Facebook Live Interview—Million Dollar Stories
A talk with branding expert Keith Salmon about uncovering your branding story, being an entrepreneur and finding success by being true to who you are. We also discuss mortgages and real estate financing for creative entrepreneurs.
Keith is one of our marketing consultants, and he has helped us hone the best way of presenting our strengths, who we serve, and who we really are as a company.
Podcast Transcription:
Keith Salmon: And we're live. Hello everybody. My name is Keith Salmon. Welcome to Million Dollar Stories. It's a series of interviews that I have put together. Today is of course the latest one where I find really interesting people, successful business people who have million dollar stories. I say that everybody has a million dollar story right here inside of them. And eventually, if they work it out and understand how to use that story, they can really become successful. So it's kind of a double meaning of that million dollars. It's a million dollar startup story of a golden story inside of you. And it also can be converted into, once you connect that story to sales, it can be converted to that million dollar story if we really want it. So I'm really honored to have, today, Alejandro Szita as our guest. Welcome, welcome aboard, Alejandro.
Alejandro Szita: Thank you, Keith. It's a pleasure to be on your show.
Keith Salmon: Oh, thanks so much. I'm a little out of breath. I try to get that all in. I'm so excited. I know Alejandro a little bit, and, and he's gone through sort of a metamorphosis in the last year and a half or so that I've known him. And all credit is due to him for being willing to, to do some of the things that become obvious, but not so obvious at first. So you know, that being said, the, the, the story, Alejandro has an amazing story, a journey that we're gonna get into in a little bit. And what I, what I really like to do is to sort of set the, the tone for our broadcast, our show is to, really the reason that I do the show is to, to get people out there who are listening the opportunity to hear someone who has gone through a journey that will potentially be a life changing moment.
If you hear the right story at the right time and you're ready to hear it, anything is possible. And, and this is no different today when, when you might be contemplating a change in your life, a change in your career, a change in your what could I say, your journey. That can be, you know, really essential to just be, even if you've heard it a million times, the synchronicity of it all is really an amazing kind of thing, when that happens. Before we get into it too far, I just wanna just double check technically that everything seems to be cool on the streaming side of things, and we'll, we'll really get into it here. So, I see, if you're doing Facebook streaming, when you hear, when you see in the stream, the closed captions happening, that means you're in business. That means your audio's going through. So that's just a tip to those that are contemplating doing a show kind of like this. So happy to say that. So, Alejandro, I noticed that you have a small accent.
Alejandro Szita: Yes.
Keith Salmon: I'm in Southern California and Alejandro is here, but so tell me where you, I know where you come from, but let's have the audience a little bit from your history, just a little bit about your journey.
Alejandro Szita: Yes. I come from the country of Chile. So Spanish is my main language. And then I came to the US many, many years ago, back in like '94, '95. And I have done many things through my journey, like you said trying to find yourself, and I don't know, how much do you want me to say, or dwell into.
Keith Salmon: Well, you know, what I, what I like to think of is our stories are snapshots. So like, if you were to look at, like a if I had a drone flying over my desk right now, I have like, snapshots of Alejandro's life. He has no idea. On three by five cards, that's a method that I use very sort of hands on. Even though it's kind of anti-technology, but it's, it's very kind of visceral, a very physical way of getting in touch with anything. Really when you write it down with a pen or a pencil or even a sharpie, whatever it is. So I like to think of it as snapshots, just a little bit of connecting the dots of how you got here. That's, that's what I'm, that's what, just a little bit.
Alejandro Szita: Okay. I will say that at the beginning, when I was younger and I left my country, I was seeking adventure. I was seeking to live in a foreign environment. I was seeking to learn another language. I was looking to see what the world was like. And in the midst of doing all of this, you know, I became a salesperson. I became like a trader, you may say, bought merchandise, sold merchandise. I went into the field of marketing, you know, I ended up selling some of it in, in the home shopping network. Then I gravitated towards real estate. I gravitated towards finances. You know, I've always been interested in finances since I was seven, but I never really found a way to really exercise that. Because what happens is, once you get into industry, once you get into the field of making money, you have to be very specialized. You know, like finances, finances are like 15, 20 different things that you could do in it. And it's not good that you like them all like I did. You have to pick one. And therein lies the challenge. Which one? And how, you know. So over the years, I have like, gravitated and done many different things. You know, when I was in marketing, I was attracted to selling through infomercials. So with a partner, we created an infomercial company. We produced several infomercials. We had a lot of fun. Actually, we did it because it was fun. We also made a little money, but it was more of the fun than the money. And then through the infomercial business is how I found a way to, to actually channel this affinity that I have for finance.
Because one of my infomercial clients said one day to me, hey, Alejandro, would you like to come to a seminar that I'm putting together about a financial technique? And I said, you know, why not? That was back in 2004, back in 2003. And from that seminar, I got into the world of lending, although I didn't know it at the time, you know. And once I got into the world of lending, I did that for a little bit, then the world of lending threw me to the world of real estate. You know, and this is the problem that I would like to say, when you don't have a finite goal, you know, like if you are 13, if you are 14, and you know exactly what you want to do in life, in my opinion, you have an advantage.
But I didn't have that advantage. I have the disadvantage that I like many things. I wanted to do a lot. And like I was saying, in order to succeed in industry, you have to really focus and really narrow down. And that was my main, main problem. And that's why, you know, about a year and a half ago, two years ago, I came to you because I knew I had to solve that problem. I couldn't just be dipping in different things. Being somewhat okay, you know, being able to pay the bills, a little bit of success here and there, but that, that doesn't cut it. If you really want success, you really have to narrow it down, find out what is, I would call it your natural focus. And I want to say natural focus is the thing that you can really do well, that you really don't have to think about.
Not that it doesn't take work, because it does, but it's something that, like for instance, when I do it alone, I don't need a calculator. I mean, I use a calculator, but as I'm listening to the person, and he, or she's telling me her situation in my mind already, I have the loan already done. All I have to do then is just to get the paperwork and get the numbers correctly so it can be approved, but the loan is already done. And that's something that I can do with loans, not necessarily with other things. And like that we all, you know, have that ability. Bless you. But I don't want to digress too much. So you asked me for a snapshot.
Keith Salmon: So this is where we are, we're in lending, and I had called you in some of the write-ups that we've done, even Banner is a creative lender. And I think that people maybe don't think of lenders as a creative industry. Well I think it's very creative, because I think that when you have found your, kind of tied into your story about, I'll get to in a second, something about you that I, I think the audience would be really interested in knowing, is that you know, by the time you really get to know anybody that I've worked with, by the time I get them to know their story, where they're coming from, how that story, what it even means to use your story, to leverage your story, is basically to connect it to some sales is, it's just about being relatable.
It's being relatable to that person you're having a conversation with, to take it to another level of conversation. If it's indeed the right format. You know, if you're at a networking event, you're at the right format. If you are at a real estate, you know, open house, for example, you're there for the same, you're all there for the same reason. So, the online space is no different than that. If we're in the online space for bringing your offline space into the online space, you've gotta have these abilities, the abilities, you know, the three major abilities. Visibility, likeability, and credibility. And those things come from being in tune with something that you can fluently talk about. So what I found out about Alejandro was really interesting. Why I call him creative for this industry that people may not think of, is, it reminds me of a, of a, a dear friend who's at one point was one of the top sales people in the state of California in insurance, a rather dry industry.
Alejandro Szita: Seemingly. Seemingly dry.
Keith Salmon: Seemingly dry. Yes. And in terms of interesting, you know, not, not that interesting. So what he did back in, I think it was back in the early eighties, he took his business card and he got a stamp. On the back of his stamp, it said, creative insurance. Creative insurance. And it was one hell of a conversation starter because they'd say, they wouldn't know what it meant. And, but it would get, it would start the conversation. It would say, what does this even mean? So basically, you know, insurance has a lot of different, completely off, out of the box type of thinking that has to be done. But he was in those conversations for those out of the box problem solving situations. So he is in those conversations, which he would've otherwise just been another insurance salesman. So I kind of really paralleled that with your story, Alejandro, when you took institutionalized lending and finance. And it's like the most potentially boring television commercial in the world.
Alejandro Szita: It could be. It can be, but it doesn't have to be.
Keith Salmon: Doesn't have to be. Exactly. And you took something and, and made something special out of it. For then again, circling back to the connection of the more you know yourself, the more you know your audience and, and understand your audience. And so you've, you've set up this perfect storm of connection with people who are something like yourself, because you can have that conversation.
Alejandro Szita: Yeah. Yeah. And let me say one more thing about that. It's like, like I said, in 2004, I found this, you know, but I, because I wasn't focused, I didn't have a plan, I let the opportunity slide by a little bit. If I had put all the energy that I'm putting in now in 2004, today would be a completely different story. And that, you know, I'm gonna tell you a little, little story. I had a mentor, I had, I had a real estate mentor because I'm also in the field of real estate. And my mentor is a very famous broker on the westside of Los Angeles. And he always said to me, sometimes your first offer is your best offer. That means that if you're selling a house, for example, and you want a certain number, a certain price, then you get an offer.
And sometimes the offer is pretty close to the price or just slightly underneath. And the typical seller's reaction is, well, you know, this is the first offer I just started marketing the property. Let's see how it goes. However, that offer was your first offer. Anything that happens after that is either lower or has problems, or there is no financing. So he always used to say to me, your first offer is sometimes your best offer. And coming back to my story, my first offer when I came out of marketing into lending was my first offer. But because I wasn't focused, because I didn't know myself, because I didn't have my story put together, at least in my mind, like you said, I didn't really take advantage of it 100%. So I wanna give, I go on to give credit to you because you helped me do that. And to me, that's not a small fit.
I knew that that was my problem, even back then. And I tried to solve it over and over and over and I couldn't. So my wife one day found your ad on Facebook and she said, hey, why don't we do this? And then I talked to you on the phone, and then I saw that you were a person I could relate to. Because I was not about to divulge my inner, you know, problems and fears to someone that I couldn't relate to. But immediately on the phone, even though we didn't do Zoom or anything, I could see that I could relate to you. And I said, okay, let's give it a try. I've tried so many things, so many years have gone by. I have to do something. And it worked beautifully because you don't think your life is of any interest. Like when I started talking to you, you asked me some questions, I replied to them, and I was surprised to see that for you, that had any interest. Because to me it's like, yeah, it's true. I was in the middle of a revolution. Yeah, it's true. I traveled to so many countries and other things like that, that to me had no significance. But to you, there were. And you helped me unravel this dilemma that I had for years and years and years, for decades, actually.
Keith Salmon: We're too close to it. We're too close to it sometimes. And, and that's the point of view that some people probably don't know. You know, if you're watching anything about me, it's like that, that's been sort of in different formats in film and advertising and movies and documentaries, having a different point of view is where I come in and, and, you know, take people, to have them step back, just this far to see that point of view, a different angle of the situation, a life situation, even if it's a memory, even if it's something that, because perspective is everything. Perspective, how you relate that, you know, what, what we think in our mind and what we see through our eyeballs is different from what we see on the screen. And, it's even different from how we hear things. So. Yeah. I thought it was a fascinating story. I, I'd like you to tell us a story about, correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't you get in trouble for making some loans when you were about seven years old?
And the reason that I bring that up is because so many people have a knack for being especially talented at things at a very, you know, almost like a protege. And, and because the longer we live, the longer our story is there, the many more snapshots that we have. And sometimes it's nice to get back in tune with what you're really, really good at.
Alejandro Szita: Actually, my talent, if you may, if I can say that, started to surface when I was seven or eight. And my brother asked me for a loan, you know, and I said, okay, you want me to lend you money, that's fine, but we'll have to type a contract. He goes, a contract? I said, yeah, we'll do one page saying that I'm going to give you this money and then you're gonna pay me back, when you're gonna pay me back and how much you gonna pay me back. He goes, okay. So I borrowed my grandmother's typewriter, and I started to write. You know, at that time, especially in Chile, you know, here in the US you use paper that is like, like a letter size paper. But in Chile at that time, for pretty much anything, you use a foolscap, a whole foolscap. Like even if you go to bill in the mail or any kind of communication, any kind of official communication, even if I was going to send you a letter from a friend to a friend, it would be in full scap. So I just take a foolscap.
Keith Salmon: What does that mean exactly?
Alejandro Szita: Oh, that means instead of eight by eleven, it's eight by fourteen or eight by thirteen. It's a long piece of paper.
Keith Salmon: Bigger than legal size, like a real estate contract. Like the big, long things kind of like that.
Alejandro Szita: Exactly. Sorry, I forgot. Here, they're called legal-sized paper. But the legal-sized paper was not because I was trying to be legal. It's because that was the standard at the time, that everyone used. So I took a legal-sized paper. I started really simple, but by the time I completed it, it was a really thick document that contained a bunch of terms. So I gave him the money. Then I think somebody else, a friend of mine, wanted a loan. I gave him a loan and I did another contract. Then of course, my brother did not pay. He never paid by the way. I kept giving him loans, but he never paid. So one day he said, he took the contract to my mom. My mom read it, and said, how is it possible that you are scamming your brother like this? These terms are completely serious. You know, you shouldn't do that. He's your brother. And I started to get into that kind of a problem every time, you know. Every time I would do one of those contracts, it would end up in my mom's hands, and she would read it and she would go, Alejandra, you cannot do that. This is bad. You know, you are being a shark, blah, blah, blah, blah. So after a few iterations of that, I saw that that was not really, at least my perception was that, hmm, I'm just gonna get into travel if I keep doing that. So I just left it. But that was my first offer. Using the words of my mentor, that was my first offer. And I didn't pay attention to it.
Keith Salmon: I think that in a completely parallel sort of story for me is, as I was at an early age doing, when you know, video cameras were first really kind of coming out, doing it in grade school, middle school and stuff like that. Doing lots of stuff in that area. And then in ninth grade, it's our high school age, we had a person, a cameraman from one of the news channels, come to our advertising class and basically told us that you'll never get a job. You'll never get a job. You'll never, and if you do, you won't make any money. And there's blah, blah, blah, you know. Midwest, that's where I was from. And then, so I'm like it, what happens sometimes in our lives is we have arrested development. We don't develop that area of expertise for a long time, you know, you'd have to take a little break because your mom thought you were scamming. Which you weren't at all. You were just experiencing some accelerated thing. And until I met my mentor in college who had real experience and not just an academic, who I'm still very close to, I mean that, that fire to express myself through the medium of film and video and advertising and whatever else story basically, because any way I could tell a story, it had, it had shut it down for six, seven years.
And, and I think that part of, part of the process of doing what I'm doing now, and I think even for you is that you, you can help people like maybe realize that they, they can pursue their dreams. I think a lot of times we get in a position where somebody tells us we can't. And so we believe them. And then always, one of my three by five cards is when you realize what the truth really is. You can, you plow through it and do, and you can follow your dreams no matter what, where you are in life.
Alejandro Szita: And the other thing that is interesting is that when you find your knack or your niche, or your dream as you call it, and it takes much less effort than doing anything else. Because I'm, I'm a real estate broker. I could do a listing, I could do a buyer representation, and I've done all of those things. But when I do those things, I have to work. At least that's what it seems to me. But when I do a loan, to me, it's not work at all. It's fun. And, and that shows, you know, I, I don't really have to hunt for prospects so much. They call me. Everything works smoother. I'm not saying that you will be a millionaire overnight because it doesn't work. You have to study. You know, the only millionaires I remember a long time ago, I was listening to this radio interview, the radio interview was about this overnight success. And the guy said, the person being interviewed said yes, overnight success after 40 years.
I'm not saying you have to be 40 years in business, but even if you have an idea, even if it's your knack, even if it's your calling, you still need to put in the work. But to you, it's not gonna be work. And everything, I call it the universe. The universe is gonna bend down, bend to your wishes and give you the slight advantage here, the slight advantage there. And if you take it, if you are focused, if you know that that is your calling and you take those clues from, let's call it for now, the universe, you're on your way.
Keith Salmon: Right. That's kind of like that synchronicity I had been talking about. We have a lot of sort of like road signs in our lives that are there. And there's sometimes when we're just really tuned into something, we seem to see them everywhere. We see them everywhere. And in fact, they were actually there the whole time.
Alejandro Szita: Yes. They were there the whole time.
Keith Salmon: Completely in tune, you say. It's like words even, you know, you see some new word and it's like it's everywhere and it's, you know, you realize, oh, that's, you just noticed it and you, and you notice those things. So that's synchronicity, that's why advertising, you know, nobody does one ad for one time because the probability of somebody getting it, you know, I mean, the Super Bowl is one different kind of a thing. But those ads run for a long time, mostly. And they've repurposed and, and repetition, you know, consistent viewing as it takes, it takes a viewer a long time to respond to those things. But the synchronicity part of it is when we're driving down the street and we see on the way to work, we see 10 different signs from heaven of what our next move in our life is going to be.
And that's not so much you know, it's a synchronicity. That's the way I view it. But yeah. Yeah. So that I think is really an amazing, amazing thing. When we go back to the concept of, of the creative loan business and, you know, and your audience, I think that the audience was part of, like part of the discovery was. It was always in the forefront in the background of, of why, you know, it's not so much just to do something that you, because you don't like traditional lending, but it's, it's a way to help people who are basically underserved. They're qualified, but underserved in, for various reasons. So I think that that's, that was really an important piece of the puzzle to, to really go and say, well, that's basically going back to the why, going back to, your calling is to help the, help those people who are getting basically gypped out by the traditional system.
Alejandro Szita: It is true. And it goes beyond that. It's because the society that we have today is a very fast society, and you have to be very specialized to, to survive and thrive. So what we tend to do is we're barreling down our way, you know, doing text messages, doing everything. Then someone comes in and we try very quickly in a few seconds, see if the person fits in our box. We all do this unconsciously. Oh, he fits in the box, potential client. Okay. He doesn't fit in the box, thank you, bye. Unfortunately, that's the way we tend to view things. I try to fight against that. You know, I try not to do that. And in lending, nothing is more true than that. You know, if you call a broker or if you go to your bank, even if you have a good relationship with your bank and you sit down with your account executive, if you don't fit the box, he or she's gonna think that they're wasting quote-unquote time and therefore doesn't want to hear the story, doesn't want to take the effort to see what you're telling him, and see there is something that really fits that criteria. So I would call it care. And this is the reason why I was so happy to use your service, because you cared. You took the time to see if I fit your box, but you gave me a lot of latitude. You really wanted to know, like you said, whether there was a story and whether I could derive any benefit. And that's what I do with my clients too. I listen to them. Sometimes they tell me a story that I don't know what I would, what I can do for them, because I'm not a psychologist. But I listen to them completely and utterly. I give them the time.
Keith Salmon: A huge part of what we spend with each other is the art of listening. I mean it's like how you can know how to relate.
Alejandro Szita: Yeah. And then when you do that, more often than not, I would say like in most cases there is something you can do for them. In my case, you know, it's a loan, it's a mortgage, it's a line of credit, it's an investment or anything related to that. But if not, let's say that there is nothing for me to quote-unquote profit, it doesn't matter because now I have a new connection. And in more cases than not always, this new connection becomes something that enriches my life one way or the other.
It doesn't have to be economic per se. Many times it is. But even if it isn't, it enriches my life, you know, to some degree. And that's why, that's what I think we need to all do. We need to take more care to listen to others. Because at the end of the day, that's what really matters, is the relationships that we have with other people. That's why we, in my opinion, this is my personal opinion, you never ask me about this. So I'm just gonna say that you can cut it out of the show if you want. But I think that a great reason why we are here, meaning in this form, you know, in this life, is to learn from relationships with others. Because when we die, you know, whatever money you made or you didn't make is of no relevance. It's the relationships that we forge with others and how we played the game with others.
Keith Salmon: I believe that, you know, well, I think that you build trust by creating that space and literally that space by listening. And it shows that some people may have wandered through life, even if they're successful and never had anyone listen to them. And when you give them that space, I mean, I can't tell you how many times I've gotten off a call with someone I've talked to the very first time, and they like to write me an email and say, I've never told that to anyone. This isn't deep, dark personal stuff or anything like that. It's things that were obvious to me just by having a conversation. Because I stay in my lane. I don't go into somebody's deep, dark, personal issues. And if they bring them up, I can suggest to them they might wanna see somebody on that type of thing, you know?
But, there's those sorts of hurdles that we all go over. And it's not so much the hurdles that are dwelling in that kind of painful, getting stuck zone. It's really about the triumph of getting through that, getting to the other side and getting to safety in your, you know, quote-unquote safety in your journey. So I couldn't agree more with that. And it's about those relationships, those relationships are, you know, if you can give that person the time of day and help them out, it's an amazing thing. You triggered something in me, reminding me of literally when I came to California looking for work. You know, I would drive up from Costa Mesa every day with a, this back dates me a little bit, but I would come up with a bag full of quarters, and I would come to the city, I would come to Hollywood and I would make phone calls on the payphone, because we didn't have cell phones, obviously then. And then I would just every day take my chances and see if I could get in anywhere, because a face-to-face was better than anything. And when the people would see me and somebody would pull me in and sit me down and spend 15, 20 minutes with me, changed my life. I'd give that back as often as I can. Because those relationships are, you're exactly right about, we're here to have relationships.
Alejandro Szita: This thing is not real. This thing is not real. And there is one thing that to me was like, the number one thing, my wife, she's an artist, so she's on Facebook all the time, and I've seen this over and over. Not to talk down about Facebook. I'm not singling out Facebook, it's just the system. But it was someone's birthday, posted on Facebook, some birthday. And then I saw people on Facebook and said, I'm sorry, I cannot come to your birthday. I thought to myself, come to your birthday, but man, you are online. You don't need to go anywhere. All you have to do is go click. You know, these things are not real. This is not real at all. You know, with my clients, I try to, number one, Zoom them, meet them or talk to them on the phone. Of course I do testing, of course I do emails, but they are not real. To me, the basis is this, it's not this.
Keith Salmon: Oh, yeah. There's no substitute for human conversation. Absolutely right. It's an amazing kind of a, it is an amazing tool for other things. But for that real human connection, there's so much that's really left between the lines on every text. You know, how many times have we seen somebody imply a tone to that somebody, and they were completely wrong.
Alejandro Szita: You have emails or text wars. What a waste of time. Because they probably are worrying about something that neither of us said. Or neither of them in this case.
Keith Salmon: Right. Yeah, the human connection is without a doubt, the most important thing. So I, I understand that I have in part, have to take responsibility for creating some type of a monster. And what I mean by that is you know, I, I urge people back in, when we talked about the abilities, one of the major abilities is the visibility. And visibility, part of it is to take some things that feel uncomfortable and, not necessarily, I never had any doubt that you were able to, to do this type of thing. But I knew that once you started, you might get a knack for it. Just getting on podcasts, being a guest on some podcasts, and, you know, it's an entertaining format and it's also an informational format. And it's inspirational as well.
Alejandro Szita: Well, let me say something that I discovered thanks to you. You know, this started with you because you said, Alejandro, you need to do a video, you need to do an online video, you need to do something. And I was like, I don't know that I want to do that. You know? And you kept pushing me and you kept pushing me. And then my wife, she's an artist, she does this all the time, so she says, you have to do it. And I said, okay, fine. And I started on my computer. I tried to write like a script for myself, you know, I was getting nowhere. And then I had to be on a real podcast. I said, okay, whatever. I'm just gonna go there. And I discovered one thing. My wife, for instance, she's a musician and she's like a studio musician.
She hates live performances. But in the studio, she's the queen. She can write a script, she can write a song, she can perform in the studio. If she wants to go live, even though she looks fine, internally, she doesn't like it at all. And then because you forced me to do this, I discovered that I was the reverse. I hate writing scripts. If somebody said, these are your lines, set them, I would suffer. But if you put me in front of the audience and say, okay, Alejandro, just tell us about blah, that's totally fine. So I discovered, having to force myself to do this, that I'm more of the performer personality rather than the studio personality. And it doesn't matter what you are, this is something that I had no idea that I had. And that's why I love talking to people on the phone. There is no script. You have to answer what is being asked at the moment, right away. There is no, like, you know, and that's something I discovered about myself in addition to my niche that I'm sort of, we call it between my wife and I, we call it the performer personality.
Keith Salmon: Right. No, I agree with that. There's a phenomenon to it to, once that thing, once that red light goes on and it's, it's rolling and it's live in the, out to the universe, no matter how large or small it is, there's something that you have a moment of truth and you either have to keep going or you got to...
Alejandro Szita: And I like it when it's live in front of people, because you can perceive the reaction of the crowd. And this is why at the beginning, I had a little bit of a problem with this type of communication, because I can see you, but I don't get the sensation that I would get if I was in front of you. So I like a big crowd of people because I can sense, I can sense if what I'm saying makes any sense, if it doesn't make sense, and I can change it on the fly. But here, that's a little harder because all I have are the visual clues and some sounds, but it's not the same as the sensation you get when you're in front of people.
Keith Salmon: Oh, it's definitely not the same. I, I just say, you know, I think to urge people, you know, everyone's safety is their own business. And but part of, part of my growth and, you know, honestly my, my career in storytelling and helping others with their stories, whether it be a scripted film or a documentary, real life documentary or, you know, that's part of the gravitational pull that I had was to, in commercial documentary style, were unscripted basically is what it would be to, to be able to cobble together stories from a pile of nonsense was where it kind of came from. But flipping the camera on myself was no easy task for me. I was behind the camera for many years in editing or behind the camera, literally for a very specific reason.
That was, coming from, in college I knew that there had to be a different way for me to express myself. And, I found it, which was really, really great. But to help people along the way, to encourage people to say, get on camera, to get visible, to get this sort of credibility that in this modern age, we just really vitally need to do. You know, I had to do it myself, and I had to do a lot of different things. It was no easy move to do it. Sort of like for me, because I'm like the panic attack king, if you're gonna have that no preparation. And that's honestly, no preparation is what I've really found was the key to my anxiety. If I was prepared, I could talk about anything if I got over that moment, because there's nothing natural about talking to a robotic looking camera.
But where I started with this was that part of that journey for me was to go and, one of the training sessions that I took was, it had a person who said, you know, kind of middle of the, of the course that I was taking, the marketing course was just talking about networking events. If you're gonna do this, you need to go to a networking event every week. He's talking about live events, and if you're serious about this, you need to go to two or three. And I said, well, that's something I'll never do. But then in the moment, I said, I am changing. I'm in a period of time in my life where I'm gonna do things that are uncomfortable. So I literally said, I'm going to do that.
And I literally went to one the next night, the first one I could find. And I drove to Pasadena and I sat down next to two people, and I had two different cards, two different business cards, and I engaged with these two different people on either side of me. And I had a follow up call with the person on my left. And you know, I got a project, a $2,000 project. For, and all it was to me was evidence that that guy who I wasn't particularly fond of, that trainer, but he was right. He was right. And what that also made me do is I joined a referral group and every Tuesday morning they would have a, they'd put a hot mic in your hand and you'd have to do your 30 second pitch.
Completely not my game, but however, it was part of the journey and it was part of, you know, I think I'm going on about 55 or 60 interviews that I've done, and certainly not every week. But I made a major push to get myself acclimated so that, if I'm gonna teach it, I need to live it. That's all I'm saying. And something that's completely unnatural for me to be a public speaker or anything like that. I do get asked to be on podcasts, and I enjoy having guests like you on a show like this. And I would've, you know, 10 years ago, you would've never, ever, I would've never imagined that that would be true.
Alejandro Szita: Yes, yes. It's a journey. But like I said, you have to discover your focus, your niche, your knack, and then once you discover it, don't jump to anything else, just grab it and go for it.
Keith Salmon: Right. Well, Alejandro, time flies. It's about time to wrap it up, but I would love to give you the opportunity to, you know, tell us where we can find you. Tell us, give me a little pitch for the audience.
Alejandro Szita: Okay. So my pitch is this. I'm a real estate broker. I am a mortgage broker, but I specialize on people that are self-employed, that includes business owners, small business owners, includes artists, and includes anyone who is thinking about buying a house or has tried to buy a house or has been like denied for a mortgage or somebody that think that doesn't qualify to buy a home. You know, even if you don't quote-unquote qualify, we can qualify anyone. And if we have to work with you a little bit, like a few months or a year, that's totally fine. You know, so I specialize in providing loans to people that are self-employed or independent, and they cannot qualify using the actual traditional standards like tax returns and all of that. That's what I do. In a nutshell, you can find me, you can go to my website, which is prosperitylending.us, www.prosperity, like something prosperous, prosperitylending.us, or you can write to me directly at info@prosperitylending.us. So that's info@prosperitylending.us.
Keith Salmon: Awesome. What we'll do is, we'll, I'll get your info and when we post this up for the post promotion. We'll include those in there. That's awesome. Well, I can't thank you enough for taking the time on a busy weekday, when I'm sure that you've probably got some calls to make after this, like any day and have some real conversations and build some trust and connect the stories and tell, I think, I mean, I just, that seven year old story, your mom pulling that contract is one of my favorites. And there's a lot of other journeys that you've had, you know, in your life that have taken you to the place of success in my view. So I was really thrilled to get the opportunity to work with you and to remain in touch with you and to be friends with you and, it's really just been awesome.
Alejandro Szita: Thank you for that, Keith. And just one last say, I want to thank you again because you really helped me narrow it down, find my focus, you know, and grab the opportunity. So I am very, very thankful to you for that.
Keith Salmon: Oh, thanks a lot. So my name is Keith Salmon and this is the Million Dollar Stories series, and stay tuned for another one that's coming up real soon in another week. We're gonna have one, I'll put some postings up for that in the next few days. And basically, I'd like to encourage you to join my group. It's called Stories That Sell, on Facebook and on, obviously you can find me here on my regular page here. So I can't thank you enough, Alejandro, we will talk to you all real soon. Thanks so much.
Alejandro Szita: Thank you, Keith. Bye.
