How to Stop Overcomplicating Prospecting and Build Better Relationships

So have you ever had one of those conversations with someone that you just meet and you have this immediate connection where you're like, this is going to be good. This relationship is going to go places. That's exactly how I felt when I met Michelle Mikel. And, uh, we connected on so many different levels, on professional level, entrepreneurial level, um, how to prospect better, social, most importantly, um, on our faith and, you know, just living out our faith, which we'll get into today too. But, um, Michelle, she teaches sales professionals and entrepreneurs how to prospect better online, how to outbound prospect on social in a way that actually makes you money. So sit down, get your notebook out. You're going to learn something today. And I am just so thrilled to have you on.

Michelle, welcome to Lending Leadership.

Thank you. I'm so excited to be here in all my glory today. Yes. Yes.

As moms and busy professionals, you know, we, we just go. And do. And hey, when you can get a workout in, girlfriend, you go get that workout in.

Mm-hmm. I mean, I mean, amen, girl, because today the only way it was happening was at the time it happened and I got it in. But that just means that the rest of the day, the hair— my hair's on my head. It's fine.

Guess what? You got to put your air mask on before anybody else. And I know that workout probably felt so good. And, and I'm just so happy to have you here.

And I'm so excited.

Yes. Yesterday. So at HMA, we do something really fun. We call it Taco 'Bout It Tuesday, just because I'm weird and I like to have fun things that we do to get our salespeople engaged. And, um, I have to say, this was probably one of our best, if not the best, Talk About It Tuesday that we've had. And Michelle was on talking about her program, talking about everything she does for prospecting and, and how to get people really out of their own way and to change their perspective on how they're connecting with people online. But it was It was amazing. I had so many people afterwards that were like, that was great.

I hope they booked time with you. Um, but we're gonna, we're gonna dive into all that.

So let's do it.

Where do we even start? My gosh. Um, you know, I, I really want to get into your whole idea of, of prospecting differently. Like, where did this come from? Because it's such a simple idea, yet it's so, you know, fresh and different, but it's not like you need to buy all these books and do all these things and have all this training. It's like it's been staring at you in the face all along. So talk to me a little bit about your background, and I don't know, tell me a story of how this all came together.

I think the beauty of it, Rachel, is the simplicity, right? And I think we as humans like to overcomplicate things. I think naturally that's just sort of how we're programmed. To be inquisitive and to think there's got to be more to the story here, there's got to be more that I'm supposed to do. And really, there's not. Um, I look at it from this sort of history for me. If I were to walk you back several years, swimming competitively for most of my young life— I say I'm 36 and I swam competitively from the age of 5 until about 23. So almost 20 years of my life was spent staring at the black line on the bottom of a pool. And with that came— I always kind of joke I learned discipline long before I even knew what that word meant.

Yeah.

And I think when I look back on it, and we talked a little about this a little bit yesterday on our webinar, the mile is such an interesting race. Just like, you know, running a marathon, it's the same idea, right? You can't go out of the gate hot Or else there's no way you're finishing 26 miles. You cannot go out of the gate hot swimming 66 laps in a short course pool sprinting because you will not finish 66 laps at that point. So when I was training and competing for all of these years and learning how to program my body to be able to swim 66 laps essentially at full speed, right? Part of how that training went was we would do a lot of interval work How long can we hold a pace for 100? How long can we hold a certain pace for a 200? So on and so forth. And so when it came to actually running, or in this case swimming, the actual mile itself in competition, for me, I always counted backwards. I would, I knew it was 16 100s and how I ultimately gave myself that second wind of energy to be able to finish the way that I would finish the race. I would count backwards by 16, 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10. All of a sudden now I'm at 9, right? So I'm now in the single digits instead of the double digits.

And your brain, psychologically, something happens there when you are running a marathon and you only have 3 miles left and you pass the 23-mile mark and you're like, oh, I can do 3 more miles. I've just done 23. That's what our brains tell us, right? So it's sort of these neuropathways and synapses of how we can like rewire our mindset. And so fast forward to today, right? When I launched Drivers and Levers and when I created the program that I now coach and teach on, which is the outbound prospecting piece, I said to myself, how can I explain this to someone else? And the best way to explain and coach this to somebody else is to do it, or essentially to reverse engineer how I myself have done exactly what I'm telling you as my coaching student to do. So if I know that one of my goals every month is to do 5 webinars a month, let's just say, how do I go get webinars? What do I have to do in order to make those happen? And then if I look at it from a projection standpoint and say, okay, well, if I know I wanna have 5 every month and I look at my calendar and in August I only have 1, then what do I have to do here And clearly I need to go send messages to be able to create opportunity for myself. So when I was building drivers and levers, it was quite literally as simple as this might sound, a, well, Michelle just had 8 keynotes last year, 25, whatever the numbers were. And I would just say, okay, well, how did I get that webinar? Who did I know that led me to this person that led me to this person? Like, what was that? And so I read my last year backwards. That's what I did.

And when I was looking at it from that perspective, I was like, oh my gosh. So if we know what the end result is that we want, the best way to get the end result that we ultimately desire is to reverse engineer ourselves back however many steps it's going to take us to get to where do we have to start. And that's the part that most people either don't know how to do or don't have enough of the, you know, ability to look inward Or frankly just don't want to. They just want someone to tell them what to do. And I think that's why Drivers and Leavers is so, um, successful and honestly also so desirable for so many people because they know that they need to be prospecting. They know they need to be sending messages. They know that a lot of the way that others are sending messages is very, very wrong. So they wanna know, just tell me, Michelle, what to do.

And I think that my level of, I've been there, done that, I've lived the pain of not doing it. I also live it myself every single day, which I think really matters. And I'm sure we'll talk about that, but that's why for me, drivers and levers is not just a, a thing I'm telling you to go do just because it sounds cool. It's a thing I'm telling you to go do because it will change your entire trajectory of your business. And if you're, you know, wanna be philosophical about it, it'll change your life. And it's changed mine.

Well, I mean, gosh, you hit on so many different things there. I want to talk about— well, let me just say this. I love reverse engineering things, right? Even when my kids were little, or I don't have to do this as much anymore, but I wouldn't start with 1 if I'm counting to them. I would start at 5, 5, 4, and they're like, oh gosh, if mom gets to 2, we're in trouble.

Yeah.

There's something about that that pushes you like, oh gosh, I only have 1 second left. I better go do it. Um, so I love the fact that you, you reverse engineered it in that way to just catapult you to the next level. Um, but you know, when you're looking at— and your, your program is great for anyone in sales. You know, we happen to be mortgage, so it really works really well for us in prospecting. If you're looking at what people are doing repeatedly and it's not working, like, why are we gonna continue down that path?

Yeah.

And, and I feel like a lot of what you are talking about is not necessarily just, it's not social media training. It's not, it's not, yes, it's prospecting training, but it's really about psychology. It's about relationships. And, um, so I guess, was that the piece that was unlocked when you were looking back and looking at your numbers to say like, wow, the common denominator here is people?

Yeah, that's—

I mean, yeah, I love that.

That, that is the common denominator, right? At the end of the day, business is about relationships, whether we're in person, whether we're virtual, whether we're belly to belly, whatever the term or phrase, whatever you want to use. From the age of time, how people have generated opportunity for themselves is by knowing somebody that knows somebody and having a good conversation. That's why networking is such a big thing.

Yeah.

That's why, uh, you know, we have BNI groups and we have all these things because you're naturally more inclined to create opportunity for yourself if you are in community with other people. So if you do a good job at having conversations with other people, then naturally that opens it either— in theory it should open another door or it opens your mind to how can I go find another door to walk through. Um, you know, and I'll be very candid with you, I'm a younger female in a keynote speaking world that is very male dominated, right? Which means that we have a lot of men that are raising their hands to go speak at events and to do things very kind of freely, right? Not for free, but freely, meaning they don't have chains or boundaries that are holding them back.

Sure.

The way that women do. And I truly believe that we as women have to say, I want to, I want to be a part of this. We have to raise our hands more than we should have to simply because most don't get asked the way that we should get asked. So when that was a big part of it for me, and I'll tell you, I got the dopamine drug hit of speaking. And I remember speaking the first time in person and afterwards all of the rush of people come up to you and they wanna ask questions and they wanna pick your brain and they're like, oh my God, how do I schedule a call? Like all the fun, uh, sort of affirming feelings that come with you did a good job. And I start, I, I caught the drug, if you will.

Yeah.

Right. Or the addiction of it. And when I started realizing how difficult it would be for me to have people just reach out to me for this because I'm, I hate to say it, because I'm a female. I was like, no sir and no ma'am. I'm an— I love this and I'm gonna go get it. So I put my head down and said, how can I go put my hand or raise my hand and put my, my hat in the ring, if you will, and say I'm available to be able to do this? And it ultimately came from my ability to say I had a relationship with someone and they had a relationship with someone that I didn't know. So I'm sending this message to this person I don't know, name dropping that individual or mutual connection that I do.

Mm-hmm.

And the fact that I put my hand in the ring earned me the meeting, right? Which means I get on the call and now I just have to be myself, right? Where we were laughing before we hit record, you know, normally my hair would be done and I've got makeup on and I'm cute, but like I had to make the decision. I had to go get the gym done today. So this is why I look like what I look like. But I said to myself, I have every right to be on the same stages as every other person. But they're not going to come to me the way that they come to other people, so I'm gonna go get them. And the messaging framework that I developed within Drivers and Levers, which I know you, you nerded out with me on yesterday, came from failing, trying again, failing and trying again, failing and trying again of what do I have to say, how do I have to say it, what is the formula here that is ultimately going to get a CEO or an executive or someone that's in charge of the event to say, yes, we'd love to meet with you, or sure, can you send me, you know, videos of you speaking, or can you send me your speaker kit? And as I started figuring all that out, I realized, well, if I can get a keynote from it, I can get podcasts from it, I can land webinars from it, I can land opportunities with one-on-one, uh, LOs or sales professionals that run companies. I mean, I had a meeting last week with a CPA, a company, you know, a gentleman that owns a CPA company They need to prospect too. Yeah.

Yeah.

And if you're not on social, then don't expect to be found the way you used to be found, right? Google Ads don't work the way they used to. Facebook Ads don't work the way that they used to. So I'm not saying they don't work, I'm saying they don't work the way that they once did.

Yeah.

Which means that we have to adapt. And so when I figured out how to land these messages this way, or land these opportunities this way through my messaging framework, it just kind of spread like wildfire and everybody wanted a piece of it because it was so simple that they had almost overlooked how simple it was. They're like, there's gotta be more to it, Michelle. Tell me, what am I missing? And there isn't. You're not missing anything. You just have to now do it. You know what I mean? Um, but every good opportunity comes from a relationship that you have. And I think most people look at relationships as transactions and they shouldn't, because if you live in this transactional kind of frame of reference, Like, imagine if when you and I met, Rachel, all I said was, I just want as much opportunity to serve you and your company as possible, but I never tried to connect with you as a mom, didn't connect with you on our faith, didn't bring anything up about our kids, right? I was just like very transactional.

This is what I want. This is what I— why I'm on this call with you. We would never be having half the conversations that we're having around all of the things that we're gonna be able to hopefully do together, right?

Yeah.

So relationships is at the foundation of it, but you also have to know How do I take this relationship that I have and now create other relationships from it? And I think that's something that is a skill that a lot of people have not developed.

Yeah, I would absolutely agree with that because I see a lot of people either doing it really well and they keep people in the friend zone, so to speak, but then they're never, they're never taking it to the next level for the ask, right? You have to be known as, you know, obviously what your superpower is and what you bring to the table as a thought leader. But yes, create that personal relationship because people, We are so inundated. You know, I go on LinkedIn and I have all these messages from people, but no one's trying to create a relationship. It's the constant ask. And we touched on this a little bit yesterday, but you would never just walk up to somebody and just, you know, like, I don't know, I create everything in recruiting and prospecting to dating. It's like you would never just walk up to somebody and say, hey, you want to go get dinner? Like, back in my single days, that would just be so strange, right? You have to create a relationship. And not with a dog. so awkward.

You have to create a relationship and a commonality, a common ground with someone before you can ask for anything. But then, I do see a lot of people who are creating great friendships but never taking it to that next level and actually putting their— I don't know, I guess their professional self wearing that professional hat. I mean, you can wear all of these hats at once.

Yeah.

Or maybe they're just going for the jugular and it's like, eh, I got that ick factor and I No, I don't want any part of that. So, um, so I love this idea. I love the word leverage. Leverage is one of my favorite words because it's like, well, what do you have in front of you that you can use? What are the tools that you already have instead of recreating the wheel? So I love that you called this program Drivers and Levers because it is about that leverage and that, that law of reciprocity, right?

100%. I mean, leverage is my favorite word in the English dictionary. I say it all the time. And people are like, what? And it kind of makes people laugh or giggle a little bit. But here's what I can tell you is if you understand leverage, both personally and professionally, I mean, it's so wild how deep this word can really go when you, when you dissect it. But leverage simply is your ability to build a bridge between one person to get to the next person. And leverage is your ability to name drop someone that can be the bridge. But do it right.

And we talked about this yesterday a lot, right around personal connection. And if you're gonna name drop someone, don't just name drop someone just to name drop them because the person on the receiving end of that message is gonna be able to feel that. Right now, one of the things, you know, for me, it, it's so funny because when I, so I'm a high D and a high I on the DISC profile.

If anybody— Really?

We have no funny, right? Imagine that. So as part of, you know, I have a, a big budding TikTok channel that I'm working on, and with that I have to post 3 videos a day every day for 30 days. And it's not nearly as hard as it sounds. It sounds crazy, but it's really not that hard. I was about to say, it's not that hard. The formula is very, very simple and very easy to follow. And just like, you know, a lot of you guys listening to this, you're maybe in search of a coach or needing a coach. I too have a coach, right? We all have to have them.

Mm-hmm.

Um, and this is one of the things for me that is pushing me is to be more of a thought leader from a content creator standpoint, as opposed to just go prospecting and, and being on webinars all the time because I also have to have content to back that up. Right. Um, but leverage is so, is such a fun word because if you actually understand the profiles of a human, so I've done a ton of research on this, high Ds and high Is, we have 2 different blind spots. Right? So a high D is very, very driven. They are very, um, what's the right way of describing? They're not afraid of the no. They take no as sort of a rite of passage of earning their way to the yes.

Sure.

And their pitfall, to your point, is that we can sometimes be very direct and almost abrasive in our personalities, not because we're meaning to be, but just because we know who we are, we're confident in what we want, and we go get it. Now, high I is very, very different. Now, the problem with the high I is that we are chatters, right? We like to talk to people. So you were talking about the friend zone, and that's the problem with the friend zone is usually those people are high I's because they love building relationships, they love getting in connection with people, but then they've gone so far into the I'm a friend and I'm connected that they feel guilty or almost bad.

Yeah.

going for the ask. So when I'm coaching people, I think part of what I need— what my job is as your coach, or as the, the individual that I'm working with's coach, is I have to understand your personality profile and how to fix— or not even necessarily how to fix, but how to adapt drivers and levers and the messaging framework to make you feel okay in sending the message the way that I want you to send it. Because the way a high D is gonna send a message is not the same as the way a high S is gonna make.

Mm-hmm.

that message sound. And this is ironic, like, I, I'm coaching my husband legitimately right now on drivers and levers, going through his own program to, to build his own coaching platform, um, and to generate his own private clients for, um, Transcend Endurance. And when he would write a message and he would say, I don't know what to say, and I'd say, go ahead and write it yourself and, and I'll, I'll read it. And reading his message and his idea in his brain of how a message should be sent to somebody on Instagram or wherever it is, I laugh because I'm like, no, you cannot send it like that. He's like, what do you mean? And I'd have to edit it and be like, no, this is how you should, should write it, because their brains don't work the same way that ours does.

Well, hold on, let's go back. Like, give me an example of, of wording that he would use, or just the, the format that, that he would use. Is it more Um, yeah, I'm, I'm not even gonna try to guess on, on—

It's softer. It's a lot softer. Okay. It's a lot more like there is no call to action a lot of the times. Got it. Or if there is, it's a very, it's a very soft call to action, meaning it'll be like, um, you know, I heard that you were friends with my wife and she mentioned that you love, love to run. Uh, let me know if there's anything I can ever do for you. Right.

So it's a really soft landing.

Mm-hmm.

And they also, like, it'll take my husband maybe a week before he'd send a message to somebody that I've been like, why, why haven't you sent the message before or yet? What do you mean? Why are you waiting? What are you waiting for?

He's like, I need to, I need to dip my toe in the water. I need to feel it out. I don't want to be—

Well, his is more— his is because my— he's a very high S and SC, right? So anybody who understands the DISC profiles, um, which means he's very analytical. He's very strategic. He thinks he has to have a plan. for everything, even with his own, you know, social content and YouTube content that I'm, I'm watching him build for his company. He is so methodical and so structured in how he does it. Whereas like in my brain, I'm like, let me just whip my phone out and, and record a video. I don't even know where this is gonna go. I'm just recording it.

Yeah.

Um, so when he has somebody in his mind that he wants to prospect, in his head it's, I have to slow down, I have to follow their content. I want them to see my content for a while. And I'm sort of like, Nourishing this relationship in a way where then I feel like it's not awkward to send a message. And I said, well, if anything, you're making it more awkward by like lingering around for a while before you send the message. So again, there is a way to coach an S and a C that is different than the way that I would coach a D or an I. And even for myself, it's been really fun. to have to learn how to adapt to those types of individuals that do operate differently, uh, than you or I. Now, I will say they're not the best prospectors.

I love my husband to death. We've been married for 8 years, have 2 beautiful children, but like, he, he's not the best salesperson. Just, just not.

Yeah.

Right. He would never get hired for that, frankly. We'll put it that way. So the people who are the most successful are typically the higher Ds and the higher Is that are just like, I have no fear of rejection. if I get a no, it's just one step closer to a yes. They sort of have that mentality, but it's not impossible. It can be taught and it can be trained, and it's honestly like a fun project for me. Absolutely.

I mean, first of all, I give you a lot of credit for coaching your husband, or really, maybe I give him the credit, Michelle, for being open to being coached by you, because obviously this is what you do. But why would he go anywhere else for coaching? That wouldn't be right.

Well, I mean, I'm not the best at— he's a high-level endurance coach teaches or coaches and trains, you know, elite runners and, and people that wanna qualify for Boston and other big races. And he has one guy that's doing a 100-mile ultra that's been coaching with him now.

Mm-hmm.

And he's my running coach. And so people, people always say like, how does that work? Like, how, how do you feel about that? And ironically, if you would've asked me a couple years ago, I would've told you we fought every single 5 seconds because it was, it was very difficult For me as a former and, you know, longtime athlete, I've always had a coach. I've always had someone that has been that person in my life. And now that it's my husband, you're sort of like, hold on a second. I want you to be my cheerleader and be my husband. Yeah. Not my coach. So I think he's learned over the years how to take one hat off and be the other, but also push me in a way to be able to actually say, hey, you have this goal and you're not gonna be able to get to that goal if you're doing X, Y, or Z.

So you need to listen to me.

Yeah.

You know, um, but then on race day, he's my husband. Yeah. So I think it's just a matter of the balance, but it is hard sometimes.

I'm sure. I mean, that's where I think you have to really put your ego down and put your pride down and say, okay, this person— and that's for any coach. Um, some people are not coachable. Let's just face it. Um, but—

Oh no, I fired plenty.

Trust me.

And it happens.

And, and sometimes the— it's not the right coach for you, but to be able in any, any circumstance to put your ego down, put your pride down and say, okay, this person is here to help me. to help me be the best version of myself. And, um, uh, I, I really love the fact that you said that you're doing a DiSC profile with your, with your clients. It's not just a cookie-cutter approach to, okay, well, let's just blanket this in one-size-fits-all, because I have seen other coaches that do fall into that category. And, and some things may stick, but it's like, it is, it needs to be such a personal experience and, and really meet people where they are. Heck, everyone's at a different level in their career, in their comfort level, in their social media level, you know, what they've put out there, because this is your, your whole program is prospecting on social. That, that is a key component to what you're doing. So if somebody is just getting into this, but really needs to beef up their, their social game and their, their brand and their everything that they're putting out to start with, I'm sure you've had to help them foundationally there.

But I, I really love that you're meeting people where they are because I think a lot of people unfortunately are not.

So, uh, I mean, you and I have a mutual individual that, you know, will, will remain nameless for sake of saving her face from, um, anything. But when she came to me, she was in another coaching program with another individual, again, nameless, who operated very much so from the standpoint that you're describing. Everything was, this is the only way, this is how this has to be.

Yeah.

And I, I'm not saying that that is necessarily wrong. I'm saying that that's not necessarily right for most people.

Right.

Right. Meaning there are certain people that can handle that level of shut up and just do exactly what I'm telling you. But that's not how I operate because that, to me, there's no human relationship there. And I, I have a, a downside to me of I love my clients and I love people. So I, I sort of, want to be their friends too. I think that's really important.

Yeah.

And another differentiator, I don't have 500 students at a time because I do only private coaching. And to me, that's a difference. I'm not trying to serve the masses. I'm really trying to get into your individual business and really make a difference in what you are doing. And, um, you know, this individual, when she came to me, she was like, I was in this other coaching program. You know, the, the gentleman is very abrasive. a big name in the mortgage space. And he was just kind of bossing everybody around.

And I felt like I was paying all this money and getting very little face time with actually him. Everything was this group environment. And I really need someone to like look into my business and look into what I'm doing and just honestly just listen to me. And so when she said that to me, I just sort of chuckled because I said to her, I was like, Duh. Like, why, why wouldn't you do that? You know? Um, especially because my success is your success as my coaching client. If you're not successful, I'm not successful. And you're not gonna refer me to somebody else if you're not having a good time.

Yeah.

So for me to, to say I, I match the person's personality, it's so important. I mean, if I give somebody the driver, the homework of building out their drivers, I have a team right now. Uh, they're not husband and wife, but they're partners, right? So the way that he operates versus the way that she operates is totally different. Like you get on the call with them and you're like, how are you guys to get, like in your mind, right? You're sort of thinking that, but like the way she asks the questions is so, she's thinking 25 steps ahead. And so she's asking questions where I'm like, hold on, I gotta reel you back in because you're thinking way too far ahead.

Right.

And then on the other hand, you have the husband who is 4 steps backwards because he hasn't done any of the things that I needed him to do to get to the point where we're, where we need to be. So you have totally different personalities that I need both of them to be successful together.

Yeah.

Right. So if anything, coaching has taught me to be very patient, much, much like having children, but also just understanding that again, and I'll say this a million times. Your success is my success because if you're not winning, I'm not winning. I don't go to bed at night thinking, wow, I just totally screwed that person's business up. I feel great about myself. Who would ever say that?

No.

Right? So for me, if I lay down and I say I got a text message from X, Y, or Z saying that she landed this, or, you know, yesterday one of, one of the people on our call said something that I didn't even know yet cuz I haven't seen her on a coaching call yet since that happened. And her batting average of how many meetings she has to have with a realtor before they start sending her deals is like zero now. Meaning like she doesn't have to have any follow-up meetings before she gets a lead because of how she earned the meeting in the first place. So when I hear that, when I hear that, Rachel, like I got an 89 sleep score last night after our webinar and I was like, and 2.5 hours of REM, which means I went to bed and I was happy and I was joyous and I felt good because I had a successful day and my people are successful.

Yeah.

Uh, and whether that's one person you're serving today, whether that's 50 people that you're serving today, what an incredible feeling. Um, and that's why I do it 100%.

Well, and that goes back to, you know, the, the service aspect and back to faith because it's like, well, what, what are you doing here? Right? What, what, what's your purpose? What kind of fruit are you getting from, from all of the energy that you're putting out there? And, and heck, this, we live in a difficult sales environment, fill in the blank. It doesn't matter if you're in mortgage or really any sales. It's, it's a tough environment out there. And how can we serve the people around us in a way that not only is going to help their bottom line, help them feel good about their business, help their business grow, but, but that trickles down to everything, to their family, to how they feel about themselves, to their posture, the way that they affect someone else. It's the domino effect of life, right? So I feel like that is our God-given talent, that is our God-given ability to help others grow rather than just keep that all for yourself. You could have, you could just be doing the speaking tour and, you know, like getting on stages and doing social, but would that be as fulfilling as being able to affect people one-to-one? I mean, I think that is, to me, that's a major God moment to say, yep, it is about who you serve around you and how you affect the people around you.

Yeah, I think, uh, we— you and I have talked about this offline, but we'll say it live online here for everybody because it's, it's an important part of the conversation. You know, anyone who— whether you're a Christian or not, whether you're faith-based or not, whatever you are, right? We're on this planet, I believe, to bring joy to other people and to be in community with other people. Now you add the faith layer for us.

Yeah.

And one of the things is that we are put on this planet to be fishers of men and to create disciples, to bring others to Jesus. And I'm not a Bible thumper person. I'm not gonna walk around and say, oh my gosh, you're going to hell because you don't believe in— like, no way. Because I wasn't raised that way. I was actually never baptized until I turned 26. I was not raised in a faith-based home, right? I found Jesus on my own many, many, many years later after a lot of really hard things that happened in my own life. And one of the things I always say is God gives everybody their own superpower, right? We're born with this innate thing that we're good at, and God knows where we're going long before we ever do. And God knew that I was going to be a speaker.

I didn't know that, but God did. And God knew that I felt like, as a child and as a young adolescent girl, I felt very less than. I had— I struggled with being bullied heavily all through high school. Um, I was on an all-female swim team all through college, um, had very little close girlfriend friendships. I was much better friends with men than I was with women. So for whatever reason, I was really struggling to have this identity of like, I'm worth something, right? And I remember this, my senior year of college, graduating my undergrad degrees in journalism and media studies with a double major in psychology and a minor in English. And what I told my dad on the day I graduated was that I'm going to write a book someday. I have no idea what it's going to be about, but I know I'm going to do it.

I just feel it. And my dad was a professional speaker slash lawyer for almost 40 years. He was a bankruptcy lawyer and did a ton of legal counsel. He was in courtrooms 24/7, always speaking. He was on panels at conferences. You know, bankruptcy law is very dry. I hate to say I love you, Dad. Today's his birthday, but it's very dry and very hard to listen to.

Um, but my dad was very, very good at it and clearly had, had made a career out of it. So my dad kind of looked at me and was like, okay, honey, whenever you figure it out, you know.

Oh, I mean, yeah.

Fast forward, fast forward. I figured that out. And when I found my voice, it was almost like this coming to Jesus moment for me where I was like, all of those years of feeling less than, all of those years where you feel like nobody was paying attention to you and nobody was listening to you, I was just getting you ready to have this really big voice to be able to stand on stages and spread my name. And so for me now at 36 years old, standing on stage is so much bigger for me than just I'm in a room and I might get a couple of coaching clients out of it. For me, it's I'm walking on stage and I finally, for the first time in my life, have this feeling in me that I am doing exactly what I'm supposed to be doing and that God has given me this talent and that I would be doing him a disservice by not spreading it. into the world. Um, and the, the cool thing about it is every time I speak, whether it is a faith-based room or not, somebody in the crowd comes up to me and says their relationship or talks to me about their relationship with God every single time, Rachel. And I, I just live for that.

I mean, one of the gentlemen from the last conference I spoke at still sends me messages on LinkedIn.

I love that.

I saw the black line at the gym the other day. I was in sitting in the sauna and I saw the black line and I instantly thought of you. Like, Just stuff like that where you're like, you created an impact in somebody. And I had a gentleman who told me he's never post in the mortgage space, never posted a video about his faith because he thought it would alienate all of his realtor partners. And after hearing me speak, he said, I don't care, I'm gonna post about it. And he did. And I bet you he felt darn freaking good about doing it. I bet he did.

Right? And then he did. So. You know, again, drivers and levers being my superpower is amazing, but I didn't create that superpower. God did. And now I'm just honoring the fact that he has given me a platform to spread it.

Well, when you walk in that authenticity, and I feel like that even that term, walk in your authenticity, it seems kind of cliché, but it is so true. And we can, when you can connect that, just as you said so beautifully, to, to that deeper connection. to that Jesus walk, to that, you know, like something much bigger than you that you sometimes can't even identify, you can't see in yourself. But when you look back at your career, you look back at the things that you've been through and you say, okay, I see what you were doing there. I didn't understand it in the moment.

Well played, God.

Like, that has been my story. I could not have written this myself. I say it all the time. But when you see what God has been crafting in you all along, and maybe crafting in you with the help of a coach, with the help of the people that, that he's put in your path. Like, that's a really cool thing. And to see like, okay, maybe you're not quite there yet, but to, to give yourself grace and say, you know what, we're all a work in progress. The second you think, I've arrived, I'm amazing— no, that's a dangerous place to be. But to constantly be learning, constantly be growing, constantly looking for people that you can impact and they can impact you.

I mean—

Yeah.

That's a really special thing. And I love that, that's exactly what you're doing. You're encouraging people to get out there and get in community with each other. And in a way that is, that is service. I think a lot of people forget, you know, I'll relate it back to mortgage because that's where we are. In sales, it is, it is not just sales, it is service. We are in a service industry. And at the end of that transaction, you're putting people in homes.

What a more beautiful thing. Could there be than putting a family in a home? I mean, I think we take it for granted sometimes.

Think about prospecting like that because prospecting gets a bad rep sometimes, right? If you think about the word prospecting, sometimes it sort of has this negative connotation to it because it's that sort of slimy car salesman-y feeling.

Yeah.

Right. But I don't look at prospecting as I'm just going for the kill and I'm trying to to create an opportunity for myself. Is that the bright— the byproduct? Well, yeah, I have a business that I run and I have a family that I have to feed. So yeah, I need to go make money just like everybody else. But I look at prospecting as I am acting in service to you. I am a, I am a not doing what I'm supposed to be doing if I don't say to you, Rachel, how can I help HMA on a bigger level? Like, I'm failing you by not offering the service. to you because I see that there is a, a problem that I have the solution to. Therefore, if I don't offer that to you, like, shame on me, right?

Yeah.

So I look at it from, yes, there is a financial piece to that when you own a business and you're in sales, but if you look at every message you send as this, I'm trying to earn this money, the person on the receiving end is going to feel that.

Yeah.

Right. If I say, Rachel, I'm gonna send you this message and you read it and you're like, nope, Michelle. Like, I can't believe Michelle wrote that. Did, did Michelle? Like, you almost, I almost love it when people are like, whoa, wait a minute. That was actually you? 100%. Yes, that was me. Because it's— oh wait, that's not AI.

You didn't have AI write that?

Like, it's so uncommon that somebody would take the time to slow their roll and send a message to someone and have done Having done the research, having created the leverage properly, having name-dropped properly, uh, and all of the things that go into what we were talking about yesterday. But one message every day to somebody that you don't know, name-dropping somebody that you do, is a very, very simple task. Now, there is homework that needs to be done to do that well. Sure. And that's what is taught there. But don't overcomplicate it. And also don't look at it as a transaction because if you do, one a day every day, you might as well send 25 because you're gonna fail most of the time.

Yeah.

Uh, so what, you know, to bring us full circle and, and, um, sort of close us out there, I would say the transactional mindset is what's killing social right now. I think it's what's really hurting the social channels and it's what's making people feel frustrated by them. And I think we have an opportunity here, a big one, To bring the human voice back into everything and say, I need AI for X, Y, and Z. I love AI for X, Y, and Z. It helps me be more efficient on all of these other categories within my business, but it will never and should never replace me being the one to send you a message. Because at the end of the day, what is sales? What is mortgage? What is everything that we do on a daily basis? It is relationship. And frankly, guys, you want to get biblical about it. Adam was put on this planet and given Eve because he was supposed to be in relationship with somebody else.

So focus on relationships over everything and tie it down with a pretty bow and ask for what you need. Because if you do it right, the ask will not feel like an ask and you'll earn it and you'll get the yes every time.

I love that. That's a great place to, uh, To end today, guys, if you're not following Michelle, you need to follow her. Follow, check out her website. We'll put that in the show notes down below. Follow her on social. Really, I have your book right here. Like, shameless plug, get her book, The Black Line. I haven't started it yet.

I read the beginning and then, you know, I'm reading like 5 books at once, but I am— it's next on my list. I'm really excited to dive into that. And I'm just excited to be in your space more. I really have enjoyed getting to know you better. I'm really enjoying this friendship and partnership. My wheels are turning and you've, you've unlocked, uh, an excitement in me for prospecting. And I can't say that I've been more excited to prospect ever. I don't think anybody really gets excited to prospect, but I am so excited with this, this new idea.

And, um, so thank you. Thank you for joining me today.

Girl, I get excited. I get excited to prospect every day. And I think because of how it's done, I'm so excited to see that in you and to see where that is going to help you go. Because I do think sales can get hard, right? And we lose our joy.

Yeah.

And it doesn't have to be that way.

It doesn't have to be that way. All right, everybody, don't forget to subscribe to Lending Leadership. We'll catch you next time. Check out Michelle, her podcast Beyond the Method. Um, follow her in all the places, Double Dog Dare, and we'll catch you next time.

Bye.