Speaker 1: 0:30

I just want to talk about business, business, business. Whereas it's like it's okay to get to know more about, like, the human behind the business, cause usually you like fall in love with them once you actually find out their why, right, speaking of which, what do you do? What's your business? How do you make money? As a Me, I'm a title company owner. Okay, what is that exactly For people that haven't bought a house?

Speaker 2: 0:54

Real estate agents bring us contracts and then we close the transaction with a middleman in between. So we work with all of them. We're the ones that get the money and then we're the ones that disperse everything, so that the buyer gets their home, the keys and then seller gets their money for their next transaction. Whatever they're doing, why did you go into this. It wasn't by choice.

Speaker 1: 1:15

You were forced into it. Tell me the story behind that.

Speaker 2: 1:20

I was 16, my parents bought me a car, took my whole savings account and bought me car insurance and then said here's your loan payment. Better deal with it. My best friends aunt worked at the courthouse in Montgomery County, maryland, and got us all little part-time jobs and I never got to leave. I was an abstractor. I was in land records. I didn't know what I was doing but real quickly I was making $4 an hour cash. I mean you were talking about a very long time ago. So I worked for one company all the way through high school. I probably worked for him until I was probably almost 20 and then I was recruited by a builder to run and help with their abstracting department and I didn't love abstracting. I liked it, but I felt like there was more to the whole position. And then at the builder they let me go into settlements. So within a year I was the settlement manager there at NVR.

Speaker 1: 2:11

What did you like about that?

Speaker 2: 2:13

I liked that well. With that it was much easier for me because it was a builder. We had our own clientele, so I just had to sway them to use us. So it was keeping your in-house business. It wasn't like I had to go out on the street and find business. I had business. I just had to make sure that they understood that I could do it. I had my own department, so I had a great group of people that I worked with. Everything was in-house, very easy to do.

Speaker 2: 2:39

I lasted there for I don't know, about three and a half years, four years. How long did that last Before? And the way I say that is because we set up lots of joint ventures. So besides NVR, you do poultry homes. We did Melon Bank closings. We had a no closing cost program for refinances. That was a joint venture with I don't know five, six different lenders. Well, one of those picked me up and took me as where it went. That ultimately was bought by an attorney and then I lasted with him for 10 years as his vice president. So I don't know, like 22, 23.

Speaker 1: 3:09

What made you want to go out and do your own thing then?

Speaker 2: 3:11

My attorney retired. I had no choice, so it was either jump on somebody else's bandwagon or do what I knew how to do.

Speaker 1: 3:19

Start your own. What's been the best thing about running your own business?

Speaker 2: 3:22

I don't like it at all.

Speaker 1: 3:23

Yeah, you had nothing, absolutely nothing, I think.

Speaker 2: 3:30

I like doing what I want to do, meaning I like the variety of it. I hate all the paperwork I hate. You know it's a title company.

Speaker 1: 3:38

Right.

Speaker 2: 3:39

And I'm not even the title part of it. I love that part. I like doing the closings. I like doing the examinations of title. I don't like the licensing dealing with the state, dealing with the insurance companies, you know those kind of things. That's a very different side of things. Before I just did the closings, I did the examinations. Those were good. I got to see the people, got to go out and do the happy hours. I don't get that when I have to sit and deal with the insurance engine all day.

Speaker 1: 4:04

How many years ago did you start your own business?

Speaker 2: 4:06

It is 12 and 1 half years.

Speaker 1: 4:08

So if you go 12 and 1 half years back and you hit the reset button, would you have picked a different path?

Speaker 2: 4:15

No.

Speaker 1: 4:16

So, as much as you hate it, you would do it all over again.

Speaker 2: 4:19

I would. So, if you think about it. So my business started because the economy was crashing. That was 2008, 2009. It took me probably a year to kind of figure out that I'm going to have to do this. And that's really how long it took, because I didn't want to do it. I had formed the company, I had set up all the LLC, and then I had somebody immediately want to buy it because it had licenses, and I thought, well, do I just sell it for $20,000 and just call it a day, or do I just go ahead and go forward? And yeah, I wouldn't change that, I would still go forward.

Speaker 1: 4:50

What's something that you wish you full knew about your industry.

Speaker 2: 4:55

There's a lot of shade in my industry. That always has been A lot of what Shade? Ok, I think the consumer is my problem, meaning that title companies don't get to the consumer first. It's always the realtor, it's always the loan officer and they push you. They know it's not always to the consumer's benefit and I don't like that.

Speaker 1: 5:18

How do you think what's the best way to change that, like if you had a magic wand and you could change that.

Speaker 2: 5:22

So I'm actually a hop leader, which is a homeowner's outreach program leader, with ALTA. Alta is American Land Title Association, not ALTA the makeup store, not that one ALTA with an A. So it's American Land Title Association and basically with that, the first class I went to there was in DC and we go everywhere. So I've been to New Orleans, I've been to Minneapolis, denver, they go all over the place because it's title companies from all over, because we go through the same thing. I think the average was 5% of consumers know a title company but everything else comes from a realtor or a loan officer. So the consumer doesn't even know what we do. They don't know what the products we sell and that's why I'm such an advocate for the first time homebuyers classes that I teach, because I teach at least twice a month all over.

Speaker 1: 6:10

That's smart, so you're getting in the game and you're educating, so that way, when somebody is selling their home, then they're going to be thinking oh hey, I know somebody versus waiting for the agent to say oh hey, let me connect you to my title.

Speaker 2: 6:26

Yeah, because technically, when CFPB came in, when RASPA came in with all of the rules is what we're allowed to do and we're not allowed to do? We are under straight, just a strict, tight belt. There's rules to protect the consumer. Everybody is supposed to give you three options, three loan officers, three realtors, three title companies, to make sure you are getting what you are shopping for. That doesn't happen.

Speaker 1: 6:51

I was going to say I know perfectly that doesn't happen.

Speaker 2: 6:53

It doesn't happen. So yeah, and I don't think a title company is supposed to be telling you that either that's one of those things. Not many people are going to talk about that, but yeah, I see a lot of it.

Speaker 1: 7:04

Why is that bad? Why would it be bad that a title company is saying that?

Speaker 2: 7:08

Because if a title company has a joint venture with a real estate agent, who's making the money, who's paying the money? That's still the consumer ultimately paying the cost. Do fees have to be up because everybody else has their hand in the pot, or do you go with a boutique title company that's only there to support themselves? I mean, this is supported in my family. My family works for me.

Speaker 1: 7:28

Tell me about your family.

Speaker 2: 7:29

My family. I was a teen mom, so I had my son when I was 17. Mind you again, I'd already been pushed out to go work. So my mom will tell you I was on my own by the time I was five. I had run away from home when I was three and a half, so I was very independent, very strong-willed.

Speaker 1: 7:45

You ran away from home when you were three and a half.

Speaker 2: 7:47

Yeah, I hitched hike down Beerusville Road in Rockville, Maryland, and got in a car with a couple and made them drive me to my grandmother's house.

Speaker 1: 7:54

Oh my gosh.

Speaker 2: 7:56

Yes, my mother was in big trouble for that one, but she left me at a birthday party I didn't want to be at and you said, sianaris, see you later. And I did. I don't know what I would do. That's what I'm saying. So luckily I was picked up by a family in their little station wagon Mind you, this was you were talking like 1973, 1974. They lived right around the corner from my grandmother and they took me there and dropped me off and my grandmother was ready to kill her. But that happened. But again, so it wasn't.

Speaker 2: 8:27

My brothers are much younger than I am, so I have a brother that's five years younger, six years and then 13 years younger than me. My youngest brother is severely mentally disabled. He's in a wheelchair, so I'm at like a two to three year old level, so it takes a lot of time. The brother that's a little bit older than him had learning disabilities, so he was homeschooled. So Sian and I the older ones were pretty much on our own. Yeah, so news, I had my son when I was 17. I married my high school sweetheart. We've been married for 35 years. We had two more kids. I have two daughters. So now my kids are 30, 32, and 36. We have five grandchildren and six of them will be here in May.

Speaker 2: 9:12

We always I grew up in Damascus, maryland, which is very farm rule, ffa's kind of stuff so we always just didn't want to live in a subdivision. That were my neighbors right next to me. So when we moved to Luckets because that's where I live we bought about four acres, built a home and that was out of the generosity of somebody that I knew and we lived there for almost 25 years. Then we decided we needed more land, so we bought a place on the other side of Luckets. I mean, literally we grew across the street. We bought about 12 acres and it was time. So that's when we got our cows and the animals. My son and his family live with us because we have a mother-in-law suite, so they have their own apartment on my house. So the two grandsons live with me as well.

Speaker 1: 9:56

And if you couldn't be doing this title company that is supporting your whole family your whole family is working and supporting your family what would you do?

Speaker 2: 10:06

I don't know what I would do, because I often think about all these jobs and I'm like, oh my God, I really I couldn't do that, I couldn't do it, I wouldn't want to do it, I wouldn't enjoy it. I'm severe ADD. I was tested when I was 40. So I have to have something with variety. I have to have something that I keep moving. My brain does not shut off.

Speaker 1: 10:27

So this is good, this is good, keep you.

Speaker 2: 10:30

And I think that's why it's kept my attention for so long. No one title has ever been the same. No one title will ever be the same. It can't be. Just from the history of the land how have you grown your business?

Speaker 2: 10:41

So my business has been hard. I came with business. I never had a business plan, I never had a budget. It was pretty much here's my savings account. Let's start the business in this role. The first year in business which I was only in business for six months, I made a million dollars. Through the business Scared the crap out of me because it is not kind of money that I was expecting. My accountant didn't expect it. You know what I mean.

Speaker 1: 11:01

Like this was a whole how do you make a million dollars in your first year of business?

Speaker 2: 11:06

Because I had a ton of clients that came with me. My attorney basically retired and handed me a book of business. So it was a book of business. The hardest thing back then was finding office space because I was like I have to have an office that's turnkey.

Speaker 1: 11:20

So the one that you were working with didn't sell you the business. He handed it to you. Yeah, I don't know who that is, but that right there is the best thing.

Speaker 2: 11:32

Trust me. I've been told I have the golden horseshoe. It is one of those things.

Speaker 1: 11:37

Sorry, I was just like wait a second. Yes, he didn't want to do it anymore.

Speaker 2: 11:40

He's retired, he lives over in Maryland, he's a Virginia attorney, so I can go to him for advice. He just doesn't practice very much. But at that point he had already reestablished his business two or three times as the market changed. You have to change with the market, you have to know what your audience is. So he had already done that two or three times. He said I'm done. I mean, he was probably at that point probably about 61, 62. He was good. So he said let's just go ahead and grow it. And that's what he did. He just handed me a book of business. We went with it and you went. But again, you're changing with your audience.

Speaker 2: 12:14

So back then it was a re-finement market which were band-aid loans which a lot of people don't even know what that is. But that's like a 228, where it's fixed for two years and then you have a prepayment penalty if you pay it off early and then it turns into an adjustable rate. But these were for people who had a lot of debt. Roll your credit cards in, roll your car in, get it into one payment, get your credit cleaned up, then go refinance your house. So these loans had purpose. Then we went into the negative amortization loans where everybody was, oh, let's just pay interest, and everything else was tacked to the back of the loan. That's what that economy was back then. I closed a lot of those bad loans.

Speaker 2: 12:51

I did because that's what people wanted.

Speaker 1: 12:55

How does that make you feel? Is it kind? Of like what it is, or do you feel like?

Speaker 2: 12:58

it was more regularly. I know how I do a closing and I know how I would explain the documents to you. I don't think everybody did that back then. I think it was really just sign here, like the Vanna White is what we call it. Sign here on the paper and I'm going to notarize your signature. That's not my job. My job is to explain those documents to you and to make sure you understand what you're getting. Back then, being so long ago, you would come to the table and not even know what kind of loan you got. Here's the papers that are provided to you, whether you take your house with this loan or not.

Speaker 1: 13:29

Yeah, but as long as you understand what you're doing Right.

Speaker 2: 13:33

Exactly Every loan that has its purpose. Every loan can be done correctly if you know how to work the loan. Even today, if I'm closing a 30-year fixed loan, why are you going to just go 30 years and pay the same payment? Why would you ever do that? If you pay one extra payment a year of just principal, you're knocking off almost eight years of interest. Those are things that I can tell you. It's sitting at a table. Am I going to tell you that before? Probably not. You're not going to remember that. But if I'm sitting there showing you the note, showing you an amortization schedule saying this is, this is for eight pages of how many payments you're going to be making, one at a time per month for the whole 30 years, but you're going to wipe out two pages of this of interest if you just do it what I just said. A loan officer probably doesn't tell you that they may, depending on how they're sitting.

Speaker 1: 14:17

Why wouldn't?

Speaker 2: 14:17

they, because you'd be surprised how many people don't know that while they sit at the table? And if I saw differently, I would tell you otherwise.

Speaker 1: 14:25

Yeah, what's one of the hardest personal challenges you've had to go through?

Speaker 2: 14:31

The first several loans that I closed no-transcript. Again, I was an abstractor. That means I was in the courthouse, I was doing the paperwork. It's almost like putting a report together as far as what happened to the land when you get behind a closing table and you're sitting with an individual. One of the first ones I had to close the lady was legally blind. Yes, she can close on a loan, I can't touch her. No one else can touch her. She's got to sign the papers. Like I can point and say here's where the line is, after you've explained it to it Back then people were paying a lot of money in points.

Speaker 2: 15:03

You know the max that could be charged was about eight points and that's a lot. I remember sitting with that couple and I remember it was a DC property, they were elderly, she was legally blind. I cried, I cried, I couldn't do it anymore. I was like I can't do this. This is not for me. Why? Because I felt that loan officer really had ripped them off and I'm the one that's sitting there having them sign it. Not him, it was me and I remember the loan officer, but yeah.

Speaker 1: 15:31

That was a hard one. I'm not going to ask you to name names, but okay, he's still in business.

Speaker 2: 15:35

And again the markets are very different and loans are done veritely differently because they did create the CFPB, the consumer finance. So it is something that people are more protected now. Back then they were not. There wasn't anybody watching that, but that was a really pivotal I mean that was 90, probably 91, 92. And I will never forget that one.

Speaker 2: 15:57

I will also never forget the time where I had a gentleman keep coming back to my office every day, close your loan and all he wants to do is argue the mortgage insurance. And by the sixth day I was so angry I took him in the closing room and I took his file and I mind you, this was a lot of paper back then, a lot of paper. I took that file and I said you either leave this alone and don't ask me any more questions, because again, I'm not your mortgage insurance company. You got to remember my role and I always try to stay in my lane. I threw that file across that room and his papers went everywhere. I said that's what I think of it now. We are not friends. We have never been friends.

Speaker 2: 16:31

The worst part about that he was buying this property from his mother's estate, so he's fighting with his brothers and sisters over the mortgage insurance. It had nothing to do with me, but I was fed up. No one had explained to him what kind of loan he was getting, what this mortgage insurance meant when it would fall off. If it was ever going to fall off, you know you can always go and refinance and get rid of the loan. Things can be done.

Speaker 1: 16:55

I was here to Just like education is what it sounds like in the industry. Absolutely so. I think that's changed over the last 20-ish years.

Speaker 2: 17:04

I think certain things of it have, I still think, for our industry, meaning title. People don't know what we do. They still don't know our product, even though our product's been around forever. You know, lender's title insurance came about in the 1950s. Nobody knows that. Nobody knows why a lender requires you to buy them a policy or what it actually protects. I'll tell you.

Speaker 2: 17:27

I had a case literally a couple of weeks ago. A gentleman came to me and he's paying in cash. His property that he's buying is a little triangle. Okay, it's two acres, but it's a little triangle. If you look at it on a map, it sits in the middle of a racetrack. The racetrack owns all this property around it. Okay, that's interesting. The road is way over here. This little triangle has no driveway to that road, so it automatically doesn't have access. Yeah Well, owner's title insurance protects you for access. We want to make sure that you're not landlocked.

Speaker 2: 17:57

So he was already negotiating with the racetrack to build a road. He ended up being a surveyor, which I felt a lot better once I literally started talking about this. He was a surveyor, he was able to do a boundary search. He was able to negotiate with the neighbors. The problem is you haven't settled, you don't own the house, so you're negotiating with people that has no bearing. He was buying a bank-owned property. The bank wasn't going to. They don't care, they just want this asset off their books. Just move the house.

Speaker 2: 18:26

So I had to talk him into buying the property. You're going to get owner's title insurance but you will not have access coverage Like we are going to. There's going to be clauses in here that says I'm not guaranteeing you can get to the road. You can come back and we can amend that once the road is all done. But literally that was two weeks. The realtor did not know what to do. She was like I'm going to loss, what do I do? I said well, I'm going to have to get on the phone with him, like we're going to have to do some conference call. He's going to have to know you can have what you think you're going to get, but there's certain things you can't do on the property. So they're building a road.

Speaker 1: 18:57

Have you thought about how are you currently doing your marketing? I know you got a big book of business.

Speaker 2: 19:03

So when I hit cancer hit me about seven years ago, that put me back really far. I've lost a lot of business. I've lost a lot of friends. A lot of people have walked away from me because of that. Because with thyroid cancer it affects so many of my bodily functions, meaning I don't have an immune system. This is not my regular voice. I I don't grow eyebrows, I have anxiety, I have all the weird things that come along. I have it Based on the type of cancer I had. So when my thyroid was removed, they removed a lot of the lymph nodes in the front them. I'm metastatic, so it's already in my my lymph nodes. That's not going to change.

Speaker 2: 19:43

So in saying that I would agree to do things and I couldn't do it, I couldn't like a. Physically I couldn't do it. I retreated into a shell. I couldn't get off a couch for three months because I couldn't lift my head. It took such a toll on just my physical being I didn't think I was going to make it meaning not that I wasn't going to live, meaning that I couldn't function on what I was normally functioning at. And that was the hard one. That was a hard one to swallow. I still don't do networking anymore. I just can't. I can't be in a room with a lot of people because I just have a breakdown. Not by choice, because I used to love to see people and I do love people, but physically I can't do it yet.

Speaker 1: 20:23

So that gets better with time is kind of out of the picture, mm-hmm for the most part.

Speaker 2: 20:29

So I have a title agents that work with me that go out and you know I know a lot of just for how many years I've been in the business.

Speaker 1: 20:35

I know a lot of people so I think, if you're not doing it yet, I think you should. You should do video content, you really should. You've got a lot of stories.

Speaker 2: 20:44

I have a ton of stories and being on the camera really scares me.

Speaker 1: 20:47

So are you scared right now?

Speaker 2: 20:50

Am I scared right now? I think I've kind of put that behind me for right now, because I was looking forward to this, because I do like to conquer my fears and I like to just get everybody's things. So what I say, I'm, you know, maybe I'm a little anxious, but no, I'm not scared of it now.

Speaker 1: 21:03

I just You'd be really good on video because you've got such passion and knowledge. And even if and you've got a cell phone, even if you set it up and you get a friend to have a conversation with you or you just start telling stories and you know like you have a list of content to go through. I Hate networking. I love people, hate networking. I just I find it Disingenuine a lot of times at least, the way a lot of things are set up. I Spend a lot of time away and I've and I've measured I'm all about numbers I've measured how many hours I spend towards networking Versus like what happens in return. It's how I started my business. Like I'm not gonna try to say that networking doesn't have its place. It definitely had its place. But then you start to see the ROI after so much time and I found doing content video content is a much better ROI for me For the last seven, eight years of my business, then at the very beginning, when networking was better for me, but it's only I think you should consider doing.

Speaker 2: 22:02

Yeah, I felt like I was saying what networking was like the key. You go to these little meetings, you meet all these people. Soon as I got sick, all those people were gone. That was real quick. Tell me about that. That was, I think I. That was really just heartbreaking to me that no one really cared that I had cancer. No one really came to visit. There wasn't any. I mean, my clients that knew me for a long time did and have stuck with me. Yeah, very few have, very few have.

Speaker 2: 22:29

I feel now that it's almost like I have to regrow myself again. Like I said, it's always ups and downs in our business. As far as the market, what's going on? You know the interest rate hit eight yesterday. Yeah, that's not a great thing. When I took my first loan it was 10%. Not gonna lie, I wanted my house. I was gonna take it at 10%, was very happy to have it at 10. But Again, I have people that work with me who are younger, who's like, oh my god, 8%, like they're used to seeing two and three and four, eight's been here. 70s were an 18%. You know these are not.

Speaker 1: 23:02

You know, and this is what I I refute with, though, and you know what I'm gonna say. What am I gonna say? I don't know, okay, because?

Speaker 2: 23:08

there's a lot of ways to refute that.

Speaker 1: 23:11

How much were the houses in the 70s and 80s like my?

Speaker 2: 23:14

first home was $79,000 and I did FHA loan at 10%.

Speaker 1: 23:19

So the numbers are much different, absolutely thousand.

Speaker 2: 23:24

absolutely. That's very hard for me to stomach how Anybody in the political world, any of the banks, any of those the big players, as I call them can see how an average person, especially like the younger ones who, you know, my goal is to own a home. Well, guess what? Wait till you're 40, because that's about how long it's going to take you to do it now, under these numbers, unfortunately, they just don't see the common person and what they can afford them, what they can't.

Speaker 1: 23:49

Yeah, yeah, because. And then people are like yeah, but you know you weren't making as much. Then it's like no, no, no, no, no, it's still not on scale. It will never be on scale. It has not gone up that much compared to the housing prices for that to make sense.

Speaker 2: 24:02

That's correct. It's not. It's not in comparison.

Speaker 1: 24:05

It's in a situation that our economy is in, but people are pulling through and they're figuring out ways to like make it happen, but it's still disappointing.

Speaker 2: 24:12

I think the biggest thing is loans are temporary. Exactly, take it, get in, that's right, you know. When the market changes, you go refinance that thing. That's right, you know you got to. You can't change the home price, you can't change the home price, the seller's.

Speaker 1: 24:23

So if it's lower now, yeah, get it now. And the inventory's low.

Speaker 2: 24:25

I mean, regardless, the inventory's very low. Sellers don't want to sell because they locked in at 2% and 3%. Why would you sell that and then go buy something else unless you really really had to? I mean, this is a transit area. You've got the government here, you've got, you've got cash, yeah, so there's a lot of cash flow here. Other markets are not like that. I mean, I used to be licensed from like Richmond all the way up through Jersey. Different markets, different. It's just different. Yeah, very, very different.

Speaker 1: 24:50

Yes. So if you could share one tip with somebody who's listening, who is a business owner. They're looking to build their business. They've got the Gross. I'm tough skin. I was going to say they've got the bright eyes. I think it is.

Speaker 2: 25:02

I think it is always oh, it's going to be so great, I'm going to do what I love and I'm going to make money. Are we going to get?

Speaker 1: 25:08

benefits. It's all this freedom.

Speaker 2: 25:10

It's a lot of responsibility. You got to grow your tough skin and just be used to it. I remember my first year in business here. I was attacked by an attorney here, which again I will not name names.

Speaker 1: 25:19

But I know Basically verbally attacked or verbally attacked.

Speaker 2: 25:23

The word goes around. Let's say title is very small. I was the first woman owned title company in Virginia. When I did this and I'm not an attorney I bothered off a lot of people because I don't hold my degree.

Speaker 1: 25:34

Who is?

Speaker 2: 25:34

she Right Pretty much. Who does she think she is? Basically is what I got. Yeah, you got to grow some tough skin really quickly and I don't think that people even look at that aspect of business.

Speaker 1: 25:46

that it's you. And how did you deal with that? Did you have support? Did you say F?

Speaker 2: 25:53

I, yeah, I'm pretty much, I don't really give a shit.

Speaker 1: 25:55

Oh, you're just saying you're running for it. I'm one of those. I'm one of those Four and a half years old.

Speaker 2: 26:00

Yeah, I am definitely one of those. I don't care. I don't care. What do you think? I know that I do business well. I know that the end result for me is I want those people happy when they get their new home. I want them happy with the financing that they get. I want them to walk away with a good experience. Yeah, the whole home buying process is not always good. You've looked at 25 houses. You've had four contracts fall through because somebody beat you out on an offer Timing. You can't get your lease on your apartment ball. You're waiting for this home. All these little things happen that are kind of miserable until you get to the table with us.

Speaker 1: 26:37

When they get to the table with you, they're like oh, thank god.

Speaker 2: 26:42

Sometimes and this is hard to say too, because I've seen it both ways where they're coming in tears Like oh my god, this just wiped out my savings account to do this and I wasn't expecting this as an extra $2,000 at the table. It depends on who your market is and who your clientele is. I like the first-time home buyers. I like helping them get in. I like giving them the tips to how to do this. I've owned at home since I was 19. And I wouldn't change that either.

Speaker 1: 27:06

So next time you go to the table, have somebody in your office set up a phone. Seriously, don't show the person's face, right, it's just mic yourself up so you sound good and it's capturing your audio and record that whole thing, all of your tips. Take those little bad boys. Have somebody else splice them up into little 30-second tips of you doing it in the real world, because I can only imagine how much education and guidance that you provide these first-time home buyers.

Speaker 2: 27:33

I like to think I do.

Speaker 1: 27:34

So yes, with that fiery passion that I see.

Speaker 2: 27:39

I still have that. I think that's the sadder part is that I still have that. I still want to do this. I mean, cancer wasn't going to stop me during this, it just slowed me down a little bit.

Speaker 1: 27:49

And it's just funny because we started this conversation and I said what's the best thing about owning your business?

Speaker 2: 27:54

You're like nothing, I hate it and I think about again just God, you have the employees to deal with, you have the budget to deal with. Of all these things, that's not what I saw my business as I wanted to do. I didn't want to do that part.

Speaker 1: 28:09

You wanted to bake the cookies. You didn't want to run the bakery.

Speaker 2: 28:12

That's pretty much it. So I think there's a big difference. You have to do it all, so you have to figure out how to do that. My kids were still a little back then too.

Speaker 1: 28:20

You still had to be a parent. You're five years old. You can come over here and help with that Pretty much.

Speaker 2: 28:24

My daughter works for me, my nephew works for me. I own two other businesses that are in Loudoun.

Speaker 1: 28:30

What other businesses do you own?

Speaker 2: 28:31

I own Natural Land of America.

Speaker 1: 28:33

What is it Natural?

Speaker 2: 28:34

Natural Land of America. My husband, my son and both my son-in-law's work there now, so, yeah, that's been in business for 30 years, so that just runs itself. I don't have to do much about that. So you've got that entrepreneurial vibe.

Speaker 2: 28:49

I never thought of that as being an entrepreneurial spirit. No, I really do. And I guess my definition of I don't know for an entrepreneur I feel like, oh, you come up with your own ideas and you come up with your own stuff and your own products. You know, I'm running a title company, there's other title companies. You know we're running a lawn care business, there's other lawn care businesses.

Speaker 1: 29:07

So I don't know, I've never thought of it as You're thinking of inventing the next Uber, or-.

Speaker 2: 29:11

Exactly, exactly.

Speaker 1: 29:13

Yeah, no, I think it comes in all shoes inside.

Speaker 2: 29:15

I think it does now. I mean, it took a long time to figure that one out, yeah, that's awesome.

Speaker 1: 29:20

Where do you see yourself in the next 10 years?

Speaker 2: 29:22

I would like to retire.

Speaker 1: 29:25

You're not going to.

Speaker 2: 29:26

I don't see retirement in my future, though, like it is definitely one of those things. I have to be busy, I have to do something. So, yeah, we have two baby caps that have to be hauled or trained. Somebody's going to have to do it.

Speaker 1: 29:39

Do you?

Speaker 2: 29:39

know what that is. So I have the Highland cows, the little fluffy ones that every photographer wants.

Speaker 1: 29:46

I have Instagram, those little oh my gosh.

Speaker 2: 29:47

Everybody wants to come and basically take pictures of my cow and I was like people don't understand. They're friendly and domesticated, don't get me wrong, but I don't go out there and rope them and drag them in. I let them be. Yes, they're treat driven so, but they are a big part of my little world these days. But again, when you have babies, you take people, want the photographers more or less want them to lay on this little blanket and have the baby lay on the little cow. That's not these kind of cows. My cows jump and play. That's what the Highland does. They're very active. Yes, the babies will sleep for a little bit, but I don't take them from their moms either. They're not bottle fed. We tried to bottle feed one and he didn't make it because there was something definitely wrong. That broke my heart this year too. But so we have the two little girls now, matilda and Stormi, and they are booked to do some photography of some weight. But I told them, I said you're going to get what you get. They're not.

Speaker 1: 30:44

I can't they're animals, they have insurance.

Speaker 2: 30:46

And that's exactly I said, because both photographers don't have insurance.

Speaker 2: 30:50

That was unmandated. Like you got to have your own insurance coming out here because I'm not covering this if something goes bad. But they're animals. There's no telling what's going to happen, I can guarantee you. My pit bulls sit still long enough for you to take a picture of her. The Highland, I'm not sure about, I'm just not sure about but everybody does want to the whole photography setup of you're going to do the black and white portraits of their faces because they're gorgeous, or you take these little calves and you're just going to lay them there. And I said that just doesn't happen.

Speaker 1: 31:23

I like the videos where they're like. Their faces will come in close to yours and they do like the little snuggles.

Speaker 2: 31:30

I can honestly tell you I only have one that'll let you snuggle and it's not near her face and her horns, I kid you not. I mean they're about this big, so it's not. And again, I think people look at them and my neighbors thought he was like, did you just get dinosaur cows? Like this is really a thing. And I'm like no, they're not dinosaurs, this is a very old breed. The other thing is they're always scared that I have like five or six bulls because they all have horns. Well, you can tell the females have the rounded horns and the bulls go straight out, so it's not like they're stabbing you. Do you know what I mean? Like with these horns?

Speaker 1: 32:01

No, but they could definitely play with you.

Speaker 2: 32:03

Yeah, it's called battering and they just hit you with these things and they does not feel good. They'd be smacked by a cow's horns. I will tell you. But yeah, they will let you know when they're not happy. But I like they're my hobby. I love to paint. I've been doing that. I used to do my little painted rocks. I've done all those kind of things. I love that kind of stuff. I love doing stuff with my grandkids. Like tonight is flag football for the six-year-old, so we're out of this practice. Tonight I think it's at Idlee, ok, but it's kind of I was going to say because we're at Freedom or Robinson, like we're all over, we'll see if it rains. It's exactly His last game. I think is tomorrow at 9 AM.

Speaker 1: 32:42

So what is it? Is it the flag?

Speaker 2: 32:44

It's the flag, yeah.

Speaker 1: 32:45

It's not the last game. You got two more.

Speaker 2: 32:46

I got two more. Ok, he's on the bills. That's the team he's on.

Speaker 1: 32:50

You guys are the only ones that beat us.

Speaker 2: 32:53

We haven't won but one game no-transcript. I don't know my son's more involved than I am. He has only won one game.

Speaker 1: 33:04

Yeah, was it the first one.

Speaker 2: 33:05

I don't know it was coupling, but then so for my grandson, it's his only his second season six were eight years old.

Speaker 2: 33:14

So you guys probably practice. You probably are after us then. So we basically this is only a second season, the first season, the spring stuff he didn't know what was going on, like, what is this? Yeah, now he has decided that he'll play any position as long as you're not tackling him. So he's really determined that he wants to be a kicker in the NFL. Okay, brock is the tiniest six-year-old you've ever gonna see. It's okay, I mean and but he loves it, you can do it. Oh, yeah, so he's he's very fast, he loves it Very excited about the football now.

Speaker 1: 33:43

Doesn't that just make your heart so happy? Yes, very much, so, very much so yeah, there's something about watching them play out on that field.

Speaker 2: 33:49

But I have the same. Like my granddaughter does the little dance and all my kids played sports. She does her little dance and she, it just makes her happy, so it makes me happy. I, you know, I could just sit and watch, yeah, even though I never did it.

Speaker 1: 34:01

Yeah, no there's something stressful about that, anything else you would like to share or that's on your heart, or a special message that you've got?

Speaker 2: 34:10

Not really, you know. I think about how long we've lived in Loudoun and I do still love it here, so I don't think we're gonna go anywhere anytime soon. I Always wanted my kids to take over the businesses and just grow with that. I don't know that any of them are ever gonna do that now that I know how to run a business and what needs to happen, so I hope I train them a well enough to do that. So if they ever see anything like this, that they know that that was always the goal.

Speaker 2: 34:36

But I will tell you I am just happy that everything I've done One being a teen mom and making it all the way through here and doing as well as I have done Cycles broken I don't have to worry about them. All my kids are at college, educated and all paid for. And that was I. I Achieved all my goals. I guess it's the best way to put it Now for this period of my life, even though I'm on the younger side. The goals have to be reset and they have to be more about me now and what's gonna happen.

Speaker 1: 35:05

I love that. Can I ask you to promise me for one thing? I'll say it first and okay and can decide if you want to. Please, no matter what you do with your business, don't just, unless it's one of your children or grandchildren, don't just give the business away, sell it.

Speaker 2: 35:23

Right. No, I won't be giving away the children unless it's the children.

Speaker 1: 35:26

Yes so the business for? Let's just pretend like it was 250,000 dollars, so I probably could go for more, but Take that money and then they could either create their own business, if you want to like, gift it, or it's just gonna be a nice little nest egg you know to Sit there and play with. Don't just give it away.

Speaker 2: 35:45

No, I don't be giving it away. I've given a lot away for the year, so that's not there's value. There is value and it will take care of them as well. So I know that now. Awesome.

Speaker 1: 35:55

Thank you so much for being a guest on the Elamon show. Thank you for having me.

Speaker 2: 35:59

I enjoyed it.