Today on the Heath Barnes show, we’re talking with my good friend, Blane Stewart. Blane and I have been friends for a long time. He’s a Branch Manager for NFM Lending based out of Charlottesville, VA, and one of the reasons I wanted Blane to come on the show is to share the example of what a great loan officer looks like.
Blane plays at a level most of us only dream of, and we had the chance to talk about his mentor, strategies to bring in agents, how the refi business is changing, and shared some great book recommendations.
If you’re a loan officer looking for strategies that work as the market moves, Blane has them for you. He’s going to give you his cell phone number if you want to chat through some ideas! That’s what I love about Blane. He’s always willing to help someone improve their business.
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Mentoring Great Loan Officers With Blane Stewart
In this episode, you’ll hear from my good friend, Blane Stewart. We have been friends for a long time. One of the reasons I asked Blane to come on the show is that he’s an example of what a great loan officer looks like not only in business but in life. He plays at a level most of us only dream about. In business, he’s got a great mentor program that he’ll talk about. He reaches out to a mentor in his community and meets with them on a regular basis. He talks about how to bring in newer agents and existing agents, which in the time that we’re in, we’re about to exit this refi market.
Knowing strategies on how to bring in purchase business is going to be key moving forward. Also, some of the great things he does in life that move his life forward. Some great book recommendations. I’m super excited. You’re all going to learn something new and he’s the guy that wants to give it away. If you’re a loan officer and you’re looking for some strategies and some free material, Blane’s got it. He’s going to give you his personal cell phone number. That’s what I love about Blane. He’s always willing to help someone improve their business if that’s what they want. I hope you enjoy this as I did. It was fantastic.
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Welcome my good friend, Blane Stewart, to the show.
Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate you giving me the opportunity to share my experience in the mortgage business with you.
When I first thought about having this show, I knew you would be the first loan officer that I’d want to interview. It is simply because when I think of our business, I think of people in our business that I honor and that are playing their life as loan officers at another level of greatness. I honor and appreciate not only your business but also your life. When I think about Blane Stewart, I think about our trip a few months ago.
Do you remember when you called me out of the blue when I was in your area? I was in town and I was about an hour away. You said, “Heath, I’m going to send a car to you.” You had a car pick me up and drive me to where you were in Charlottesville, Virginia. It was evening time and you said, “I got some fun ready for us.” We went on a five-mile hike into the woods and took a dip into 40-degree water. Do you remember that?
Absolutely. You got to live a little bit before you die.
It was the first time I’d ever done a night hike. We put on headlamps and ran 40 minutes into the woods. We took a dip into about 40-degree water where we swam for about 10 minutes and then ran back to the car. That was one of the top ten hiking adventures I’d ever been on. When I think of you, I think of living life at that level. I appreciate you being here. For the people that don’t know you, tell us a little bit about yourself, where you live, where you work, the size of your team, and your office.
I live in Central Virginia. For most people reading, it would probably be an hour from DC going South. We live in a beautiful area. The Blue Ridge Mountains are all around us. I’m married. I have two children. As far as my mortgage business, I’ve got a support team of five people that help me serve our customers, myself, and our realtor partners. I have three offices at the moment, but we’re getting rid of one location and we’re opening up a new one. I have two offices in Central Virginia.
You’re probably coming off one of your best years ever.
Almost everybody in the mortgage industry over the run of COVID, but I had my best year ever in 2021. I did about $76 million and our office did about $170 million.
That’s a lot to be proud of. How did you get into the business, Blane?
I got in the business like a lot of people. I’m an intelligent person, but I didn’t have a lot of school background and things. In my last job, I spent probably the last year of my career at an electronics company scouring the Bureau of Labor Statistics, figuring out what a guy with my education level does to make the big money. I narrowed it down to pharmaceuticals, financial advisement, or the mortgage industry. One of my friends at that time was making $90,000 a year, which seemed like $1 million to me. One thing led to the other and I got into the mortgage business. It was probably the luckiest move in my life.
What year was that?
That would put me roughly at around 2001 or 2002.
What was the business like around that time?
Don't just close loans. Raise the standard and make it where your competition can't get close to you because you treat people so well. Click To TweetAt that time, I worked at H&R Block Mortgage which was a sub-sector of Option One Mortgage. It was right at the beginning of all of the adjustable rate mortgages and things that calls the meltdown last time like option ARMS and no-doc loans. I saved a bunch of flyers from that because I think those could be memorabilia in the future. We got in there and we were soliciting all the H&R Block clients. It was like a rocket ship because I got in early on the ground floor on that. Within six months, it went from $10 million in the first month to $500 million within six months. It was like a rocket ship. It was exciting.
You remember at that time that a disclosure package was maybe 7 or 8 pages. Instead of emailing them, you had to overnight them or have them come to your office.
After that experience, I went off to open up a brokerage company. I remember we used to have to fax back and forth all the scenarios to the loan reps to figure out things and it’s quite a bit easier. The trees are smiling a little bit more these days based on all the electronic things.
We’re all coming off one of our best years ever, but some of us think the market could be changing. How do you see the market changing in the next 6 to 9 months? What changes or are you making already based on that prediction?
I, myself had a unique experience because I had COVID. It was still before the rates had corrected. I was not handling it very well. I was doing way too much and I was at my house sick. About halfway through the first two weeks, the rates changed and I think about going through COVID and some of the side effects mentally that the situation causes to people. As soon as I got healthy, I came back to the office. I’ve learned over the years that I’m a pretty good executor. I used to be an over-thinker in the business, but I execute things pretty promptly now.
I came back from there looking at the numbers. The changes will be that anybody who was purchased-centric before the rate increase is probably the safer group over the next year or two. I immediately got all my lists together for my realtors and graded them on whom I could call and get traction with immediately to rekindle the relationship.
The biggest change I see is that we’re going to need to go out and make sure our relationships are firmed up. We need to pick up a new couple of new realtors and I think I was ahead of everybody. I came in and I got rid of any extra unnecessaries at my operation where I looked at some of the job duties. I tightened up my P&Ls as tight as I could possibly get it because that’s going to happen for most people in another 100 or 120 days they’re going to start reacting. I wanted to be ahead of that.
You said something that sparked my interest. You’ve turned into a good executor. What changed for you? What action did you take? Did you read a book? How were you before and how did you become a good executor? A lot of us in the industry hear all these ideas and then we fail to execute them.
I got into coaching. I’ve been coached for probably about 13 or 14 years of my professional life in the mortgage business. I got into a group and that’s where I met you. It was The CORE Training. I had a lady who ironically is my coach join The CORE Training with me. Her name was Nikki. I got it on our first call and I wasn’t a getting-ready-to-get-ready guy. I would overthink and over-plan everything to make it perfect.
Nikki would take an idea, implement it and make adjustments. Through the last ten years of being around The CORE, I’ve shaken off my overthinking, execute quickly, and then adjust. I trained and disciplined myself, my staff, and the people I coach to execute and then adjust. Every person I’ve ever seen here explodes, whether it be in business or life. They take action and that’s the key.
There’s a great book called Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time. It’s similar to what you’re talking about. Instead of figuring out, “What’s my entire loan process?” let’s figure out the first three steps and implement them medially and then make some adjustments accordingly. While you were off, you graded your agents to figure out which ones were bringing in the most revenue. Is that what you said? Tell me about that process. What does that look like for you?
I went on a business trip and I printed my realtors on that trip of anybody who had sent me business in the last two years. I went through and I re-graded all the realtors, which in our system we grade from A+ down to C. Anybody who’s a D means delete them. I re-graded them and I made a starring system where I said, “Which one could I call first? What’s the easiest money?” I’m pretty decent at knowing where the money is. What’s the next move to bring the money in the fastest? I graded all the people that I could call the quickest and get going. I made them in descending order down to pretty much cold calling because that organization and having that focus helps me when I execute the calls.
Are you grading them based on the number of leads you’re receiving in 1 month or the last 6months or based on closed transactions or likeability?
I’m more of a relational-type person. I do it probably based on likeability and the ones that I can convert. If I called them and had one phone call or one meeting that they likely would re-engage with me and send me more leads or either increase the number of leads or just get leads. I’m much more gearing them towards that. It’s probably like your business. I’m focusing on working with people that I like because I’m not old, but I’m not young. I want to work with people I like and that leads to better business working with people that I have gone to work with.
People forget that in this business when you start off, you’re just happy to have someone send you business, but as you get more experienced doing business with someone whom you like, know, and trust and you enjoy hanging out with and being around because we’re all going to have problem transactions. When you work with someone that you like and they like you and there’s a problem, they’re going to dismiss it rather than if it’s a transactional base relationship. As soon as you make a mistake, they’re going to go to the next transaction. I love that advice from you.
If I enjoy working with them, I’m not necessarily looking. I don’t like top big monster producers all the time. I like people that are probably from 10% down to about 30% on the production list because those people tend to need me more than somebody who’s just going to look for me to give out a couple of names. I’m looking for a relationship that needs a good loan officer to make a wow experience.
For you, what does your ideal agent look like? How many transactions would they do? How much dollar volume and why in that range, that 10% or 30%, is what we’re talking about that you’re looking for?
What I realized as I did that list is that I’m a loan officer, but my passion in life is business. I’ve always been in business and numbers. My ideal partner is someone that’s serious about business, wants to grow their business, and makes a real process. I find that most loan officers and realtors have spent very little time working with each other to talk about how they set each other up and what their processes are like. My very best target is someone who’s willing to build a process with me.
Your passion is people that are passionate about business. One of the things that you do that I want to emulate and have begun that process is that you’ve got this great mentor program. The people that you seek out in business and in life that you want to be like or you see they’re successful. Can you share with the audience a little bit about that program, how you started it, and what it looks like for you?
Early in my career, probably within the first five years of being a loan originator, it came clear to me. I like you, Heath. I know you were constantly attending seminars or reading books and on that constant and never-ending improvement cycle. I don’t want to ever get off of that. I learned that I needed to go ahead and seek out people that were playing at a big level in business. Now, as I’m a little bit older, I realized that getting around that energy is going to spread over to you.
I used to seek out one per quarter, somebody who is playing it like an NFL team owner-type level, somebody who is playing super big. I would stalk them down because that’s a big part of our skills in this business. It’s getting in contact with people, planning big, and following up a lot. I would meet people and say, “I’m not going to sell you anything. I only want to understand your story.” They all would be like, “This is the best call I’ve had all day.” Once I get with them, they would teach me things. Through coaching and training, I’ve learned that in coaching and mentorship, you can’t see the picture if you’re inside the frame.
I’ve taken the gifts in my business because I feel that all luck comes from lots of hard work and lots of grinding, but I feel lucky to have been exposed to CORE Training and to have somehow gotten onto the path where I met these amazing people. What I do at my office is seek out. I don’t have any experienced loan officers. I don’t want to ever hire people with experience in my branch. New people and new energy are where it’s at.
I take in my gifts and I bring in these new people. I’ve built a pretty structured system to where it’s pretty scalable in terms of training these people. All we do is share the tactics with us. My business is simply because we’re almost 100% realtor-focused. We don’t mess with builders. Besides our customers and realtors, that’s the only focus.
We teach our loan officers. We teach a lot of the things I’ve learned and I coached all my loan officers every other week in groups. We have a lot of fun. My main thing is to be around good quality people whom I can have fun with. That’s the secret to my mentorship program. Good people and maybe a little bit of an underdog story are part of our story here. We bring the underdogs in and take them from $20,000 to $600,000 and you’re going to have some serious loyalty.
You bring in these new people. Number 1) Where do you seem to find them? Number 2) How do you know you found them once you found them? How do you know that this person is the person that you’re looking for?
We learn a lot about coaching and life through the DISC profiling system. For anybody who’s familiar with that, what I’m looking for on a DISC profile is all dominance and all influence. It’s a little tiny sliver of S and C. That’s the first thing I do. I’ll talk with them for a few minutes. I’ll say, “You seem like an awesome person. I’d love to meet with you and learn more about you. Would it be okay if I text you this DISC profile?”
We use the free DISC profile. Its 123Test.com. We do have some deeper DISC profile things that we use for candidates but I talk with them. I go meet them. I’m more of a gut person. When I’m making my calls and things, I’m calling people based on where my gut tells me I need to call. I’m not so much of a dead-on-the-money list guy. I’ve got lists, but I dial based on my feelings about whom I need to speak with.
We target people that are outgoing. Let’s say at a restaurant, that person comes up and says, “How can I serve you? I’m thankful for you coming in. Is there anything else I can do for you?” Anyone who’s doing those extra questions and has that energy that makes you feel excited to be around them are the people, to me, that has accelerated like crazy.
Stay away from the worriers and the naysayers. Keep your head down and work because it will always work out if you work it and take action. Click To TweetAlso, people from the restaurant business, the car business, and a lot of those industries already understand high-level work ethics and what it’s like to grind out for long hours. On a basic level, you know probably by and large where they’re fiscally sitting and where you could take them to. There’s probably a big upside for them.
I’m always looking for people that are working in those other industries. They might be working on the weekends. Most people that are working on the weekends probably don’t want to be working on the weekends. I look for people that say, “My pleasure,” because they’ve had some coaching or mentoring because not everyone says, “My pleasure,” when you offer a service.
I look for people that might ask me 1 question or 2 about what I’m talking about and someone that if there’s been a difficult situation like you’ve dropped something and you’re at a restaurant. The way they handle that, whether they lose their cool or not or they stay under cool. There are those little things that can identify those people. You’re talking about tests. I attended Vistage Worldwide and we meet once a month.
There was a gentleman by the name of Spencer Horn. I don’t know if you remember Spencer Horn or not, but when I walked into the room, I saw him and I thought, “I know this guy.” About halfway through his speech, he says, “When I was the CEO of Rapport Leadership,” and I yelled out in the middle of the speech, “That’s where I know you.” He goes, “You went to Rapport.” There are twenty people there and they’re all looking at us.
I got into a conversation later with him, but he does this questionnaire that helps with communication. It’s called a PDP Global ProScan, but I’m going to have him on the show in the next few weeks to go over this communication test. I’m going to have him send you a test and he’ll follow up with you and see if you like it. It’s similar to the DISC test but it takes it to another level. It’s something off the cuff I wanted to mention to you as you were talking about different tests.
It seems like you have a lot of experience with some of the younger loan officers. What are the things that you’re teaching those loan officers that you bring on board that have less than five years’ experience? When you’re thinking about tactics, what Jack Daly said is, what are the high-producing activities, the HPAs that you teach your newer loan officers? Maybe three tactics that they need to be executing on a daily or weekly basis?
The thing for me is that my brain is active and I move fast in the world. I’ve learned too that you got to keep it simple. The tactics that I focus on for new people, number one, is that you teach them first. When I first bring people in, I let them hang out for about two weeks with our team so they can learn about our culture. If they can’t sell and be excited about our culture and how much our ethics improved our community because our group wants to raise the standard in the mortgage industry.
I don’t just want to close loans. I want to raise the standard and make it so that my competition can’t even get close to me because we treat people so well. It first starts off by teaching people that the ethics behind doing these mortgages isn’t only to get gangster rich. It’s to bless people. That’s probably what sets my group apart because a lot of people are in this to be transactional.
First off, I teach them about our ethics. Second, we get them doing systematic things for some of my top agents. It means setting appointments with professionals because a lot of realtors have never called and set a lot of professional appointments. We’ll help them do that. We progressed them from doing professional systematic things with our partners to getting to the simple answer. We make them make 60 phone calls a day to book appointments with realtors for the senior loan officers
What happened there are two things. I’m a person that likes to break even on any business investment as quickly as possible. That’s just my nature. As soon as you get those junior loan officers in training dialing for those realtors, they’re learning a skill that almost nobody in business has because there’s almost no one that you’ll ever meet that has done 60 cold calls a day to book appointments.
What happens by default is that they build up these memory muscles by doing this activity. When they go meet with business people, they can teach them skills like how to make cold calls, how to send calendar invites, and how to do a lot of the things that a lot of professionals take for granted or don’t implement. That way, my people can bless all the professionals by teaching them basic business skills.
A lot of my business approach and what I teach them is to focus 100% on realtors for the first two years. You don’t even need to learn about any other professionals or builders or anything. It’s all realtors for two years. it’s pretty much to meet them, find the partner’s problem, and work to implement a business system to solve their problem. What happens which is the secret is that daisy chain the meetings with these realtor partners implementing business systems. That’s what we do. We usually try to find their problems and use some of the systems to build our relationship with the realtor partners.
You’re identifying problems that they may be having in their business and show them a system you’re doing or you’re using to help them with their business.
An old coach of mine and one of my best friends out of Texas is Heath Barnes. He taught me that the quality of my questions equals the quality of my life and my business. What I teach my people is that the top salespeople out there ask eight times more questions than the bottom salespeople. When I’m sitting there and listening to them, we teach everybody, in the beginning, to be charming and get them to trust you.
We are trying to figure out where those holes are in their business, whether it be bad prospecting, they don’t get enough leads or they are terribly disorganized. Sometimes I teach them how to look at their phone and see if their phone is in big disarray where we can help them do basic things. Basic things are what make great people. It’s not some shiny object or some fancy CRM.
For some of the new loan officers that are reading, what’s a script that you use? When you’re calling them, you give these newer loan officers a script that they go off of. If so, what’s that sound like?
When they’re dialing, it’s very hard to dial on realtors. For any of us that are newer, it’s intimidating and scary. I teach them that they need to find some level of problem. They need to build rapport and find a problem or something common they can latch onto on a quick phone call. It’s more about taking some, “Hi.” That person is naturally going to be chatty and dominant. I teach them and get in there, try to make them laugh in the first 30 seconds, and find some common bond.
While they’re shooting the breeze, find a little bit of a problem, and book the appointment to solve the problem. The script is not anything more than just, “Make them laugh. Talk about their experience a little bit. Stroke their ego and then pretty much try to find the problem. Also, show when we meet that it’s going to help amplify and make the money.” Those are the basic scripts I could share with people.
I don’t know if I’ve shared this with you that we started implementing with some of our newer loan officers. The people that are less than a year in the business, or even people that are on my team have an app. It’s called my MTA GO. Here in Houston, we can identify all the brand new agents. Those are agents that got their licenses. You’d be surprised how many agents get their licenses here in Houston. It’s 100 every month. We download that list and we give those to some of the newer loan officers and they call the new agents and say, “Blane, how are you doing? I understand you’re a new agent. I bet you’re excited about being a new agent. Aren’t you?”
I’m super excited.
“I didn’t know you were a new agent. I thought you might need a new lender. Can I interview to be that person?”
I don’t know much about it. I know my broker said there are a couple of lenders, but I’m open to learning anything.
“Most of the newer agents like to come to our office to meet with me face-to-face but we can do a Zoom meeting or over the phone, whichever you prefer.”
I think that’s great. We’ve also talked about making it. We’re the lending welcoming committee. Congratulations. I don’t know if you know it, but we’ve got a standard practice with new agents. We meet with you and welcome you to the industry. I’ve got my people actively working with where the new realtor sign up for their licensures. We’re working that angle to build a relationship with the people that run the real estate associations. We’re working to take them out to lunch so we can get hot off the press list. I don’t have that stuff where you have, but that’s cool.
Maybe I can help you find it but new agents are a great avenue for newer loan officers and even more experienced ones as well. New agents always fall into 1 or 2 deals. They usually have a good 1st year and then the 2nd or 3rd year ended up being a little bit more difficult because their idea of how to get businesses changed a little bit.
Can I share something about that with you? I always like to analyze numbers. It makes me relax when I’m crunching numbers. When I did that trip and I was telling you about what those realtors and every year, I crunch out. At the end of the year, we go off-site and we crunch all the realtors we got referred by. The truth of the matter with the businesses is that most people, loan officer-wise, are not getting all their business from big accounts. If you’re a bigger producer, over half of my business is usually from realtors I’ve acquired within the last 24 months.
I’m getting a little bit from a lot. It is a much better tactic because bigger accounts and things want you to support them and do lots of extra energy. Newer people are going to have their mom, their brother, their sister, and a couple of people that are going to throw your way without even knowing what they’re doing. New agents are a big part of my business.
Although we like to get 10 to 15 a year, if you can get 4 from 40 different agents, I like that better than getting 10 from 4 or 50 from 1 particular person because you almost feel indebted to them. If you lose them or you have a problem with one of those transactions, your stress level goes through the roof. You and I both know that every year, as long as we’ve been doing it, you’re going to lose 10% to 15% of your agents.
Focus on working with people that you like. That leads to better business. Click To TweetI got referred by 100 agents last year. I am more like using the law of numbers versus this because that’s the safe place to play. It’s adding new realtors all the time, building, and keeping the relationship moving is my strategy.
How do you find those new agents? Is it off the cuff? Is it the listing agents that you pick up? Is it any agent that comes up?
It’s usually the buddy system. Remember, I told you I’m pretty good at being close to the money. I’m like, “Why go look for new agents when all the agents that you know, know who the new agents are? So don’t just ask some more questions of the people you’re talking to. “It was nice talking to you about what you did this weekend. Thanks for that referral. By the way, I could use a big favor. Did any new agents sign up at your office? I’d love to meet them. I’m doing this new agent program.”
That fruit is so available to us. Once again, it’s a lot of us, or at least me, I sometimes go a little too fast. If you can just get that one question in with the people you know, you can pick up easy appointments. I just ask them to do a group text with the new agent to say, “They sound amazing. Could you just shoot me a group text, introduce me, and say something nice about me?” It’s pretty much a layup.
I’m glad that you’ve had a great year. All great years have been followed up with at least 1 or 2 tough times. I’m curious for you, Blane, what was your toughest time in the mortgage business, and what did you get from it? What did you learn either about your business or about yourself? There are a lot of readers out there that are about to go through a tough time. We’ll learn more about ourselves during that tough time, look back on it, and be thankful for it. I’m curious, about what time you had that you’re most thankful for.
What I’m most thankful for are the lesson and the blessing because I look at mostly everything as a lesson or a blessing. That’s a tip I would share just on my spiritual life. The mortgage meltdown in 2008 was a great lesson. What I took away from that timeframe and I would coach my people at that time is I would just tell them to stay away from people in the industry.
You’re going to see it right now. When people are asking you like, “How’s your business going?” a lot of times, they’re only looking for comfort and reassurance that it’s going to be okay. What I learned through the meltdown was that if you can stay away from the people that are talking about the sky falling, the demand for money is always going to be there.
That’s what I used to tell people at our weekly meeting. I’d say, “Stay away from people in the industry and just work twice as hard to find people that still need money, because it’s not going to go away.” In any economic time heat, there’s never going to be a time when all the parties fail. If you look at the Great Depression, and the mortgage meltdown, certain sectors got affected. For me, I’m always thinking, “What’s coming in this next one?”
It’s probably going to be similar groups that got affected by the mortgage meltdown. Contractors are going to get caught holding the bag. There are going to be short sales and foreclosures. I learned a lot of those things from the mortgage meltdown. The biggest lesson I learned was to stay away from the worriers and the naysayers. Don’t do it yourself, keep your head down, and work because if you work it and take action, it’s always going to work out.
I always find that what you’re looking for, you will always find. If someone’s telling you how bad the business is and what’s going on in the market, immediately, your reticular activator is going to find that. It’s going to find those areas and that proof and you’ll start believing that. A mentor of mine once said, “What is a belief? A belief is something you keep saying over and over again and you believe it. It doesn’t mean it’s necessarily true. It’s what you believe to be true.”
You also said that agents or people often are looking for comfort. One of the things that I honor and appreciate about you is that you’re not always looking for comfort. In fact, you’re at times looking for that uncomfortableness because, you, more than most of my mentors and friends, understand that the value of being uncomfortable is growth and happier life. Before we wrap up, do you have any recommendations on books that you read on an ongoing basis, events that you’ve been to, or people you’ve heard about?
I’m a super routine guy. You know that about me. A routine of any type is better than none. The most recent thing that I’ve been listening to is Eric Thomas. I’ve been listening to a lot of his podcasts. They call him ET and he’s a motivational speaker, but he talks a lot about work, grinding, and you got to get up earlier.
I think the mindset that I feel for where the industry and my lifestyle are going is if you don’t start building up your mind and your mindset towards tough and hard work, that’s the people that are going to have a tough over the next few years probably. The people that sit around and are thinking it’s going to come back to low rates or which realtors are going to miraculously jump in their lap.
It’s all about keeping your mindsets. I read a lot of that in the morning. I have a few other little spiritual books. I’m a big Law of Attraction-type person. I have two 365-day Law of Attraction daily meditations I read and that’s pretty much it. Between COVID and adjusting things, that’s about all I’ve had the bandwidth for lately.
I’m going to get a list of your books because I know you’ve got some great books that you read in the morning when you get up. Everyone would enjoy that list. Before I let you go and let people know where they can find you, I want to acknowledge you, Blane, for being a great friend and mentor to me. We met a few years ago when I was coaching you. Now, I feel like you coach me more than I coach you. I so appreciate that.
I appreciate your dedication, not only to your business but also to your life and being that great example day in and day out. I like to call it a focus grinder. You’re talking about a grinder. You are a focus grinder and I appreciate that. The last is your willingness to always give and take care of people. People will want to receive what you have to give. If somebody is wanting something from you, how would they best contact you?
Thank you for saying all those nice things. For anybody reading, I am more than glad because I know that all of us who strive got help from somebody. If anybody needs any tips or anything about anything I’ve shared, please call me at (540) 717-6237. That’s my personal cell phone. Give me a call or text me. If you want to set up a one-on-one and talk about anything that we’ve talked about, I’m always honored to help.
My biggest joy in life and where my whole business stands around is giving to other people and being of service. If I’ve ever had a dark time in my life or business, it’s when I’m worried about what I’m going to be losing or could lose. A lot of people are thinking about that right now, but I’m trying to focus on what can I give to more people and to my community versus what I could lose. I find that if I can stay focused on that, it is my biggest blessing.
It’s the key to happiness, fulfillment, and finding other people. Thanks, Blane, for being on the show. I love you. I appreciate you being here. I can’t wait to have you on next because you’re going to be on again.
You’re welcome. Thanks a lot. Everybody, go out and kill it.
That’s it for this episode. Have a great week. We’ll talk next time.