[00:00:00] Steph: I’ve financed thousands of businesses over the last 25 years and after a while it’s not that you become, the classic disgruntled old lady, but you do, I think, become much more of a realist and can cut through the garbage and the noise a lot quicker. 

[00:00:16] Shane: Even in the years that I’ve made the most money that I’ve ever made in this industry. It was though that moment of not having anything that I think prepped me to realize what the hell really matters out of all of this. 

[00:00:25] Brian: I love getting a new deal, obviously, because you know, we’re commission based, so that’s always fun to get a new deal and be like, Ooh, that’s cool.

[00:00:31] But then at the same time, to actually delve into their story and be like, whoa, like I just got this lady who started a business literally like three or four years ago. 200 grand on our first tax return, three years later, 3 million.

[00:00:44] Shane: Geez.

[00:00:45] Today’s a little different guys. There’s not any guests other than your typical Lords. There’s no deal breakdowns. It’s honestly just the crew who’s behind the mic today. So the episode is called Meet Your Lords. So you’ve been hearing our voices, uh, for quite a while, and I think we’re, this is episode six, so we figured out that it’s time you actually get to know who we are.

[00:01:06] We probably should have done this a little bit earlier, but knowing who we are, where we came from, and what makes us show up in an industry that’s got a whole lot of noise, whole lot of nonsense, and way too many options. And so I think it’s important that we really separate ourselves from the pack so you can see what, what makes us special or makes us a little bit crazy on that end.

[00:01:26] So you’ll meet Stephanie Dunn, the partner in all things here, the master, the Lord, the leader. Uh, she’s really the, the, the, the lord of lending and strategy for our team and, and pretty much anything that me, Brian, and Steph are doing. So you also meet Brian Coner, Legal Eagle. That’s a hard one to say.

[00:01:47] That’s a hard, I don’t know if I can get away with it that often, Brian, but it’s, he’s really, he’s turned into a, an SBA sniper and he’s got a lot of, of experience from the legal world that ties into how he, he can really organize and structure these transactions. And so you’ll get a little bit of me too and, and my little crazy, uh, the, the emotional mess that I’ve gone through throughout my life to get to, to help me develop into what I am today, whether good or bad. And so we’re talking, we’re gonna go through that origin story and the business philosophies, some of the failures, the wins. And if you’ve ever really wondered what makes us different, this is, this is gonna be the episode that it is. So make sure to become a follower. on us, let us know why you think we’re wacko, what things you wanna learn about us, and other topics that we can really get into. So we’ll go through a series of questions throughout this that I think will be kind of fun. Some, like I said, the, the origin stories are some of it, but then there’s also on the other side is gonna be some of the, the, the things that, the failures that we’ve had and other, other elements that have into the people that we are.

[00:02:51] And hopefully to give us some moral authority to actually talk to you and see if it’s something that’s helpful. So let’s jump right into it. Brian and Steph, how are we doing today?

[00:03:01] Steph: Good morning.

[00:03:02] Brian: Good morning. Doing great.

[00:03:04] Shane: Oh, that’s really freaking enthusiastic. I’m super excited now.

[00:03:07] Steph: No, this is the fun show ’cause this is the show we actually get to speak our mind. Like I was just thinking if there, one cool question would be, if there was ever something you wish you said on a daily basis, what would it be versus the holding back of the PC constant, you know, being in the, in the boardroom or office where you have to hold back. Then yesterday I was thinking, I was on the Zoom call and I was thinking to myself, you know what? I was gonna tell him to suck an egg. And then I, and then I’m like, probably not a good idea to tell the big guy to suck an egg.

[00:03:37] Shane: That’s a bit brutal. Well, actually, so let’s get into that, Steph, and we’re gonna go right out the gate, where you came from and what got you to the point where you want to tell everybody on the other side of the screen to sucking egg. So day one, Steph, where, where are you from? Why are you, why are you, why are you somebody in the SBA world right now?

[00:03:56] Steph: Well, you know what is really interesting? Someone asked me my age this week and I had to think about it. Don’t you hate that when you’re like, wait, how old am I again? that sucks when you get older and you actually have to like do the math. Wait, what year was I born? So yeah, I’m gonna be 55. Oh yeah.

[00:04:16] So I started to realize, you know what I could say suck an egg. ’cause as you get older, you get to just say whatever you want. Like Betty White, I’m gonna Betty White. The next 50 years of my life, that’s what I’m gonna do. So I’ve been doing this a long time. seen a lot of crap. I’ve heard all the stories. I’ve financed thousands of businesses over the last 25 years and after a while it’s not that you become, you know, the classic disgruntled old lady, but you do, I think, become much more of a realist and can cut through the garbage and the noise a lot quicker. ’cause you’ve seen it all

[00:04:54] Shane: Yeah,

[00:04:54] Steph: really hard, man, not to say, you know what, stop, just stop the talking. It’s not going anywhere. We’re not gonna do your deal. This is not happening.

[00:05:03] Shane: I’ve been down this road before. This is not a surprise. Yeah, that makes sense. So you, so you, Steph, are Canadian originally and are a.

[00:05:13] Steph: I don’t think you lose that. I think you just always are that

[00:05:16] Shane: Canadian. I don’t know.

[00:05:17] Steph: can’t say you used to speak,

[00:05:19] Shane: ugliness in the news right now about how much ca Canadian Canada hates us and they’re gonna send moose with lasers attached to their heads to attack us.

[00:05:25] Steph: oh

[00:05:25] Shane: that.

[00:05:26] Steph: was at the gym yesterday. My trainer was asking me about Canada. I’m like. Dude, I’ve been gone for 25 years. What the hell do I know? Just ’cause I have an accent doesn’t mean I know all things Canada.

[00:05:35] Shane: guaranteed. Guaranteed. You watch the news, you would assume as much. So you started there. What, what, what took you to inevitably, Wilmington, where you’re at now doing SBA loans, walk us through the path.

[00:05:46] Steph: All right. First job. That was a, something we talked about. First job was, uh, I, I started work early. I was a waitress. Everyone should work in a restaurant in their lives, every single person on, on planet, because that’s where you learn customer service and how nasty people can be and just how to just eat crow.

[00:06:04] Yeah. Crow. It’s very humbling. You learn to just serve people. Uh, and I did it for years and years and years was a waitress. And then I worked the front desk at a hotel, so that all, yeah.

[00:06:17] Shane: Little in there.

[00:06:18] Steph: I worked for Choice Hotels

[00:06:21] Shane: Oh, there.

[00:06:22] Brian: Nice.

[00:06:22] Steph: at. Checking people in, you know, arguing about their bills and how their pillow was too hard and all that fun stuff.

[00:06:31] So I did that all through college think that’s what like, got me really interested in the hotel business, customer service, the experience that people, uh, like and don’t like in all industries, service related industries. So I think that probably shaped a lot of who I am was the years I spent in my development years, let’s call it in college and high school.

[00:06:55] In the service industry.

[00:06:56] Shane: Interesting. Okay. And so out of that, where did you, where did you end up? So you left that you went to college, got out, I know you landed in Chicago at some point, and that was the beginning of all of this, right?

[00:07:08] Steph: Yeah. Landed in Chicago. So graduated from McGill, which is the Harvard of Canada. I’m gonna throw that in there. Whoop. Uh, so graduated from McGill, moved to America to chase the American dream. Told my family I’m moving to America, and my grandmother’s like, you’re nuts. It’s so dangerous down there.

[00:07:26] People get shot every day in America. I’m like, I know grandma, it’s gonna be fine. She’s like, we’re never coming to visit you. Thanks so much. I’ll see you at Christmas. So, and that’s what happened. So I moved to Chicago, uh, and it wa I loaded my Chevy crap, lere up with all my belongings and drove to Chicago thinking I’m moving south Suckas. See you. And it was December. I pulled up in my Chevy Cavalier in a snowstorm. I’m like, wait a minute. I thought 15 hours south would be warmer. Why is it so cold here?

[00:07:58] Shane: That’s classic. I love it. And so out of that, you went into, uh, you were, you were working in like a, one of those chop shops in, in the trading world, right? What was the

[00:08:08] Steph: bro. Good

[00:08:10] Shane: brew.

[00:08:10] Steph: proof. Yeah. So I was a boiler room with the headpiece. Selling stock every day to old ladies in their retirement accounts. We had daily quotas. There was no do not call list. It was seven days a week. We’d go and just cold call

[00:08:23] Shane: Oof.

[00:08:24] Steph: and you, you know, the next person beside you was like a foot from you and I, you know, I’m a loud talker, so

[00:08:29] Shane: Yeah.

[00:08:30] Steph: how miserable these other people were Hearing me on the phone, I’m like, cackling and talking loud.

[00:08:36] Shane: Oh God.

[00:08:36] Steph: for two years, seven days a week. Cold call, cold call, cold

[00:08:40] Brian: Oh my gosh,

[00:08:41] Steph: me in this business.

[00:08:43] Shane: Yeah.

[00:08:43] Steph: it’s like I heard no all day, every day.

[00:08:46] Shane: Yeah. And that’s, you, you, you get a lot of those when you’re in the SBA world and in the small business world, especially now with the amount of competition and stuff that’s in, that’s in the market. So. Okay.

[00:08:56] Steph: about you guys? You wanna turn it around? Talk to

[00:08:58] Shane: Ryan,

[00:08:59] Steph: your first.

[00:09:00] Shane: path to the love and exciting world of SBA and sometimes want, we can call it a hell occasionally,

[00:09:09] Brian: no, man, I, you know, I just wanted to be here for so long, so crafted my entire path, my journey just to get here. Um, no man, I, I mean, we, we’ve known each other for a long time, so, uh, went to college. Um. And basically I got started just doing random jobs, you know, doing mostly coaching stuff and then got outta school, graduated in an oh eight, which was a great year to graduate in finance and looking to get into real estate.

[00:09:45] So, uh, basically immediately decided I was gonna go back to school, get my law degree. And, uh, between that time I did some door to door sales, which was, uh, you know, at first it’s brutal, but then you kind of get into a groove and you’re like, all right, I think I got this. And you just start knocking ’em out and you get used to hearing the, like, the nose.

[00:10:08] I didn’t do it for two years, thankfully, but, you know, I got, I did it long enough to where I was able to get into a groove and learn how to sell. And then in law school was doing. Some, uh, trial advocacy, that type of stuff, and found that the door-to-door sales, speaking with people aspect, really lent itself to, um, doing that sort of thing.

[00:10:32] Got out of law school, went and worked in, you know, quite frankly, when I look back at it, I’m like, why the heck did I go into doing transactional law, which is contracts, like drafting contracts as opposed to going into, um, you know, uh, litigation, which probably would’ve played to my strong suits a little bit better, you know, being in court or, you know, drafting complaints and having to come up and speak with people, depositions, that sort of thing.

[00:11:02] Um, but in any event, that’s the route I went because I wanted to get into real estate so bad. And so I went and worked for a, a law firm in la um. One of the, well, it’s probably the best real estate law firm in California. Um, and there’s other big firms too. But I was fortunate to go work at a, an office where the kind of the top dog of the firm worked, and he had all the huge REIT and institutional clients as his clients.

[00:11:37] So it was a great experience to kind of get into that sweatshop environment, to learn and do a thousands of documents a year. And what I learned from that was that that is not where I want to end up. I remember being in the office at like seven, eight o’clock at night looking down the hallway, and the partners were still there.

[00:12:00] A lot of the partners would still be there. And I’m like. Wow, that’s gonna be me in 20 to 30 years. I’m gonna be sitting right there staring out at, uh, you know, the 4 0 5 freeway. So I’m like, I don’t know if that’s what I want to be doing for the rest of my life. Granted, it’s a really secure job. You do really well.

[00:12:21] Those guys all did really well, but for me, it just wasn’t a good fit. And, you know, a lot of my friends stayed there and are doing awesome now, but for me, I, I just needed to do something that was a little bit more, uh, almost solopreneur, so to speak, and, um, do do things on my own and kind of be more involved.

[00:12:43] It, for me, being in the institutional game, it was, everything felt so big and you get so siloed down into like this finite part of the process that it just felt like, you know, I’m. Playing with paper monopoly money and not really doing anything. That was, to me, that felt that meaningful. And so now switching gears, um, I was at a point where I needed to switch gears and reached out to Shane and Steph and uh, you know, you guys brought me in.

[00:13:18] And so it’s been fun to see small businesses because that’s kind of something that’s always been exciting to me is watching people start a business, get it going, and then they come see us and they’re like three, four years down the road and they need to expand. Right? And that’s a fun thing to look at someone’s financials and see, whoa, you started like three years ago making 200 grand and now you’re making 3 million.

[00:13:45] That’s insane. How the heck did you do that? And so getting stories like that, like I. That’s the part being on the front end, the sales side that I really like. I love getting a new deal, obviously, because you know, we’re commission based, so that’s always fun to get a new deal and be like, Ooh, that’s cool.

[00:14:03] But then at the same time, to actually delve into their story and be like, whoa, like I just got this lady who started a business literally like three or four years ago. That exact scenario that I just described. 200 grand on our first tax return, three years later, 3 million.

[00:14:19] Shane: Geez.

[00:14:20] Brian: I mean, it’s so fascinating to talk to this lady and just pick her brain and be like, what the heck are you doing

[00:14:26] Shane: Yeah. Yeah. Those opportunities are interesting and what it delves into, it’s, it’s, it’s great hearing that story. So what little bit backstory between, by Brian and I have known each other since high school, so he,

[00:14:38] Brian: since middle school? Probably.

[00:14:39] Shane: middle school actually. Yeah. Um, and he, but I didn’t like him until about, but like junior or sophomore year or something invited

[00:14:46] Brian: Well, yeah, probably like last year

[00:14:48] Steph: Yeah.

[00:14:49] Shane: Depends on the day, right. So, so he was my high school setter. We used to go play volleyball for four hours a day. We’d go to practice and we’d go over to our church building and it’s literally just hit volleyball over and over and over and over and over and over again. He went to school and played volleyball and that. He went, actually played for BYU. He was the setter for BYU. I went off to, to a D three school back east just because I wasn’t tall enough, was a little bit chubby and couldn’t quite get off the ground as high as I needed to, to hit way that BYU needed. But,

[00:15:17] Brian: still one of the hardest hitters I ever saw.

[00:15:19] Shane: one of the hardest yet.

[00:15:20] There you go. I’ll take it. I’ll take that. You got a freaking canon. I hit really damn hard. The shaky one, as Brian remembers this, the shaky one. That was one the best plays that we had of all time. but the, that, so that background, that’s where our relationship started. Stephanie and I, I actually met her at my very first bank, and that’s the kind of my origin story, if you will.

[00:15:39] I, I stepped into this world at Excel National Bank, got hired right outta college coming from, I went to school at Stevens Institute of Technology, which is like, uh, not quite as smart as the kids that are in MIT, if you will. We’ll call them the, the, at least the, the, the, the grades weren’t as high at that point.

[00:15:56] Granted, every one of the same kids at that school were freaking geniuses, except for me. It felt like. So I didn’t, uh, went to this, the bus, this business program that helped me learn the how to tech, uh, how to talk tech. ’cause there’s, in the, in the business world, there’s this still a huge gap between the finance guys or the guys in management and the technology guys who are running the show that, that gap is getting closer and closer because I think there’s some of those ar the people in that era that are edging out, but that you kind of have to have no tech in order to survive right now. So that, that was kind of my training and I jumped into it and that’s when I, I ran into Steph. She was A-A-B-D-O, just killing it at Excel National Bank and had this epic background at SBAI come out of college and get a phone book dropped on my, my table and had to go on yellow pages.com and told, Hey, go find some businesses.

[00:16:43] And I, I had no freaking clue what I was doing. I had some exposure working at, uh. in the servicing department of B of A. And that was a freaking nightmare. ’cause I could do everything that they needed me to in 30 minutes and then would have nothing to do for the rest of the damn day. I’m like, this is terrible.

[00:16:58] This is my freaking nightmare. So the, uh, so the sales side of it was something that I think was better fit for the personality and so I stepped into it. Lured the hard way. That call, like calling for, for loans on an in the SBA world doesn’t get you very far. If you’re just calling the front desk people, like you’re not, you’re not, not drumming up businesses.

[00:17:15] SBA is a weird little niche that that only is a very small part of the actual commercial lending market. And if that’s the only product you’ve got to sell, you gotta find a different avenue. So that’s, I followed suit of the pros like Steph and um, Scott Mueller and Jim Mueller and some of these other big names in the world that have guys who have found niches, gas stations, hospitality, business acquisitions, and kind of just said, lemme copy what they do. And so I kind of followed that. I went down the hospitality route, started doing well. 2008 hit. That was a mess. Um, caused friction at the banks and cease and desist orders and all sorts of things that just made me start hopping banks. And every, every institution I went to, um, I kinda learned a little bit more, had a really hard fall, you know, trying to think.

[00:17:57] I start making good money and all of a sudden something changes at the bank and then all of a sudden I have no money and I’m backing it again, making more money at the next place. And there’s this just ebb and flow and ebb and flow of moving banks. That’s one of the risks of kind of changing employers, especially if you’re in the sales world, is you kinda have to find, find your groove again.

[00:18:13] So I’ve learned my, learned my lessons throughout that. And then Steph and I had, had linked back up and was at this great, great experience. We’re at an a OA conference, um, Asian American Hotel Owners of America. Right? Is that what it is? Right. Okay. Um, but we’re, we’re at this, uh. It was, I think it was a, your bank was either putting on, or it was like the choice hotels like dinner. And it’s hilarious because I saw a ton of people circling somebody and, and I could hear the cackling voice of Stephanie, but I couldn’t see her because she’s shorter than everybody. But she was dominated the damn room. And I was like, who the heck is at the center of this? And so I, I’m a giant amongst of the other people that were there.

[00:18:54] So I start weaving my way in and see her in the middle of it, and she says, Shane, and like we, that’s where we like, get together again. And she’s, she eventually convinces me to come work with her. It didn’t take very long, but convinced me to come work with her over at First Bank. And, uh, and that kind of reignited our, our, our partnership and, and, uh, friendship.

[00:19:13] And that’s, that’s what’s linked into where we’re at today. We call ourselves the pod. We’ve got Stephanie, Shane, and Brian as the, the, the three legs of the tripod, if you will, that are, that are running this show and generating loans together and. They’re make, make up what is lords of lending. But it was, it’s been an interesting path of dancing banks and learning what didn’t work.

[00:19:32] And it’s interesting to kind of see it all come back together in, into this fun group that we have today that we get to get on the phone with each other literally every morning and just complain, a complain session every day. ’cause you need that in this, in this industry. There’s plenty of people that just piss us off and often we make our own mistakes.

[00:19:53] And that I think that, that, that creates a, a raw environment that you just need to vent. And so I think, uh, yesterday was one of those, when I slammed my finger in the door trying to freak out how to get back to a call. Brian, you were a witness to it. So

[00:20:05] Brian: Was there. Got real exciting, real fast.

[00:20:08] Shane: real exciting, really fast and words that I needed to repent for later.

[00:20:12] So I thought we got there.

[00:20:14] Brian: Well, Stan, let me ask you a question.

[00:20:16] Shane: all.

[00:20:17] Brian: Why start this podcast at this point?

[00:20:22] Shane: Well that’s, I I had

[00:20:24] Brian: I.

[00:20:25] Shane: in being a podcaster last year. Like it’s, it’s, it wasn’t anything on my radar. Social. I, I’m at that area that age where I, like I saw social media and I get annoyed by the pe the way that people have really dove into it and, and But it’s funny ’cause I’m one of those constant scrollers, I’m always using Instagram and they’re selling the hell out of everything to me. But the, the idea came from, uh, some chat dialogue I had with, with, uh, Ray Drew. And the, the idea of lords of Lending actually kind of populated from Brian and I have this idea of like, oh, the deal Lord, or who’s, who’s the, the lord of this environment? And it’s kinda this nerdy playoff of like game thrones and whatever else.

[00:21:05] But, um, I, I started a cycle of that and Ray’s like, you need to start a podcast. I’m like. Well, let’s give this a shot. And Shane, the rhino, started charging at it and went all in and Steph was right there and like, hell yeah, we’re doing this. And we tried to get it lifted off last year, but too many other things were happening as far as career wise, it didn’t quite fit. But the whole concept is to be a little bit different, be a little bit more fun. And I think in the last three months that we’ve been doing this with all three of us, I, I think it’s, it’s a hell of a lot more fun because we can kind of be ourselves and talk about the, the, the things that piss us off and discuss awesome, fun and exciting things that move forward.

[00:21:40] So I think that it’s, it’s a narrative that other areas in the market aren’t really talking about. It’s, it’s still lives in its own little niche, but I think what we, the, the number of loans and things that we see and businesses and industries is a unique opportunity that not many people get to see.

[00:21:57] Like it. I don’t, I don’t, there’s nobody else I’ve ever met that has seen like nearly 50 to 60 different industries of, of, of businesses and how they operate and get to look. Behind the scenes that really has what’s made them successful and, and ways that they failed. And, and it’s a, it’s an interesting, interesting position to be in, to be able to observe simply from the learning aspect and be able to see how we can tie things together from those different industries.

[00:22:20] So it’s a, it’s a unique pool that I think what we can come to the table with will, will actually be beneficial to any, any listener in almost any industry. If you’re a small business, an entrepreneur, this is, this is a great environment with people that have, have really seen thousands and thousands of businesses and deals and, stress points that people have been in and ways that they’ve overcome it.

[00:22:40] And so we can kind of share that knowledge and, and help people get there. So my question is, everybody else said, Steph, like, why, why do you care about getting on this podcast and this being something you wanna talk about? I didn’t. Oh, that here it’s, doesn’t even care. You,

[00:22:55] Steph: I dunno, I dunno why I got talked into this. Really, I, I ask myself that question every day of my life. Like, how did I get

[00:23:02] Shane: you

[00:23:02] Steph: is the question I ask myself.

[00:23:04] Shane: wanna do it?

[00:23:05] Steph: Yeah. You know, um, uh, uh, listening to you guys, the interesting thing is we all have something in common, and I think that is a trait of a, of a, to me, what defines uh, a potentially good employee is if you’ve played sports on a sports team in your life, life, if you’ve played on a sports team.

[00:23:27] I think that’s my new interview question now, have you ever played sports? Like, have you ever been on a team, anyone who’s not played sports and not played on a team? It’s an interesting, uh, life experience. You know, you learn how, how to have like, banter with teammates. You learn camaraderie, but you also learn to, to up your game because your team’s relying on you.

[00:23:46] Shane: Yeah.

[00:23:47] Steph: so what we do every day and how, like, how we all, like on a proactive basis reach out to each other every day and FaceTime every day. It’s ’cause it is that same type of mentality, like, we wanna up our game. So when you’re talking to other people that are playing well, it makes you wanna play better.

[00:24:05] Right.

[00:24:06] Shane: Yeah.

[00:24:06] Steph: the, and the opposite is true too. Like, I don’t think I would have the same banter or, or camaraderie or wanna do a podcast like this if I didn’t feel like it was a, a group of people that made me better.

[00:24:20] Shane: Yeah. Well, and I think also getting criticized by coaches, like, so that that’s a, that’s a let alone your teammates and everybody like egging you on. So when you’re down in a hole and you need to figure out how to move on to the next and, and perform better or, or being constantly wanting to be better, um, learning how to get yelled at. I mean, I,

[00:24:39] Steph: yeah.

[00:24:40] Shane: story for me, and it’s one I’ve shared in the past is kind of that, that I think. Humbled me more than anything else. ’cause I get arrogant or I get so blinded with what I’m going after sometimes that I don’t, I don’t take a step back and say, Shane, do you just need to shut up for a second? Like, just, just shut up. You guys, you, you tell me that, you tell me that,

[00:24:56] Steph: yeah.

[00:24:57] Shane: Shane, just shut up.

[00:24:58] Steph: An as needed

[00:24:58] Shane: Give it, give it 24 hours and just hold on a second. All right, buddy. Yeah. That’s, that’s the nature of the beast. But early on in my career, I had a, a credit, uh, credit guy, president of the bank. Really? That was a, a large freaking bank.

[00:25:10] I don’t know what the hell I was thinking as a young exuberant youth, but the, one of the messages that that came across is I got a phone call for him on a deal and I was dead set that I was, I was right that this was the, the, the deal that needed to work. ’cause the SOP said it’s possible and it’s eligible, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so he starts going off and I’m just getting pissed ’cause he is bringing up all these things that he didn’t like about the transaction. I don’t even remember what the hell the deal was. But the, uh, in the end it got to a point where I was just going and he said, Shane, up I’ll teach you credit. Vividly. I still to this day, remember, it wasn’t like, I wasn’t like a huge fan of the dude. I don’t think he was of me either, but he said that, and for the, instead of me kind of like doing what I would normally do, which is get even more pissed off, uh, I did, actually did shut up.

[00:25:54] Steph: Did your lips start to treble?

[00:25:56] Shane: Oh, it was trembling before that, that that derailed me from the trembling for a minute.

[00:26:00] I’m like, oh,

[00:26:01] Steph: Did your, your, your did tears well up in your eyes?

[00:26:05] Shane: that’s not where I go. I get furious and I start throwing stuff. I mean, I got punch holes and what like that, that’s where I would normally go at that point. It’s not quite as bad. Now, it happens occasionally. Yesterday was one, but in the end it was, uh, it was a moment where I just said, okay, crap. Let me just shut up for a minute.

[00:26:20] Maybe. I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about. And I think that moment was perfect and that, that sinks back to what you said, Steph. It’s like there’s this coach mentality and I’m like, okay, this guy’s actually in charge. I need to shut up and just listen to the coach. Don’t fight against the coach. him, let him teach you, teach you something. And it reminds me of the volleyball days. Brian was just like getting yelled at by Alvin our, uh, our volleyball coach. And the guy would just, and, and he wouldn’t relent on it at all. You try to fight back and he’d start hitting balls at you harder and, and just say, move, move, move, move.

[00:26:48] And until you get outta your own damn head and kind of get back in the game. Yeah. And I don’t think without that kind of leadership, and that’s something that I think that I kind of wanna instill without being overburdening to people, but as a leader myself, is to try to, to help people to engage at a different level than they are now. Just to get more out of what you do. I mean, why come and do this job every day, spend an amount of hours that we do, whether it’s originating loans, underwriting loans, closing loans, running a business, and, and half as it, and just not put the effort in. It’s such a waste of your freaking time. So find a way, finding ways to capitalize that, right?

[00:27:19] Steph: That’s my biggest pet peeve. My biggest pet peeve is someone who doesn’t give it their all. I

[00:27:24] Shane: Yeah.

[00:27:25] Steph: understand it. I just wanna shake ’em. Like,

[00:27:28] Shane: Yeah.

[00:27:28] Steph: could you, not every day of your life wanna wake up and go do your best. just wanna be mediocre. Mediocre. To me, I’d rather just crawl under a rock and sleep

[00:27:38] Shane: I know. Get the hell off the team if you don’t wanna play. Like that’s, that’s, that’s the where I think go somewhere you actually give a damn about what you’re doing. Like that’s, yeah.

[00:27:46] Steph: so this podcast, I guess is our way of, of sharing. Our inspiration and our, our energy with the world because I’m interested in finding other like-minded people.

[00:27:59] Shane: Yeah.

[00:27:59] Steph: really interested in. And I think this podcast gives us an opportunity, a voice to share our motivation with others.

[00:28:08] ’cause it’s infectious. And I think other people that are just as motivated as us, we all gravitate towards each other and we raise the bar

[00:28:16] Shane: Mm-hmm.

[00:28:17] Steph: every day. We’re better because we have other people around us showing us their, their version of good. You know, too, when you get stuck in a rut your definition of I’m giving it my best, you know, and it gets stuck in your head and you get in your own mind.

[00:28:33] But then when you see someone else better, you’re like, wait a minute, am I really giving it my best?

[00:28:39] Shane: where the.

[00:28:39] Steph: I need to up the game here.

[00:28:41] Brian: Yeah. And that’s, that’s the beauty of being around people that constantly push you and being around situations that are inspiring. You know, for a long time I was super into, uh, software as a service. I. Companies and like thought that, oh, I think I want to jump ship when I was an attorney or when I was starting out doing this, like, oh, I think I want to jump ship and go, uh, start a SaaS business.

[00:29:08] And, um, I didn’t know what it would be, but it was something that sounded super cool, right? Because it was, it was really hot and people were getting extremely amazing multiples selling their companies. And I had some friends that were doing it. And so it was cool to look at. But what this job has taught me over time, and especially over, I’d say since Covid, is there’s a ti there’s a million ways to skin a cat, right?

[00:29:35] Um, and it’s interesting for me to see these businesses come in and it’s inspiring to see what these people have done with businesses and to see how they’ve grown ’em. Now, not everyone I. I think comes into it with, uh, the same level of structure and, um, planning ahead. And I think that’s somewhat the beauty of SBA, even though it is a very painful and long process, it really does a good job of helping these customers get their businesses organized, get all their paperwork together, get their insurances together, get their, um, their legal entity documents together, make sure everything’s kind of in a good spot.

[00:30:25] Because when they go to those other lenders, you know, the, the fast money lenders, high interest rate stuff, they don’t care what kind of shape the business is in. They’re looking at, they’re looking at bank statements. They’re looking at can this person make the payments based on these bank statements and maybe some other metrics and, uh, credit, whatever, and they’re sending the money their way.

[00:30:47] And so these people. Almost get hamstrung a little bit by the fact that they do so well. Right? They’re doing so well. They know how to make money so well, but they’re hamstringing themselves by not actually laying the foundation for their business and laying, um, setting it up for future success and scaling.

[00:31:13] And I think that that’s the thing that, for me, I saw and did a ton of research, learned a lot about SaaS businesses and getting yourself to a point where, Hey, I’ve got, uh, product market fit. My business is doing well, and now I’m gonna set it up to scale. Right? And the few companies that come in that we see that are scaling.

[00:31:38] You can tell they’ve got, they’ve got their team in place, they’ve got their management in place, they’ve got their strategies in place. They know the direction they’re going. I mean, I just closed a loan recently where we refinanced a bunch of debt for a business. They were probably doing, you know, what were they doing?

[00:31:58] Eight figures revenue. And it’s because they had set themselves up and put in place all these great systems to grow the business. And so that same sort of, um, those tactics that they use in SaaS for growing and scaling a business can be used in what we would consider more, the more brick and mortar, the boring businesses.

[00:32:23] But it’s those boring businesses that we see that come in that are like so many times, I’m just gobsmacked looking at their, their financials because they do so well. There’s, it’s just like, oh, I’m just selling, um, these honeycomb, uh, manufactured pieces for a certain type of engine, and they literally kill it just with that.

[00:32:50] So those are the things that I think are inspiring, is seeing how we can basically help these businesses. And coming from the attorney background, I, I value very highly setting things up the right way, making sure things are done in a way that’s, that you set yourself up for, for success in the future.

[00:33:12] Shane: Well, what you just heard was what Brian likes to geek out on a, a daily basis when it comes to how to solve all problems for all businesses and the technology that’s involved. We talked about it again this morning, and the idea of build, building ag agent systems to op, automate and, and, uh, make everyone’s lives easier.

[00:33:30] So therein lies Bryant. So if you ever wondered what the hell he’s thinking about on a day to day basis, when you see him staring off into the wall, it’s, it’s usually that. And it’s, it’s funny because that’s one of the questions we were gonna ask our ask each other is, is what do you geek out on? But it was supposed to be nothing to do with business or finance, and sadly. I don’t, I don’t think I, well, I probably got a couple, but I don’t know if Brian does. Right. He, he literally, the, the things that he,

[00:33:55] Brian: Hobbies,

[00:33:56] Shane: at hobby wise.

[00:33:57] Brian: things that I geek out on.

[00:33:59] Shane: Ai. Ai crap. Right. And it’s like, it’s actually business and finance related. You love the, the

[00:34:04] Brian: I mean, I am literally sitting here vibe coding while talking.

[00:34:11] Shane: yeah.

[00:34:12] Brian: So I mean, it’s like I cannot get enough of it. I cannot get enough of it. It’s like, it’s like all these things that I loved in theory about SaaS companies. All of a sudden now with ai, I. So many of those things are accessible without having to have a team of engineers.

[00:34:32] Granted, you know, you want to, you want to do, you want to take a business with a massive tam, right? And you want to take it like, I’m gonna sell this thing. I’m gonna get a make a unicorn, sell this thing for billions of dollars. Like, great, you can do that. You gotta have the technology skills to do that.

[00:34:50] Great. But for the rest of us, all of this stuff is totally accessible and things that I think need to be implemented by everyone.

[00:34:58] Steph: That was that. Let’s, let’s stop there for a

[00:35:02] Shane: There we go. Let’s, let’s,

[00:35:04] Steph: So, case in point, when Brian starts to geek out about this stuff, this is where you, you start laughing and I, my a DD kicks in and I’m like, I wonder if I’m hungry. Am I hungry or am I thirsty?

[00:35:19] Shane: is why,

[00:35:20] Steph: I just head nod.

[00:35:21] Shane: this is why you

[00:35:22] Steph: And then, and then when he comes to take a breath, I’m like, okay. So

[00:35:27] Brian: Back to what we were talking about. Yeah.

[00:35:28] Steph: yeah, whatcha geek out about Shane?

[00:35:32] Shane: Oh my gosh. Outside of this, Brian, you know, all this stuff

[00:35:36] Brian: Well yours is like a rolling it. It changes

[00:35:39] Shane: constantly changes, man. I,

[00:35:40] Brian: changing.

[00:35:41] Shane: and it, it has to do with who I tend to be around. I don’t know if it’s an identity crisis.

[00:35:45] Steph: we, you had this one borrower once who was a woodworker and all of a sudden you were

[00:35:50] Shane: I was the woodwork. I built my own damn tables. I learned how to weld. I honestly, that’s the weird stuff that comes out, is like, I tend to gravitate towards the hobbies of the people that are around me to the things that I get really into right now. I’ve got a son that has the same problem I do, except for he leans in even harder on passions.

[00:36:07] And so the dude got into, uh, to drones, like flying fp, like first person view drones. This is, which is freaking incredible. And I think I got really impressed with it because it wasn’t just like, let’s go fly an RC car. You know, like a little, little like remote control car on the ground. Like these things are flying like 80, 90 miles an hour. Doing, doing tricks and moves. I dunno if anybody wants to look that up, go look up FPV drone flying and it’ll blow your damn mind some of the, the, the ability to do that. So I started geeking out on that ’cause my son started geeking out on that. But it shows that it’s, it’s always has to do with who’s into what.

[00:36:38] That’s around me at any given point in time. And so I’ve, I’ve gone through that. I’ve done woodworking, I’ve done offroading. I learned how to, I bought a car and, and nerded it out. And I had this buddy that was an auto mechanic and he told me all the things to get. So I went and got all the things. I think being a sales guy and having access to some, some capital allowed me to go really explore it deep and do it a little too quick.

[00:36:58] And so I would get in and outta these things really fast and probably lose my tail on every one of it. I I never made any money in any of this. You’d think that someday I might actually get to a point where I could convert that into a profit making environment. But No, no. It’s just the, it’s just the whole, the pour money into that keeps me somewhat engaged in like the, the whole idea was, my uncle actually said this, uh, when I started out in the industry and I, my uncle who’s got me into this, a little bit of nepotism. He is like, you gotta have something, that like motivates you outside to wanna work harder inside, if that makes any sense. So like having, having something that you’re looking forward to, whether it’s a vacation every quarter or if it’s a, if it’s a hobby, like that next motorcycle, this guy goes, he would go down to ride dirt bikes in Baja. So he always wanted to like be able to buy the next bike or like upgrade his bike to be able to make it even more epic. And he would do that, you know, three to four times a year. And that’s, he used this job to help motivate him to go do that or like a car, some, something that, that kind of pushed him to keep, keep him on it.

[00:37:58] Of why, why he would do this crazy job every day that makes you go gray, bald slash stressed and have high blood pressure. So I think that that was, that was mine. That’s kind of what, what pulled me in that kinda where I sit today. But Steph is the one that has also many talents, but she tends to master all of those damn talents. Talk us through a couple of the ones that you’ve done outside of this, Steph, I know you’ve got a, a myriad

[00:38:21] Steph: I geek out a lot. Yeah. I’m on a whole different stratosphere, man. My brain, like, if I could show everybody my brain, it’s really scary.

[00:38:30] Shane: Yeah.

[00:38:30] Steph: a very, uh, I’m a quintessential multitasker man. I am always doing six things at the exact same time, kind of like Brian coding right now.

[00:38:41] Shane: Yeah.

[00:38:41] Steph: I geek out on, you know, my, like, if I had to sum it up in one word, is I geek out on self-help

[00:38:47] Shane: Self help.

[00:38:48] Steph: not talking psychoanalysis.

[00:38:50] I hate that when someone’s always trying to like, give me my psychoanalysis of, of my personality type. I’m like, no, no, no. I don’t want that. I geek out on self-help. I geek out. I read, I think I’ve read every leadership book like three times. Uh, the principles of leadership and people. I geek out on what makes people tick.

[00:39:09] And because of that, my hobbies have formed. So like I geek out on movies and Hollywood ’cause I love the movies and Hollywood that shape the world and that influence influence. I love that. Uh, so I geek out on anything that is related to human behavior. And that’s probably why I like, I I, I’m the friend that will send you the quote of the day, like, I’m that person.

[00:39:34] Every day I send out to all my friends, I laugh for about 20 minutes to myself. ’cause I think it’s funny as hell. And I send everybody the joke or the, and I like the, the incorporation of humor and self-help too. ’cause if you can’t laugh at yourself, I mean boy, you know, life gets depress depressing. So I like that aspect of life.

[00:39:52] So yeah, all my hobbies are around that. The self-help people. Uh, every day being better, uh, leaving an impact on the world. Uh, legacy. I geek out on legacy. I’m always of the mind like, okay, uh, when we’re 80, legacy are we gonna have leave behind? And what are people gonna say about our impact to the world?

[00:40:16] Shane: Yeah.

[00:40:16] Steph: that’s what my biggest fear, I think, is to 80 and regret not having done all the things I wanted to do. That’s my biggest fear is, oh man, I wish, I wish I would have started a business. I wish I would have tried that one thing. You know, I think we take advantage of time. So often we think we’ll have more time, more time, more time.

[00:40:39] And here you are, you’re 50. You’re like, okay,

[00:40:42] Shane: Crap.

[00:40:42] Steph: to get this party started.

[00:40:44] Shane: Yeah. This is like an eternal midlife crisis moment for all of us. I mean, all three of us are in our forties right now trying to figure this out. You’re coming over the edge there, Steph, but it’s still, it’s that phase of, oh shoot, what am I missing out on? What have I already missed out on and how can I take advantage of it now?

[00:40:59] Steph: even what we do. I mean, look, I was, I was reading through these questions here and like, when did you think your, if you think back on a time when your career took a left turn and how did, what changes did you have to make? I mean,

[00:41:14] Shane: So many damn left turns. Holy crap. I feel like I’ve been going in circles.

[00:41:18] Steph: I’ve been turning left my whole

[00:41:20] Shane: All I can do is turn left and I just turning left and I can’t stop turning left and it’s driving me insane. Why the hell am I still turning left? Turn right damnit like that’s

[00:41:28] Steph: And, and then we would show up at work every day and we, we laugh at the things that we can’t believe are happening, but we continue to ride the merry-go-round.

[00:41:38] Shane: right. Merry go. Always going left. Dammit.

[00:41:43] Steph: Yeah.

[00:41:44] Shane: That is a perfect,

[00:41:44] Steph: my question for you guys. Um, when. What was the weirdest or the most difficult left turn in your life slash career?

[00:41:55] Shane: Hmm. Left turn.

[00:41:58] Brian: I know what mine is it, and it’s probably the thing that got me into doing this. SBAI was doing legal work and I had gone to, I went to a firm, uh, my first law firm was a big firm. And so I was like, well, you know, I was getting to a point where I was like, I don’t know if I love doing what I’m doing and I’m not sure if it’s just the big firm lifestyle or if it’s being an attorney doing, uh, transactional work.

[00:42:25] And so I got to a point where I was like, well, I’m gonna try a smaller firm doing the same sort of thing and see if it’s just the firm size, the grind, et cetera. So I went and interviewed at this firm down in Orange County and um, ended up not getting that job. And so I took a different one. Basically down the street in LA and then, uh, really enjoyed that one.

[00:42:52] But the firm in Orange County called me back like a year later and said, Hey, we’re looking again. We wanted to know if you were interested at all. And so at the time I was like, yeah, my wife’s from Orange County. I thought it would be a great fit. Went down there. Ended up, long story short, got the job, started working there, and very quickly found out that, uh, I just did not jive very well with the attorneys in that office.

[00:43:18] There was one that I got along with really well. Um, but I don’t know, man, compared to the attorneys that I worked with in, uh, in la these folks were just different, a different breed. And so I started butting heads with, what’s that?

[00:43:34] Shane: Is it Orange County?

[00:43:35] Brian: Yeah, I don’t know what it was, but I just started butting heads with one of the attorneys there and simultaneously was really falling out of love with what I was doing and like getting super depressed and feeling terrible about every day going to have, having to go in and do this job.

[00:43:55] And so that combined with butting heads with this attorney, basically I got to the point where I was like, well, this attorney wanted me to do something. I said, no, because I had previously asked for the day off, and this attorney was like, well, you know, it’s a, it’s a closing, blah, blah, blah. I’m not in, I need you to do it.

[00:44:12] And I’m like, well, you should be in, you’re the, you’re the partner. I’m not, I already told you I wasn’t gonna be there. So, uh, did that and didn’t look back. And then a week later they said they were gonna let me go. And so that’s when I called this guy and literally next day. I’m interviewing with you, Steph, and getting hired doing this.

[00:44:39] ’cause I was like, I just, I need to take a break. At the time I was thinking I just need to take a break from law and from doing what I was doing and you know, now I’m almost nine years in and

[00:44:53] Steph: this is the left turn.

[00:44:55] Shane: This is

[00:44:55] Brian: this is no, the left turn was, that was leaving law. I mean, I, I thought that I had gone into law school knowing that I would not probably be in law forever, but didn’t think that that was gonna be the way that I would go out.

[00:45:10] And so now doing this, yeah, there’s ups and downs, but man, it is a heck of a lot better.

[00:45:17] Shane: Yeah.

[00:45:18] Steph: interesting. ’cause I always fantasize about being the Lincoln lawyer. Like that’s where

[00:45:22] Brian: Well, I wasn’t, I wasn’t the Lincoln lawyer like doing, there’s a difference. Even in law school, I had experienced doing, um. Litigation and doing some pro bono stuff. Like when I worked at the, my first firm, we did pro bono hours every year that we had to do. And so doing that sort of stuff, like, that’s amazing.

[00:45:44] The only problem is you make peanuts doing it. And so for me, I was like, well, I, I gotta support the fam, so I gotta go take a job that’s gonna pay me to support my family. But yeah, doing the Lincoln Lawyer stuff like that stuff is interesting. And that stuff, you know, it’s amazing. I love doing it.

[00:46:04] Steph: yeah,

[00:46:05] Shane: Hmm. It my turn. My left turn.

[00:46:09] Steph: your

[00:46:09] Shane: Okay.

[00:46:09] Brian: Shane’s left turn.

[00:46:11] Shane: Oh, I like that. It’s, it’s the, the hitting the point of failure. And how quick do you recover? that’s, that’s essentially what I hear from Brian’s story. Like it’s things you went completely south. That was a really quick damn left turn guy. Oh, didn’t mention at that moment your wife was about to have a baby, if I

[00:46:27] Brian: Yeah. Yeah. That’s how I know. That’s how I know how long I’ve done this is I think about, well, how old is my son? He’s eight. That’s how I’ve been doing this. Because he was literally born, and then the next day I got a job,

[00:46:42] Shane: Yeah. Okay. So my, my left

[00:46:45] Brian: which was classy, by the way, by that law firm. They knew that that was coming. They let me go anyway.

[00:46:50] Shane: dick move. It was a

[00:46:51] Brian: We’ll leave it there.

[00:46:52] Steph: There. There you go. So that explains who they were in a nutshell.

[00:46:55] Brian: Right?

[00:46:56] Shane: Didn’t even give a damn, um, and didn’t even have the conversation, which is really sad. We’ll complain about them more later. The, okay, so my moment came from, I like, because I’ve always been in SBA it, I was at my second bank and the, I could tell something was starting to go sideways when they weren’t. Approving any more loans. I had great first year and was doing awesome, but I was starting to having problems, just getting stuff approved. It was the worst environment for approving loans I’ve ever been in. Just to the inability to really nail down what the hell a transaction was like if it would get approved or not. You know, you can usually build a profile when you’re working with your credit person to help to know what’s, what’s, uh, what, what deals will work and not work. I couldn’t get there and I was, I, I did okay, but it started going sideways. Well, my problem was, is I, I was making good money again, and I was going through that wave, but I just bought a house thinking, okay, this is gonna be my ride going forward to the future.

[00:47:46] It saw the other dudes who were successful and had other business and, um, that started cutting off and I started failing. I wasn’t getting deals done. I had no idea what was happening. I was on my own. It was my first venture away from people I knew into a, a, an institution where I didn’t know anybody. And so the, the, the whole income, not, not lining up with budgets and all that other stuff pushed me almost to the point of bankruptcy. I luckily didn’t ever have to get to that point, but I was not able to afford living where I was anymore. That was the housing crisis. So I couldn’t sell the place and make any money.

[00:48:18] I would’ve been upside down if I, if I tried to sell. So I had to stay in the place for six months and financially got, had to do like a modification to work through all that jazz. Um, and got to, I had to make the decision, do I stay, I was in California. Do I stay in California living in a condo that costs $500,000 and try to keep surviving living and paying taxes and everything else there? Or do I gotta move? Is it time to exit the, uh, the motherland, if you will, and go find a new, a new turf? And it got to the point where I just couldn’t afford it anymore. Had had started a, at another bank to try to see if that would ramp up that institution. Didn’t want to. They, they told me they would rent lend Nationwide, but they weren’t lending nationwide yet. where all my business was on the East Coast. And like, oddly enough, being in California, that’s where I was picking up a lot of volume. And they’re like, oh no, we’re actually just gonna do these western states for the next little bit. I’m like, guys, that the whole reason I’m here right now is because you said you’d learn nationwide. So it was the perfect storm of everything, kind of going sideways and making bad career decisions. And then me having to decide do I stick it out in California or do I move? And inevitably we moved. I went and I lived in my brother’s freaking attic for like six months, completely reset financially and had to like figure out life again. And, and it, that was, that was a hard move. ’cause I was pulled myself, my wife, and two, my three kids to go live up my brother’s attic for six months and figure out I gotta restart, gotta go buy, get, get a, uh, rent a, a house for a minute and decide if, if this career was still good. I was already questioning whether or not I leave this damn job too.

[00:49:48] I had went and interviewed at Panavision to try to be the, go into the fp and a department to, with a, a friend of my dad’s and to see if I can get into that, that world. Anything I had looked at insurance thinking I need screw SBA loans. This world, it’s not cut out for it. It’s never coming back. I, I cycled through all of that hole of, uh, depression and stress to try to figure it all out.

[00:50:10] But that move of changed my trajectory. That was all, it was the right move. It got my family to a better place that I could live financially. It, it lined up better for my kids, for my wife at that time, allowed me to be closer to a couple other family members. And, and we, uh, were able to kind of just now with the, the ups and downs pro progress into life to where we’re at today.

[00:50:31] Even so, and it, and it becomes that you begin to realize that, that the financial side of all of this isn’t the most, isn’t, isn’t, isn’t the, it doesn’t give me the most satisfaction. It doesn’t. I, I can close a loan, make a lot of money, I get to the end of that and all of a sudden I’m here, I am doing it again.

[00:50:46] Steph: Mm-hmm.

[00:50:47] Shane: Even in the, the, the years that I’ve made the most money that I’ve ever made in this industry. It was though that moment of not having anything that I think prepped me to realize what the hell really matters out of all of this. So what, what is the effort that I’m putting into it? It’s honestly to create experiences for my family, create experiences in life to, to get the most out of this.

[00:51:03] So I don’t feel like I, I missed out on deciding to go on that damn vacation. ’cause it’s gonna be worth it. You’re never gonna forget it. Right? Like that, those kind of elements. Um mm-hmm. Um, so that, that’s what I’ve shifted from and I think that was my biggest left turn that happened outside of day-to-day career, but was driven by what was happening in my career. But Steph, you, I want to hear yours. This is the, this is like the,

[00:51:25] Steph: Oh boy.

[00:51:26] Shane: the fun story. You got a left turns.

[00:51:28] Steph: gonna take a moment to share a little nugget of wisdom right now. You know what’s really interesting is listening to your left turns. all the left turns in our lives and the ones that you just described led to a great outcome.

[00:51:43] Shane: Yeah.

[00:51:44] Steph: I think that’s one thing to keep in perspective.

[00:51:45] Like when we’re in a rut and feeling like, oh man, I’m on a left turn right now. just tell yourself. But then over the horizon, something good is waiting for me. So I gotta just power through man, power through. ’cause there’s good stuff that’s waiting for us. So I love that. I love the ups and downs.

[00:52:01] That’s what makes it so exciting. Right. I had one similar to me too. I’ve had a lot of left turns, man. Oh boy. I had a left turn working for a bank in California, and same thing, the market crashed. They decided to not lend outside of California. So I was like, all right, I could leave Chicago and move to California and I don’t have a book of business in California only

[00:52:23] Shane: Mm-hmm.

[00:52:23] Steph: so, or I do something else.

[00:52:26] So I was sitting on my couch. Bridget Jonesing by myself eating a TV dinner, watching reality tv. And that’s when the, I was watching The Apprentice at the end of the, I literally remember sitting on the couch crying, feeling sorry for myself, thinking, I’m gonna lose my job. I’m not moving to California. I was at a crossroad and at the end of the Apprentice that said, if you think you’re the next apprentice, uh uh, go to audition in New York City on Monday.

[00:52:51] And I put down my bottle of wine and I was like, what? I’m gonna be on The Apprentice because I like, felt like God’s talking to me. God told me, go to New York City. And sure enough, I did. I got on a plane. I flew to New York City on Monday, auditioned and made it on The Apprentice. I called my boss and said, Hey, Brian.

[00:53:14] Um, by the way, I quit. I can’t tell you where I’m going, but you’ll see me soon. And he is like, are you okay? Is everything okay? I said, yeah, I’m going backpacking in Uganda. He’s like, no, you’re not, you’re not going backpacking in Uganda, but if you need help, call me. I said, okay, I’ll see you in six months.

[00:53:32] And so I quit and went on the Apprentice. So again, it was like a moment where I, it was a complete reset. I didn’t know what I was doing. I thought, this is a midlife crisis that I’m having, but I’m going for it. ’cause now I’m on this show, so I gotta do it.

[00:53:46] Shane: Yeah.

[00:53:47] Steph: it turned out to be an experience of a lifetime. I got to meet amazing, crazy people do all these amazing crazy things on national tv. I got fired, hence why I’m back schlepping loans with you guys. but it was a, it was an interesting reset. Sometimes you need that. Sometimes you need a reset to just get outta your head to, to. and rejuvenate and, and reenergize.

[00:54:18] And then I came back to the business and I came back stronger than ever. It was like a break sometimes is a, is a nice reset.

[00:54:26] Shane: Interesting profile. I mean, yeah. Yeah. That’s, that, that story’s in Clark, she got to second. Uh, did you, did you mention that? Did she gotta the really

[00:54:34] Steph: in every,

[00:54:35] Shane: the end

[00:54:35] Steph: every episode, but one because I was great for the soundbites. I

[00:54:39] Shane: Yeah.

[00:54:40] Steph: Kim Kardashian to wait in the car. I couldn’t risk losing the task. I told her, just wait downstairs man. I don’t need you on this one. I got it.

[00:54:47] Shane: that’s freaking awesome. No, that, that, that attitude is, is part of the reason I’ve, it’s been a very entertaining ride in working with, to say the least.

[00:54:57] Steph: Yeah. So

[00:54:57] Shane: help.

[00:54:58] Steph: my five minutes of fame when I took a break from SBA.

[00:55:01] Shane: Yeah. Good.

[00:55:02] Steph: five minutes of fame became 10 minutes when he ran for president the first time. And then he ran for president the second time. So now I’m up to 15 minutes. And now Amazon just released the episodes, which I’m dreading

[00:55:12] Shane: Um,

[00:55:13] Steph: oh man,

[00:55:14] Shane: we’re gonna,

[00:55:15] Brian: I,

[00:55:15] Shane: if we can pull soundbites from that and just psychoanalyze it for fun. Right.

[00:55:19] Steph: We gotta,

[00:55:20] Brian: yeah.

[00:55:20] Shane: Oh man. That’s.

[00:55:22] Steph: yeah. There was this one episode where one of the girls was like, that’s Stephanie boy. She just likes we will run you over like a bus. I’m like, yeah, I’ll run you over and then I’ll back up and I’ll run again. And so, and these, these poor girls were like deer in the head, like, this woman’s crazy.

[00:55:40] You,

[00:55:41] Shane: I, I appreciate that. Crazy. To be entirely honest, like I said, it does keep us entertained to say the least.

[00:55:48] Steph: it

[00:55:48] Shane: Oh, man.

[00:55:48] Steph: us entertaining. Keeps us going for sure.

[00:55:51] Shane: Goodness. All right. Should we wrap this up here? We’ve got any, any other points that we need to hit on? Let’s see.

[00:55:56] Steph: see if there’s a, is there any important questions here that we, I. Oh,

[00:56:01] Shane: cut into this.

[00:56:02] Steph: I wanted to ask you guys, ’cause

[00:56:03] Shane: Alright. Let’s

[00:56:04] Steph: always fascinating.

[00:56:05] Shane: our final, final one. That cool?

[00:56:07] Steph: one, and I’m always interested to hear what people think. ’cause I think about this a lot. right, do you think you’re good at this? And what makes you think you’re good at this? So do you think you’re good? why is it that you think you’re good? And, and I wanna say this job, let’s say

[00:56:27] Shane: Okay. Who do you want to start that?

[00:56:30] Steph: you go Brian.

[00:56:31] Shane: Brian? You go.

[00:56:33] Brian: Um, why do I think I’m good? Yes. Uh, I think I’m good because. The feedback that I get from borrowers and the brokers I work with, you know, the fact that they, I’d say probably the majority of them will be like, Hey, I’m only coming, I’m only sending your bank stuff because you’re there. That type of feedback is what tells me, oh, okay, I’m must be doing something.

[00:57:01] Okay. You know

[00:57:03] Steph: What makes you so good?

[00:57:05] Brian: what makes me so good?

[00:57:07] Steph: Yeah. Why are you

[00:57:08] Brian: Uh,

[00:57:09] Steph: Why would he send it just to you?

[00:57:11] Brian: I think because I care about the experience that the customer is going through, I care about the experience that the brokers that I work with are going through. And so my goal is to make it as good of an experience as possible. And so the things that, you know, one of the questions we had on there was like, would you, when was the last time you thought about quitting or something like that?

[00:57:36] And I’m like, well, I, we joked, I. Before the call that like, yeah, literally like last week or yesterday? Yesterday. And the reason, the reason is because with this job it’s like I care so much about that and I know it’s the same for the three of us. You put in so much effort into caring and trying to make it a good experience.

[00:58:00] And when you can’t control every aspect of that experience and make it what you believe like that ideal scenario should be, that is disheartening. And when people are permitted to continue doing the same things they’re doing that don’t promote that type of experience, that is even more disheartening.

[00:58:23] And so, you know, I’ve shared this with you both, but my wife sent me this, this meme or something that said something along the lines of like, when you let your worst employee continue to act terrible, it demotivates your best employees.

[00:58:39] Shane: Yeah.

[00:58:40] Brian: So that’s, that’s something that’s, that’s rampant in any organization and something that management is always probably trying to, to deal with.

[00:58:50] But yeah, that’s, that’s something that kind of irks me. So yeah, those, that’s the thing that I think probably sets me apart is just caring about the customer experience. And I think that that’s probably a common theme with us.

[00:59:02] Shane: Yeah.

[00:59:03] Steph: I love that. I love that. What about you, Shane?

[00:59:06] Shane: Honestly, the, the only reason I would, would say, and it’s not to even sound, I’m very confident in my ability to perform nearly every aspect of my job. And I, the reason I have that level of confidence is in a matter of ego, I failed at every aspect of my job. At some point in my career, I can’t even begin to tell you how many failures somebody needs in order to become a master.

[00:59:28] Right? And so when, when, you have seen many loans get declined and had to figure out new ways to get different transactions to work. seen businesses fail and and learned. Learned from watching that failure themselves and then just crashed and burned yourself, said the dumb thing, enter too fast on a bad email, like you have to screw up and you gotta sometimes screw up hard. To be able to get into a position where I think you’re actually can call yourself a level of mastery. You have some level of mastery. And so I really think I’m very damn good at this specifically because I live with a constant sense of anxiety to avoid the same dumb mistakes that I’ve made in the past already. So when that level of anxiety just kinda wells up and kind of creates a pathway, it actually does. I can look through it all and see a light at the end of the tunnel. It’s like, okay, I know where my success point is. I know that this way is just another wall. I know where the walls are in my career, and that helps me not venture down a path that is gonna waste a lot of people’s time.

[01:00:24] It’s gonna waste my time and gonna inevitably fail on a transaction. So like that, I think that that makes my failures make it so that I am, I am successful at my job. I, I have screwed up enough to not wanna screw up anymore and know how to avoid those, those pathways. So I think that that is what would make me successful in doing any transactions.

[01:00:43] And I’ll tiptoe and I’ll set expectations early to say, guys, don’t do this, this, or this. ’cause you will fail. And that, that helps, that, that helps kinda keep it raw with the customer so that they know that I’m not messing around and I know what the hell I’m talking about. So that gives, gives you the, i, I use the term moral authority. It really gives you moral authority when talking to customers and talking to anybody else that you work with because you’ve been there, you’ve screwed up that hard and you’ve had to fix it. And it’s not fun. I mean that, so that’s, that’s where I live with all of it.

[01:01:12] Steph: I love it. It’s hard for anyone, and especially I know both of you. It is hard to say. Admit you’re good at something. ’cause human nature wants to, like, we would, we wanna be humble. We don’t wanna appear arrogant. Our society tells us we shouldn’t be arrogant. You know, you always have to credit everyone else.

[01:01:31] And, you know, if you take credit for yourself, you’re, you’re, it’s arrogance is not good. Right.

[01:01:35] Shane: Yeah.

[01:01:36] Steph: And, and that’s interesting because for me, I’ve always like I said, you know, I’m, I geek out about self-help and stuff. I’ve always believed in myself. And because of that, it came across as arrogant or turned people off.

[01:01:49] ’cause they thought, oh, who does she think she is?

[01:01:51] Shane: Yeah,

[01:01:51] Steph: has been my whole career. But I’ll tell you what, I’m the best at this job. I’m the best. And I’ll tell you why, because I worked my ass off

[01:02:01] Shane: yeah.

[01:02:02] Steph: work my ass off. For everyone that come contacts me and wants my help,

[01:02:07] Shane: Yeah.

[01:02:07] Steph: do it. I’ll help, I’ll do everything I can. And so my mentality is I’ll do everything I can to help you and if I can’t do it. No one can I will outwork everyone. I’ll, I won’t stop. Can’t stop. Won’t stop.

[01:02:22] Shane: Well, and I can validate that that’s the, again, part of the reason that, that I follow Stephanie is number one, her loyalty to both me, Brian, the team that she works with and the customers that she’s serving. So she’s not just blowing smoke, she actually does work her ass off and she’s working till 12 o’clock at night, waking up in the middle of the night, not able to sleep over it.

[01:02:41] We’ve had these conversations, I’ve gotten texts to the group at, at that time in the night, like her, with her trying to come up with an idea of how to solve a problem on a deal. Like that’s, that’s the, that’s the energy that exists around it. So, I mean. To, to wrap all of this up, you’ve got to meet your Lord.

[01:02:56] You got to meet Steph. You gotta meet Brian, myself. And I’m, I’m hoping it gives you some validation as to what sets us apart in the way that we’re gonna approach tra transactions. That we’re, we’re gonna be calling BS on, on the status quo and, and help you to know exactly where we’re coming from and, and solutions that can act actually get you there.

[01:03:14] So we’ve all taken different paths to get here, we landed on the same mission. It’s to get real money into the hands of real business owners without the runaround, which you will get if you go search the market to try to find capital. So if you’re vibing with, uh, what we’re building here, stick around.

[01:03:31] We’ve got a lot more to say and a lot more to do. So catch you next time. This is Lords of Lending. Hit subscribe. Follow