Overcoming a Mass Walk out of Key Personnel with Alex Makanvand

Welcome to this episode of the Million Dollar Mastermind where we get real world insights on winning from people who have accomplished amazing things. I'm your host, Larry Wydell. And let's get going. I'm here Talking with Alex McInvan from.

Is it Los Angeles General, Southern California? Yeah, we call it all Los Angeles.

Yeah. People in Southern California, Louisiana, they default to the Southern California. So if you were to write a book right now, Alex, what would you zero in on that? The accumulation of what you have learned, that the most valuable parts that you would like to get down in writing for your boys and your daughter and, you know, and the friends and family and people in your organization, what would, what would that, what do you think it would center on? See, I'm launching you into your own book writing career now.

You know, that is a tremendous question, Larry. You know, and I think about this all the time. I think most people that start businesses, the book would be about how do you start your business, how do you get into business, how do you become successful at owning any kind of a business? And I think the general consensus is, okay, I have to learn some skills. I have to learn the things I have to do. And that's absolutely true. But I'm here to report and I'm here to, based on experience and based on my own knowledge of almost three decades of being in business, is that the doing part of a business, as important as it is, is not the only part. It's not even the most important part. Should you have, if you're in a licensed environment, should you have your licenses? Of course. Should you learn your products? Of course. Should you know how to do a presentation, how to overcome objections, how to close sales, how to teach others how to close sales. I mean, that all goes without saying. But the part that I feel is never talked about, literally never talked about. And the few that are mega successful in business figure this part out maybe on their own, is the being part. So if you were to break it up into, break any business up into the doing part and then the being part, I think nobody understands that. Nobody really realizes that the person that I was when I started 29 years ago in business is not the person that I was a few five years later. That person that was five years later was not the person that was another five years later. It's shocking how you meet someone and then you know them for several years, then you think about them and you go, you know, this person hasn't changed one bit. They're the same exact guy. They're the same exact gal. As a matter of fact, they probably kind of went south a little bit further, a little bit more compared to what they used to be. So if I were to boil it all down is learn everything, learn, get all the skills, learn all, learn your craft. Absolutely. And once you've mastered your craft, realize that's about 10% of your total success formula. The other 90% is, okay, let's unpack my brain, let's unpack my personality. What are my thoughts, what are the words that come out of my mouth, what are my behaviors, what are the things that are helping me win and what are a lot of things that are self defeating and that are damaging to my business and to my life. And then I want to add one more thing is, you know, a lot of people have certain level of success, but then they never get past that. I believe that that has a lot to do with integrity. When you see somebody that's, you know, you see a multimillionaire and then you see a multi, multi, multi, multi, multi millionaire, I think the thinking is that, oh, he got lucky. Oh, she got lucky. Oh, she was, you know, they came up with an app, they invented some new product or something. But I could show you a lot people that did those exact things and they had decent success, they had reasonable success. But the ones that become whales, and this goes, this is the opposite of contrary belief. I believe they had the utmost, the utmost of personal and business integrity.

And so how does that translate? Where did that occur to you and how does that translate into the real world?

Well, you know, people are watching you. You know, we live in glass houses. They can see everything about us. Especially when you're in a business where you have other people around you. If you're self employed, you could say whatever you want to say to a client and they'll either believe you or they won't believe you. And they don't really know you, they don't really know your lifestyle, they don't really know you as a person. But when you're in an environment where you have hundreds of people around you, thousands of people around you and look to you for their inspiration, they look to you for their lifestyle, they want to be like you and they want to become like you. That everything that you do and say matters, everything that you think matters, when you think no one is watching, when you think no one's around, it matters what you think, it matters what you say, it matters how you behave.

And when you, you know, you were talking about in the beginning of getting Started and you were talking about quitting, wanting to quit 100 times a day. What were, what would you say is since then, you know, you keep on going and the reason you would, you kept on going is you didn't have a choice. You know, like, people will come up to me and say, like, I'm sure they say to you, it's like, thanks for not quitting and thanks for keeping on and because, you know, and helping to build the company and you know, if they work inside your company because you gave us an gave, you've given us an opportunity and appreciate you doing that. Don't know how you went through all those tough times, you know, but, and I, you know, in fact, how did you go through those tough times? I said, well, keep in mind, I didn't have General Motors calling me, offering me a $250,000 a year vice president.

They were calling for a car payment. That's what they were calling for.

If I was going through the spinning the deck of options, it was like, you know, they gave me one card. It was, you know, and so I had to play the one card I had and hope for the best, you know, so with, when you think back, we all go through really tough times. What was the worst time for you? Was it business? Was it in business where the economy changed? Was a business where personally you were hurt, where there was a financial reversal that you didn't see coming? Was it something that happened to your health or someone close to you inside your organization came in and took advantage? Let's just say make it clean. And what were the gut wrenching things that you've lived through that you're most proud of?

Wow, that's a great question, Larry. There's probably several hundred stories, but one that comes to mind, one that was really a defining moment, one was that if it hadn't happened, I wouldn't have known who I was and the kind of person that I was becoming. And there's so many aspects to it, but it went something like this, where we were doing okay. We were just kind of plugging along and building our organization, building our agency. We already had two or three other brokers that we had developed. And then there was a mass exodus where I had no idea that it was happening, that it was building. There was a storm building. And by the way, I take 100% responsibility for everything that happened, including that, that maybe I should have been more vigilant, maybe I should have been more aware, maybe I should have treated people nicer. I could go on and on and on. But just to give you the essence of it. So there was a mass walkout where this was around 2007, 2008, or prior to that, when the mortgage industry was crazy, where people were making, you know, five points on a mortgage. They could make three points in the front, two points in the back. I mean, on a $500,000 mortgage, they could make $25,000 on one transaction. For somebody that was a little bit disillusioned in the business, a little bit, maybe hurting, maybe it wasn't paying them the way it should have, they take a look and they say, I could just sell one mortgage a month, and I could make 25 grand. And so then one guy talked to another guy, another guy talked to another guy. And then I look up, we were out of town, actually. We were at a company convention, and I get a phone call saying, hey, did you know what's happening? You're having about, you know, half of your guys leaving. Right, right. And by the way, my office manager called me and she said, oh, by the way, I'm going with them just to let you know what.

As a courtesy call. This is the last time you'll hear my voice.

Right. And I was numb. I was sitting there going, what percent.

Of your organization, of your key people?

We had. We had eight top leaders that were slated to become brokers over the course of next 30, 90 days. They had all their licenses, and they had all their numbers and everything. And that group left. And the word was, Alex is gone. He's out of business. Don't waste your time with them. They basically left me on the roadside. And it's funny, because over the course of next 12 months, our personal income doubled. Wow. Because of that adversity. And so this is not a woe is me story. This is a story of. Of redemption. This is really story of. It's a comeback story that I believe that because of this type of adversity, because the bigger the adversity in your life, the bigger the comeback. And. And by the way, all of the people that left, they're. They're all financially destitute and desperate. I mean, I don't. I don't keep tabs on anybody, but I get reports back, so. And so is doing this, and so. And so is doing that, and. And so there's no winning in that for them. They just. They just got caught up in the whole. In the whole mortgage thing. So.

Well, congratulations on surviving that. And I think a lot of being able. When that happens to you, your, you know, you Find out if you do have strength, you do have character, if you have done the right things. Because if something like that happens, Alex, and you already have doubts about yourself, you know, you're going to crumble. But the fact is, when you get challenged, slapped in the face, of course, you go through the worry and emotion and what. And. But you evaluate as, like, what. What did I do to cause this? You know, it was like when I got. I won't go into it, but I. I've had. I've gone through my fair share of horror stories, but it's like, if it cost me $2 million, it's like, okay, I'm going to analyze this. I'm going to make my changes, and I'm going to take this lesson and make $20 million out of it. You know, it's just like, you know what I'm saying? That's a $2 million lesson. I'm going to learn it. And it's not a hit. It's a lesson that I let somebody teach me because I wasn't paying attention to the books or the, you know, the accounting, the people who were doing this or that or the other. And it's like, okay, okay, I did this to myself. It's $2 million, but I'm going to use it to make another at least 20 million, you know, over the next 10 years or something like that. And so what you did was exactly that. And people need to know that just, you know, disasters are going to happen and surprising disasters will happen. The great thing is they don't happen all the time. You know, and so for one thing, happens, too. Well, I. A friend of ours out in Salt Lake City, in his office, somebody got upset with something that somebody said about somebody, whatever. And this somebody went and called their. Maybe it was their friend or their husband or whatever that worked at the local TV station and said, you know, they're running a scam organization over there selling drugs out of there. You know, they've got, you know, they've been getting away with it for years, and everybody knows about it that side of town. So this guy goes, he's showing up late to work. You know, he's like a Friday. He's, you know, he's almost to the office. And his daughter, I think, was the secretary. She said, don't come. She said that SWAT teams in the, you know, around the guard dogs at the front door and just SWAT team surrounding the building. They got a TV camera, TV station. You know, it's a small Salt Lake City. Oh, my God. The TV stations here, filming live, you know, where the reporters for the paper don't come, you know, this, that, the other. So. But he was almost there anyway. So he walks in, they make him do the walk of shame into the office, sitting down in the lobby, handcuff him. You know, he's running to this area. And, you know, it took. In situations like that, it takes a few hours to, you know, they. If they are told something like that, they have to take it serious, you know, and so it took a few hours to get it unraveled where they let him go and everything. But the truck, anything could happen.

So did they find the drugs or did they flush it down the toilet or what happened?

They found there was no drugs within a half a mile of the office. Drugs were only in the person's mind, Right. Made that up. But the, you know, I had to drive halfway across the country overnight to have an emergency meeting with everybody to kind of get, you know, shift gears and get everybody fired back up again and, you know, to go in there and tell some jokes or something. You know, I don't know what I did, but I tried to get them laughing, and they recovered and they did great, you know, but things like that will happen. But because that happens to you, you don't have to fall apart, right? And that's the key. And if you don't fall apart, it could turn into the greatest thing that ever happens. And, you know, if we get. I appreciate you sharing that with us, and I'd like to talk more, but I've kind of kept you long enough. How did you turn that around? How did you absorb that to where your income doubled in the next year?

You know, just. Just went to work, first of all. I mean, I was already working, but I just decided that this is it. Remember, quitting was off the table, right? Quitting was not an option. And so I thought, what are my. What are my options here? I mean, I could. I felt bad. I felt. I felt like I was. I was having a heart attack, literally. Right? And then, of course, I had to do a lot of managing and putting out fires and all that. But at the end of the day, you know, because we had some great people that stayed. I think a big part of it was that they saw the pain, they saw the agony. They saw what we were going through. And then. So the team stepped up, our entire agency stepped up. Our broker stepped up. They said, not on our watch. That had a lot to do with it. When you're all alone, then you're all Alone. But boy, when you have a team, sure makes a difference.

It goes back to what you said earlier about your thing about negotiations. It's like, don't let yourself get all married to one car, one watch or one this one that. Because you know there's another one, there'll be another one out there, there's another deal out there, and these people. Don't get yourself married to a certain. Just succeeding with this certain group of people. You can, you can go get other people, you know? You know, and the funniest line I ever heard on that was a guy had a big organization and he said, he said, I tell my people. He said, if everybody quits, he said, I will go out and rebuild it and it'll be bigger than better than ever. He said, now, of course, it'll take six months for me to recover from my heart attack.

Right? Exactly.

Yeah. It doesn't mean you don't have the emotional shock of dealing with these kind of things, but you can't control. There's a limit to how upset you can let yourself get over things you can't control. So, hey, thanks so much, Alex. We're going to have to do this again soon. Thanks so much. Any parting words that you want to pass on to the people who have been listening to this about winning?

Absolutely. You know, it is just. It is so worth it to go through a little bit of pain, a little bit of discomfort. You know, we live in times seemingly that no one wants to pay a price anymore. Everyone's looking outside of themselves for something they want. The government or an employer or. I mean, you know, look, look, look within yourself. You have. Doesn't matter what skill level you're at, you have everything in you. It's in your DNA. It's already. It's already. It's like ragu, Italian sauce. It's in there. It's in there. And, and all you got to do is, is just, just trust in yourself. Believe in yourself. But you got to work your tail off. And it is so worth it when you get to the other side.

Absolutely fantastic. Thanks so much, Alex. I will look forward to the next time.

It's my pleasure. Thanks for having me, Larry. You're awesome.

That wraps up this episode. Consider leaving a rating and review if you like what you heard. In addition, I have a free video for you and it contains my best insights from 20 years of running my own business and also coaching million dollar earners. You'll find it at whitelowinning. Com Webinar. Thanks for listening and do it big.