Watch the interview here:
“…it’s really about what you do every day and not what you do just in a transaction.”
About Our Guests in this episode:
Peter Fletcher of Alameda, California, has more than 30 years experience selling residential and investment properties, and is an expert negotiator in the multiple-offer settings typical of the San Francisco Bay Area real estate market. He is a trained mediator and is currently enrolled in a master’s program in Negotiation, Conflict Resolution, and Peace-Building. Peter graduated from Principia College with a bachelor’s degree in History. In his free time he loves being a “rock ‘n roll” DJ for parties, events, and class reunions.
Peter will be joined by Greg McLane of Dallas, Texas, a commercial real estate broker with a focus on developing and overseeing large, urban, mixed-use projects in Dallas, San Antonio, Tulsa, and Kansas City. Greg has impressive knowledge of all aspects of corporate real estate functions–from leasing office space, to appraising property, and selling surplus industrial facilities. Greg has n MBA in real estate from Southern Methodist University and a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Principia College. He is currently chair of the Board of Trustees for Chestnut Hill Benevolent Association.
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Transcript of Episode:
Robin Jones: This Net Effect is episode 49 and we are sponsored by the Albert Baker Fund. The Albert Baker Fund is really there to help those students and the Christian Science community to realize the unlimited possibilities that emerge when Christian Scientists journey together through inspired education and career development.
So, if you want to learn about the Albert Baker Fund, you can find us at AlbertBakerFund.org, and you can see all our amazing programs that we offer. We have a team in Africa that’s dedicated to African students. We help students in Europe, Canada, and the Philippines. And of course in the United States. So again, if you have any questions, please reach out to us through AlbertBakerFund.org.
Without further ado, I’d like to welcome Peter Fletcher and Greg McLean.
So we kind of have a team approach today. I’m very excited about it. So thank you gentlemen, for joining us.
Peter Fletcher: Thank you Robin.
Greg McLane: Nice to be here.
Robin Jones: I’m going to tell you a little bit about both of them. So I really wanted to do a real estate Net Effect, and I thought, wouldn’t it be fun to get to people that have different.
Because real estate is so big, there’s so many different pieces to it. I thought it’d be good to bring someone in from the residential side and one from the commercial side.
Peter is from Alameda, California, and has great deal of experience in selling real estate and investment properties and is a wonderful, wonderful negotiator all throughout the San Francisco bay area.
Greg is from Dallas, Texas, my home city, but Greg is in the commercial real estate side of things and really focuses on overseeing large urban mixed use projects in Dallas, San Antonio, Tulsa, and Kansas City.
Both of these gentlemen have an incredible and impressive knowledge of their disciplines, and I think you’re going to enjoy hearing their perspectives.
Let’s get started. So Peter, we’re going to have you up first.
One of the things I wanted to ask you kind of right off the bat was how did you begin your career? How did you get into the real estate business?
Peter Fletcher: Just before I went into the real estate business, I was in the title industry and I was calling on realtors and trying to help them to make more money and to use our title company. I worked for a couple of them during that period.
One day I was sitting with a guy who had become friendly with, and he said, you’re on the wrong side of the desk. I said, well, what do you mean? I thought I knew what he meant, but, I, I wasn’t sure if he was telling me I wasn’t doing the job.
And he said, you’ve got the makeup of a real estate agent. And he said, you really should be over here. Well it took me a while to figure that one out. I thought I was where I needed to be. I eventually did come into real estate. I didn’t go to work for him right away, but later I did for a period of time.
It was surprising to me and yet it seemed very natural once I got in.
Robin Jones: It just seems like there’s an awful lot of things you can choose from on your side of the house. And I tried to put a few of those things together, so that people can kind of get an idea of that.
How did you kind of move into the areas of your expertise?
Peter Fletcher: Well, if you’re talking about residential real estate, it was always the goal. When I got in commercial seemed like it was a more of a business setting, professionals selling to professionals for professionals. And I saw myself as working in residential, working with just folks, helping them to find homes and income properties and so forth.
Although it’s the same license, Greg and I have the same license except that you’re in one state and I’m in another but it was always residential.
Robin Jones: I’d like to pass the Baton to Greg and, and kinda ask you the same question, Greg. How, how did you kind of get started in your career?
How did you move from college into commercial real estate?
Greg McLane: I got a skut job, one summer working for a real estate management company. Cause a friend of ours took pity on me and gave me a summer job. And half the time I was cleaning up the mess at a single’s apartment complex and the other half I was in the office.
And when I was in the office, it looked great. What the people were doing was great. They’d go out and see a property in the morning and come back. And talk to vendors and tenants, and then they’d go out in the afternoon and do some more work. And I said, this is what I want to do. So I was looking for ways to get into the business.
Missed several opportunities. Still had no clue what I was doing. And by the way, I think that’s a keynote. And what Peter and I talked about, there are so many things to do. And so many skillsets involved that I think it’s really difficult. To know what you want to do, but that looked like fun. And I lucked into an interview with Trammell Crow and I completely screwed it up.
And two weeks later you hired me to go lease office space for him and that’s how it started. And I’ve been doing it ever since. And I’ll say the primary difference between what Peter and I do. And we talked about this is just what he said. I typically. We’re dealing with the CEO, the CFO of some corporation or some investor.
That’s got his own money in the deal or a group of a fund or a group of friends. And so we’re working with businesses and we need to understand their business as well as what their needs are in terms of real estate. But I’ll tell you the fundamental. The thing, that’s the same between both of us.
And nobody told me this when I was in school and we laughed about this. I think the most important thing you can get out of college is a lot of relationships that you’re keeping up with because they’re going to come back to serve you later in life.
Robin Jones: How did you do that? Cause I tell students that, all the time. I talk to them about it, and I coach them up on it. Why is that so important?
Greg McLane: Everything that Peter and I do is based on relationships. if we don’t know that person, they’re certainly not going to trust us with a large financial transaction.
And we need to know intimately what they’re doing and why they’re doing it and what they’re going to do with the money or where they’re getting the money. You really need to understand people and you need to have a level of trust and believe me, nobody’s going to let you sell their house or buy a house forum or lease office space or buy an office building or build something for them if they don’t think you know what you’re doing, and you have a relationship, they trust
Robin Jones: Peter, you agree?
Peter Fletcher: Oh, totally, totally. In fact, one of the things that had felt for a long time since I’ve been in this a long time, is that shooting to be a top producer is really kind of a mythical goal.
Being a trusted agent is something that you can do. It may very well lead you to be the top producer, but that’s not the goal. And I agree completely with Greg. It’s all about relationships. Our reputation is eventually developed because of our relationships and the kind of rapport that we have with people and, and whether or not we do what we say we’re going to do, or whether we just do a lot of talking and eventually wears out.
How do you build some of the relation? What kind of skills and abilities are necessary? Not only just for building relationships. As a career professional in the real estate business.
Greg McLane: In our world, if you’re afraid to pick up the phone and call a lot of people every day, you should find something else to do.
If you’re not going to be successful because you’re taking rejection badly, you should find something else to do. It is about meeting people. That’s what I said, when you’re in college, you have a lot of friends. You may be in a fraternal organization or you may be in classes with people.
And the more that you can start relationships with those people, the more they will find you later in life. It’s amazing how that turns to that’s just the start.
I will tell you that my old partner used to say, there’s eight questions you want to ask everybody you meet.
And they are:
What do you want to buy?
What do you want to sell?
What you have to buy?
What you have to sell?
And then change all those questions to leasing and renting again. The point is, you’re talking to everybody and starting a relationship of some sort with it.
Don’t you think, Peter?
Peter Fletcher: I was trying to decide when you asked us earlier Robin to think about what tool set, what do you bring to the business and where do you see people coming from into real estate?
Probably Greg and I would agree that they come from everywhere. Some people come from finance, some come from teaching, some come from the law. There’s any number of places that people come from and they, they can all do well.
If they bring their skillset with them and they figured out a way to match it up. Mrs. Eddy said something to the effect that, What we need most is growth in grace. And it’s expressed in patience, meekness, love, and good deeds. And I was thinking, that’s really what we do.
We have to be patient. We don’t have the opportunities to just make things happen. We sometimes have to give a little space and let things unfold. Being loving, being caring and certainly good deeds.
We sell property, whether it’s, in Greg’s world, it might be 30 story building in my world, it could be a condo or a mansion but in either case it’s really about what you do every day and not what you do just in a transaction.
And so good deeds turned out to be a really good thing to do. When I go out in the morning, I do try to imagine myself being good and doing good for folks.
I have things that are on my list, Greg and I am sure every day have plenty of things to do when we leave the office. But I always think about good deeds.
Greg McLane: That’s great. I noticed you didn’t say commissions in there somewhere.
Robin Jones: That’s another question I have, With what’s been happening the last couple of years and the challenges that churches have had, having to be closed and go online and, and people now kind of going, I don’t know if it’s really worth being at church and making the trip down on Sunday morning, I got other things I could do. I could go bliss this house. I could go out and play a golf game.
So both of you, I know, have wonderful characters. I wonder how has church played a role in your business and helping you stay grounded, stay centered and, and, and has it played a role for you in your business?
Greg McLane: I’ll follow up.
Peter Fletcher: You could speak generally, or you could speak specifically. I was thinking about that question before I tuned in today and I remembered a situation where I was asked to to come up and sell a home in a city near mine for a woman who was a Christian Scientist who was going to be selling her home and moving in with her sister who was not a Christian Scientist.
There had been somebody else in advance of me trying to sell that home who was also a Christian Scientist. And it hadn’t worked at that point. And when I made my presentation, the sister who wasn’t a Scientist said, When are we going to get an Oakland agent to sell this property? And when are we going to stop seeing a line of Christian Scientists here at all to sell this home?
And I said, well, I’m not sure about that. I made my presentation and I felt good at the time about what I said. And she said, all right, let’s do it. And I got ready for the open house for the first weekend. It was particularly hot. This was in the days when we weren’t staging and that kind of thing, the house was empty.
And I was second reader at my church and I went over there directly after church and I was getting the place open. It was very quiet. It was very hot. There was nowhere to sit and I found myself kind of sinking down to the floor.
Eventually was sort of almost nodding off. And the thought came to me, is this the best you can do?
And it arouse me and I began to think, and I began to pray and I began to recognize why I was there. And in that day, one person, one family showed up. They were from Alameda where I live, they had come because of an ad that I mistakenly put in the local paper and not the Oakland paper. And they thought, well, let’s go take a look.
Well, those folks ended up buying that house. Years later, they sold it with me, bought another home in Alameda. And a few years after that they sold that home. I think I developed a wonderful relationship with them that lasted many years until they moved away. And it was all because I woke up, and I realized why I was there.
It wasn’t to have a transaction. It was to do the good deeds. I was asleep in the job for a moment and, and woke up and that’s what happened. It’s living proof of when you bring church with you you’re not going to come away empty.
Greg McLane: Robin, you and I talked about this earlier, but I remember distinctly as a teenager standing in the aisle at church one Sunday, a very successful businessman was there.
And somebody said to him, Al, it’s a beautiful day on the lake. Why aren’t you out on your boat? And Al turned around to him and said, how do you think I got the boat? It’s by being here. You know? What he meant was it was that was his compass. That’s how he got successful was by working on those values. I think of church membership as a discipline that keeps me focused. I’m a pretty good Christian Scientist on my own, but you can’t wallow around in your own problems all the time and be really productive.
And when you go to church, what are we supposed to do? We’re supposed to be praying for the congregation, right? We’re not praying for ourselves. We’re praying for the congregation. It’s putting us into practice against our values. It’s the discipline that gets us where we are. I think that discipline is what you need and the rest of your life to make you successful.
I’ve learned, really only in the last few years, what I’m up against the wall and I have it’s raining pretty hard or it’s dead silent and there’s nothing going on. Or we’ve got a major problem that don’t know how to handle. I will stop, close the door and say, okay, God, what do you want me to do?
Just I get it. I can’t play in this well, I’m not the one Mind you are a, okay, I’m ready to listen now and quit trying to make it happen myself. What do I do? And very often they’ll say, well, why don’t you call Peter Fletcher in San Francisco, Peter Fletcher, why don’t I call him? I don’t want to do that.
And, and then I sit there and the little voice guy comes back and said, excuse me, but you asked me for my help. So do what you want. And I go, okay. And I call Peter Fletcher and it works. It may not be that call to Peter, but it is listening for what Divine Mind is telling me to do next that gets me where I need to go.
I have found that participating in church and using that discipline of Wednesdays and Sundays particularly keeps me in focus.
Robin Jones: I love that. I talk about the fitness that comes from the work and church. It often challenges me when there’s a discussion about a particular topic that I might have an interest in, and advocating, and others might think, well, that doesn’t make any sense, I don’t know where that guy is coming from. He’s a nut.
So the ability to be able to, sit together and sense of a fellowship. And that fitness that gets developed, like you were talking about sitting in your office and, and, and listening for God. Those messages I have found, are certainly more forthcoming when I have been working on my mental fitness.
I’ve been working on that side of things that comes from the part of being in church, being active and listening.
I want to talk a little bit more on education because as that’s what we do here at the Albert Baker Fund.
We support the education and development of Christian Scientists. The education world has just been so turned upside down and there are students and families are trying to figure out, do you need an education or do you need an education for real estate? Do I need an education at all? So I’d like for you both to kind of briefly touch a little bit on your pathway in education.
And if you were someone looking to go into the real estate business today, What would you say to them, about what kind of education should I be getting and what kind of background do I need? Can you, can you kind of kick that off, Greg?
Greg McLane: Yeah, I can. And I know Peter has like a good adjunct to this too.
I was a theoretical math major in college and it’s got nothing to do with, and I didn’t even want to calculate any numbers because you have to be precise when you do that. That wasn’t my strength. But I did go back to business school. When I got into, when I got into the real estate business, I realized I was working with businesses and I needed some more technical education.
And I took all of the MAI courses the appraisal Institute courses in there, they were really hard math. I took a CCIM math course continued to stay educated and be in courses because what I do, I have to be able to talk to a CFO or CEO and understand what they’re, what they’re doing. I have to be able to keep up with that.
We’re trying to bring value. We’re talking about demographics and population movements and economic impacts and taxes and all that stuff. That it really goes into the decision, but I I’m telling you, that’s the knife and the fork to get the work done. It’s important, but it’s still all about the relationship.
Robin Jones: Peter, you have very different track that you’ve gone down.
Peter Fletcher: The three of us all had an experience at Principia College. I was not on track to do that in the traditional age of when I was in high school, I was having a lot of fun, wasn’t practicing Science much.
Consequently, I was kind of a non-achiever and as time moved on and I came into Science as an adult as a young adult and, and saw life opening for me, real estate is what I ended up doing, but it wasn’t where I was going. And when I eventually went to Principia College, it was as a, a young man married with a child.
I was a non-traditional student. I ended up getting a degree in history, which I hated in high school, but by this time I realized that you do well in what you love. And I actually loved certain parts of it more than others, but I did have a wonderful experience, life-changing really experienced at Prin as a young man.
I thought I was finishing my education because I’d never gotten my bachelor’s. I started working very early, but really, it was only the beginning of my, of my education when I went on to do some other things. I’m currently in a master’s program right now at Cal State University Dominguez Hills, which I’m doing online in negotiation, conflict resolution and peace building.
It feels like the next chapter for me, although I never really leave real estate. I do tend to put things on that I feel are, are sort of my next experience. And so that’s where I’m at right now. It’s a wonderful experience. And I think education is, is something that we should all continue to do.
Robin Jones: If someone is interested in getting in either one of yours, respective businesses, what kind of steps do you recommend to kind of help them get started?
Greg McLane: I would say in our world you probably can’t do that solo. In the first place you need a license and typically you have to have a sales license for a couple of years before you get a broker’s license.
There are so many aspects. Most of what Swearingen Realty does is represent corporate tenants. So we go only represent the tenant, not the landlord, we’re all over the country. We’re doing leases and purchases for them and helping them with their real estate needs for their company locations all over the United States.
There’s a whole different industry of people who represent the landlords only. There’s a investment sales there’s okay. Which kind of property type do you want to do? You want to do retail, industrial, office, multifamily. It’s all different. So you, you sort of have to find out what’s available, what you’re good at, and you really need to be with some sort of a team.
My second job, I was making sales calls every day to tenants in Dallas. It was my first job at my second job. When I left that was with a big corporation. And I learned a whole lot of things working for a big corporation that you don’t learn just on your own.
And that worked because I was going to be working with corporate clients, but I think it’s individual and it depends where you’re going and what you want to do, how you get there.
I don’t think you can start out on your own. I think it really helps to have a team showing you the ropes and telling you what you need to know. In our world, we start new guys out and if they come onto a client that’s going to be useful, then they pick up other team members that are here that have the experience to complete the deal.
Peter Fletcher: Yeah, that’s true in residential as well. It’s difficult to do anything on your own other than to Google things and start looking finding the way to take and pass your real estate exam is the beginning of things. Talking with real estate brokers who have offices and who necessarily are training folks to be in the business is a really good thing to do.
Almost everybody knows a realtor. So I would talk to those people that I know, who will tell me honest answers, because everything that one does is not, an easy path.
I’d be hard pressed to ever leave real estate completely. But over the years there are times that we are growing and we’re working through issues.
Hopefully the challenges are not overcoming and that we can actually learn and become better and stronger through it. There are lots of challenges in real estate, whether it’s residential or commercial. I agree with Greg completely that we need to have help of others to to give us some helping hand.
Anybody who wants to reach out to either of us through you, Robin, I’m sure we would be happy to help with getting them started finding some of these avenues.
Robin Jones: Well, I appreciate that.
Greg McLane: Peter, if I could add one more thing, I think we’ve got to go into this. Whether you’re going to be an analyst, whether you’re going to be a property manager, whether you’re going to be a broker, you are building your own business from the ground up.
And you have to be willing to put in the time and the hours and make it happen. You are alluding to that. It takes a lot of hard work. And if you’re going to go in and think you’re going to work a 40 hour week and be successful, that’s probably not going to work out for you too well, because whether you’re working for a company or an independent broker, you’re building a business and building a team around you, whether they work for you directly or not.
You gotta be willing to put in the time and the effort to build that company that doesn’t just happen. Being an employee, there’s lots of places to just be an employee. But most people coming into real estate want to do more than that.
They want to build things. They want to sell things, they want to be their own person.
Robin Jones: We’ve seen folks in the last several years in particular with students or recent grads who feel like, they don’t know what to do. They feel so overwhelmed. They’re not sure where to go. They don’t know if there’s a future.
They’re thinking that this is the only time this has ever happened. This is an incredible unreal thing that that was never planned. I didn’t plan on this. I wasn’t taught how to handle this. I am sure that both of you in your career have had challenges that at the time seem like there was not an answer. There was no way to get through it. The world was collapsing. And in fact, as we listen to the news tonight, we’re all paying attention to what’s going over across the big pond over there.
Can you guys talk a little bit about maybe a specific place in looking back, where you thought it was just collapsing all around you and you found a way through it. Maybe Peter, you can take that one first.
Peter Fletcher: When I came into real estate the market was very healthy as they say.
And I got busy right away and I thought it was going to be really easy. During the next six months, the interest rates went from, and this is going to be scary because we are interest rates now when they get into four and five, everybody thinks we’re having a problem. But the interest rates when I came in were nine and three quarters, as I recall over the next six to nine months, they went up to as high as 20%, believe it or not.
And I thought I was out of business. Nobody was calling I was calling nobody was doing anything. It seemed like the only people who are doing real estate were people who’d been at it a long time and recognized that you could buy and wait for this whole thing to go by and refinance your properties, and you’ll be just fine.
But I was a young guy and I didn’t know better. And so I took every job I could find that would allow me to continue to show real estate. And I think I had about five jobs. It was silly but it’s, it was what I thought at the time. And as time went on, you begin to realize that there’s really only one place to turn.
If you’re dealing in a world of fear, call it what you will, but if it’s really fear, then just say it right out loud. And if that’s the case, Work on that and get to that place where you can make an intelligent move forward, no matter whether the market is up or down or sideways, and that step will lead you to another step and another.
And the next thing, you’re busy and that’s kind of what happened with me.
Greg McLane: I still have nightmares so I can tell you exactly. I talked to a guy that used to land jets on aircraft carriers, and he said he still has nightmares about having to qualify for night landings in a storm.
I was in my thirties, I quit a perfectly good job. We were developing an office building the market did it was the same market that Peter was talking about our loan at the 14%.
My three partners went bankrupt and I owed $9 million that there was no way to pay back. And I had two small children and a wife and a house down the street. And then there were no jobs and they closed every national bank in the state of Texas and Oklahoma and Louisiana and probably Colorado. Yeah.
So I will say if you’re going to be in the real estate business, you need to understand that the fuel of real estate is cash. It’s money. It’s all borrowed, almost all borrowed. When the economy goes up and down money and leverage gets to be very dangerous. So you need to understand that. Nobody told me that in business school, but you find that out in real life and in my career.
And I think in Peter’s, we’ve probably seen five major downturns in the economy and you need to be prepared that those are coming. And now we go back to your question and what Peter was talking about, what do you do?
And I liked what Peter said about fear because in my case I have a meeting next Thursday with the bank to talk about a situation that could ruin not only me financially, but for the future, that there was almost no way to recover. And so rather than doing something productive you’re trying to figure out what you’re going to talk about next Thursday at the bank. And that is fear and, and Peter’s exactly right.
What’s the solution to fear. First John says, perfect love, casts about fear. It’s a rule. It absolutely works. Divine love takes care of those things, but you have got to deal with that. And I think as a Christian Scientist, you have tools to deal with that, that you don’t. I know you can’t just buck up and try to sing a happy song and that doesn’t really work.
Because that’ll wake you up at night. It’s being able to handle the fear and all businessmen right into it. All business people have these problems. So there you go.
Robin Jones: Anything else you’d like to add to that, Peter?
Peter Fletcher: Well yeah. We always think we’re alone in these things, it’s funny when you, when you’re doing great, everybody’s cheering and we’re all together and everything.
And then when we’re not doing good or something doesn’t seem right, we feel so alone. And I think the way that Greg was alluding to this, that we don’t feel alone is when we turn to that source that we know totally overcomes fear and fills us with the confidence to go forward and, and making right steps.
So I would just say we never need to feel that we’re alone.
Robin Jones: How do you bring a Christianly Scientific thought to your work, to a conversation, to a negotiation, to a customer that may be, doesn’t quite look right, smell, right, talk the way you think they ought to look.
How do you bring that Scientific thought into your work and what does that look like?
Greg McLane: I’ll take that a little different direction than you might think. You remember the part in Science and Health where Mrs. Eddy talks about cultured scholars and businessmen and perspicacity.
You really want to be careful who you’re dealing with and what you’re thinking about them. And I do think you have to be very perceptive about your clients and your counterparts. And boy, Divine Mind, and Principle is the keynote to that, right?
Go look at the Beatitudes go look at qualities of the seven synonyms, that famous poster from the Mother Church that we all use in Sunday School, go look at those things and see if that’s what’s going on. And if it isn’t, you need to, you need to get yourself out of it. But if you’re going to have a relationship, what are relationships built on?
They’re built on trust and truth and honesty and love, right? That’s Christian Science. That’s exactly what it is.
Peter Fletcher: I don’t deviate an inch from agreeing with that. My sense of it is that our strongest intuition is it comes from above and to be discerning. And not feel as though this is the only thing I’ve got going on and I better work. I remember feeling early on that I had to work with anybody and everybody who came to me and sometimes people come for the wrong reasons and sometimes people come without honesty or at least not true honesty.
Actually worked with people like that over the years, and it’s not that I didn’t bring things to fruition. But they weren’t very satisfying. And at one point it’s been a long time now. I realized I did not have to work with people who came to me. I had to work with people who the discerning thought said, this is the right idea here, right?
This is an area for you to be in and consequently, those things went beautifully. Didn’t mean there were no problems. It mean it meant that you could work out those problems appropriately. And in the end you had a client that you could work with again and again, and again, instead of a one-off kind of a situation.
So I think it is what, what, what Greg is saying here, which is, is discernment. And we all have. And all we need to do is trust in it.
Greg McLane: Peter, and there was an article in Fortune Magazine a hundred years ago that I remember reading and they talked about how no CEO ever has all the facts.
They need to make the decision they have to make. And how do they do it? And they were talking about a gut instinct or, an intuition. And those are spiritual qualities. And that’s true. I’m sure it’s true for you. It’s true for me. It’s true for everybody. I know. What do I do now? How do I do it? I don’t have all the facts.
What do I think ought to be doing? Is all about putting divine mind to work. Right. And so, okay. Go back to church, practice, then you have some tools, maybe your knife was a little sharper and you can use it for work. So.
Robin Jones: Well along those lines then one of our listeners asks this question. What is your experience working with brands, churches on creative commercial real estate projects.
How about you, Mr. McLean?
Greg McLane: I’m doing one right now. As it, as it happens. Okay, so let’s go back to what we’ve been talking about the whole time when Peter and I are talking about, so describe your average Christian Science, branch church membership. Is it all sharp businessmen that know what they’re doing?
They have plenty of resources and money and, and know how to do finance? No, you’ve got people that really need your help. They need your best thinking in your best training. And I think being a counselor really understanding what those people are looking for in their problems that they want to solve or there, how they want to move their church forward is vital to it.
And then how do you bring the tools of the industry to bear, to help them get there? It’s hard because Yeah, the one I’m working on right now, we have a couple of obvious things to do, and then you gotta take it back to the membership and the membership wanders off course, sometimes in their conversations because they don’t understand what Peter and I know about how it works.
So, back to Divine Mind, sharpen your knife. Here we go again. It’s no different than working with a large corporation. That is a little bit. And maybe they need some help getting back on track or a homeowner. I would think they need your best help, right?
Robin Jones: How about you paid or anything to add to that?
Peter Fletcher: Not to add really? First of all, commercial is I leave that completely to Greg. I have sold a couple of churches for folks And those were always a blessing and they were a joy to do I have worked with people on properties that were considered commercial although they were typically having to deal with units that were above four units, which is a commercial building.
So I’ve done some of those with people, but I haven’t actually done a commercial piece for a church. I have watched people do, and do them very well. And I would love to watch Greg.
Greg McLane: Come on.
Robin Jones: I got to ask one last question. Did you guys map out your journey? Did you kind of plan it out and go, I’m going to get these boxes you’re going to check?
Greg McLane: I deal with guys that, that get up every January 1st and put a ten-year plan together and a two week plan and they know how to do the next five minutes. And I have never done that, man. I’m not advocating that’s the right thing to do, but my head doesn’t work like that. So, no.
Peter Fletcher: Well, I’ve done both, not always successfully. When we take time to stop and maybe take stock in what we have done and where we have gone, all of a sudden the path that we’ve been on makes a lot more sense.
You might think like, well, I was this way. I was that way I did this, I did that. But when you look back, it’s easier to see that path and it is actually encouraging to move forward, having taken that stock.
Greg McLane: You and I would both agree that all business basically runs around sales. You got to sell something and that’s what all business does. So I got to start off leasing and then I got into managing big office buildings and hated that fortunately, and got out of it.
And then sold industrial properties for the corporation and then built large buildings. And then I got to build my own building. I never could have planned on, it just couldn’t it. And so here we are today.
Robin Jones: Well both of you mentioned earlier and both of you are our Career Allies of the Albert Baker Fund.
We really appreciate your willingness to serve in that and as mentors. And if anyone is interested in connecting with Greg or with Peter, please reach out to me, robin@albertbakerfund.org, and I’ll be happy to connect with you, or you can connect directly with them either one, but we’re certainly happy to help facilitate that.
They are two very special men. I feel so honored to know them both, and we appreciate everything they do. And we so appreciate that they came in here today and, and spent this wonderful hour with us.
We have a wonderful announcement to make right before I was ready to go live. I got a call from Janie Shaw, who is our Outreach Director and does wonderful work.
We really believe in this at the Albert Baker Fund. And that’s investing in education of young Christian Scientists who are sharing the leaven of truth and they do. I witness it on a daily basis when I work with these kids and both Peter and Greg can vouch for that.
We are so proud to announce a new Albert Baker Fund scholarship called the Pass Your Blessings Forward Scholarship.
It’s kind of come about as a wonderful unfoldment. And it’s a gift that we’re going to add to normal Albert Baker Fund scholarship in the amount of $1,500, or $125 a month for 12 months. You can help fund that. We’ve started the program.
We’ve had some success with it and when it’s awarded the scholarship will be in the name and school and class year and major of the student that you helped. So in other words, you can set up a specific Pass Your Blessings Forward scholarship for a particular student. If the $1,500 seems a little steep for you, then please consider donating to the fund, whatever it is that you can, but it’s new.
It has a wonderful, applicable, tangible need that it’s meeting.
I work with these kids on a daily basis and $1,500 can go a long, long way. So if you want more information about it, contact. Janie Shaw. She’s our Chief Development Officer and her contact is on the website, AlbertBakerFund.org.
And remember that a hundred percent of your gift will be awarded as a scholarship to a student. So if you’re looking to pass your blessing forward, and you’d like to help a young Christian Scientist with their education. We’d love to hear from you.
What a wonderful unfoldment this is for the Albert Baker Fund for our community and these kids, I can’t tell you how important it is today in these times for us to really show tangible proof and evidence that we’re embracing our children, our youth, they need it. They need to see that demonstrable proof. So check out the AlbertBakerFund.org, and give Janie a call.
I’d also like to point out our College to Career Roadmap. It’s a wonderful tool for college students. We talked about it as you map out your career. Well, this really does kind of give you some wonderful inspiration and tools to be able to navigate the changing landscape that’s out there today.
If you want to get to know more about the Albert Baker Fund, check out our website and all our wonderful programs. Be sure and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn, and cast that net on the right side. I can’t think of two people that do that better than these gentlemen right here.
I thank you again, Greg and Peter for all your support, we just love it. Yes. And the rest of you be sure and listen in for the next show and the next webinar. And if you have anything, any questions or you’d like to reach out to Greg and Peter, let me know, but have a wonderful weekend and see you guys next time.
Peter Fletcher: Okay. Good.
Bye everybody.
Tags: career success, chaplain, deployment, military, military chaplain, navy, service
