[00:00:00] Speaker A: How can I bring fun into my life every day?
[00:00:02] Speaker B: 20 things a day equals 100 a week.
[00:00:05] Speaker C: Every time I turned around on Instagram and Facebook, I just kept seeing you guys.
[00:00:08] Speaker D: I'm Richard Gerhardt.
[00:00:09] Speaker E: And I'm Elizabeth Gearhart. You just heard some snippets from our show. It was a great one. Stay tuned to hear tips about how you can start your business.
[00:00:19] Speaker F: Ramping up your business. The time is near. You've given it hard. Now get it in Gear.
It's Passage to Profit with Richard and Elizabeth Gearhart.
[00:00:30] Speaker D: I'm Richard Gearhart, founder of Gearhart Law, a full service intellectual property law firm specializing in patents, trademarks and copyrights.
[00:00:38] Speaker E: And I'm Elizabeth Gearhart, founder of Gear Media Studios, Passage to Profit, co host, podcast consultant, speaker, and Gearhart Law chief marketing officer.
[00:00:48] Speaker D: Welcome to Passage to Profit the Road to Entrepreneurship where we talk with celebrities and entrepreneurs about their stories and their business ventures. We're climbing new summits with a powerhouse panel as we explore how to build a thriving business without burning out your life. Sahil Mehta is an entrepreneur, success coach, author, keynote speaker, and mountaineer. He reveals how ambitious leaders can scale success, conquer life summits, and live with clarity, purpose, and zero regrets.
[00:01:21] Speaker E: And then we have two amazing guests as well. Brady Sticker, founder of Church Candy Marketing, is the marketing mastermind and ministry innovator who's helped over a thousand churches grow, connect 280,000 plus people, and turned digital strategies into thriving congregations. You know, this is not something I would have thought of doing, but man, it's really working. So you'll have to listen to how he does this. And then we have our good friend Tom Rag, who's a mortgage Expert with over 20 years of experience who's going to talk about the current market. He helps families turn their homeownership dreams into reality while navigating the complexities of loans.
And he's really been effective for a lot of people. So can't wait to hear from him about what's going on.
[00:02:07] Speaker D: I can't wait. I'm always interested in learning about the mortgage market. Right. So something to stay tuned for. But before we get to our distinguished guests, it's time for your new business journey. Two in five Americans are business owners or thinking about starting a business. And so we want to ask our panel, what do you think is the most common mistake first time entrepreneurs make when starting a business? And then how can they avoid it? So welcome to the show. Sahil, what are some common mistakes from first time entrepreneurs?
[00:02:42] Speaker A: One common flaw that I See, with many entrepreneurs that I come across is they spread their net too wide. They want to target everyone. Different ages, different economic backgrounds, different cultures, you name it, different interests. And what I love about one of our guests here, Brady, you know, he specializes in marketing for churches. So now, if I'm a church, and I'm thinking of, who do I go to for marketing? There's one name that comes to mind. Whereas if I'm just general digital marketing or marketing across all aspects, and I go, and I'm a church, I go, hey, who would I want to call? I mean, there's tens of thousands of people out there.
[00:03:19] Speaker D: It's really hard to be all things to all people, isn't it, too?
[00:03:22] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:03:22] Speaker D: So if you can pick a niche, I think that's a great comment.
[00:03:25] Speaker A: And the world is huge, so there's plenty of people out. There's no need to try to get everyone. And you asked, how can someone overcome this problem? Who's your ideal client? Describe that person, your avatar, and then just target that person. That's it.
[00:03:42] Speaker D: That's perfect. So, Brady, welcome to the show.
[00:03:44] Speaker C: Hey, thanks for having me, man.
[00:03:46] Speaker D: So tell us about your thoughts on mistakes that entrepreneurs make.
[00:03:51] Speaker C: You know, a lot of my friends, they know that I have a business, and they'll say, brady, I want to be like you. I want to start a business, too. I've got this idea. Look, I've spent hours and hours building my logo, and here's my website that I built. And they put all of this time to stay busy, but they haven't made any money yet.
[00:04:10] Speaker D: Right.
[00:04:11] Speaker C: Maybe you guys resonate with that. When you first get started in entrepreneurship, you spend a lot of time doing things that don't necessarily produce revenue. Right. There's a difference between staying busy and doing things that actually will lead to making money. You know, for us, I didn't have a company name, a logo, a website until I was already doing $20,000 a month in revenue.
[00:04:33] Speaker D: Wow.
[00:04:34] Speaker C: And so it's one of those things, like, don't just stay busy, like, focus on activities and doing things that are going to actually lead to selling that product or getting that new client.
[00:04:45] Speaker D: Absolutely. I mean, doing that means that you kind of have to get out there, Right. You have to meet some people or you have to post some content on the Internet. And so that's a big step for some people. And I think it's natural to kind of retreat and do the things that are insular, that don't necessarily involve being out there. Unless you're the type of Person who really loves being out there. And speaking of that, we have Tom Rag. Tom, welcome to the show and tell us about mistakes that first time entrepreneurs should avoid.
[00:05:14] Speaker B: Right. Well, thank you Richard and Elizabeth for having me. It's a pleasure to be here in beautiful New York City in my business. People who start up in the mortgage business tend not to look long or hard enough at other companies failures and they should be concentrating really on their successes. And what they don't do necessarily is look at the failures and, and really work hard enough to avoid those. Because mortgages have been in place since just after World War II. There's a lot of data out there and there's a lot of failed mortgage companies. There's a lot of really successful mortgage companies and we could certainly get into the details later, but people that are starting a new mortgage company or a new platform in this particular business should really look at what other companies did unsuccessfully and make sure they don't fall into those pitfalls.
[00:06:05] Speaker D: That sounds great. Getting a little education before you leap is amazing. Elizabeth.
[00:06:11] Speaker E: Yes.
The thing I'm most guilty of, which is a horrible place to be, is trying to do everything yourself. You just can't. You know what, and I know you, it's like where does the money come from to hire somebody? Well, find it somewhere, I don't know, you know, but really the things that you love doing, you should do the things that you are okay with, you should do the things that you really don't like doing. You should really try to find somebody to help you with those. And there are low cost alternatives now. There's fiverr for design, there's upwork, although it's a little expensive. And there are other places too. If you just dig around where you can find some help, that's not gonna break the bank. It doesn't have to be full time either.
[00:06:54] Speaker D: That's great. Well, you wanna delegate, that's for sure. Delegate is one of the keys to success.
I think one of the mistakes that entrepreneurs make, I've heard this over and over again, is just thinking that you're going to be rich in six months. Right. And that it's not going to be a struggle. You've got the killer idea, everybody's going to love it. They're going to beat a path to your door.
And it's not like that at all. And so what you should do, I think, is talk with other entrepreneurs, listen to passage to profit, hear stories about other entrepreneurial journeys to get a more realistic view of what's possible.
And that may actually help you in making decisions about moving forward and your business strategy and all of those things. So that was great. So now it's time for our guest. Sahil Mehta has climbed some of the world's tallest mountains, run marathons despite crippling injuries, even more impressive. And has coached billion dollar leaders, all while insisting that most of what we chase, impact in life is pointless.
[00:08:00] Speaker G: Whew.
[00:08:00] Speaker E: How do you reconcile that?
[00:08:03] Speaker D: Well, I want to hear about this, but he challenges the idea that success requires sacrifice, arguing that ambition should not come at the cost of your health, relationships, or sanity. So let's get into that first piece right away. What is the kind of, the tension, I guess the paradox with life being pointless yet shooting for success?
[00:08:24] Speaker A: Let's look at some facts. We have so many people in the public domain, sports stars, musicians, successful business folks who have made millions, maybe even billions, and yet they face mental health challenges, yet they face relationship issues, yet they have major health crises going on. And so then it begs the question that if everyone is chasing a similar definition of success, which media or you know, it's basically inherited, right? It's the media, social media, community, friends, family, telling you money.
[00:09:00] Speaker D: You think that's sort of our cultural definition of success? It just all comes down to money, right?
[00:09:04] Speaker A: And perhaps fame as well. Some people focus on fame too. Now, there's nothing wrong in making money. Please don't get me wrong, I enjoy making money. However, what am I giving up in order to make that money?
[00:09:16] Speaker D: You know, I guess in some ways the drive for success can become so strong that you're willing to give up a lot.
And the challenge is, is once you get down the road, you maybe you look back and you say, well, maybe I gave up a little too much, right? But how do you stay competitive and engaged, yet stay balanced?
[00:09:36] Speaker A: So the first thing that one must do is define what success means to them. Because if you're chasing someone else's definition of success, and I've again, I've seen this with so many of the business owners that I coach, they come to me and they check all the boxes. They have net worth in the millions.
They have a family, they live in a nice house or apartment, they drive a fancy car, they're traveling the world, et cetera, et cetera. You get it now in my definition as a 20 year old, again, which I'd inherited if I had all that, I'd be jumping up and down with joy. I'm like, I made it. But the reality is when I did get there myself, I, I didn't have those feelings. And I started to question what's going on. I mean, surely I should be super excited at this stage.
[00:10:20] Speaker D: So what kind of feelings did you have, though? You must have had some satisfaction.
[00:10:25] Speaker A: Oh, absolutely. But it's one of those things.
It's the satisfaction you get, perhaps when you eat an ice cream. Right. It's temporary, so it lasted for a short duration of time.
[00:10:36] Speaker D: So give up success and eat ice cream. You'll be in great shape.
[00:10:41] Speaker E: It's really interesting what you bring up because I feel like people say, well, you know, poor people don't work hard enough. And that's not true. If you know any people that aren't in the upper rungs, they work their butts off. I know people that don't have a lot of money that work really hard. They just aren't doing the right kind of work to make a high salary. So it's not really about working hard necessarily.
It's about putting your energy in the right place. Is that kind of what you're trying to tell people?
[00:11:10] Speaker A: Absolutely. That's definitely one of the things that need to be taken into consideration.
So, you know, I mentioned that I. That I'm a mountaineer. And in the mountaineering world, you have what's known as the Seven Summits, the tallest mountain on each continent. And when you conquer all of these, it's like you've conquered the world. So that made me question, what if we defined our internal seven Summits?
Because success, as we know, it's not just one thing. Yes, finance is absolutely important, but there are so many other elements to success.
So when you focus on defining your internal seven Summits, which may include family, health, recreation, community service, giving back personal growth, your business, et cetera, I mean, you get to decide. It's not my definition, it's not what the world is giving you. You get to decide for yourself what success means to you.
Once you've defined your seven Summits and you've prioritized them and you know which ones you can afford to drop and which temporarily and which ones you can't, then every decision that you have to make, that's a critical one, you can ask yourself, what's the net effect on my seven Summits? So just to give you an example, in the past I used to look at an opportunity which would increase my wealth, and I just say, yes, let's go. Because that was in tune with my definition of success at that time.
But at that point, I had given up many other things. Because when you say yes to something You've said no to many other things.
And what I realized when I was giving up, I was saying no to family time, I was saying no to health, and those started to degrade.
So now when I'm looking at a definition, I mean a choice that I have to make, I ask myself, what's the net effect? I'm looking at all seven areas, and as long as the overall direction is up, then I usually say yes. And if the overall direction is down the mountain, it just makes my life a lot easier to say no.
[00:13:06] Speaker D: We're here with Sahil Mehta, and I wanted to ask, do most people appreciate what their other values are besides making money? So if you're counseling a billionaire, you ask them, well, what are your seven peaks? Do they know the answer to that?
[00:13:25] Speaker A: People generally have a vague idea, but vague is not good enough to have clarity and make decisions. A lot of people will say, yes, health is important, but yet I see them making sacrifices again and again to their health. I've heard people say, yes, family is my top priority, yet they have a terrible relationship with either their child or their spouse. So it's easy to say one thing, but you have to face the mirror and ask yourself, am I actually living up to what I claim are my priorities, or is it just for namesake?
[00:13:58] Speaker E: It's so interesting because as a woman, and I think there are other women in my same boat, like, I purposely gave up the Financial Success Summit to stay home and take care of my kids. So I put that as the highest summit for a while in my life. And now they're grown and they're doing really well. So I'm glad I did that. It was a huge sacrifice for me. I have a PhD in analytical chemistry. I stepped away from the work world, but looking back, I'm glad I did it. And I've never really defined things as summits before and categorize them. So this is really helpful, I think.
[00:14:36] Speaker A: I love what you said, Elizabeth, because you also highlight the point that your definition of success can change over time as your phase in life evolves.
When you were a mother of children that were adolescents or below, you made a decision to be more of a mom.
And now that they're adults and perhaps, you know, on their own journeys of life, you've now changed your definition to suit your current situation.
So that's a great point. It's not something that's set in stone. It is something that can evolve as you evolve.
[00:15:11] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:15:11] Speaker D: On the other hand, I would say I probably focused too much on the financial piece. I was terrified that I wasn't going to be able to provide for my family. And so I worked like a madman for many years. I was in corporate environments where people were coming and going, and they. It seemed like the management intentionally kept people off balance because they felt that that was a route to productivity. Now, maybe I just worked for some really bad companies, I don't know. But that was eventually why I decided to go the entrepreneurial route, because I didn't want that kind of stress. And it turned out that there's different stresses, but at least I felt like I was in control of my own destiny. Right. And so that was very important. But I also. I mean, I was president plays and I was president games and all of that, but lots of times I wasn't psychologically present right where I was there, but my head was still back at the office because I was freaking out about some document that I had to generate by the end of the week. But I think it's great that you're looking at these things. I'm wondering, you're talking about seven summits, but are there actually more than that? Are most things sort of grouped into those categories?
[00:16:32] Speaker A: Look, there are lots of things that are important in your life, Richard, but what we encourage the folks to do is to define just seven. Anything beyond seven, I don't know. Seven has a magic number to it.
[00:16:44] Speaker D: It has a nice ring to it. Absolutely.
[00:16:45] Speaker A: And sure, you can add more, but then it just adds to the complexity of trying to monitor and track on a continuous basis. And seven is something you can manage fairly easily. Now, I have some folks who say, you know, seven's too much, and perhaps I only want to stick to five, but the reason why I push for seven. And I'll tell you, if I asked you, what are the three most important things in your life? Most business owners that I come across, they will say health, wealth, and relationships in general.
[00:17:14] Speaker C: Right.
[00:17:14] Speaker A: That's probably about 80% of the folks out there.
That resonates right now. When I tell you to think of seven, it encourages you to think about other areas of your life that are actually important.
Like for me personally, fun and recreation popped up as one of the seven.
Now, if you asked me to pick three or even four, perhaps five, I don't know if it would make it to the list. But because it was seven, it made me think about the smaller nuances. Well, I thought it was small, but I realized it's actually a very big part of my life.
[00:17:44] Speaker D: You got to have fun once in a while, right? I mean, I think that's so important and prioritizing it sounds like a great idea.
[00:17:51] Speaker F: Yeah.
[00:17:52] Speaker A: And I would even say is, now that I know it's one of my seven summits, I actually ask myself, how can I bring fun into my life every day? It doesn't have to be an activity that lasts for an hour or two. It could be something that's just listening to jokes for five minutes, for example. Right.
[00:18:07] Speaker D: I have a joke app on my. A dad joke app on my phone.
[00:18:10] Speaker E: It has to be one of your summits, because that is definitely one of my summits. Because every time something good happens, I'm like, oh, let's have a party.
[00:18:19] Speaker A: Please do invite me to the next one.
[00:18:20] Speaker E: Oh, yeah. Your heart law is celebrating its 20th anniversary. Anniversary in the summer. And you're going to be in New Jersey in the summer, right?
[00:18:26] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:18:27] Speaker E: Yeah. You're on the list.
[00:18:28] Speaker D: You're on the list. You're on the Friends of Gerhardt Law list. So, yeah, definitely.
[00:18:31] Speaker A: But I feel honored.
[00:18:33] Speaker D: So how do you help people then manage seven summits? Right? I mean, you have the financial, the work piece, the family piece, the health piece. Those are kind of obvious. But the other ones, you have like a KPI for that or something, a performance measurement.
[00:18:49] Speaker A: So the way it's done is people will pick seven from an extensive list that I provide because I don't want them to think of seven that I choose. It has to be their seven.
Once they've picked their seven, then it's important to understand.
Let's take a step back. Imagine you're juggling seven balls, because that's effectively what's happening here. You've got these seven balls. You're juggling them every day. And the reality is some of these balls are rubber balls. So if you drop them, they're going to bounce back. But there are others which are crystal balls where if you drop them, well, you know what happens there.
So it's important to identify from the seven which ones are your rubber balls and which ones are your crystal balls. Because too often I see business owners sacrificing the crystal balls for usually fame and money.
Money you can lose. We've heard of stories of millionaires or billionaires who've lost everything and they've bounced back.
But the thing is, once you get to a stage where you get diabetes, you have a chronic health issue, you have a stroke or a heart attack or something along those lines, life is never the same again.
[00:19:53] Speaker D: That's right.
[00:19:55] Speaker A: You're on medication for life or on some form of treatment.
So let's be clear. Which of these balls are crystal balls that you should not be avoiding? And here's a common error I see with many entrepreneurs or business owners. Oh, I'm just sacrificing it now for a month or two months.
And then two months later, they sacrifice. They find another reason to sacrifice, health or family. And then, you know, three months later, they find another reason to sacrifice. And then I tell them as a coach, I'm like, look, please don't call it a sacrifice anymore, because it's a choice. You keep choosing something else over what you've determined as one of your crystal balls.
It's not a crystal ball.
[00:20:36] Speaker E: You make such a good point. Because health, you can sometimes bounce back, but the time you lose with your family, with your children, you'll never get back.
And if that is on the bottom of your list, then, you know, 20 years from now, when you're going through your regrets, it'll be the top of your list.
[00:20:55] Speaker A: Right?
[00:20:56] Speaker D: Well, I think health is pretty much up there too, because, I mean, you can stop exercising for a couple of years and then start again. Right. But if you engage in bad habits that wear your body down to a certain point, then there's a point where it becomes extremely difficult to recover. Right. So I guess it's all kind of important. All of the summits are important.
[00:21:17] Speaker E: Well, I think one thing Sahil mentioned, though, that I agree with is fame is not as important.
So it may seem like a crystal ball, but it's not.
[00:21:25] Speaker H: Right?
[00:21:26] Speaker A: And that's why it's important to go through each one and really determine whether it is or not. And once you've determined which ones are crystal and rubber balls, then the key becomes, what does the summit actually look like? Because a lot of people haven't defined it. So what's a 10 out of 10 in health look like to you? Write it down. Don't think about it. Write it down. I mean, I don't know about the listeners here, but I can't remember something I thought about last week to the exact word.
[00:21:52] Speaker D: Right?
[00:21:52] Speaker A: Right. So by writing it down, I now have a record of it. And then every month I'm looking at it and saying, okay, how did I do this month? And then for the next month, what is one step I can take?
Because a lot of folks, they think about, oh, my goodness, I'm a 4 out of 10 right now. A 10 out of 10 just seems so far away. What do you have to do to get from 4 to 5?
And if that's a big step. How do you get from 4 to 4.1?
[00:22:18] Speaker D: That's a great question. We have to take a commercial break. We're here with Sahil Mehta, a very experienced and very introspective success coach. We'll be back with more after this.
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[00:24:29] Speaker F: Now back to Passage to Profit once again. Richard and Elizabeth Gearhart.
[00:24:34] Speaker D: Don't forget to experience more of Passage to Profit by subscribing to us on Facebook, Instagram X and YouTube or subscribing to our podcast anywhere you get your podcast, just look for the Passage to profit show on any of these platforms. And later in the show, we're going to have AI in Business, Intellectual Property News and Secrets of the Entrepreneurial Mind. So we're here with Sahil Mehta, and he's written an amazing book, Breaking Free. But you talked during the break about baggage that people bring with them during this mountain climb. So maybe you can talk a little bit about that.
[00:25:11] Speaker A: Absolutely. So the first step we talked about was defining what success means to you, which gives clarity, hence making decision making a lot easier.
The second phase is as you're climbing up the mountain, and I can tell you as a mountaineer, every pound counts. You think, oh, it's just an extra pair of socks or two. Right.
[00:25:29] Speaker D: Better be important socks.
[00:25:31] Speaker A: But over hours and hours, every pound counts. And so the question now becomes is, what is that excess baggage that you are carrying on your shoulders that for whatever reason, you haven't let go of? Right. And that's what the book is all about. It's how do you identify the clutter that's in your backpack and then eliminate it one at a time so you have a lighter backpack, which allows you to scale your summits of success faster?
[00:25:59] Speaker D: I would say I have a lot of clutter, but I do agree that when you can reduce the clutter, you calm your mind. I think you become more effective.
[00:26:08] Speaker E: So one thing you talk about that it says here is not just your mental and emotional clutter, but like household clutter. Like, I have way too many clothes in my closet and way too many pairs of shoes. And I think it does bother me to have to go look at that and just not be able to pull out what I want to wear for the day. So I do feel like clutter really weighs a person down, whichever form it comes in. Right.
[00:26:31] Speaker D: Well, and even physical clutter, like if you're, if you do exercise and you gain 10 pounds, that's 10 pounds that you're carrying around. If you pick up a 10 pound weight, that's a lot of weight. Right. So it kind of goes back to your climbing analogy.
[00:26:45] Speaker A: Absolutely. And I tell everyone everything you own occupies space in your head. If you think about your head as a parking lot, you know, in a parking lot, you got to pay to park your car. Now you have all these things parked in your parking lot rent free.
[00:27:00] Speaker C: Right.
[00:27:01] Speaker A: They're not, it's not paying anything unless if it has a function. If it has a function, great, that makes sense. By all means, keep it. Or if it gives you joy, yeah, keep it. But I've found That a lot of people have a lot of stuff that does neither. And so it's occupying space, not giving you any benefit, but it's still occupying space. And when you occupy that space, you're preventing potential great things entering your life because the parking lot's full.
[00:27:24] Speaker E: Yeah, I agree.
[00:27:26] Speaker D: So do you think that having a preoccupied mind makes you less effective? And so part of a growth strategy could be reducing all of the things that we're trying to keep in our head at a given time? I mean, that would be amazing if you could do that, because then I guess that would free us up to be more creative, more responsive, more present. How do you do that, though? I mean, you clean your house. I guess that's step one. Right. But are there other things?
[00:27:52] Speaker E: Is that in your book?
[00:27:54] Speaker A: There are definitely techniques in there. What I would say is a lot of people struggle with the monkey mind. It's just always, you know, jumping to different spots all the time. And even when you're present doing something like, for example, you're having your lunch or your dinner, you're perhaps thinking about something else, you're writing an email and you're already. Your mind is jumping to what has to happen next. And so how does one improve? Well, it's practice. You can't get amazing results unless if you go to, you know, physical results. If you. Unless if you do some form of exercise on a regular basis, it's not going to happen through some magic pill.
So the same way if you practice slowing down, just being more aware. Every time you catch yourself thinking about something which is not about what you're focusing on right now, just park it. I'll come back to you. And so it's that awareness. That awareness has to be strong. And what I do that helps me is I take. I call it. I take tea breaks throughout the day. I don't drink caffeine, but I have herbal tea.
And someone told me this, and I absolutely love it. It's not a cup of tea, it's a cup of time. And it just takes a few minutes. So if I just take, let's say, five tea breaks in a day, that's about five minutes each time where I can just slow down, enjoy the view outside the window, or just be in my thoughts for a little while. Just breathe deeply and just kind of bring it to the present.
And so that builds that muscle, that, that practice, right? You practice again and again and again, and eventually you find out, oh, wow, I can become present a lot faster.
[00:29:29] Speaker E: That's a great tip.
[00:29:30] Speaker D: He's a very calm person.
[00:29:32] Speaker E: He is.
[00:29:32] Speaker D: He has a very calm demeanor.
[00:29:34] Speaker E: Yes. I have a question for him. Do you coach people and these techniques? I know you've written the book, but what is your business? What do you actually. Do you coach people as a private coach? Do you coach groups?
[00:29:45] Speaker A: So I work with business owners specifically.
[00:29:47] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:29:48] Speaker A: And it's all about how to become more successful by their definition, not by someone else's. And so they go through this process that we spoke about, defining the seven summits. Identify the clutter that you're carrying, and then how do you ensure the third step is how do you ensure you take one step forward every day? And so we, we go through this framework and identify all the challenges that they have so that they can overcome. Because when you live a life that's in line with your definition of success, life is more fulfilling, which means you're moving away from regret.
[00:30:22] Speaker E: I agree 100%. Do you have any success stories, like stories of people that you've coached that have really made a difference?
[00:30:30] Speaker A: Based on the research that we've done, which is actually going to be shared in the next book, which researchers over hundreds of business owners, I found that a lot of entrepreneurs or business owners are always available. This is the number one challenge that most business owners have. What does that mean? An email comes in, you feel you have to answer it. A not, you know, notification. Someone calls you, you answer it. You leave your door open so that anyone in the office can come in and, you know, get to you and ask you questions. But then when do you. When are you in flow? When are you able to get things done at a. At a pace that you would consider acceptable? When are you. Yeah, and then when you shut down to be with your family or for your health or for downtime or for fun time, whatever it might be. But now with these gadgets, a lot of these business owners are always available. So one of the first things we do is setting boundaries. But again, how do you set the boundary? You can only set it if you've defined what success means to you, because it has to be aligned. If it's aligned, the chances of you doing it are going to be high. Otherwise it's going to be like a New Year's resolution. It's just a desire. You get excited for a little time, and then you just go back to old habits.
[00:31:39] Speaker E: So do you factor accountability into your coaching?
[00:31:42] Speaker A: Absolutely. Absolutely. In fact, many times I request them to find an accountability partner. And because some people, especially business owners, they don't want to show a Sign of weakness.
So I've, I've actually now developed an accountability app which is going to release soon where they can, you know, use that as a resource. But if you can find an accountability partner, that's brilliant. I have one. And when I tell someone else I'm going to do something by a certain date, I'm going to feel really bad. They have to pick up the phone again and go, oh, I didn't, I didn't do it.
[00:32:15] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:32:15] Speaker E: So how do people find you to get your services?
[00:32:18] Speaker A: Usually it's word of mouth. I found that to be the most powerful form of marketing. However, I have a pretty strong digital footprint, so they can find me on my website, www.sahil meta.com. that's.
[00:32:29] Speaker E: Can you spell that?
[00:32:30] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, that's S double A H I L M E H T A dot com. And then from there there's a bunch of resources that people can download which just takes them a little bit of time, but brings them a lot of clarity.
[00:32:43] Speaker E: Excellent. Thank you.
[00:32:44] Speaker D: Great. Well, it's been an amazing discussion and I feel motivated to look at my seven summits and maybe make some changes. Who knows? Now it's time for AI in Business. So, Elizabeth, why don't you kick it off?
[00:32:58] Speaker E: Okay. This is AI In Business. I am here with Sahil Mehta, Brady Sticker and Tom Rag. I'm going to ask Sahil first, sahil
[email protected] what is one way you are using AI in your business?
[00:33:13] Speaker A: I've created a Sahil bot. I've put in everything I've ever said in the public domain, all my research, all my posts, everything. And I fed that all into ChatGPT.
Now, how that's helping is my team doesn't always have to depend on me to get an answer.
[00:33:30] Speaker E: Okay, great. Well, thank you. Brady sticker with churchcandy.com what's one way you're using AI in your business?
[00:33:38] Speaker C: Here's a practical thing that we did to implement this. And so we basically had all of our team take this prompt and give it to ChatGPT.
And then ChatGPT worked with them on how they could actually implement AI in their role. They love it because it's just making their job easier.
[00:33:55] Speaker E: So tom rag with londepot.com, what's one way you're using AI?
[00:34:00] Speaker B: AI helps us with lead generation, prospecting new clients, new borrowers, and making sure that you keep in touch with past customers. Because we all have CRM.
But of course, AI doesn't nap, sleep, or get tired. Technically, with my business, it's really helped me automate customer retention and making new customers happy with a smooth, seamless process to get to the closing table.
[00:34:25] Speaker E: I'd be scared, I mean, if I was your competitor, because you're doing a lot with it and anybody that's not is falling way behind. So, Richard Gearhart with Gearhart Law. What's one way you're using AI?
[00:34:35] Speaker D: I've lost weight using AI.
So I started tracking all of my meals in AI and it creates a list of what I've eaten and the calories and the macronutrients. And then if I'm at lunch, I finish up lunch. It suggests some dinner possibilities for me.
And I've been doing this now for four days and I've lost two pounds. And it's really funny because I'll put in, oh, I had a couple of sugar cookies. And he'll say, okay, well, you've had enough cookies for today. So it actually kind of coaches you and discourages you from eating more. And then if you eat a little more anyway, it says, oh, well, that's okay, no judgment. But now I think you've probably had enough if you want to reach your goal. So it's been great. It's really made a difference and a perfect use for AI for sure. For me.
[00:35:28] Speaker E: Yeah. Well, it's kind of worked for me, but yeah, yeah, it doesn't like what I'm eating.
[00:35:33] Speaker D: Let's just say this is one of the seven summits. This is not a business application. It's a success application.
[00:35:40] Speaker E: Well, so I've been using it your media studios. I'm giving a presentation on January 15th at PodFest in Orlando about five tips to influence what Chat GPT says about you in your podcast. And I've been using it extensively for research, but not just Chat GPT. I use chat GPT because most people know what that is. There are very few people who've never heard of it.
And I also use Perplexity. I use Gemini in Perplexity. You can access Claude in different.
You know of these search engines? I don't. Well, they call them LLMs, large language models. But that doesn't mean a lot to a lot of people.
So I've been researching that and researching other things related to that because I have another presentation I'm giving that's strictly for business about how to know what it's saying about you that's not really podcast related.
And what I'm finding is the most important part of doing this research with it is knowing what queries to come up with.
And I love what Brady said. Pretend like you're this person. Pretend like you're in that and then give me an answer that works. So I'm going to put this presentation through and I'm going to say pretend like you're an audience member. Are you falling asleep halfway through?
How can I keep this going? So what do you think are some of the most effective ways? Like, what do you see it doing in the future? And I like Brady, like, it's not going to displace all my employees. So do you guys think it'll displace your employees? Any of you?
[00:37:06] Speaker C: I think some employees. Depends on the role.
[00:37:08] Speaker D: Yeah. I mean, I think in the legal profession, there's a lot of attorneys who are concerned, especially younger attorneys, where their time is spent drafting contracts, drafting documents.
And ChatGPT and a lot of other legal services now incorporating AI are starting to be able to crank this stuff out. So what used to take a young attorney three or four hours to do can be done in a split second. Right. And so there's concern there. I think there's still a role for experienced professionals to review this stuff, make sure that it's right. Even if they do get ChatGPT to create content without hallucinations, there's still an element of judgment that has to go into the legal work. So I don't think that's gonna hurt all attorneys. But what I do get concerned about is that there's not gonna be enough young attorneys who kind of work through the system and get to the point where they have the experience to give good guidance.
[00:38:09] Speaker E: Yeah. I'm hoping it keeps progressing, though, because I am constantly finding things that I want AI to do for me, and we're just not there yet.
That was AI in business. And now it is time for a commercial break. So, listeners, you are listening to the Passage to Profit show with Richard Elizabeth Gerhardt, our special guest, Sahil Mehta. And we will be right back.
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[00:40:15] Speaker G: 8009-4140-8580-0941-4085 800, 943-4085 that's 800-941-4085.
[00:40:29] Speaker F: Passage to profit Continues with Richard and Elizabeth Gearhart.
[00:40:33] Speaker D: Passage to Profit is a nationally syndicated radio show heard in 40 stations across the U.S. we'd like to do a shout out to our affiliate WJCW 9:10am in Johnson City, Kingport and Bristol, Tennessee. And our podcast is ranked in the global top 3% of podcasts. And we've also been recently selected by Feedspot Podcasters Database as a top 10 entrepreneur interview podcast. So subscribe to the Passage to Profit show on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and also on the IR app. And now it is time for Intellectual Property News.
The big news at the intersection of intellectual property, entertainment and artificial intelligence. Disney just announced a roughly $1 billion investment in OpenAI. And part of that deal allows Disney characters get this to appear in videos generated by OpenAI's system called Sora.
[00:41:32] Speaker E: And before we go any further, let's explain what Sora actually is, because this matters. So if you go into ChatGPT, you'll see on the left hand side there's some other apps that you can use and one of them is Sora. And Sora creates videos. It's a text to Video AI tool. You type in a prompt, something like a short scene description, and it creates, quote, cinematic quality video from scratch. No cameras, no actors, no animation software, just words magically turning into video through the power of AI.
[00:42:03] Speaker D: So that's pretty amazing stuff, I have to admit. But this is a big moment for intellectual property law because we're not just talking about fan art or short clips anymore. We're talking about AI generating movie quality content, which immediately raises questions about ownership, licensing and control.
[00:42:23] Speaker E: And what's interesting now, Disney is investing in this, but it didn't try to fight or block the technology either. You know, it said, well, they're going to do it, so let's make them take a license.
And we're talking about really iconic characters from Disney, Pixar, Marvel and Star Wars. Characters that are among the most valuable intellectual property assets in the world.
[00:42:44] Speaker D: Yeah. And I mean, it's really interesting because this could be a marketing play by Disney. Right. The idea would be that people can create their own movies using these characters and, and that actually promotes the characters. People have to go back and pay for the content like the movies and the Netflix and those other things. So maybe this is kind of a wise move. It's definitely a reversal from the way most content companies have been treating AI. They've been trying to block the LLMs from getting access to it. So definitely a different approach.
[00:43:19] Speaker E: But it's going to set rules. Right? So like, you can't take a character and make it do something really awful. Like you can't take. You can't take Snow White. Take Snow White and have her chopping somebody's head off. Right.
But it's a pretty strong signal to the market that major intellectual property owners are saying, we're willing to work with AI, but only on our terms.
And it's a huge shift to Sahil's point, it's a huge shift from fear to strategy.
[00:43:47] Speaker D: There you go. And I guess the name of the game here now is owning intellectual property assets, because that does put you in control if you have major IP assets that you can license or transfer or commercialize with AI, if this becomes a model, then it makes intellectual property even more important.
[00:44:06] Speaker E: Right. And if Disney didn't own those characters outright, they couldn't do this. But I want to hark back to something Mark Cuban said months ago.
He said, in the age of AI, intellectual property is king. And here you're seeing it generate real revenue.
[00:44:21] Speaker D: Yeah, very interesting story. Marks a turn in the attitude and philosophy. Disney is such a powerhouse. We've Done license deals with Disney. And their agreements are 200 pages long. They are the intellectual property maestros. And if they're doing this, then it speaks pretty loudly.
[00:44:41] Speaker E: But one last thing. You were right. So if you think about they let people license Mickey Mouse to put on T shirts, they're kind of looking at this the same way. It seems like you can license this content to make a little film. Well, enough about that. I have been so excited to get to our next two presenters who've been waiting here patiently to talk about their companies. So now we're going to talk to brady sticker about churchcandy.com. imagine putting incredible marketing expertise to getting people to come to your church. This is such a brilliant idea. Welcome, Brady. Tell us all about it.
[00:45:15] Speaker C: Yeah, guys, thank you so much for having me. Me, personally, I never thought I would be an entrepreneur. I actually went to school to be a pastor, to go into ministry. And whenever I was working at a church as a youth pastor helping the teenagers. Spoiler alert. Being a youth pastor doesn't pay very well.
[00:45:34] Speaker E: Really?
[00:45:34] Speaker C: Believe it or not, you weren't like.
[00:45:36] Speaker D: One of those billionaire youth pastor.
[00:45:37] Speaker C: No, no, not. Not quite.
And so, so with that as my day job, I was actually working in digital marketing. And I told my pastor, I was like, hey, some of these things I'm doing at work, like, I think we could help the church. Just invite people in our city. Just invite them to church.
And, you know, it's funny, he gave me $500, which was like a big deal to me. I think it was a big deal. He gave me a $500 budget to run an ad campaign inviting people to this event. We were doing so excited. I mean, ads manager, I'm building out all these campaigns, I'm doing all the things. The event comes around and no one shows up.
And I was defeated. And I was like, all right, well, like, I'm definitely not an entrepreneur. Maybe I don't know what I'm doing.
And I'm so glad that my pastor believed in me. He's like, hey, man, it's all good. You know, we've got another thing coming up. Let's give me another $500 to put.
[00:46:29] Speaker E: Into ads, but do it different this time.
[00:46:31] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:46:32] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:46:34] Speaker D: ChatGPT right now, this is one.
[00:46:36] Speaker C: Before ChatGPT.
[00:46:37] Speaker E: What did we do before ChatGPT?
[00:46:39] Speaker C: Oh, my gosh.
I know. Now I used to say google it. Now I say, let me ask chat GPT, right? So it didn't start out well, but eventually we tweaked things and we got it to where, like, I remember meeting someone at church, and I asked like, hey, man, how did you hear about us? And he was like, man, every time I turned around on Instagram and Facebook, I just kept seeing you guys. And he has no idea that he's talking to the guy that was setting that up. And so I'm just smiling like, amen, dude. Like, so glad you're here. That's awesome. And so from there, my pastor introduced me to some of his friends that have churches in different cities.
And now I'm very entrepreneurial and have consumed so much business content and use that to scale the business to where now we have over 40 employees, worked with over a thousand churches, and we're on a mission to connect a million people to a local church. And now today, the numbers have been updated. Now it's like, well over 350,000 people. We've connected to local churches all across North America.
[00:47:37] Speaker D: I want to know what your secret is, because getting people to events can be one of the most challenging marketing activities.
[00:47:45] Speaker A: Oh, it's blood and teeth.
[00:47:46] Speaker C: People don't want to leave their house.
[00:47:47] Speaker D: I mean, Elizabeth could talk for hours about this. But we do events, and getting attendance sometimes is a challenge. Right. So how do you do that? How do you get people to show up?
[00:47:57] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. Earlier we were talking about AI and AI and business and, you know, people. At least what we're seeing in the ministry world is people want authenticity. Right. It's called artificial intelligence. The opposite of artificial would be authentic.
[00:48:13] Speaker D: Authentic intelligence.
[00:48:14] Speaker C: Right. Yeah.
[00:48:16] Speaker E: Not very many people have that.
[00:48:17] Speaker C: Yes.
And so with that, it's just being real. And, you know, we've seen a huge uptick today with people just looking for something real, and a lot of that spiritually.
You know, for us, we've seen church attendance across the board in America actually increase for the first time in maybe 20 years.
[00:48:39] Speaker D: Right.
[00:48:40] Speaker C: You know, you look at the trends, and typically church attendance is going down in America.
[00:48:44] Speaker D: Right.
[00:48:44] Speaker C: But within the past few years, you see. You see a shift culturally there, and so you see that people are searching. And so for us, we just encourage our. Our pastors to be authentic, and we coach them to record a video. Just being authentic. Don't try to be something you're not, and just invite people to your church, tell them what you've got going on, and then we always have them give a next step.
Right. And so we'll tell our pastors to.
Instead of just saying, hey, see you Sunday, and then pray that all right, hopefully they show up, we Say hey, down below. Click below to plan your visit and let us know you're coming so we can connect before Sunday.
[00:49:24] Speaker A: Sahil Mehta Brady, that's such an amazing story. I do wanna go back to one point you mentioned because it's so important and yet I feel we didn't go into detail. Yeah, you mentioned that it bombed. The first campaign bombed. No one showed up. It's not even one person, it's. No one showed up. However, two very important things happened. One, the pastor believed in you. And I would even go as far as saying, and please correct me if I'm wrong, but you believed in yourself to give it another shot.
[00:49:50] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, it was one of those things where I felt in my heart like, I think this is something that, like, obviously doing what I'm doing, like I'm a believer, like I felt like God was calling me to do this. And so it was very discouraging whenever that first campaign flopped and nothing came of it. And I started having these seeds of doubt. And it really was, my pastor encouraged me. He's like, hey man, like, I see, I've seen what you do at work and with your day job. I think we could do it here. Let's, let's give it another shot. And we were. A new church, you would call it like a church plant. Like in a lot of cities that are growing, you know, the population to church ratio is a lot different than other parts of the country. And so different ministries will do what's called church planting, where they start a new church from scratch. So we didn't have anyone a part of our church yet. So we like needed people. So there might have been part of it where our pastor was like, we got, we got nothing else to do.
[00:50:42] Speaker D: So why is desperate.
[00:50:44] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:50:45] Speaker C: And so luckily that desperation really played into that beginning of church candy and just tweaking and trying things. Because there's, there's, I'm sure a lot of you guys as entrepreneurs, like when you first started out, probably the beginning didn't work out and you hit walls.
[00:51:01] Speaker E: Well, I would never have thought of digital marketing for, for a church. I guess that's kind of the disconnect in my brain. I always thought like your parents went there, so you went there or your friends brought you to your church. It was always an in person experience and it's amazing that you've been able to build it with digital marketing.
[00:51:15] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, in reality all we're doing is just helping local churches invite people in their city to church. And typically what we're seeing are people that have either recently moved to the area or they were raised in church, and then they moved for college or whatnot, and then just kind of stepped away from the faith. And now they're at a season in their life that's a summit of theirs that they're wanting to pour into and makes it a priority.
[00:51:40] Speaker D: So what are some of the techniques that you use to do this outreach using social media?
[00:51:46] Speaker C: Social media ads is huge.
[00:51:47] Speaker D: When you say social media ads, you mean you go to Facebook and you create an advertisement and say the church is going to have a service or potluck or something like that, and then you put it out there on Facebook?
[00:52:01] Speaker E: Yeah.
[00:52:01] Speaker D: Are there certain demographics that you look at?
[00:52:03] Speaker C: Yeah. So, well, nowadays, Meta, that owns Facebook and Instagram is really good at taking your content and placing it to who you're trying to serve. Like Meta, Facebook, Instagram, they know so much about you if you're on their platforms. And so we'll typically now leave the targeting pretty wide open. But we will specifically do something that's called retargeting. Whenever someone goes to Google and they search for churches in Houston and maybe they go to my church's website, well, we're able to set up a retargeting tracking pixel for Meta that will allow us to show ads to people that have been to our church's website. So they're already interested in us. So, for example, for you guys, you probably have something like this, your marketing team set up on your website for Gearhart Law, to where if someone's looking for intellectual property law, they go to your website. Well, now you have the ability to show them ads on Instagram and Facebook because you're a warm lead. You're looking for them. And so for us, we do that same approach because we want to, you know, invite people to church that are already interested in coming, that are looking for a church.
[00:53:16] Speaker A: So I had a question on marketing as well. You talk about marketing for your clients. How about marketing for your business? Love to hear some on that, too.
[00:53:24] Speaker C: Yeah. I don't have many competitors.
I can maybe name them on my hand as far as other companies that do what we do for churches. And so I'm very blessed to be in what you would call a blue ocean to where it's wide open, or red ocean, I don't remember the term. Maybe you could. You could help me out with that. But regardless, it's one of those things that's been really easy for us to get new clients because the word of mouth is Good. And the best ads for us. Whenever I run an ad promoting our business, it's not me talking. It's not a video of me. It's a video of our clients talking about the results they got, right? It's a video of a pastor saying, we were a church that averaged around 100 people or so. We signed up with Church Candy. They helped us run some Facebook and Instagram ads six months later. Now we're averaging 200 people, and so 100% growth in six months. There's a pastor in Plano, Texas. The pastor's name is Ken Bennett. Their church is Connect Church in Plano. And their church in 18 months went from 150 people to today. They're well over a thousand people. The only thing that they changed in that time is they signed up with Church Candy. We helped them get new guests. And so whenever we have videos of the pastors talking about that, that's social proof that I'm able to take and run as an ad and show that to other pastors and ministry leaders. And so, you know, the way we've scaled our business so much is when we get a new client, really try to knock it out of the park with the results, get amazing results. Once we get amazing results, I want to get a video of them talking about it. So we'll do case study, interviews, podcasts, and then we leverage that in our marketing to then get a new client, and then it's a cycle that just repeats.
[00:55:05] Speaker E: So do you have a secret sauce for your ads, then? Because I know you can use Facebook ads, and they fall flat. I'm not going to ask you what your secret sauce is if you want to keep it secret.
[00:55:13] Speaker C: No, it's keeping it short. Keep your video ads as short as possible just because people have short attention spans, or at least get straight to the point, right? Like, I don't start out my video ads going, hey, what's going on, everyone? Welcome back to Church Candy. I'm Brady Sticker, and today we're talking about dah dah dah dah.
[00:55:29] Speaker E: Right?
[00:55:29] Speaker C: That's great for a podcast, right? But whenever someone's scrolling on social media, they've got the mindset of what's in it for me. Is this something I'm interested in watching?
And if you're just sitting there talking about you, they don't care. But if you get straight into our church went from 100 people to 500 people in six months in that first 10 seconds, if I'm a pastor or a church leader and I see that I'm intrigued. I'm like, oh, tell me more about this.
[00:55:52] Speaker E: So you're using client testimonials in your Facebook ads. I think that's really powerful and really special.
[00:55:57] Speaker D: Google, I guess, has released some new tools incorporating AI for marketing. And I'm just wondering, have you had a chance to look at any of these, like, Google Discovery or any of these tools yet?
[00:56:10] Speaker C: Yeah, we've done a lot. It's really cool because if you search Facebook ads for churches on Google, Church Candy's one of the first ones there. And they're citing our blog on our website in the AI answer. And so that's super cool. And so there's different things there that we've played around with, but a lot of it, I mean, it's probably some things that Elizabeth knows a lot about now, getting these LLMs to recommend you in your business or podcast.
[00:56:35] Speaker E: And what I'm seeing right now is the LLMs are going to your website first and your blogs second. And there's a way to structure the content in the back end of the website.
And there's a piece of software you can put in there called a schema markup that is like a roadmap to the LLM. So it sounds to me like whomever's doing your website really knows their stuff.
[00:56:58] Speaker C: My team, amazing architects at setting all that up to make sure that's there in the backend.
[00:57:04] Speaker E: Right. So the Google stuff and the LLM stuff overlaps a lot, but there are some places where it diverges. So congratulations. So blogs, websites and blogs are more important than ever today.
[00:57:15] Speaker D: It says here in my show notes that you're working on a documentary and an app. Maybe you could tell us a little bit about those.
[00:57:21] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. So the documentary I mentioned to you guys about church planting. So, you know, there's a church that's starting in Houston, and I had the thought of what if we could show behind the scenes of what does it actually take to start a church from scratch? What is the back end, all the administrative things. Finding a building, building a team. Like, how do you get people there? And we're working with them already because we're doing all of their marketing and promos to get people to their events. And I was like, what if we could show a documentary that's basically a really expensive case study and testimonial for Church Candy, but it also educates and has this entertaining story element behind it. And so there's a church launching in January. It's called the Garden. You can go look them up. And so the documentary name is planted.
And it's almost like if you've ever seen the Undercover Billionaire, not Undercover Boss, but Undercover Billionaire. It had Grant Cardone on season two to where basically they drop a entrepreneur in a city and they have to build a business from scratch in 90 days. It's a really great show. I think it was on Discovery several years ago.
So we're basically doing that. But the ministry side of that, dropping a pastor in a city and he has, which in this case, 18 months to start a new church from scratch and showing behind the scenes of how that is.
[00:58:40] Speaker E: That is very cool. I hope it gets picked up. Brady Sticker, how do people find you?
[00:58:43] Speaker C: Churchkindy.com, i'm most active on Instagram personally. So you can go to instagram.com and search my name, Brady Sticker and connect there.
[00:58:51] Speaker E: Great. Thank you very much, Brady.
[00:58:52] Speaker D: Passage to profit with Richard and Elizabeth Gerhardt.
[00:58:55] Speaker E: And now on to. Okay, you want to do all this stuff, how do you pay for it?
[00:58:59] Speaker D: You mortgage your house.
[00:59:00] Speaker E: You get a mortgage with Tom Raig. So now we're on to Tom Rag with Loan Depot who helps people finance their dreams. Welcome Tom.
[00:59:09] Speaker B: Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Well, it's interesting because I technically work for a company, right? LoanDepot. We're the one of the top, if not one of the largest non bank mortgage lenders in the United States. But when you're a mortgage originator, you technically own your own business because the clients are yours. The actual borrowers become clients of the bank or the IMB were an independent mortgage bank. But the referral sources and the people that send business, we call them COIs centers of influence, which I'm sure Sahil could probably help. Many people in my position develop these types of relationships over time. It's up to the originator to maintain those relationships and keep in touch and make sure that people from the past, current and future are thinking about you and trying to keep you in mind when someone is buying a house. Those are relationships that last a long time. For instance, Richard and Elizabeth Gearhart.
[01:00:07] Speaker D: We met on a mortgage deal, didn't we?
[01:00:10] Speaker B: Through a mortgage transaction just about 10 years ago. And just is so interesting how things can grow and things can prosper and move forward. But that is the entrepreneurial spirit of being in the mortgage business.
And as technology and AI and other advancements in the space actually push the removal of non performing loan originators because they can be replaced by a technology because they're technically not either savvy or Committed or owning the job.
[01:00:44] Speaker F: Right.
[01:00:44] Speaker B: From an entrepreneurial perspective. So one of the things I hold myself accountable to Sahil, was talking about being accountable and your seven summits. I call it the Daily 20 or the Pop 100. But 20 times a day, whether it's an email, a get together, a coffee, a podcast, a lunch and learn, a meeting, or some type of get together with people, 20 things a day equals 100 a week. 100 a week is 5200 a year. If you do that consistently and you wake up every day and you commit yourself to it, then 5,200 sales activities throughout a year will certainly result in more business.
But grown organically.
[01:01:27] Speaker D: That's great. So how do you. Is it just like an email, or is it any kind of outreach or any kind of touch? I mean, how do you count these?
[01:01:35] Speaker B: Well, I actually count them on a scratch pad, and then I toss it in the trash because it makes me feel good. I literally go with, you know, little marks on a piece of paper because I want to make sure I do 20. If I'm being truly lazy, I may send an email and copy 20 to 30 people. Blind copy, but that doesn't really count. It counts to me to a certain extent, but anytime I can just get that, it's kind of like waking up and holding yourself accountable for the gym.
You were mentioning earlier that you're holding yourself accountable for calories.
[01:02:06] Speaker A: Right?
[01:02:06] Speaker B: So if you can't measure it, you can't manage it is kind of my mantra. I don't have that on a bumper sticker on my car, but I have thought about it.
[01:02:14] Speaker D: You could trademark it, though.
[01:02:17] Speaker B: Technically, I could. I. I did inherit that from one of my partners many, many years ago. But truly, holding yourself accountable I think is important. And as an entrepreneur, you know, technically, in the mortgage space, if I don't hold myself accountable, then I'm. I'm really just doing my family a disservice. But people sometimes ask me, you know, how's business? Are you busy? Depends who they are and how frank I want to be. But generally I say if. If I'm not busy, then I'm not working.
And I hold myself accountable for that.
[01:02:45] Speaker E: So what are you telling people about the market these days and interest rates and availability of funds for mortgages and qualifying and all that stuff?
[01:02:54] Speaker B: Well, I would tell you the pendulum has swung back. In 2008, we had what was called the mortgage meltdown. It was extremely easy to get a mortgage in 0607 and into 08. And then everything came crashing down because there were just too many loose ends on mortgages. But now here we are in 2025 and people want to buy homes. You know, I live in New Jersey, but we're here in New York City. New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, affectionately known as the Tri State area, seems to be overwhelmingly popular, very, very dense. And I would tell you New Jersey, where I live, is the densest state in the country. So people always are buying and selling across the state. Interest rates have come down lately as interest rates do fall in line. You know, in 2020 when we had the pandemic rates hit an all time low, a 50 year low, I don't think anyone would ever want something like that to come back. But we are headed in the right direction. In the last couple of years. We were up towards the 8% mark for mortgages back in the 70s.
You know, when President Carter was in office, the interest rates were in the high teens, 17, 18.
But then you could buy a house for 75 or $100,000. In today's world, you're looking, you know, usually 3, 4, 500,000 and above. So the interest rates have actually been doing pretty well. The Fed has been meeting this year and lowering the federal funds rate, which is loosely tied to mortgages, but not directly, but we've seen some really cooperative interest rates over the last 12 to 18 months and things have really come in line. So lots of people in the country, you know, spend anywhere between say 5 or $600 a month if they're living with their friends from college, and splitting a three bedroom into six guys or girls up to, you know, 10 to $20,000 a month for people that are borrowing, you know, multimillion dollars and paying high taxes. So there's a big range.
[01:04:51] Speaker D: So there's a lot of talk now about affordability. And when I hear that, I kind of start thinking about housing and affordability, how our real estate prices now and people talk about first homes in their 40s if they ever get there.
[01:05:07] Speaker A: Right.
[01:05:07] Speaker D: Do you have any thoughts about this situation that we're in?
[01:05:11] Speaker A: Right.
[01:05:11] Speaker B: Well, I would tell you that homes in, in the United States are expensive. It's not easy to find an affordable home unless you're in, you know, towards the middle of the country gets a little more affordable. But you've got families that hold themselves accountable. You generally have dual income. People think they need to put down 20%, but the market doesn't require that. There are loans with 3% down, 3.5% down, 5% down, 10% down. So you can get into a home with little money out of pocket versus what people think is the norm.
[01:05:41] Speaker D: You think that part of the affordability may just people are not informed about the possibilities. Do you think that they're all thinking 20% and saying, oh, I'm never going to be able to afford it?
[01:05:52] Speaker B: A lot of people are absolutely thinking that. So back to our previous discussion. I think that type of information can easily be shared with potential customers and home buyers through human interaction, not necessarily technology.
[01:06:06] Speaker D: There you go.
[01:06:06] Speaker A: Sahil Mehta Tom, you help people buying their dream home, perhaps even their first home. As you mentioned, in the world that we live in, there's so many options. However, someone comes to you because they trust you. They trust you that you are going to help them make the right decision for them to decide which home to go for, what type of mortgage to pick. How are you building that trust? Because someone can like you and spend time with you but make such a big decision and probably one of the top three decisions in their life, they're coming to you for your direction and support. So I'd love to know how you build trust with your potential customers.
[01:06:44] Speaker B: First, you build trust with the lead source, which takes time, but when it comes to the customer, I think education is the main piece. And once I've done my original introductory call with the customer, they've met me for the first time. I think another interesting thing to say is you only, as we all know in this room, you only get one chance at a first impression, right? So that first 30 to 60 seconds on the phone or in person is extremely important. If they quote, unquote, like you, that's generally a problem. I just try and be a teacher, really, because I think that at the end of the day, the more I teach my potential customer, if they were to, say, speak with another mortgage lender or another private mortgage banker, I think that the information that I've shared and my ability to educate them and make them feel comfortable will hopefully reinforce that they should work with me versus say, somebody else. Because as you mentioned, it could be their dream home. It could be their first time home buying experience. And my job is to deflate any stress and make it happy. Because if you think about it, people are buying a house. They're generally going to live in that house. They're going to celebrate holidays, have meals, raise children dogs, mow the lawn, make lemonade, and then celebrate around the fireplace. And you want them moving into that house with a big smile. So that's a big reason I tend to attend all of My closings, which a lot of mortgage originators don't do. But I think again, the in person touch is key and education really goes a long way. And when I get off the phone with somebody, I can tell you they feel much more comfortable buying whether it's $100,000 house or a $3 million house, they feel much more comfortable with the process because they understand the numbers. And now they get to go out and shop and actually find that house, hopefully the dream home. But in today's world, there's the starter home and then potentially down the road you can find that dream home. But always having the opportunity is, is the most important thing. And we try and make people comfortable so they can buy their home and move in with a smile.
[01:08:45] Speaker E: So can you help people? Let's say this happens. I don't know that we've ever had this happen, but it's been close that they want to buy a house and the appraisal comes back and it's appraised less than what the loan that they need to buy the house. Can you help people with that situation?
[01:09:01] Speaker B: Absolutely. What do you do in many instances? Well, it depends on the contract and what the realtor or the client has agreed to. But in many cases people waive the appraisal. If there are multiple bids on a house, they will tell the seller, I am not going to back out of this transaction based on the appraised value, which right there, there's the answer to your question. They just have to come up with the extra money themselves. They can't get out of it. Right. So we make sure they have that money and we make sure that they understand the risk. But in many cases they don't do that in terms of waiving the appraisal, that actually allows the buyer to go back to the seller and negotiate a lower price.
[01:09:39] Speaker E: So that's what you help them do.
[01:09:41] Speaker B: In many instances, it actually becomes good news for the buyer, not so much for the seller. But if the buyer is my client, I'm a little sorry for the seller. But sometimes we've got sellers that think their houses are worth much more than they actually are. However, when you have 15 people who want to buy it, it might actually be worth more than it's being listed for. So that is the market demand type situation. But yeah, generally if you're going to buy a house and you're worried about the appraisal, you might not want to buy that house.
[01:10:08] Speaker D: So if you have your own business or you're an entrepreneur, how is that different? When you're applying for a mortgage than somebody who works maybe for a big company.
[01:10:19] Speaker B: Self employed is an interesting part of our business. Technically the rates are the same. There's no difference in interest rates. Interest rates are technically based on your credit score, the type of dwelling and how much money you put down the down payment and how long you lock the rate. For self employed folks, they qualify just the same way. Instead of showing pay stubs and W2s though they generally show tax returns.
And then we also have programs which I couldn't get into in this particular forum, but we have programs that really help self employed borrowers buy homes without tax returns. Believe it or not, we make sure that they have filed their tax returns and that they don't owe federal debt. But there are many, many instances in our country where we have used bank statement programs, profit and loss statements prepared by accountants and CPAs, business tax returns, personal tax returns and, or a combination of all of those things. There are plenty of lenders in the country that participate in what's called the non qualified mortgage, the non QM space, doing a couple of those right now. Where these folks work, they work hard, they bring in money, but their businesses offset a lot of the income. So they don't necessarily pay a large amount of money in federal income taxes to the government, which is completely legal. On paper it looks like they don't necessarily have enough money to afford a mortgage. However they do because it's right on the bank statements and you can see that. And they have good, you know, technically good to great credit and they're allowed to buy a house just like anybody else. But even in those instances, if the tax returns do make sense, that's where the human element comes in. We vet what route would be best for the customer. And I would tell you as well, which is the good news, is that the interest rates for non qualified mortgages are not so significantly higher anymore versus the traditional straight full, what we call full doc, full documentation loans. So if regular rates are say in the, in the mid sixes, you could add a quarter to a half a percent for non QM and it's, it's still pretty competitive. Then of course the customer, it doesn't have to worry again about am I going to qualify because they have a professional like me or someone who, who is like me to handle their loan and make sure that it's smooth and get them into the house that they want with little headaches.
[01:12:39] Speaker A: I want to buy a house, right? I want to buy a house and I shouldn't Only be looking at the purchase price. There are closing costs, there are running costs. So how are you advising me so that I don't end up buying, you know, something that I thought was within my budget but turns out to start draining my, my monthly income? How do you guide me?
[01:12:59] Speaker B: Yeah, we guide you right to the penny, actually. We, we bring up the house generally on the multiple listing service. We know the potential purchase price. We also have your range of purchase price in New Jersey and many tax many states around the country. The, the real estate taxes is a big factor. We put the closing costs on paper in writing, we send them to you and we talk about it and we make sure you're comfortable. If you're not comfortable, then we either find you another house or we reduce the price and you look at a different type of property and we want to make sure that you can afford it.
[01:13:29] Speaker A: Right.
[01:13:30] Speaker B: So again, back to the education. It's really important. People want things on paper, right? You could talk to people about it and put it on a cocktail napkin, but when you send them an estimate with a barcode with their name on it, it makes them feel good. And of course it is good because all the disclosures tied to the mortgage business in the United States protect the borrower. We are required to make sure that it's accurate as your mortgage representatives. But all of the disclosures protect the borrower. So there's no way you can ever be bait and switched or duped or see higher closing costs at the closing table versus what was told to you at the beginning. So it's actually a great, great thing because we're protected, you're protected. And again, our job is to get you into a place where you can go buy a house and feel comfortable and happy and raise your family and enjoy, enjoy holidays and cooking meals and sitting around the fireplace.
[01:14:18] Speaker E: And we do in our house. We have to wrap this up. Tom, who do you work with? Do you work with people across the country or just in the tri state?
[01:14:25] Speaker B: I do. I'm licensed in several states technically. But my phenomenal company, I love my company that I work with at Loan Depot. My boss Phil Iosa and our president, Tom Fidler are phenomenal phenomenal mortgage gentlemen. They've been around for many, many years. The company Loan Depot was founded in 2010 and our chairman of the board, Anthony just came back to be the CEO. So there's exciting things going on at Loan Depot and we're excited for the future. But really the motto at the company is home means everything. And the foundation is the customer. So if we concentrate on the customer, we always feel that the success will come to us. And that's what we do. We help people buy houses. It's really a great thing.
[01:15:06] Speaker E: It is. And how do people get a hold of you if they want to work with you?
[01:15:09] Speaker B: Personally, I can be found at www.loandepot.com. just search TEMRAG W R a G G and I come right up on Google. Thank you so much, Elizabeth and Richard.
[01:15:21] Speaker D: We need to take a commercial break, but stay tuned. It's Secrets of the Entrepreneurial Mind coming up next.
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[01:16:14] Speaker G: 8002-7714-3280-0277-1432.
800-277-1432. That's 800-27714. 1932.
[01:16:27] Speaker D: It's passage to Profit. Alicia Morrissey is our programming director at Passage to Profit, and she's also a fantastic jazz vocalist. You can scroll to the bottom of the passageprophetshow.com website and check out her album.
[01:16:43] Speaker E: And now it is time for Secrets of the Entrepreneurial Mind. So, Sahel Mehta with sahelmaida.com what is a secret you can share?
[01:16:52] Speaker A: I'm going to share something that might actually build a little bit of anxiety, but let's go anyway.
I would say the secret that I would recommend to every entrepreneur is just disappear for a week. Disappear for a week. Such a good way to test your systems, your processes, to see how capable your team actually is. Because what I find with most business owners that I work with is they themselves are involved in too many decisions because they feel the decision cannot be made without them. And whenever I go to these mountains, I'm usually in the dark, meaning there's no phone signal. I'm completely disconnected for seven days, 10 days at a time. And I come back and things are great. And it's a Very humbling experience because it made me realize that I'm actually not as important as I thought I was in my business.
But it was a great learning because the team stood up when they had to, and anything that wasn't working well, we would just adapt it, change it, make sure that it's in line with, you know, for the future. So disappear for a week. Go ahead and try it.
[01:17:54] Speaker E: Easier said when you have your own chatbot, but.
So, brady sticker with churchcandy.com what's a secret you can share?
[01:18:02] Speaker C: This is something that a lot of pastors have a problem with as well as entrepreneurs. There's a quote by Steve Jobs that says focus is saying no to good ideas. And especially as entrepreneurs, you know, we could be scaling our business, doing things that we hit a wall, and then our business might stagnant or similarly in like the ministry world. So often I see business owners, they get stuck in their business, they start to get momentum, it gets stuck well, then they start chasing this other opportunity and now they're doing this other thing, and then a few months go by and they hit a wall there and they go do something else. So instead of trying to fix that one problem, it's easier to just do what they did back when they first got into entrepreneurship, starting something from scratch. Because there's a dopamine hit when you get that first deposit in a new opportunity, right?
[01:18:51] Speaker E: Yeah.
[01:18:52] Speaker C: And it's easier to go and just try to do something else. And so focus is just saying no to good ideas. And that's something that I've had to be disciplined in. And I think that's something that's helped us scale.
[01:19:02] Speaker E: That's really smart because I have ideas all the time and I have to say, nope, okay, we're going to try to stick with this one. So, tom rag with loandepot.com what's a secret you can share?
[01:19:14] Speaker B: I don't know if it's a secret. I think that in general, if you commit and show up every day and stay committed to the process and hold yourself accountable and to Sahil's words of wisdom earlier is we have something in the mortgage business. When people move, it's called clear the clutter. You put your house on the market and you want people to see it for what it is and you don't want them to see all your personal stuff, so. So you clear the clutter. And I think getting rid of wasted time is a huge opportunity for success. Because if you're wasting minutes during the day doing things that aren't helping your business and that's your priority. Then you have to be committed and you have to show up every day. I would just tell people, you know, don't give up. Chase your dreams and keep working hard and stay on task and hold yourself accountable.
[01:20:07] Speaker E: Great secrets. Richard Gearhart, Gearhart Law what's a secret you can share?
[01:20:12] Speaker D: Well, I would say don't forget to celebrate your successes, whether they're big or small. So we're going to be celebrating our 20 year anniversary and that's a big celebration and that's a big success, but also just the little ones. You know, maybe hitting your numbers for the month or making a client especially happy. The things that work out well, you want to celebrate it even if it's in your own mind. But maybe you have a glass of wine or maybe you do something to reward yourself that's small. Go to a movie, whatever it is that works for you, but celebrate your successes well.
[01:20:46] Speaker E: I love doing that.
[01:20:48] Speaker D: Well, you taught me that.
[01:20:50] Speaker E: So my secret with Gear Media Studios is everyone does things differently. So I had a meetup last night in podcast and YouTube creators community. I co host this meetup and we had a panel of people that have started podcasts and been pretty successful. And we said what went wrong and what went right and we talked about how we started and we all started differently.
Our podcasts are on different topics, but it made me realize that whatever you do, you're gonna do it your own way. So you may be the baker who makes the loaf of bread that everybody wants and there's a line out your bakery door and there may be a bakery right next door to you and nobody's buying their bread because they don't like the way they did and they like the way you did it. So if there's something you're passionate about that you really like to do, do it your own way. And yeah, I think that'll bring you success.
[01:21:39] Speaker D: So that's great. That's it for us. Passage to Profit is a Gear Media Studios production. It's a nationally syndicated radio show appearing on 40 stations across the U.S. in addition, passage to Profit has also been recently selected by Feedspot Podcasters Database as a top 10 entrepreneur interview podcast. Thank you to the P2P team, our producer, Noah Fleishman and our program coordinator Alicia Morrissey, our studio assistant, Rishikep Busari, and our social media powerhouse Carolina Tabares. Look for our podcast tomorrow anywhere you get your podcasts. Our podcast is ranked in the top 3% globally. You can also find us on Facebook Instagram X and on our YouTube channel. And remember, while the information on this program is believed to be correct, never take a legal step without checking with your legal professional first. Gerhardt Law is here for your patent, trademark and copyright needs. You can find us at gerhardtlaw. Com and contact us for a free consultation. Take care everybody. Thanks for listening and we'll be back next week.
