How to Master Your Network in 2021 - Ep 2 Crystal Del Bosque Gomez

someone has already done it and is already doing what you want to do and no they didn't fall into a rich family to do so they were not born lucky [Applause] you wouldn't be listening otherwise hey you guys thanks for tuning in to another episode of millennial market talk um where we aim to inspire and empower not entitle um and today we have a special guest crystal delbolskay gomez she joins us from sbs construction and she is the business development is that correct director of business development very good so crystal how are you i'm great thanks for having me wonderful so as you know our audience is the millennial demographic and we're hoping that most of them are looking for that motivation they're looking for um i guess the path um they're looking to see uh how we got to where we are um the how what you do and where it all came from and then in the end maybe where you're going right so starting at the top um tell us a little bit about yourself well i am a san antonio native okay born and raised i came to school here in the north side sandra day o'connor i went deep that's right if you guys don't know that is my alma mater um you know i went to college here i was afforded multiple opportunities to be on the east coast but i chose to stay because of family i had an ill father um in college and got my undergrad at utsa okay did the whole marriage kid got my under my graduate degree at utsa also so go road runners birds mimi yeah they've got i've got some of my money i can say not all of it very good i was pretty smart about that and uh and you know i dived into my community the first thing i did when i graduated college okay and got really involved in local politics okay and i worked in the public sector for 12 years wow and then i pivoted out about four years ago okay to the private sector into the construction industry very good so i've been in the construction industry now for about four years and loving it good doing a business development role plenty of growth in the construction industry if you guys are not aware there's plenty of growth especially in areas as one of our podcast guests had mentioned uh before uh the south side of san antonio the east side of san antonio it's uh it's really booming but sorry san antonio for a lot of investors is a blank slate it's very true and i think in our market we have a lot of areas where investors can be creative and so for a general contractor like sbs where i am we do a lot of site development as well so we can work on negotiated projects which is great okay because it allows me to get into the project ahead of time sure i get to use a lot of my past relationships when i was working okay public sector side so we'll get into that how that all carries over sure into where you are and how just beneficial it is no matter where you go absolutely so and without going too far forward did you mention that one of your companies that you work for is non-profit yes so i had i had opened um six years well now it'll be six years ago okay a consultancy firm called crystal clear community consulting very good and i had a few different clients including one that did work on the south side i helped found south side first economic development corporation wow that was probably my most prized and coveted projects i've ever worked on because what we did myself and a few others with the south chamber of commerce we banded a group of leaders together to create an economic development strategy for the south side of san antonio because there was not one i believe that and um in really working in that community development corporation type of regard just it was an opportunity just to bring all the leaders together and say okay how are we how do we envision the south side of san antonio growing because the growth's coming and so how do we envision guiding it sure because it's going to come absolutely and if if we allow it to come organically it's going to grow organically and we don't know what if we're going to be happy with the results well very true it can kind of take its own shape and and it essentially could go one way or another right never really goes down the middle right and so you have to really take hold of that and we saw the opportunity that nobody was very good and it was actually to our surprise okay it was to our surprise so that was one of my uh most fun projects that i've ever worked on in my life i've worked with other organizations from the healthcare industry to animals animal groups to addiction recovery so we're basically talking to the biggest heart in san antonio right now that's awesome very good so i guess what what i want to do is kind of go back um what led you to the career path that you've taken obviously you you went to we'll start in the beginning you grew up in san antonio um and you grew up in a household of how many gosh so my household is very interesting i will say i grew up around nothing but sales people okay all sales people all entrepreneurs sure everybody who is of the mentality that you you ask them if they can do something they say sure and then just figure out how to figure out how to get it done right anything to get the job right i like it um it's like you say yes and you figure it out later absolutely uh ask for ask for forgiveness that permission that's that's right so um so i grew up here in a blended family uh there are three of us myself and my two brothers and then i have five step siblings okay um who are older than me gotcha and so i got to experience a little bit of their growth as well my dad uh my my dad who lived in oklahoma city was one of the first luxury home builders wow out in oklahoma city he passed away in 20 oh sorry in 2009. sorry to hear that yeah so that was that was that was uh it was tough um that was when i was in undergrad so he was not able to see me walk the stage because of cancer uh the throat yeah open cigarettes so that that happens but um i will say uh that launched his passing launched me into a growth in my faith a growth in my mindset sure um you know it really it really launched how fast i wanted to grow honestly absolutely because it really gave me perspective you know he he passed away at age 54. wow cancer that took him in eight months right and started with a sore throat so with that perspective in mind you realize life is super short and there was also some financial things that he probably could have taken up on didn't have the time to sure you know being 54 he didn't really have he put he threw everything into his business and all his money so there really wasn't much left after that and so which is great he did what he intended to do sure at the time um but i learned a lot of financial and business lessons from him because of that my my real father uh you know he he was born of two immigrants from liverpool england his mother was from liverpool and his father was from mexico okay mexico very cool and they both got their citizenship here in the states and he was first born british mexican very cool so yeah i know that's really bizarre well i've got uh oh my goodness i've got so many different things in me one of which is sweden like the straight swede um so people say well you're not white and i'm like i'm actually like really really white on the white side exactly i mean that's what america is about absolutely but that man i tell you what he um he was orphaned by the time he was 16 but his parents passed away very young went into the military and uh you know growing up he always said you know i did not have the opportunity to go to college he barely finished high school and uh he went straight into the military at the time it was a different time and so he went into military at age 17 and he learned a lot of lessons when he retired from military he did not have a degree he didn't have any formal training he worked in recruiting for the air force for 25 years and he always told me you know he was one of those people that had cassette tapes of tony robbins my mom too she's another person yeah um you know he he had informal training he's like every day in the morning i make sure i wake up and read the paper because i don't ever want someone to look at me as the kid who didn't graduate high school as the kid who didn't have a college degree sure as a kid who didn't have parents um you know he was one of those people who sat a glass in front of us at like age seven and said what do you see is it half empty or half full right it's refillable yeah well that's where we are that's right i love it and i actually can relate to some of that um not having a degree myself in my opinion it was something that kind of uh was over my shoulder going hey you don't have a degree but at the same time once i got to a certain point in my life it really didn't matter it didn't matter i had the confidence the knowledge and the i guess the uh tenacity to say you know what it does not matter and i'm proud of the fact that i can still do what i'm doing here and not have that now i don't uh knock having a degree or anything like that so don't get me wrong but the second thing i can relate to is my my father actually went straight into the military as well because i can't say because of me because that sounds like a negative connotation but they didn't have anything else to do i mean it was go into the military or go find a job but at the same time there's no health care all of the different things that come about having a child the military was the answer so absolutely yeah absolutely yeah my mom on her side i say we come from a family of salespeople and that's absolute truth my gran my mother's dad my grandfather was one of the top insur life insurance sales people in san antonio and being a a mexican man not just not hispanic sharking he was mexican from mexico and making that uh was a big deal especially you know in his time and was also mariachi singer hi he was a mariachi singer hudson had an album very very proud of that okay um and my mother she's also a singer okay she's the singing realtor she uh no brandon herself rosie kelch the singing realtor she should probably hook up with my mom my mom is like karaoke diva oh i mean my mom okay so get this she has taught me everything that i know in sales without teaching me does that make sense absolutely the best way is to show you you just see it it wasn't anything that she was intentionally showing me and my like my dad for example specifically wanted to teach us these lessons and make sure that they were structured lessons and we learned sure right he he would always make sure okay honey when you reach the first bar you need to you need to reach higher what's your next bar right and he would always say these um sure metaphors and and always have something to relate to that makes sense and i could tell he was always repeating what tony robbins was saying on one on volume three or something right and so which is great he wanted to make sure he was teaching my mom on the other hand no she was just living life she was just trying to get by she was a single mom three kids one my oldest brother had some special needs growing up his asperger's but as a child you know in adulthood asperger's is very manageable when he's totally normal but as a child there was a lot of things that at the time people didn't know about and so or were um just perceptive about make sense like they are now absolutely and so and so we had some of those things my mom was a real estate agent and what single mom three kids and she hustled yeah yeah i mean you have to she hustled i remember sitting in the passenger seat of her car um at age nine at age 10 and opening those books that now real estate agents have you know they can call cess or whatever sure sure they can look at gps you know my mom had her nine-year-old opening up this book it was a map of san antonio and we had to figure out where we were going and i remember one time we were trying to look for this property and it was in the crease of the book wow and so we couldn't find the street we couldn't find the street because in this crease and she's doing yui's and all this and and i just remember seeing that hustle and it she just did it sure and we would do it after school until it was time for dinner and usually dinner rant late because everybody wants to do showings after their work that makes sense schedule and so there were times where it's like cps would not allow these things now but you know three kids in the hot car outside with the windows down my mom would find like the biggest tree on the street okay y'all stay here i'm gonna show this house don't move don't move yep don't start the car don't move um and so she would go in show the house and then because you know god forbid she'd bring us in yeah we're touching everything that we're not supposed to make sense yeah and so so i saw that hustle she definitely was a hustler i would help her every year send out all her she would send out these little christmas cards to all of her clients and potential clients and i would put on stickers that said i love referrals and and you know she mailed these out and she would pay me for it and and i remember seeing that hustle too just like constantly keeping up and keeping the rapport and so it sounds like you grew up in a household that showed the way preach the way and they were a do what it takes to get it done family how to stand out sure you know okay how to separate yourself from everybody else i remember seeing you on the side of a truck your face on the side of a truck on 1604 and you're doing this and i said that is mark jones he and i share a birthday you know he's sure absolutely and i share a birthday we'll dance damn he's on a billboard what the hell am i doing right no but she had those same type of marketing techniques sure and wasn't afraid of it right and so uh she's like how can i stand out absolutely and and i just kind of took that with me too and um my they were two totally different ways of thinking when it came to school my dad said my real dad said you want to go to school you pay for it i same here and so i was in college and i worked three jobs sure all the time i was now i will say just just for the record i did go to college i went to college for about four and a half years okay i do not have any student loans uh paid for school while in school work the entire time um just kind of decided that it wasn't the path for me once i got to the end i actually and this is a small short story but true story i was in business law my professor at the time was preaching about how much you're going to make in addition to not or or by having the degree versus not having a degree gotcha i was working the entire time i was doing sales i was working at a bank i was opening a credit repair company uh doing club promoting um all kinds of things and honestly i was playing cards at poker houses things of that nature um and i raised my hand and said i don't believe that that's true and we got into a kind of an argument and i said this isn't for me this isn't for me if that's what you're preaching to folks um and i don't feel like i'm right but that's just my opinion of it yeah so and and in hindsight i mean he's not right the reality is there's so many students that have graduated and did not make the money that they thought they were going to make and now are in a substantial amount of time sure sure um you know i i carried over some some debt and i did so willfully sure it was mostly for my graduate degree and i knew but but it was a conscious decision i knew what i was getting into i knew what i was bringing my family into and it was i knew it was a commitment absolutely and um but i knew that it was investment that i needed to make in order to to be in the positions that i wanted to be in gotcha okay so knew that i needed to have a graduate degree to get to where you wanted to be to do what i wanted to do it makes perfect sense so because yeah and at the time and a little bit of that has changed but i'm glad i did get my degree absolutely i got my master's in urban planning and so that's really hard to do you can't really do a lot of that without some background it makes sense formal education because they want to see that they want to set up certifications absolutely so you mentioned investing investing investing and uh i want to go i want to kind of segment that here shortly but before that i want to ask you something you growing up in the situation that you were in um wasn't it was it a bad upbringing at all um and from what you've told me that's a pretty awesome upbringing um very blessed to have that uh path question is do you believe that you got more of your drive or well no that's not even a great question to ask do you believe that the family life and how you grew up gave you more of the fuel and um street smarts and education as opposed to your actual formal education yes okay very good absolutely it gave you grit because i think i saw grit all the time i saw the you just do what you got to do that is one of my favorite words by the way uh grit great explain explain grit real quick to to our listeners grit is something where you can just bite your teeth into and you just take it that's right you get it done when when when you see someone look back speaking of vaccines when you're going to get your booster shot and they say okay bite down i mean that's what that's what you're doing in life it's right bite down and you do it i love that explanation of it that's exactly right it takes grit to go to school and finish that's right you know it takes grit to go to open up a business and keep it open for at least five years that's right it takes grit to make a phone call a cold call to somebody who you know 95 a chance they're gonna say no but there's a five percent chance they might say yes that's right and you're just that that takes grit to go for that other percentage absolutely god i mean and and i will i will say i mean all of the motivational words including the word motivation um hustle grind all of these things if you don't have that grit factor you can only get so far in my opinion grit is like when you're running a marathon and you have blisters all on your feet and you finish that's right right that's right you're not there like you see those folks who finish like a day later yeah that's great that's great that's exactly what that is that is great the natural talent ability has already left their body they are they are done but they're gonna finish yes it's just full willpower from now on like thereafter i really like that yeah i mean those people are very motivational um so moving forward i want to get into what you're doing these days these days what what are you up to crystal these days i am trying to get into all the markets okay i'm trying to take over the world trying to build america i learned i love it i am i really am what i'm trying to do these days is get a lot of buildings built okay um for folks who want to make profitable profitable money very good well i guess let's let's start with your role um as the director what is it that you do on your day-to-day and then we'll go into what you do um in your free time which folks like us we really don't have free time everything is pretty much earmarked for something and if it's not then our goal is to create more time so that we can create more time for that yeah i know it seems like people who do business development are constantly lunching you know um but in between all of that is constantly lead generating and uh you know figuring out what your pipeline looks like six to 12 to 18 months from now constantly being an investigator sure you're part pi private investigator you're part uh you know sherlock holmes your part sales uh you're part the face of the company public relations marketing communications making sure messaging all across the brand is succinct you're kind of a chess player too sure so whenever we're i'm shopping on a project for example that i'm interested in getting in into or involved in i'm looking at all the players yeah everybody from your you know from your site developers your the guys who check the dirt yeah right your real estate brokers your civil engineers everybody and i think that we were talking earlier and you had mentioned that your folks had asked or or were instilling in you what separates you from everybody else and you just mentioned something that i want to kind of showcase is going that extra mile and essentially it's most would not do the investigative work would not double check and triple check and make sure that this lines up accordingly because it's based on the bigger project i guess can you tell me why that's important to you and your role and what you do it's important because um you want to be authentic and you want to be genuine you don't just want to appear that way sure because anybody can come in and uh put on that face and and literally look at a piece of paper and pull off a few names and kind of name drop sure but if you're if you're uncovered as not being authentic in that and not being authentic in the relationships that you say you have you will be uncovered as an imposter absolutely and nobody's going to want to work with you absolutely and you know why because people like you and i can sniff and imposter absolutely like that oh absolutely absolutely okay you know so you you can really figure out who knows who who's who's somebody good to work with um and in this industry that makes a big deal i think that's a big deal that can cost millions on a project absolutely if you're if you're doing work partnering with a firm that you know has some internal issues and then they cost you money yeah because they're not doing their site and surveys well they're their sybils all messed up or or the financing went wrong in the deal i mean you spent a lot of time of your staff that's very true and what i tell anybody that i coach is you really don't learn something until it costs you money and i would imagine that things have happened that you go okay i'm not going to do that again or i'm going to do a little bit more so that doesn't happen again whatever the case and i'm sure that's super important to you but i want to give the folks i guess a a perspective of what you're dealing with when you say that you are the director of this company i don't know if they understand the magnitude of what you're dealing with so what what are the how big are the projects that you guys are doing right so with this company um the projects range from about 5 million to 50 million dollars so they're not small yeah we were multi-story office building medical building um maybe even a four-story airport building sure a lot of self storage okay and sell storage right now i'm telling you it's true if you guys want to invest in money and see you know we're talking about like seven percent cap rates right now you can get a really good roi you can't get these rois on any retail no i mean the market's not super saturated yet there'll be critics that say that there it is but it's not i'm thinking how can i invest in myself leverage leverage leverage so we do a lot of self storage um it is something that a lot of development firms put into their portfolio sure as like a diversity you know they they make a diverse portfolio of what kind of products so i guess to better understand are you guys the investors or you are the seekers put it together you put the prospectus together the whole nine yards and then you sell it to an investor now we've done both okay very good so we mostly operate as a general contractor but since our firm is small and everybody in our firm is pretty much hands on deck sure and our owners have been in the business for a long time they have the opportunity to just to negotiate with other developers i can go to a developer and say hey i know that you got a thousand acres you bought out there and you're going to put some homes up there did you know for every thousand homes you need some self storage you know what about some office what about some office on the frontage um you know we can go ahead and just instead of waiting for the bait to be out there i we can go ahead and hook and lure and send somebody out absolutely right because there's a lot of folks out there who might be thinking these type of investments to add to their their pad site already um i just want to go out i want to be the first one to say hey to bring it to you absolutely proactive versus reactive right just be a little bit more proactive you know and especially right now uh the industry is a little tight labor's really tight the trade services are really tight and you would think in a city like san antonio that we would have a lot of access to trade services which is actually when you look at economic development which is like my passion i love talking about economic development san antonio is a huge service industry and so there's a lot of folks out there right now who are trying to re-tool and re-skill some of those folks who worked in service okay their whole life to do other type of jobs that they would be capable of doing they just need maybe a little bit of training yeah and so in in being able to expand some of those industries makes perfect sense yeah i mean we've got a shortage of electricians things that are very trainable jobs absolutely that pay very well well same thing in the mortgage industry we've got a shortage of appraisers so if there's anybody out there that is looking or seeking a longevity uh position um look into becoming an appraiser for mortgage commercial or residential that's your two cents but all that takes grit you gotta bite down sometimes people do not have like in this point in time i don't have money to to invest in the appraisal you know uh classes but you just have to do it it's very true you need to carve out two hours out of your day somehow to study it and it gets it leads me to investment and investing in yourself you have to invest in yourself right it's going to take money absolutely sometimes you might have to borrow it yeah absolutely you know you might have to borrow you might have to come to somebody and say hey i need this money because i'm getting i'm pursuing this for me with the hopes that i'm going to make exponential money absolutely you know will you invest in me i agree now i guess an investor tip um would be always use someone else's money first even if you have the ability to use your own money um that is another little would you agree with that i agree i'm very good i 100 agree okay because guess what there are folks out there who who will invest in you absolutely and it also is a big affirmation that people do trust in you more than you think um it's actually something that i learned in college okay so in college i wanted to be like this non-profit rock star i mean my dad thought i was crazy he's like you might as well get a degree in basketball you're saying that that taught me i would go to businesses we had a board of directors that oversaw our nonprofit certificate at utsa and these are people who owned businesses and everything and so our job was to go to them and ask them for money to go to this conference we were fundraising and do a whole fundraising proposal pitch to them and that's where i learned it you know at age 19. absolutely sitting in the offices of you know usaa valero and saying hey you know can you can you donate five hundred dollars you know and they're like well tell me why why because the best nation is a donation yeah why should i invest in you it's a good question and yeah and you ask yourself well that's a good question right if you're not prepared and if you don't believe in yourself you don't believe in your value and and knowing i guess at 19 that you are already aware of your value you are already are you though i know i know for me i was not i will tell you the same thing i was right there uh with you i was very comfortable asking for money i'll agree 100. uh matter of fact i didn't get a penny from my parents after 18. that was it sorry um it's college everything else is on your own so yeah you have to learn how to ask why you're asking prepare your value speech and then as you move further in life and you get into what you really want to do and your passion and all that good stuff i think it it becomes you right but you know i want to let your viewers know too my approach to asking for anything is never straight asking for money because what i learned in fundraising is when you ask for advice you get money when you ask for money you get advice let's say that one more time when you ask for advice you get money when you ask for money you get advice and i always saw that time and time again and some and it was uh at the time it was the ceo of the red cross san antonio who taught me that okay and he also taught me if you have no message if you have no money you have no message if you have no message you have no mission so that's a new one for me that's another one too so what what where that comes from is that you have to really come into with purpose sure because if not people like we said people sniff out an imposter absolutely so if you don't come in with with authenticity and being genuine and say hey this is what i'm really looking for really looking to do xyz i really believe that we can achieve xyz if i get into this company or if i invest into this type of education you know people want to see what you're looking for where you're going i agree and if you can't offer that you if you have no message you have no mission and then you got no money that's very true so i mean you you mentioned purpose and and i wanted to find out if that is what you believed at the time going through the nonprofit sector is did you find your purpose and if so uh what did you believe it was at that time my purpose was to help these organizations help whatever they were helping very good right so i found out really young um that i did not want to be a frontline worker very good i knew that in my heart and my soul i i did not have that kind of grit gotcha i didn't that takes a special person sure and i didn't have that i i just did not have that and that makes sense now purpose in my opinion is the most important thing that will fuel everything else it will develop the grit that comes about to get the job done it will develop the tenacity it will give you that extra bit of fuel in the tank that when you're just completely done you've got some reserves because of the purpose that you're doing now i will say that purposes do change throughout our course of our life um but with yours that i mean that's that's awesome and that and that's always been the core for me too is how can i help this organization be effective be impactful help more help more lives change like in in their version of the mission change the world sure in their version right so whether it was helping organizations that were trying to save animals or helping organizations that were trying to help people who were addicted to drugs sure or or helping families with autism or helping transplants for children you know all these different organizations had their own mission of how to change the world sure and which is great but how do you show the impact how can you actually make that impact you know and that was that was my role i was saying you know i'm going to help these people i'm going to help these people help those people yeah right absolutely because i knew i could not be front lines i didn't know how to comp i didn't have the skills to compartmentalize okay i didn't have the skills to uh well i think it's more heart and i'm not knocking the folks that can but you had a little bit more heart and that took you a little different direction yeah it takes a lot of skills for folks to redirect their empathy okay right okay so like people who work in front lines they know how to redirect their empathy they do they know how to compartmentalize i i just didn't have that very young and so i built different skills i built skills for fundraising growing my network sure um and uh and just really building my book so my my book meaning my little black book ah okay makes sense i just really focused on building that was investing in myself in my 20s i i was i was hyper focused on building my black book makes perfect sense now for those watching the black book um if you are not entrepreneurial mindset if you are not driven by your passions if you don't have the grit then you're probably thinking of a different black book but for uh this situation she's talking about her network or her business book um that will be long-lasting i mean it's essentially the network of folks that can take you to the you to the moon right yeah and i usually always have an actual little black book that in there has my secret of secret notes very good oh yeah okay i mean on people and connections yeah people she mentioned she was in politics yeah so there you go guys so watch out i remember one time losing my little black book and i freaked out i said oh no there is some insider scoop in there oh my goodness i can imagine no i'm kidding but uh you know when you when you've done fundraising and you sat in the homes of san antonio's that's tough top you know and ask them for money and you know things and you're used to no it's fun it's funny you get used to know right you do get used to no absolutely um but what i also learned in fundraising too is that no just means not right now i love that it really does i love that i use i use the uh like old saying new saying i don't know some will some won't so what someone's waiting ah i like that okay now that i'm doing some wilson that's the goal here we want to learn we got to throw stuff back at each other by all means you know it's not right now no no just means not right now very good and that's all and so um because the reality is is if you are really good at keeping your roller decks and you are really good at maintaining a rhythm of your pipeline and keeping up with folks guaranteed those folks do come back around last year we were not able to give but this year we can or last year we were not looking at a property to invest in but this year we are i thought of you very good well and it says a lot about the person you being the person is most when they hear no that's it they're done right folks like you um myself you hear no and it's okay how do i when do i follow up how do i follow up and which angle do i take to accomplish the goal that we're trying to get here at the end of the day business is business absolutely you know and i feel that way too right now in my industry you know i keep i stay friends with my competitors and not for any malicious reason other than they are part of my network they live here too they're my community you know um they might not always be there in that position you just never know i actually can relate 100 percent and there's no point in burning bridges no you're right for that reason and i don't think it matters what industry you're in but you've heard the saying this industry is a small industry right as big as these industries are mortgage your industry they're small industries things come around you'll see the same faces eventually if you are a shaker and a mover so to speak and climb in that ladder um it's just very cool to see the similarities in two completely different industries absolutely and so what was interesting with uh so investing in yourself you know i i really spent all that time building my like casting a wide net okay basically and so that's my advice for a lot of millennials you do in the beginning want to cast a wide net but not for very long make sense you just don't if you cast a wide net then you are too fake okay right now i think dig a little deeper on that because i love the analogy but i don't know if it paints a picture yet to the folks so casting a wide net you know if you want to you want to get a bunch of contacts into your into your phone that's great sure um you know you go to a networking event and you just blanket the whole place with your business card okay how effective is that out of all if you say you pass out 25 business cards how many of those people are really going to put your contact into their phone how many people are really going to email you or anything follow up maybe somebody will if you've got theirs back and you can reach out i like to make notes on any card that i get when i meet somebody right then and there i always make sure i repeat their name three times perfect those are things you got to work on in your 20s guys it's very true you can't you know i've i've had colleagues of mine sit and watch me work a room and ask me how'd you do it i said it's not natural you got to build you got to build these skills absolutely you have to know how to remember someone's name you have to know you have to remember to write down notes about them afterwards if you're that interested that's what makes you genuine i agree and authentic 100 percent you're making that extra effort to remember that his wife's name's linda and she's about to have a baby he's about to be a new dad that's right follow up in three months and see how he's sleeping it's funny because i actually took a class on these type of skills so to speak um they taught us to put it somewhere on your body and then compare it to an adjective and put some color on it and something and then let it stick there okay and that's how you kind of relate things now it's a longer visual basically is how it boils down to but definitely i agree 100 that uh you guys should be investing in yourselves 100 um now you are using the analogy of the casting a wide net um i compare that to shooting a dove shot shotgun versus a a buckshot that's right and when you first get into your industry and i think you can relate you are shooting a dove shot you're spraying it everywhere you're trying to get your name out there truck things like that that you've seen spraying it out there and as you climb that ladder and become who you're wanting to become it starts to hone in to the buckshot it's a funnel everybody has different ways of looking it's a funnel to shotgun what casting absolutely my step dad was my stepdad was a fisherman okay and he was awesome and he was a stockbroker so that's that was always his analogy oh my goodness you've cast a wide net and then you reel them in and you got to throw some back that's right you gotta throw some back and same thing with the shotgun approach you know you're not you're gonna do more men or women or whatever well you know the shotgun approach though if you want to dive into that analogy yeah i mean you take a shot and you're not going to get all of them no you're just going to you might even like maybe one bullet that sprays that's exactly what is going to get your target and so um and that's what it is when it comes to networking i agree and so as you get older or as you start to grow into your business and whether it's a new career new network you will find who are the folks so in my strategy when i cast the wide net i find out okay i got this group of people that i know now um and i learned and i learned this both when i was going into non-profits one i use a strategy trying to figure out who are your circles of influence because i need to know when i was fundraising and same thing now when i'm doing business development i need to know who's making them who's got the purse that's right who has the purse i love it who's got the money that's right where's the whale in the room and what's her name i love that there you go what's her name um yeah who who has the purse like that's your ultimate goal who finding out who's your circle of influence so you cast the wagnet you know um and then you kind of go through everything and you figure out if you do your outreach you figure out who holds the door when he was fundraising us who holds the door to someone's contacts right who's the scheduler absolutely get in good with the secretary better her up better her him up you know somebody who holds schedule um in construction a lot of it is or you know just in the real estate world a lot of it a lot of folks have family that are all on a team that makes decisions but there's always one person that's right a final decision um so so you just figure out who that person is who your circles of influence is also these are folks who know all the decision makers that's right so so when i'm casting a wide net i want to find out this is the decision makers number one and the circles of influence if i cannot access the decision makers directly who are the coi who's going to be the person that can get me to right or or who are people who are also other know-it-alls i agree who are the people who are the cheese man i like it that's right and the cheese give it to me i want to know so that i can use that absolutely who are the folks that i'm going to go to breakfast with and they're going to lay it all out i don't have to say anything i love that so so they're the best obviously you you have the confidence to be able to do that throughout the years right now i guess for the viewers and listeners casting of the net shooting of the the shotgun that essentially in our mindset is the means to eating the means to growing the means to everything else that we're trying to do in life because at the end of the day like you mentioned a shotgun sprays um the net goes wide and it all it takes is one it does right it could be a little pellet that hits a wing but that allows you to eat for the night so to speak right right and continuing to do that allows you to eat for the rest of your life teach a man to fish versus giving him fish same concept right but i think a lot of the folks out there in our um generation are scared to take that first step and i think it's great that you're articulating that to them it really is so some of the things that i wanted to talk to you about are we've already talked about investing in yourself what would be the next let's say tip that you would give for folks out there you i would imagine what are your top three top four well you want you do want to invest in in others you know investing in others is well we actually just mentioned that growing your network that's right that's right looked at my notes for a second yeah you do want to grow your network that is actually investing in others so to go further in that what i mean by that is so now you got now you've got some folks in your circle who are now your circle sure they're kind of you're you're now you've got to turn it into your circle of trust yeah right becomes your sphere of influence right you know you still even though you go have breakfast with the for those who do not know what a cheese monster or cheese is tell them said somebody who is the gossiper you know they know everybody they know that randy's wife isn't a baby and new business and all the drama and that and this and that they know they can connect the dots not only can they connect the dots they have historical reference that's right these are the guys and girls these are the guys and ladies that they know what happened in oh man in 2001 or in 1995 when that deal was made you know they know and that's their life they do know you you are correct they know because they've been around and they've been doing this approach that i'm doing forever that's right so they've been keeping up with folks keeping up with their issues keeping up with their drama personal and professional absolutely and so now you got the the the trust when i have somebody on a text message level i i have trust very good i i honestly do feel i have trust if i am on a text message relationship with somebody then we have a relationship now yeah we're you know we're calling we feel comfortable enough too right absolutely we've become more than acquaintances we're colleagues now right we're colleagues and especially if i feel comfortable enough to ask you insider information or short text you know that takes a lot of trust usually it's a phone call you never want anything in writing there you go but uh but you know you want to be able to build trust with folks and that also takes some of that genuine understanding of what's going on in their life and taking a general genuine interest you know that that really makes a difference for a lot of folks they there are believe it or not a lot of people who don't have people in their lives who are genuinely interested in what's happening right i've seen it and it is a sad thing and and those of you that are listening if you do feel um like you're in that position seek friends elsewhere seek circles elsewhere and i mentioned there you go um but yeah that that uh that's a great point that you bring up yeah and so i always make sure that um i'm going into any situation with really wanting to connect with those people but again y'all this took intention me wanting to come into a room to get to know somebody it took me an intentional it it made i had to set an intentional mindset to be present no matter where i was absolutely and it took me investing in myself first of all to know that when i was going into rooms i wasn't being present sure there was a time in my life where i was going to every event every chamber event everything every gala and i would meet all these people hand out my cards and i didn't know who i'm at that's exactly right it's almost um begin everything with the end in sight walking into a room and knowing when i come out of this room i'm going to have one to five new contacts that will get me to my goal right versus going into the room and being the life of the party but not leaving with anything but stories to tell yeah again it takes research where are you going who's going to be there what are their names what do they look like and so now if i do anything it's like well one i try to invite people who i want to have someone on one time with with me sure but also if i can walk away with at least meeting somebody or saying hi or whatever to somebody that i want to get to know mm-hmm brush arms with then then it was worth it there was a times man i had a good time at that gay level what that's right that's right and i think we've all been through that because when you get in it's exciting it's a new it's a new room and i believe entrepreneurs um business-minded folks like us um our goal is to seek other rooms higher um i guess upper echelon so to speak type to where it helps us get to the next place and knowing that i want to take it to the purpose is almost what develops that intention and you go through it you go man i've been doing this but i haven't gotten any there's nothing out of it now okay self-evaluation time right and how do i get to that goal okay here's the intention of what i'm trying to do now put a plan together and how i'm going to act on that to come up with the conclusion yet the goal right so investing in those folks is really important in getting to know who they are and also investing in your community is really the next thing that everybody especially if you strive to have that millionaire mindset absolutely if you strive to have growth mindset you cannot i'm just going to say fundamentally my belief is you cannot go anywhere if you don't know where you're going and you have you have no one you're taking with you absolutely hey here's an analogy here's an analogy close your eyes and take off running let's see how far you get right exactly you have you have no you're you're walking in the dark like you said or you're shooting blind and um and there's no point of any of your success if no one hears about it if you can't share it right um and and that's just part of this life at the end of the day at the end of the day none of us own anything right it's all borrowed including the time all borrowed okay we all end up in the ground yeah it's not none of it's ours to have absolutely now i will i will say that you myself other folks that we'll have on the show we probably all believe in that but we also want to leave something behind after and and whether that be money whether it be a legacy whether it be something that changes the world that's what our our goal is absolutely so you need to be invested so i highly recommend people who are millennials if you're under the age of 45 there you go just in general you need to be on a board of a non-profit or a commission for any municipal group the river authority saws cps your local utilities any of your planning commissions any place where decisions are being made for the public absolutely um you need to be there especially that's gold especially if you're somebody who's driven um you need to be in rooms where decisions are being made period because one we need your diversity we need your we need your young mind whatever background you came from whatever gender you are the fact that you are of younger age is crucial it gives a different perspective yeah absolutely it's a different perspective it's it's diversity it's at its finest everybody in every group where there's decisions being made they're looking for time the three t's time talent and treasure there you go i've never heard that one time you have time they want your time yeah young people have time yep they want your talent a lot of young people have talent mm-hmm um and treasure not a whole lot of young people have treasure correct but your treasure grows this is my stance okay your treasure grows when you grow your network in those groups very true because you will be in the room with people you would have never found yourself in a room absolutely that's exactly right you know and so it's like serving on boards and commissions is the reason why i know owners of cpa firms or people who work in in tech startups sure just groups rooms that i would never have found myself in you know i don't find myself in a whole lot of startup rooms and that actually seems to be a common theme in these podcasts that we're doing is the simple fact that as i mentioned and you mentioned the goal is to get into those rooms so i mean you've you've mentioned i'll call them the three pillars investing in yourself number one um investing in others number two and investing in your community yes right and i believe that those in essence um are the foundation to getting to your end goal oh yeah those i think are the um most wouldn't think they're as basic as they are but for you that's just a basic principle this is your philosophy this is what you stand on right my foundation i love that it's my foundation and i feel like if you have this as your foundation investing yourself and your other into others and your community you will be very successful in your businesses and anything that you achieve because in my experience after all that investment let's say what happened to me in 2020 was like a lot of people that happened in 2020 was just hit and bottom sure so i saw so everybody knows like i hit bottom in 2020. gotcha

um you know i didn't have a job i had a you know heart condition that i found out about that i needed to get fixed co you know worldwide pandemic absolutely i lost my stepdad who i was helping care for in the house and home hospice um it was nine months of unemployment there was no jobs guys and everybody out there who knows everything sure until the ppp rolled out yeah job started opening up again um but i never let it be bleak for me why because i have a growth mindset and i know there's something on the other side always that's exactly what it is the is the mindset of that and again this is another common theme is and i will say it to today um if i lost everything tomorrow it would be okay yeah uh why because i know how to get it back yes and i'll do it again better the next time yep um and that's just it's a mindset fail fail fail but fail forward there are times i got super nervous don't get me wrong i was going to bed at 4 am just trying to figure out but i was hustling what can i do today what can i do today who can i call you know even in 2020 even jobless crystal was calling people i had a list of phone calls that i was still making still keeping in contact with contact i was calling all my clies i was like hey if you know anybody who's looking for you know low hanging fruit to do you need someone to go down to the planning office and just sit and listen sure to planning decisions i'll do it for you you need somebody to go and uh change zoning i'll go do all the dirty work i'm gonna do it i know nobody likes to go sit in the planning boarding commission no to decisions you nobody wants i'll do it i that's awesome but i wanted to make sure that it was still in my path though it wasn't going to go and i mean i will go back and serve still intentionally i needed to feed my family absolutely but i was lucky enough and smart enough to have a nice nest egg because you need to be financially sound absolutely um to take your time question yeah um what would you say is a good savings amount for folks out there generally it doesn't have to be exact just a general i know the general rules like you know three months of your expenses but honestly six months and i say six months if you can and anybody listening anybody can you just have to prioritize period um what's the highest priority having a nest egg for the oh [ __ ] moments i said it first cuss word on this podcast that's right um and i think that three months is a great start why stop there to get it to the point that just in case something happens you have something to fall back on and you're not having to pick yourself up and pay for everything and figure out how to feed mouths and there's a lot to deal with in this thing called life yes and and i highly recommend you know uh that everybody have a financial advisor very good even if you're not rich you're not it is not having financial advisor is not for the wealthy i will agree take that out of your mind yes you can go to uh you know there's different places new york live northwestern mutual there's different types of agencies that will do some financial advising sure sure they'll help you get out of debt guys they'll work a plan with you why because they do want your business so they you know they do want you to buy their products eventually of course so but in the meantime they will help you reach your other financial goals so why not have a coach next to you to go do that you need to get that yeah sounds simple let's laymen it down you wash your own car or you take it to the car wash you do your taxes or you take it to a cpa there are plenty of things that we can do on our own but i think as we go through the trials and tribulations we learn that i'd rather have somebody that that's what they do do that versus me trying to figure it out which in turn takes away time for me right i want time to do what i do best and these folks know how to help get you away from that so that's what i did in 2020 i got my finances right y'all i cut out so much debt it's awesome you'd be surprised how much you saved when you're not spending oh yeah because the world because of pending yeah there's a pandemic going on so you're not out there spending and you're not lunching like i was doing three times a day and uh and it's so true okay i was like how is this money coming into my account oh it's because it's not going out ah checks and balances yeah exactly so let's talk about something that i i spoke about before on a different show and i wanted to get your response on it and it had to do with millennials and their need for friends and i'm not saying it's a bad thing at all i'm just saying that folks like you and i we have to dedicate time to the things that we're trying to accomplish and that could mean as you were mentioning research on whatever it is that you're doing which nobody's around when you're doing that right you know that doing this research is going to help you capitalize in this next meeting but that takes time um planning for the next event um courting the next contract all of that good stuff uh takes time that being said how do you handle the friends that are nagging to spend time with you i know you know so my friends and i have to sing people come into your life for a reason absolutely a season or a lifetime one more time a reason a season or a lifetime very good right you have people come in your life for a reason you know the guy who mows your lawn you get to be night you have a choice to be nice and to cordial that person sure make sure their day is not worse off after they've seen you right you have a choice the person opens the door for you you know the person who you come into contact every day um then you have people who are in a season maybe you're doing business with them maybe you went to college with them they were in a season for four years with you that's a long time absolutely uh maybe they're other parents of your kids at the school right maybe it's your your kids teacher right these are people who you can also help impact in their life and they in yours so you still want to maintain a really healthy relationship with those seasonal relations um because they might turn into lifetime friends sure they might turn into lifetime folks and those folks are very far and few your lifetime people they are people who see me through all your seasons all of them like even the bad ones absolutely and they've seen you through all of it and so those folks you you don't really honestly don't have to worry about them because they don't go away they're the people who you woke up one day and it's like god i haven't called that person and oh my god it's been seven months right and you call them like oh don't worry oh my god i thought about you today too because i woke up and it was seven months since i've seen you or talked to you i don't know what's happening in your life absolutely and you pick up exactly where you left off those people are your lifetime folks you never have to worry about them leaving and i think that's that's what i'm trying to get at is determining who your lifetimers are and who are the folks that came into your life for a reason yes it's not up to you to determine what the reason is it doesn't matter the reason isn't to help motivate you give you um some type of encouragement to keep doing what you're doing right regardless of the time that you can't spend with them or can spend with them um and then the seasonal folks determining who it is right i think millennials have a tough time and i know i'm generalizing but it has to be done i believe our generation is one that is very heavily um focused on the friends thing like i've gotta have my friends by me i've gotta go and do this thing or else they won't be friends with me anymore or they won't it's probably not a friend yeah right and it takes a growth mindset to realize that those those three types of friendships and realizing that if they're a person who is in them for a reason in a season it's okay to let them go yeah right so being able to let go of things also is a kind of mindset that i had to be very conscientious and growing for myself absolutely because i was very much a person who's who is attached to having a healthy ending i did not like endings sure right even if they weren't good for me whether it was a job whether it was a a contract to the client sure even whether it was a friendship it was not good for me i had a very hard time cutting it off makes sense and it took a lot of effort for me to do that because i'm very much a very um social person sure and you don't want anybody to doubt my relationships i value my relationships um you know you get to still court that you still you can still it's not like a full cut off with folks but there are some people you do need to cut the vine absolutely right if you want to grow with your energy if people are being an energy suck if they are not adding value to you if they are taking the energy bus if they are if they are taking more out of your energy bucket that's right than they're putting in then they are it is okay i'm telling you i'm giving you everybody permission right now it is okay it's okay crystal's certified it's okay to cut them off it really is um and and you know it doesn't have to be a hard it doesn't have to be like your fire donald trump style you you can just let go yep and see what happens absolutely and i love that that take on it if they need you more than you need them that's okay except that relationship um but don't don't let don't let your energy be taken at the end of the day you have to get your stuff done that even means in relationships too sure i agree you have to vocalize with your spouse your boyfriend girlfriend significant other your bffs your mom who's super attached to you with your kids you know there's things that you need to get done yeah and when those get done then you know you're gonna you're gonna do all these other things right and then i guess the the um what we talked about the last time we mentioned this was change our goal is to change we have to change we have to change right or else we can't move forward we can't accomplish those huge goals that we have and that seems to be the motto from the other side which is oh you've changed that's okay that's okay that's exactly right um i love that so thank you for sharing that uh perspective on that uh little segment there um so i would like to get into your business that you have um and the name of it is crystal clear community consulting yes how did that how did that come about and it's been open for a little while now right six years okay and what is the intent of it what are you doing what's your mission tell me about that actually i don't have any clients right now okay bring it on well look here we got a whole bunch of people listening so uh so 20 20 20 20 happened but uh my consultancy actually opened because um i don't know how to stop working when i had my baby at in 2015 i said you know what guys since i was 15 years old i've always worked not just one job like i said two jobs i can relate maybe i've always been that way i don't know any other speed than you know 150 miles an hour you want to hear a funny story real quick okay so my first job ever for those that do not know was my father was working as a mri radiology technician director and i was 14 years old during the summer and he said i've got a project for you and a couple of other uh 14 15 year olds to do um so each day in our first day it was crazy because we show up to this building lights are off huge warehouse full of barrels and we look at the barrels we're like okay so what do we need to do and he says in the barrels there's films uh uh x-rays films yeah we need you guys to shred them all we're looking around like oh my god there's a ton of them well you're here all summer like okay cool no problem so we start popping the barrels open and one of the guys holds the film up and it's a bo

2021-03-02 13:44

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