it you know we're always when we when we deal with something for the first time we're we're kind of listening and we're looking and we're trying to understand hopefully and not everybody but but it's fresh and so we need to treat it as that you know we're a little more open a little more cautious and trying to trying to maintain that will help us keep our customer focused and remember who we're really looking out for and what we're trying to do. I think that's so great I'm going to try to try to incorporate some of that into my conversations of let's let's let's approach this as if this was the first time you were ever doing this so well you guys both have teams around you you have to have a team to be successful very few people can get to where they're at and really be successful all by themselves although it does happen what have you done to build a team around you what have you learned by building a team around you. So I've learned a lot about the power of relationship so when I am building a team I think about what do I need on my team what are the specific things that I need whether it's tasks that I need accomplished or things that I need to be thought about and then I start with my own life and I think who do I know who does this and that I like who does this because when I'm building a team I want people around me that I really like and that like each other I want us to like hanging out even beyond just the task that we're doing and I feel like if I can get people that I like who can do the things that I need done then I just drop them into that spot where their skills match up their gifts and their abilities and their desires match up they're going to kill it we're going to have fun together and that's what we've seen with our team with cupcake girls. That's really great I I did get a sense when I came to visit you guys a few months ago that it is a a very fun and warm environment I think that's really important for what it is you're trying to do if it's if it's sterile and clinical and bureaucratic you're probably going to have a hard time helping the people here looking to help. We want people to feel welcome. So and you do I felt very I mean I was the only one there that day but I did feel very welcome it was very warm when I was so if you're thinking about going to see them I felt very welcome and warm just coming in to sit down and talk about what they do so how about you Michelle tell us about the team you have around you and what you've learned. I'm really fortunate because Planet has provided me with a team so I didn't have to go out and search they've done the search for me and they have provided me with amazing people who are highly skilled at what they do and they know what their roles are and so as I go out and meet people and build relationships out of the community I know that the work behind the scenes is getting done the loans are getting done customers are being taken care of they're being contacted on a regular basis and we're going to meet our deadlines. So that's the best part you know it I learned that you really have to listen to your team and and I tend to be a type A personality so what's really hard is asking for help of your team and then you'll know whether they know it or they don't and if they don't that's fine because then you know okay this is something we need to to work on or let's get creative here and so it's working together asking for help and finding our weaknesses and strengths and really and above all though I can't do my job without my team absolutely I just cannot do it absolutely yeah and that and that's the you know there there are pros and cons to building your own team and pros and cons to having a team handed to you and I did both in the Air Force I've done both with this business um but when you have a team handed to you a lot of times you get people who are real pros at what they do but they've got their own way of thinking about things their own way of you in the world and if you're trying to view every every every loan you do is the first time you do it you might have to enroll them in that vision a little bit but guys let's think about this is the first time we're doing it and so so sometimes that comes with some inertia when you're uh when you're working with a team of pros who've been doing something for a long time well thank you so much for being here today Michelle Jenny uh we're just about out of time but Jenny tell everyone where they can reach the cupcake girls so we can be found at www.thecupcakegirls.org you can find out information how you can donate how you can get involved how you can become a volunteer I would love to hear from you love to talk with you more about how you can be part of our team yeah you guys have no shortage of space for people to come and volunteer um and uh even if you are looking to just kind of affiliate volunteer like if you're a mechanic or yes I think you said you were looking for dentists anybody else counselors doctors anyone who has a service tax help tax help budget coaches HR like coaches things like that I have some people for you perfect so and Michelle how can everybody reach you when they uh when they are looking to buy that home in 2019 they can reach me at um directly at 702-767-8174 they can shoot me an email at mleaf at planethomelending.com and we'll have all that up in the show notes so they won't have to try to remember it or write it down or spell it in their browser while they're listening so thank you for being here today with Jenny and Michelle and myself uh last Thursday of December I don't know what the day is I look it up you'll figure it out um join us again I don't know who the guests will be we'll have somebody just as great as these two guests here and we will see you in about a month I'm Jason Laduke from Evil Genius Leadership Consultants this is Geeks are Sexy the future is out there lead the way