Gratitude “For The One”

Bunny: (00:01)
We have a really special Guests today. Toya Kaplan who runs the For, the One ministry is our guests today. And Toya’s going to share with us, well it’s kind of a hard topic. I mean, Johanna and I asked Toya to be on the podcasts because she created, an organization that initially, provided a safe space for survivors of sex trafficking. And that’s expanded now to an awareness campaign of how to be vulnerable no more in the face of sex trafficking. It’s, it’s, it’s a really powerful organization and Toya’s very, she’s, she’s very candid about how she came to this. She is open about the fact that she was, is a survivor of sexual abuse as a child. And I, this is a story that, while I’m not grateful for the circumstances, I’m grateful for the fact that Toya is in our community, helping to change lives, helping to save lives and helping to stop the perpetration of sexual crimes against children and adults. Please enjoy this conversation with Toya Kaplan and feel free to click on the links. There’s some really important work that she’s doing, and we’d like to see more people get involved, get aware and just change lives in the smallest way, the way that Toya does here today on the Lifesaving gratitude podcast with my friend and someone I’m extremely grateful for. And I know lots of folks in New Mexico are Toya Kaplan and I’m joined by my producer and cohost Johanna Medina. And we’re just going to jump right in, Toya you and I have, um, sort of an interesting background. I’m always surprised by the gifts that life gives us. I mean, you and I are both women of great faith and I feel like God brings people into our lives. Exactly at the moment that we need to meet them. But you and I met in a little bit of an unorthodox way. I don’t know if you remember this, but I showed, I think I showed you an art property a long time ago, maybe 10 or 12 years ago. I don’t know. It seems like we went out one time and showed property together and then never, saw each other again. And then we became neighbors and my brother built your home here. So and in all of that, so this is the part that’s fascinating to me about the people that I meet in all of that. I didn’t know the part of your story that is so close to your heart, which is that you run homes, you, you own homes for, Johanna and I just had this conversation. We don’t like the word victims, but you tell us what the best word is for people who have been experienced, um, sex trafficking. What’s the word that you like to use?

Toya: (03:48)
Just say survivors. Yeah. Yep. And they were victims, but they’re surviving now. And even thriving is the goal. Absolutely.

Bunny: (03:56)
I had no idea. I was, you know, Klee and I, my brother Klee and I were just having a conversation at one point. And he said, well, you know, Toya is doing this fundraiser or something for the homes that she runs for, people who were, who are now survivors of sex trafficking. And I was like, I mean, it’s like my brain blew up. I thought what an amazing, what an amazing thing you’re doing. And I was fascinated. We talk all the time about how stories save us and knowing our stories and telling our stories is so important, not just for ourselves, but for the people that we meet. And, and, and so that’s, that’s what we want to hear from you is what’s the story. You know, what’s your history and how do you, how did you come to this really practical way of helping people who are survivors of sex trafficking? And then we’ll go on and talk a little bit more about sex trafficking in general. But first we want to know about you, tell us about you.

Toya: (05:03)
Okay. And I wanted to hear kind of the point of information that you have, and so that I could add uninterrupted. So I could come back and say, catch you up because we did have a home. We had one and we had it, into Harris, New Mexico. And we had the house from 2015 to 2018. And so that home has closed, but in order to really do justice, sort of to the thread of the story, it’s actually better for us to back up a little bit further. I think a lot of the questions I get and these years from 2014 till now, is what is you like, how, how did you end up where you are right now and what you’re doing currently? Because we have an incredible campaign currently that God has led us to talk about grateful. I couldn’t be here for a second. Had we not opened the home, gone through the training, the year training and my daughter and I, my oldest daughter and I co-founded what was Freedom House when it was a home. So if I, so if I back up to really, what, what started the particular sex trafficking journey part of my life, was that years ago. And I mean, probably really at this point 14, maybe even years ago, I found out about sex trafficking and Moldova. And I was at my sister’s they’re pastors of a church in North Carolina and a group from Moldova came over and talked to us about, well, I’ve actually stayed at my sister’s home and these lovely, amazing young ladies, um, because they were vend racing in the United States with the organization that they were traveling with and they stayed there. We took them shopping. We spent time with them, we heard their hearts. And then at the service, of course, there, we heard their testimony of really rescue because that group Stella’s House, it was the name, they actually, went into an orphanage and they took as many young girls that were about to age out or, you know, would in theory, age out at 18. And every bed they had, they filled with those girls. And the reason why is that in Moldova, one of the hugest vulnerabilities is when they age out and they become prey to traffickers in other countries and in Moldova itself. So that’s what they’re calling was Stella’s House. They actually started taking boys eventually, so it became Stella’s House. And so when I left there I came back to Albuquerque and was so devastated. Like it was a life-changing moment for me. I had three daughters, two birth daughters and a surrogate daughter who were around the ages of those girls. So it impacted me on that level, but I had to come back to a 12 hour, a day job. We owned a daycare. And so I came back to run that and raise my children. We ended up, um, in short order, w well, we had two boys that we got custody of. So we had five, uh, up to six in the house, raising teenagers, driving, you know, all of that. So I really focused on working and doing that, but I just couldn’t let go of it. I couldn’t just like, I couldn’t forget that, you know, sometimes you meet people or new, or you hear a service or there’s something impactful that occurs that you just can’t shake. And so moving forward, that’s exactly what happened to me. And I didn’t know other than financially how we could get behind that. I knew I couldn’t travel to Moldova and be away from my family for an extensive period of time. So I just hunkered down and did what did, what God had me do, which was running this daycare Kids Castle, in Albuquerque. And so I just continued on that path. And then fast forward to when my oldest daughter, left Christ for the Nations after she graduated, she interned for Messenger International, which is Lisa and John, international ministry. And I went there, yeah, for their fundraiser. And we were picking a sex trafficking segment. She had a Pearl Alliance at this at the time, which those finances that we wanted to give would impact law enforcement to help find traffickers and rescue these girls. And so we’re like, yes, you know, as a family, so passionate about really connecting with something, we felt so drawn towards and to help. And so I’m in line and we’re walking through some of the information of the messenger international and right there, the pastors of Citizen Church it’s, it was Copper Point at the time, but the Woodwards were standing in line there. And, we ended up in a conversation and they were talking about how they were going to open an outreach in Albuquerque, which would be, an anti-sex trafficking outreach. And I just was like, boom, somebody local. And I’m still thinking that they mean that it’s going to be an outreach to other nations, right? Like what A-21 is right now, Christine Caine’s outreaches and international outreach. Well, that’s how I kind of stored it. And when I got back to Albuquerque, another layer of like, I can’t shake it, I can’t shake it. But when I went to look for it, there was never anything on their website. So I looked at actually all the larger churches thinking, surely sagebrush or Calvary, or, you know, one of the larger church or congregations would have an outreach for sex trafficking and no one at the time did. So I called the church and, the woman who is now the director over at New Mexico Dream Center, met with us in the coffee shop at what is now a Citizen Church. And two of my daughters were with me and she downloaded what’s going on, not just internationally, but drew the circle land so much tighter to what is going on in actually New Mexico, you know? So she went, internationally United States, sex trafficking, New Mexico sex trafficking. And so she dialed, it into a tighter circle around, what was going on and caught me up literally like in an hour, we just sat there blinking and, and listening. And I asked her, what can we do as a family? What could we do? And I’m thinking, she’s going to ask us to finance something. And we’re philanthropic family. We feel called to do that. We’re blessed to be a blessing. And so was waiting for the job right? To put money towards what what’s her dream, her goal for what she sees the need is what’s the gap, you know, is what I was trying to find out. And so she said, well, we need a house. So I kind of swallowed a great big,

Bunny: (12:09)
So she said, you need a house and you blinked.

Toya: (12:14)
We all just sort of took a breath. And I went into that meeting, knowing that whatever God called us to do is what we were going to do not, and I didn’t have to know the why. I didn’t even have to know the, how I just, I was. So my heart was like, you just tell me God, whatever it is, we’re going to do that because you’ll make a way. And so, we left there, I talked to my husband, he was on board and he’s was actually looking online all over Albuquerque metroplex, would we have one in town? Would we have it out in the mountains? Anyway, I spent a year with my oldest daughter, training and traveling. We went to organizations, Wellspring Living in Atlanta. We did their big training. We went and did that and they allowed us to go see one of their homes. We went to beautiful dream society in Oklahoma city, twice. What an honor to get to train there and actually spend time with their survivors, which was, you know, that’s a huge element you do need to, that’s education is great. Information is great. And, but until you learn to sit with a person and, or be around a person and extend your comfort level to wrap around, you know, that scenario, that was a very powerful opportunity for us to get to the next level. And we went to Arizona Dream Center, which we still partner with them on a phase three level, which I can talk about in a minute, but we also went to redeem ministries in Houston, Texas there’s homes, all over the United States. And so those are the ones we were able to go to. And as many seminars and conferences that we could get to in that year, we put the year deadline on it because I’m like we should already, like the house is already needed. So we can’t expand it beyond that because it needs to have been done yesterday sort of. So that’s what we did. We bought the property. My husband did all the research. We got 20 acres out in Tijeras. We opted for a hidden place and there were, there’s two thoughts to, locating just for your people that are listening to their information. Hiding in a city is much more difficult, but it’s very practical for transportation. We’re back and forth to all kinds of medical appointments, dental. They’re basically on life support when you get them in the way that emotionally and a lot of physical issues they’re having to deal with. Emotional trauma is huge, but the dental issues from because, people that are have addictions frequently have poor, poor dental health, back and forth to court in many, many cases and almost most, I would say there’s a history of, um, arrests that are involved. What happens to these girls is that they become the Patsy. Like they’re going to be everything falls on them. If a car-load with their in your community, we’d call it a pimp. We call them traffickers. If they’re in the car with their trafficker, or the bottom girl, which is the lead girl of the group, that’s being trafficked. Every thing they can pile on, like the girl that’s, is the most victimized, it gets layered onto her, or they’ll send her in and have her steal at a store or, you know, whatever the case is when we got each of the girls that had a lengthy, generally a lengthy arrest history. So when I’m saying, living in town and being able to get to all these courts and the court dates we ended up in Santa Fe with one girl, there was a trial against her trafficker. And so, you know, the back and forth to all of the preparation for that, but in the end, really choosing to be outside of Albuquerque in the most peaceful restful, where they could actually get away from the very, feel of a big, well, in a way it’s a little bit bigger city than a lot of places was the direction we went in. And we believe God was able to do some amazing if you, if you two could go to that property, for example, and we could feel it as soon as we got off the highway, it was all 540 in Tijeras and you drive an additional, however many miles. You could just feel a sense of peace. And it was on mercy Way, we were able to name the street and it was, a room for six up to six people when we first opened it, we thought that’s what we might take, but to be honest I ended up telling Art. My husband Art he is our CFO to this day. That’s his part of what we do. But I said, we can not cram that many girls into that house and expect any kind of success at all because they re-traumatize one another. When you get them, they’re learning how to sleep at night again. It’s, you know, everything’s flipped. So we did, we had that house for three years and the way we got those girls was through FBI, law enforcement, CYFD, Bernalillo county Sheriff’s office, Homeland security was a big way that, we were given the cases for the girls. And, to show you how, just one example of how really insidious this is. And, two of the girls shared the same trafficker at one point. And one of those girls was from Seattle Washington, and the other girl was from Albuquerque and they were trafficked through the states surrounding these areas.

Toya: (17:57)
And actually that man was the one that they were trying to send to prison. They’d spend 18 months, the Homeland security has been 18 months getting all this intense information and to prove, to really build a case against him, the young lady, the one they ended up really because she had the longest history with him that went to court. And I can’t tell you how emotional and stressful that was for her. How, how re-traumatizing re-triggering it was too she was a flight risk at one point, because she said, I just don’t think I can be in the same room with him. It was insane. On another note, the way that is all built that to read, it really does, damage the emotional health of the girls. But she got even stronger through that. That the happy story is that she’s doing better today than she, than she ever has. And we have a five-year history with her now, but they let her trafficker go. She went through all of that. She and two other girls sat down and the defense was because they didn’t bring a specialist to talk about sex trafficking and what it is today, what it looks like today, it’s not years ago when you had to be trafficked a certain way. And you had to look all like you had to have been whatever, instead of just the elements of force fraud or coercion, those are the elements that they should be judging this by whether it’s, um, you know, free will basically, or was there force fraud or coercion present. So a specialist’s never got on the stand. And that’s a super long story, but what happened is that his defense attorney came up and said, you know, is he a horrible person? You could certainly say that. You could say that there’s certainly evidence. If you chose to believe that, that he was, he’s not a great person. But is he a… well, I think what her wording was, “Is he a pimp?” Could you say that he’s a businessman? And so she, her terminology of, of creating this, mindset and the jurors, you know, minds so that when they went back to deliberate, all they had was what the defense attorney said and what those three girls said, and what it turned into was a case for pimping and instead of sex, because that was how she said it in the closing was like, but is it sex trafficking? And so, you know, the people that prosecuted him failed miserably, failed miserably by not saying what in fact sex trafficking is. And there are people who speak on, The Rebecca Bender initiative. She actually will go into courts now, and she can testify as a survivor of sex trafficking and through years of research, what sex trafficking is, and that should have happened. So we re-exploited those poor girls. They’ve been exploited again now in a way that is so much more damaging because it’s already so shame-filled that they brought themselves into that situation, by these people that controlled them. So, anyway, I know that’s a long walk to that, but, you know, we have to change the way things are done in court for these girls as well.

Bunny: (21:18)
Well, and you also you know, when you did the Run Mama Run podcast and you, the two of you talked a lot about that, changing the shame piece, you know, that’s, you know, I think that it’s always human nature for people to look at somebody who’s in a different situation and say, well, wouldn’t happen to me. And that’s, and that’s, and that’s not true. I mean, there’s certainly we have to take, like, as you said, the judgment and the shame out of the way that we treat these survivors. I mean, we really have to take it out of the way that we treat anybody, but in particular people who have been in a situation like the girls, the women, and I understand, men as well are trafficked. I mean, talk about that shame and judgment piece. I want people to hear how that’s got to go away

Toya: (22:23)
Well, and I have to, because they immediately made me think about the Heart of Man is the name of the Netflix series. And I don’t actually even know if they’re still showing it right now there, that it actually does a great job of showing that really, that shame ultimately is the very thing that drives us away from the Lord. And from our own freedom, our own recovery. And, and you can just imagine and you kind of did a reference to Run Mama Run, which actually in this, it’s a good segue to say that that’s where I lived. That’s exactly in my own heart until I got born again at 20, I lived at such a place of just, shame and hurt. So my experience is what has driven me to this, my life experience. My testimony is what has brought me here with the understanding of yes shame and that you feel so already poorly about yourself. You feel like you’ve caused everything, that’s come to you. And in many cases for these young girls and boys, people in their own family, aren’t believing them, even if they try to disclose something that’s happened to them it gets turned around on them and actually used against them. So you’ve got the shame. And then if these children go to their adult to where it’s supposed to be safe, and sometimes the other adult in the scenario is the abuser. It’s… I mean, there’s so many levels of trauma here that these young girls and boys experience, but in, in my own life, and as I studied for that year to prepare for this I actually had a degree of healing through that year.

Toya: (24:09)
And I’d already been a Christian for quite a long time, but that’s when, For the One, the name for the one got downloaded to me. So we called the house Freedom House, because it was a home, but what we transitioned into for our branding when the home closed is For the One. And there’s been days when that one was me, you know, that that’s how personal for the one has meant on so many levels. And at the house, it was for the one God sent us for the survivor that God sent us. Even if it ended up being only one is the way God used it in my heart. If we only got one person that we were able to walk through with their recovery, because I believe that’s also how God’s operates. And it certainly, it goes for one and spreads to bigger and bigger. But, I tell people when I speak that on September 7th, 1980, I was the one. I was the one that Jesus did it for the one for me that day it’s. So it’s a very personal mantra. I’m not a huge tattoo person, but I’m about to get my second one on my foot. And it will be for the one because that’s how personal God is. And that’s what we’ve extended to these girls. So, as I was studying for that and preparing myself, and I looked back to my own history and was able to hone in because we had family abuse. My mother was schizophrenic but not full bipolar, but more schizophrenia. And she was a physical abuser and a verbal abuser in our home. And so this, the good story is that she got born again before I got born again, and she prayed me into the kingdom. So, her whole job and her, her story, her legacy, everything turned around talk about God using bad for good. My father was an alcoholic from a very young age. His mother committed suicide when he was quite young, he was 17 and in college, and he had so much broken in brokenness in his own life, but he was in college to become a minister. So when we follow where the enemy showed up, you know, in my own history and how that went from a dad that was called to be a minister and was derailed because of what happened when his mother committing suicide. And then he became alcoholic to medicate for that. And then he continued generational (trauma) next step to my own testimony, which was the four-year-old moment, which if you listen to Run Mama Run, I talked about that and next door neighbor was the first person who ever molested me. And I think even more…

Bunny: (26:52)
I’m sorry, but at four, right? Okay.

Toya: (26:56)
Yes. Yeah. And there’s a picture that sits on my counter. And I actually use it when I go to do awareness and prevention presentations that people don’t know when I put the picture of the three little girls that Christmas up on the screen. And I’ve had it blown up as a visual. And what I do is I talk about the three girls in that picture. And one was four, one was six, and one was eight. And my oldest sister who was eight year old, eight years old, our, step grandmother’s son molested her from two years and older. And the only one of the three of us who were not molested was my middle sister Tina, who is the pastor’s life of the church in North Carolina. Anyway, the example is, and they think I’m talking about the survivors that we’ve worked with, you know, over the years. So the little girl that’s four here, and the little girl that’s eight here, you know, they went on to use drugs and were so, so vulnerable through like the days that those things entered in and you’d listen to Run Mama Run. The example I use is like a giardia where it actually almost as if it enters your gut, but it’s really, it’s your soul. I believe that that enters into, at such a young age, and that was pivotal for me. I can trace really, I think abuse and alcoholism in itself would have been a rough life. It would have been my normal, but adding that layer of sexual abuse to my little young life at the time, is really where I traced back. What, what triggered the level of alcohol and drug abuse that I started when I was 11? So, you know, from 11 to 20, you know, I was pretty crazy. And my sister, my oldest sister, Tina, she started using drugs when she was 12. So, you know, back then they were dropping acid and, you know, whatever. But, we were the people that if I know she was raped a couple of times herself, I was date drugged and for different scenarios, you’re just not like, it’s almost as if you have a target on your back. And so if you fast forward to what we learned about, these young girls that we worked with these young women is that you’re vulnerable because this thing has started all those years back, wherever it started. And so to give you a statistic, I think it’s important for us to look at that for a minute. Some statistics say that one in four girls some and say one in seven boys. I don’t believe one in four because when I was in high school, I lived in a children’s home in new Orleans and that high school said back then, I’m 61. So back then the high school said that, one in four girls, I don’t believe that for a minute. I’ve talked to so many women, so many girls, so many victims, and I would say at the very least it’s one in three have sexual abuse in their past from when they were younger. And then compare that to what we find with the survivors. And it’s 3.9 out of every four. So 3.9 out of every four. And I went to New Mexico dream center to, to ask her, you know, what do you think you’re seeing there? And that was exactly what her comment was. That’s what we’re seeing too.

Bunny: (30:26)
So, so you’re saying that 3.9 out of 4 survivors of sex trafficking were sexually abused? I just to be really, I want to be clear to the people who are hearing this, because I’ve heard you say these numbers before and it’s, and it kind of blows your brain up and you’ve talked a lot, you’re Vulnerable, No More Campaign. I think really, I mean, it feels to me like that addresses something, you know, it’s helping those sexual abuse victims figure out how to not be vulnerable to trafficking, right? Or, or just vulnerable in general. Right?

Toya: (31:11)
And that’s what we came to as we were closing Freedom House and we saw two different things. One is, and we’ve worked our existing survivors that were phase three. So phase one is the rescue. When they’re getting out of that life, when they’re detoxing getting off drugs, whatever it is, they have an addiction to that’s phase one. With our program phase two was like, what would you like to be? Can you imagine yourself in school? Do you need to get your high school diploma? What do we need to work with you on to get you forward? Moving towards your future? Phase three was when they’re ready to move out and be, I say God dependent, but independent, and live with a roommate or live by their selves that’s phase three. So our girls that were in the house were phase three already. And when we sat down with their counselor and explained that we were closing the house and we would. Here’s how we were going to be doing that. They were like, we should have never thought we could do this. We can’t do this on our own. And that was our moment to say, you will never be alone. We have been, you know, you’re stuck with us. It’s basically what we told them, but that became what our one segment of what we do is, is our phase three partnership. We collaborate with other organizations who, have either residential programs or non-residential programs where they continue to work with survivors, but a lot of the money goes to law enforcement. And then, that first, however many months or years, where they’re healing and I’ve so many people in this is important for your listeners to understand. They think that like once they’ve gone through that program, they’re good to go. And I tell groups of people, dads and moms, especially I’m like anybody in this room got a college student and, you know, whatever I’m like, do they still call? Do they still need you? Do they need support? You know, do they need community from you? You know, do they need to feel connected and cheered for? And anyway, so imagine somebody from a life of trauma if we just abandoned them at phase three. So a lot of organizations, their funds are geared towards the rescue, the mid-residential program, whatever they work through during that segment, whether it’s one year or three years. Okay. Depending on the program then it’s like, so shoo go off, good luck with your hopes and dreams. And they, because they, they want to help and continue to help, but they don’t have money for that. So that’s what we do. We partner with them and a lot of our financial from that perspective, our finances go towards continuing to show up for these phase three survivors, if they could afford one tire and they need four, we get the others. If they have a crisis come up that was unplanned for, we show up and take care of that. There’s a situation right now where a girl has chosen life and she’s pregnant and she’s married, but she’s in a horrible relationship and we’re going to pay for a deposit for her own apartment, and we’re going to pay for the first month’s rent. So it doesn’t derail her while she focuses on this choice for life. And we’re showing up with practical things like a gift card for maternity clothes. You can’t say that you’re partnering with these people and not continue to show up when they need it. Their commitment to phase three is that they’re drug free. That my biggest number one thing is you can’t call yourself out phase three and we can’t consider you phase three, if you’re still addicted to drugs and using. So anyway, that’s for anybody that might be hearing this, if you’re working with a program or know someone, and you can spread that provision information, please send them my way. We work with organizations not just in New Mexico, but also in other states. So that’s one thing that we started doing. And then the other segment is, as I realize, more and more how vulnerable in every case these young girls, young boys, young girls in particularly are who we’re called to. And then even a child that’s being trafficked by a parent’s vulnerable because they’re a child, you know? So in every single story, it goes back to vulnerability and that during worship, which is how God downloads so much to me. But during a worship, I started thinking that this is because these people are so vulnerable. So instead of only sharing stories to the community, only pointing out what sex trafficking looks like and doing the awareness segment, how can we finally get out ahead of this? How can we finally get a ray of hope in this conversation? Because all of us who work with this population are so frustrated knowing that we’re going to show up basically with an ambulance and a gurney over and over and over again, to put these young people and young adults on life support emotionally, as they slowly heal after it’s happened. And rather and I don’t think I used that story in the Run Mama Run, but the river babies is a great example of a woman who’s washing clothes next to the river. And it begins to see and point out these babies floating in the river and just saying, oh, there they are. And let’s go help and pulling them out one baby at a time. And that goes on and on. It’s exhausting, everybody, and nothing’s getting better. And someone in the group finally says, why aren’t we going upstream? Why aren’t we stopping in up there? And that another thing that just went off in my mind was that we, our heart really is that we have to get out ahead of this. So I use the Forrest Gump, running, emoji often, or, the Gif, you know, if I’m running. I feel like we’re in the race of our lives to get to the target group that the traffickers are after and don’t trouble no more is the way that we’re the tool that we’re using. And what we’re doing is we’re exposing what traffickers do, what recruiters do and what groomers do, what they say, how they act it’s to uncover that to the very people that they’re going after.

Bunny: (37:36)
And I mean, we could probably spend hours with you talking about those points, you know, how do we, how do we, you know, what do traffickers do? What, what do groomers do, but is there a resource where we can, um, that we can post where people can go and find the information? How do we spread the word?

Toya: (38:00)
Oh, well, thank you for asking that we have everything on our website, it’s fortheone.one. If you go there there’s years of information, but there’s also the choice to look and see what vulnerable no more is doing. And if you go in and you look through that, it actually will show you speaker segments during COVID. When everybody else got creative, we were actually supposed to have our first live event September of that year. And of course, that didn’t happen. And I was pacing in my house going, okay, God, I know you said to do this. I can’t sit and watch us not do the next thing. So we recorded 10 videos, and my daughter did all of our, you know, preparing it and cutting it into like around a 10 minute segment. The longest one is 20 minutes. Cause it had to be, and that’s Know Your Enemy is the name of that segment. But if they’re all on YouTube and if you go to fortheone.one, you can actually get the links to all of that information and watch as many or as few of those videos that you care to. But what we didn’t know, other than I knew I had to do something, is that the information that we put into these vulnerable and they’re only two hours, the vulnerable, no more events. That information came from the content of these specialists that came on and actually did these little segments for us on human trafficking. We the commander of over sex crimes, child sex crimes online, their commander did a segment for us on there as well from the AG, the AGS office and Anthony Mays is amazing. So that’s one of the elements, Human Trafficking, 1 0 1 it’s 10 minutes. And it’s the same woman that I told you about that does that little 10 minute segment in a nutshell, what does human trafficking look like right now in our in our country and in our state. And so these little bites, we then pulled into four different sessions. And then one segment in the middle is it’s called from the heart of survivors. And it is actually blips and warnings, little llike if you see this where it’s them talking to their younger selves to people that they love, we’ve asked them to say, if you had someone in front of you and you had to tell them something that you thought would help, what would you say? And so that’s a 10 minute segment and it closes in a letter from the survivor I mentioned, and she actually had to change her name legally to protect she and her son, because they let her trafficker go free. And she said, nobody knows him. Like I do, he’s going to come for me. And so she had to change her name, but her testimony is the last story that we close with. And it’s a letter she wrote to the people that come to these events. So it’s just a great information. The whole idea is to expose what it looks like. So when those young people or the parents or grandparents of those young people are in a situation, in a room at the table when their kids are online, um, when they overhear a conversation, when the, when the girls think some guy is interested in them, who’s actually grooming them for recruitment. They see it. The know your enemies balance is so awesome because it talks about what traffickers do and the hook point she calls it where they actually it’s like fly fishing. They’re actually seeing who bites, who has the vulnerability to bite that hook point and they reel them in. So it’s to get out ahead of that, that hook point. So you go, he just said that she just said that they told me that means this. So something can go off on the inside of them. The moms have them, the dads have them, the grandparents too, to recognize what it actually is. That’s being said. And the difference between a person who’s really interested in you, because we don’t want them to be fearful. We want them to be empowered. What’s the difference between a guy that’s trying to date you, rather than someone that’s trying to exploit you

Bunny: (42:15)
Toya can you, I know that you met with somebody in law enforcement yesterday, but is this message being disseminated in like public schools or organizations where, I mean, I guess… I know that there’s a higher prevalence of sex trafficking than we think. You know, I heard somebody say the other day, oh, well, it’s not a problem in New Mexico. I thought, no, that’s no, and certainly, you know, better than I do. But, I guess my first question, if we shift gears just a tiny bit, is how prevalent is it in your backyard, in your neighborhood, in your state? What do people need to know about that just quickly? I mean, it’s not, we don’t have to do an in-depth, but I do want people to know this is not something that happens somewhere else.

Toya: (43:11)
Absolutely. And that’s, that’s actually the danger from the day I got in this is that people wouldn’t even believe they were kind of where I was all those years ago when I thought it was only other countries, you know, I’ve been there with that whole mentality of like, how horrible for those other countries we’re doing great. You know, I’m like, oh my gosh, the more I know and you can’t know what you don’t know, you know? So I would be happy to tell you that as horrific as it is, it is very prevalent. And it’s not just because we’re close to the border, although that factors into it, it’s not just because we have, I don’t even know what the count is now, but the massage parlors that we have in our cities, I mean, Albuquerque New Mexico is just drive down any street, in probably Santa Fe, too. I couldn’t speak to that for sure. But if there’s a massage parlor and look at the windows are dark and they’re blocked out with curtains, you need to know that something’s going on there. That’s not massage. Massage Envy is bright, and I’m only using a name as an example. It’s light, it’s open, it’s airy. It’s those other ones. If you open the door and we’ve done it and you go in, it’s like, somebody’s dark, bizarre, sketchy living room. People live there. It’s bizarre. So there’s that element of sex trafficking. There are the motels. I can’t even begin to tell you, I wouldn’t, you could not pay me a million dollars right now to stay in a motel that has a drive up door rather than a lobby. There’s so much trafficking that occurs out of these motels. And I’m not going to listen to any, cause I don’t need a lawsuit, but the truth is it happens all over the homelessness are runaway teenagers who, yes, some of them are rebellious, but so many have a reason to be that people would’ve called me rebellious. But I was running from something what happened to them, you know? So the other piece of it is since it’s, since it’s prevalent, are we, is this message being given to the general public, especially to young people. So that’s Our target, that’s our target and the last, well, our first event, which again, so thrilled, we learned so much to do that doing that, but that target was to roll it out. Everybody that would interview me or, you know, we did a couple of things with channel 13, and then I was able to do some things on more private channel 32 or whatever. It’s a Christian spectrum TV. I went over to Calvary Church and did two interviews with Jim Williams over at K T we’re spreading the word about the event in a general way. And I’ll continue to do that. But November 5th, our next event, which will be both live and live-streamed on that night is it believer center of Albuquerque and our actual segment. And I have the word ask on my notebook in front of me. And my ask to anyone listening is to brainstorm. And I said that yesterday to the chief of police helped me brainstorm how to get this information to the population that needs to hear it. Yes. Every woman, you know, 12 to 100 is invited and anybody can watch it livestream. Even though it is currently a female event anybody can live stream it. And that, again, back to fortheone.one to get connected. But I asked those deputy sheriffs that were in the room and I asked our chief of police. I said, please, can you get me connected to I’ll talk to anybody, I’ll do whatever I need to do to try to create a relationship and explain to them what we’re doing to get it to the population that is so at risk and to the moms, grandparents, fathers that need to hear it. So they know what they’re seeing and understand what it is. They know what the identifiers are to look for because it happens in neighborhoods it’s happening out of houses. It’s not just a seedy motel. It is happening all over the place. And I’m not like the sky is falling. It’s not me. It’s all these years of it is happening everywhere. And guess what, even though sex trafficking is our calling and our lane to address this is going to fold in these girls. And eventually boys who are being controlled by narcissistic boyfriends, domestic violence will be affected by this. It’s not just, let’s say if, and I couldn’t tell you honestly, because it’s so under reported, you can’t believe any of those statistics you’re hearing because it’s so many go unreported because nobody knows what they’re looking at. If you bled in maybe half of the domestic violence numbers, with actual reported sex trafficking numbers, you might get a little bit closer. Cause a lot of people, law enforcement see it as domestic violence. So we’re going to get to those teenagers to build tenacity and strength and a voice to use on their own, to fight, to combat all of those scenarios that they stop allowing through that vulnerability. Cause I wasn’t trafficked. If trafficking had been a huge thing back then that would have happened to me. My abuse was through self-consumption. So in my home I was sexually abused. In every scenario I found myself in, I was drugged and self-consumed by whoever that was, if they sold girls back then, like they do now, that would have been me. So every one of the girls and boys who ever hear this, it they may not ever have been or become targets of trafficking, but there are people looking for those vulnerabilities to come in and control them and get them to be less than what God has called them to be. So we need schools, we need CYFD. I’m trying to get it while I’ve actually had a phone meeting with a reintegration center in Albuquerque. I’m trying to think of everywhere, the detention center, which is honestly not where these young girls should be. And these young boys should be. And New Mexico dream center is actually opening a home, a recovery program, a residential home for finally for minors. But I, everywhere these young people are, I need your community of listeners to help me get the word to them. So we can either have them watching because the detention centers is not going to load up a bus and bring them to the next event, but they can sure do it throw a, like a watch party or a live stream event where they get the information still. So we hope that God’s not going to waste a minute. We’d hope to affect the numbers of sex trafficking in the future. We also hope that we can instill, um, different these different segments. And by the way, the last segment is called proceed with caution. And it is the whole segment is on how to use your voice to your power is your voice. You have a decision along the way to be controlled by a person or control your situation by your actions when you have that opportunity before it’s too late and you find yourself in the middle of it. So this isn’t just about anti-sex trafficking just to prevent sex trafficking. It is absolutely to pour this information too, to get people as a whole, to be vulnerable, no more adults, not to be vulnerable, um, because they don’t have the information they need and these young adults and young children. So they won’t become exploited or used for the purpose of whatever this predator is trying to do in their life. You know, there’s many of you don’t have sex trafficking experiences or things that have happened to you, but you do have somebody in your family, that’s had a narcissistic or an abusive boyfriend, or you are the wife of an abusive male or female, these types of events where you’re, you’re building on the layers of your God-given strengths and, and using those things to fight those attacks in your life. That’s what we’re targeting. So vulnerable, no more to change the numbers for sex trafficking, vulnerable, no more for our communities to stop being vulnerable, to controlling people and predators in your life.

Bunny: (51:30)
I got to tell you, I was just sitting here thinking usually at the end of a podcast, there’s a way that I, you know, we sort of wrap everything up and I think, no, there’s not. You’ve given us, you know, jump right in here at any minute, but you’ve given us such a powerful message that all I want to say is we’re in, and we’ll publicize this because it’s so important. I mean, I was in one of those marriages, so I understand what you’re saying. It is. And Johanna and I talked about it last night that, you know, why did I choose to be in a relationship with somebody who, who felt free to abuse me? Well, it’s, we’re all survivors, but we want more survivors and less victims.

Toya: (52:26)
Absolutely.

Bunny: (52:28)
We want to help you. Yes.

Toya: (52:30)
I love it. I love that what God did and what he’s done in my life and with my family is that your legacy is changed. And that baby on the monitor that future for that is changed. Nothing will be the same from generation to generation because we’re like, no, not one more person, not my family. The enemy is not going to attack us for one more second. We are turning this around and these are all ways this podcast, your book, these are all ways we can pour our stories to help out, to help the next people or those people who will hear it and celebrate the recovery and the victory we have in our own lives. I’m so grateful to God. I’m so grateful for your story for mine, that he was able to do that. And he is, you know, I’m so healed. I’m so recovered from all those things that happened to me and, you have your story also of freedom.

Bunny: (53:28)
Right, right, right. And, and we’re all about gratitude here. I’m so grateful you. I want to ask you if you’ll come back again maybe after the November 5th event, and we talk a little bit more about empowering more people in the ways that you’re doing it. And I’m, I just can’t tell you how grateful I am that you chose to spend an hour with us to change the world.

Toya: (53:56)
I love the opportunity the one in front of you. Yeah. Not 32 million. We can’t fix 32 million cases of sex trafficking but I’m all about getting to the people we can help. And March 4th, Citizen Church is hosting us. And I do intend to do a male and female event at that gathering. So we, that will be an opportunity for our men and our boys 12 and older to show up at the event. And my speaker for the males will start in the sanctuary together. We’ll split out into a session, uh, separate and the founder of defenders, which is the men’s group against sex trafficking will speak to our males while we do our, our vulnerable no more segments. So I thought about it, throw that out there before my daughter gives me a big talking to about not mentioning that.

Bunny: (54:48)
But we’ll also, Johanna will post all of the resources. All of the links. I mean, we’re going to let people know what you do.

Toya: (54:57)
Thank you so much. And this will connect me. Y’all helped me get connected with listeners, help me get connected to these people that need to hear it.

Bunny: (55:06)
All right. Thanks Toya. Thank you so much. All right, we’ll talk again. Thank you so much for joining us today on lifesaving gratitude. Please support us by subscribing wherever you’re listening now, by giving us a five star rating and a review, and please share Lifesaving Gratitude with all your friends. We’re here to share our stories and hopefully help others. You can find Lifesaving gratitude on instagram at lifesavinggratitudepod and at bunnyterry.com/podcast. Thanks again, everybody.

Bunny: Hi everyone. This is Bunny with the Lifesaving Gratitude podcast. Just in case you don’t know me, I am a stage four colon cancer survivor and the author of Lifesaving Gratitude, which is a book about how gratitude helped me kick cancer’s ass. 

Today we’re going to talk to a special guest about how marketing and marketers can use gratitude to create business and connections with clients and also for themselves to create a really positive way to do their job. But first, I just want to thank you for being here and ask that you download the podcast if you’d like. And certainly subscribe wherever you listen to other podcasts. But enough about me and enough about the podcast. 

I want to introduce you to my special guest, who’s also a friend. Craig Cunningham is currently a realtor with Keller Williams, Santa Fe. And that’s how I met him. However, this is a recent career for him and he was, and correct me if I mispronounce the word, but you were a hotelier. Is that the way to say that?

Craig: Yes. 

Bunny: Yes. He’s spent 30 years in corporate sales and marketing. He’s traveled extensively. I’m going to let him tell you all the places that he’s been to, but he is the founder and principal of Cunningham + Colleagues marketing consultants. He was in the past the VP of marketing and quality for Seaport Hotels and World Centers and the VP of marketing for Core North America. So welcome Craig Cunningham.

Craig: Thanks so much for having me on your podcast.

Bunny: I’m excited. I know you have some great tips for all of our listeners. When I think about these podcasts, I always think about the people that are going to want the information we’re offering. I mean, we’re here to help people and we’re here to figure out how gratitude can make everyone’s life not just easier and simpler, but also fuller. So why don’t you start, Greg? Just tell us a little bit about yourself. Tell us how in the world you ended up in this completely different career? And yet the truth is we’re still just marketers first and realtors, second. Tell me a little bit about yourself. Tell our listeners.

Craig: Yeah. So, as you said, I’ve been in marketing and sales for more than 30 years. I actually started off with an advertising and PR agency and then had the good fortune to be hired by my hotel client at the time, Wyndham hotels. At that time it was a North American chain and it’s now international. 

But from then on, I was in the hotel business. It’s definitely a career where if you are not focused on client service and the whole concept of gratitude, you’re not going to be successful. I always thought of our job as just surprising and delighting our guests and making them feel like they chose the right hotel to be with. And so it was always about waking up every day and saying, “What can I do to make somebody’s day and to give them a great experience?” And, of course, to do this you have to be grateful because they opted to choose your hotel over the million other choices that they had. 

So when I retired from the hotel business two years ago, I was trying to figure out what else I wanted to do with my life. I started doing more volunteering. I volunteer with Kitchen Angels here in Santa Fe to deliver meals to people who are not able to leave their homes. But I also started thinking of whether I wanted to do something else from a professional standpoint and the real estate business seemed like a natural extension, because it’s all about client service. You have to figure out ways to make people feel like they’ve made the right choice in working with you. So it’s all about being grateful every day and figuring out what can I do to help them today. How else can I extend what I’m doing for them in a way that they will appreciate and know that I appreciate them. So that’s what it’s really all about, because of course they could work with a million other other people

Bunny: Right. And let’s talk for just a second. Don’t you think that marketing has changed over the 30 years that you’ve been doing this? I mean, it seems to me that when we were kids, which was back before the crust cooled, we were sort of marketed at. Just talk for a minute about how marketing is different now than it was 10 years ago or 30 years ago.

Craig: It’s funny, because I was going to say the exact same thing. Back in the day, you were running a TV ad or a radio spot or a print ad and it was passive in that you just presented the information, unless you were direct sales. But really with the advent of so much digital media, you are instantly able to forge a relationship with customers through social media, through Facebook, Instagram, where you’re having a dialogue with them from the very beginning. This allows you to work in a much more personal way and to be able to find out much more quickly how you can serve those people. 

So I think it’s changed completely. Before you just sort of put it out there into the ether and hope that something worked, and now you’re able to engage. And I’ve found that so much in real estate where I’m getting emails from folks and then it evolves from the email into a phone call or a zoom call or something like that instantly. I think that’s so much better for both people. Especially for somebody like me who wants to find ways to engage with people and to be of service to them, it makes it a lot easier and more rewarding.

Bunny: I just think about the ways that I connect with my clients. It’s as if you’re somehow conveying to those people that you’re grateful that they showed up.

Craig: Yeah, exactly. I mean, my whole thought is that it’s not a transaction, it’s a relationship. And that relationship can be multifaceted. Once you’ve sold them a house or sold their house, I like to think that we’ve formed a friendship and a bond and that relationship is going to continue. And honestly, I don’t even care if I ever get another piece of business for them. Now think of them as friends. I want to have them to my house for dinner or go have coffee or something like that. 

I think that kind of thing that makes a difference for people in wanting to work with me.  It’s coming from a position of wanting to be of service to them and wanting to make them happy and finding the right solution for them. I’m working with some first-time-buyers right now and I kind of feel like they’re my kids. It’s about, okay, how can I really help them with this? And they’re grateful for the counsel I’m able to give to them, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to work with them. So it’s very rewarding. I think if you approach business relationships in the same way as you would with your friends, it’s a win-win situation for everybody.

Bunny: Well, talking about those first-time home buyers, I mean, that’s one of my favorite deals. You never make the most money from those transactions, but I’m so grateful to be reminded that we are providing the American dream when we’re selling real estate. Yeah. It’s amazing. It’s my favorite experience.

Craig: Yeah. I mean, for somebody to have their first home and to be excited about how they’re going to decorate it and what they’re going to do. And with this young couple, seeing them excited when they see a house brings out all my empathy and makes me want to really go the extra mile for them to make sure they find the right house at the right price for them. And then I just never want to stop. So then it’s like, “Okay, now I’m going to find this person for you to do the plumbing, and I’m going to find this person, etc, and I’ll be with you with you  to help explain things.” I just want to really continue to be of service.

Bunny: I talk a lot, especially on my blog, about Judy Camp, who was one of my first real estate mentors. She was a great friend and Linda Gammons partner for a long time before she passed away. But Judy Camp always says, “If you come from contribution, you can’t help but be successful.”

Craig: Yeah. I mean, just as I was saying, you can’t think of it as a transaction. I think, coming from contribution, how can I help you? How can I make this a better experience? How can I make this work? Because, especially in a real estate transaction, it can be stressful. It’s the biggest financial transaction for the majority of us. So how do you take the burden and the pressure away from them and sort of guide them through the process? I just think the main thing is that it’s much more fun, whether you’re doing volunteer work or in business, to wake up every day and figure out how I could make it fun for somebody else. Because then it’s fun for you and it gets you excited and passionate about what you’re doing.

Bunny: Well, it sounds like our big “why’s” are really similar. I certainly don’t want to put any words in your mouth, but it sounds like your big “why” is just to make the life of the people you come in contact with better.

Craig: Yeah. Of course making money is nice, but there are lots of ways to make money. It’s more about whether you are getting energy from it. And I think you really get energy when you’re working with someone and trying to figure out how you can help them, how you can make their day better, how you can make the service that you’re providing better. And also just doing things that saying, “What about if I do X, Y, Z?” and they’re  like, “Oh, you’ll do that for me?” And I’m like, “Of course.”

I have another set of clients where the transaction was fairly complicated and we were looking at lots of properties. Coming from a corporate background, I love to do spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations—things like that. And so after about the third thing we had to do, they’re like, “Oh, how are we going to organize all these bids?”  And then one of the guys said to the other guy, “Well, Craig’s going to do a spreadsheet for us. He’s probably already got it done.” So it’s that kind of thing where you’re looking for ways to make their experience better.

Bunny: So this is always a funny question for me to ask, because I have such a loose gratitude practice other than just waking up in the morning and saying, “thank you, thank you, thank you,” and then writing things down, but do you have a practice that you follow that helps you both in your business and your personal life?

Craig: Well, since I came into real estate with Keller Williams, which focuses a lot on being servant leaders and helping people, I’ve gotten into the habit of writing three things I’m grateful for that day. It could be that it’s a beautiful day or a dog or my partner or the opportunity to help somebody or the coffee’s really good that day, but waking up and appreciating what you have in your life is a good way to get in a good mindset for the rest of it.

Bunny: Oh, absolutely. Something I always say is that we kind of rewire our brains. We do. We create new neural pathways every time we say that we’re grateful. So in terms of nuts and bolts, is there a way that you let your clients know? I mean, I find that there are a lot of young people, young entrepreneurs or people who are new to business, who forget how to tell their clients how they’re grateful for them, even if it’s a line in an email. Do you have something that you do specifically over and over?

Craig: I think for me, it’s maybe more in the actions. I think of “This is really going to be helpful if I do this or if I provide this information.” I think it’s always in my voice and the way that I write. I try to always communicate openly and in a friendly and conversational manner. But then I also think “It would be really cool and really helpful if I did X , Y , Z.” I created a whole PowerPoint just on the neighborhoods in Santa Fe, because if you’re out of town it gets confusing. And that came out of a client saying, “Well, I don’t really know the neighborhoods.” And I thought that this would be a great tool for them. So I created it and then I was able to use it with others. 

So I think for me, maybe it’s sort of on the fly. I used to say in the hotel hotel business, “How can I make this a wow experience?” Because the other way to think about it is that every relationship is with people. When you’re in a service business you’re really in the business of creating memories. You can create good memories or you can create bad memory and it’s much more fun to create good memories.

Bunny: And that just comes from a spirit of generosity. I mean, you obviously want this to be the best real estate experience they’ve ever had.

Craig: Right. Right. I’m very grateful for the people that have helped me along the way. I’ve been very fortunate in my career to always work for people who were concerned about my career development and my personal development and became dear friends. And I’ve had a couple of bosses that have hired me twice in two different jobs. So I’m always grateful for the things that other people have done for me. 

So then I want to pay it forward. When I came to Keller Williams and I was introduced to the team here, there was so much openness and willingness to share and help and support. It has been fantastic. What strikes me the most is how grateful I am for what other people have done for me. And how do I pay that back?

Bunny: I mean, this is not a podcast to plug Keller Williams. It’s really more to talk about mindset, but the place where I learned it was sitting in that training room and learning that my mindset was the secret sauce. I mean, that’s the success piece, right?

Craig: Yeah, exactly. It’s not just about production and everything. It’s about weight and having a sense of gratitude and contribution and a sense of abundance. And I don’t mean that in a monetary way. It could be abundance in your health or your friends or all of that kind of stuff. And I think back to you. Your experience with cancer was far worse than mine, but I did have prostate cancer about nine years ago. Everyone I worked with during that entire time when I was going for radiation every day for 10 weeks was so supportive. And then on the last day of radiation, there was this very important meeting, and everyone knew it was my last day.My whole team had a celebration for me on my last day. That was turning something that was obviously a challenging situation into something where I knew they really cared about me and supported me.

Bunny: Wow. I’m interested to hear how your mindset was in the middle of that? 

Craig: I’m just by nature, an optimistic person. So even though it was scary, I felt like I was in good hands from a medical standpoint and I just felt like I was gonna beat it. I had done the education that I needed to and then it was really about having a positive mindset. 

This is probably too much information, but I’ll say it anyway. You’re doing the radiation stripped down to your boxer shorts. And so I jokingly put this Facebook thing about the fact that I needed a new pair of boxer shorts for every day. And people started sending me underwear—different pairs of boxer shorts for every day. So while I was sitting there in the big machine, where you’re sort of in there and it’s buzzing and scanning and all that kind of stuff, it got to be kind of a joke with the techs:  “Oh , what’s he going to be wearing today?”

Bunny: I love that.

Craig: That was a way to keep my spirits up. And also during that process, I really learned how to be very focused. I was in a waiting room with people that were going through, frankly, worse things than prostate cancer. Don’t get me wrong, prostate cancer is pretty serious. It is. People die from it. But I was seeing so many other people that were having a much more challenging time than I was. And we became a family. We all bonded together during that process, because we were all waiting, sometimes for an hour. So it’s things like that. And also things like the kitchen angels service, where it helps reboot you every day for how grateful you should be in your own life and grateful for the opportunity to help other people.

Bunny: Right. There are tons of people who do get what a gift it is. People who don’t even have a specific gratitude practice, but at least an attitude every day that you’re going to figure out something. I just wrote a blog post on limiting beliefs and one of the things that I wanted to convey is that we get to choose every single moment how we view the world. And maybe for somebody out there who’s brand new in business or who’s starting a new business. I just read a statistic that said that the entrepreneur demographics are changing. And now like 48% of new entrepreneurs are over 50. So hooray for the old people! 

But I know that there are people out there right now who are thinking, “Well, I’m not any good at marketing. I’m not any good at that piece of it. I can sell stuff, but I’m not good at the marketing stuff.” I’ve got to tell you, I’m married to a guy who doesn’t believe in self promotion because he came from a generation when you played down your assets, instead of being grateful for them and talking about them. So I’d love to hear what you have to say to somebody who has that limiting belief that they can’t market. And they can’t promote themselves.

Craig: You know, we could all market ourselves, and we do it every day in our interactions.  Whether we think of it as marketing or not, we’re marketing ourselves all day long in how we react and treat other people. The thought I had as you were talking about your husband thinking self-promotion sounds like a dirty word is that it doesn’t have to be you talking  about “me, me, me” and “I did this million dollars in revenue.” This is kind of a turnoff in some ways, because you’re talking about yourself. But if you’re talking about how you can help somebody else and how you can provide a good experience for them with your information and knowledge, you’re not talking about yourself in that context. You’re talking about how you can be of service. I think that’s a much easier way for a lot of people from a generation where we weren’t really supposed to be talking about ourselves.

Bunny: Well, it was pre-social media. Our face wasn’t out there. We just weren’t trained to tell people, “Here’s the reason you should hire me instead of the other person.”

Craig: Yeah, exactly. I mean, now we’re all our own brands on social media. But I think that rather than saying to somebody, “Here’s why you should hire me versus somebody else,” you should just talk about how you can be of service in what you do in an authentic way. Then people are more likely to want to work with you, because you’re radiating a sense of positivity and an interest in them. And they’re not thinking that you just look at them as a transaction and then you’re onto the next person.

Bunny: I frequently use with my marketing coaching clients the example of a dinner party. If you went into a dinner party (and this is for people who are just beginning in whatever business they’re in, especially if they’re self-employed), you wouldn’t simply walk in, take your coat off and say, “Hey, I’m selling something, come and talk to me.” Right? I mean, that’s what you don’t want to do with marketing. You want to start by building a relationship. Can you talk a little bit about that? 

Craig: I think it goes all the way back to Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People. People do like to talk about themselves. And so the first thing is you should be listening. That was one of the first things I learned in marketing client service. You need to ask questions and learn from your clients. Focus on what they need, as opposed to talking about yourself. You really want to establish a dialogue with them about their wants and needs and hopes and fears and everything else. Then you can talk about how you can address them. But nobody wants to go in and all of a sudden have you sit down and say, “Here’s my PowerPoint about me and what I’ve done.” It should be more of establishing, from the very beginning, a relationship of openness with folks. Then, after hearing from them, you can say “Well, here’s how I think I can you and here are some ideas that I have that I could share with you.” So I think a key thing is really listening from the very beginning.

Bunny: I even found that to be helpful when I used to first go on listing appointments. I was so nervous that I would sit down and I would immediately try to book an appointment. You know, if you’re not in real estate, a listing appointment is just like sitting down with a prospective customer. I would be so nervous in the beginning and really coming from a place of scarcity where I thought, “If I don’t get this listing, I’m not sure I can pay the rent next month.” And if you’re coming from a place of scarcity, you’re likely to self-sabotage. But that’s such good advice because things changed when I finally learned how to sit back and listen: “I’m here to help you. Tell me what it is that you need. Talk to me.” It’s so powerful to give a client time to talk to you. And I think people forget to do that, right?

Craig: Yeah. And I think sometimes we do it because we’re afraid. What I’ve learned so much over the years in business working with people is that people are terrified of silence, so they will immediately start talking. If there’s a second of silence, you jump in and start babbling. Lord knows I do it. But if you just let somebody talk and let it sort of sit there for a second and not just try to be filling in all the time. It drives me crazy when people are doing that. It’s much better if you can have the client talk and then ask some more questions and then be warm and reflective about it. Back to the Dale Carnegie thing, I think one of his first points was if you’re at the dinner party, ask people about themselves. Most people do like to talk about themselves. So ask them and don’t just start talking about yourself. 

Bunny: I think that even people who would say, “I don’t like to talk about myself,” really do want somebody to ask them and listen to them.

Craig: Yeah. And it’s not just asking them to go on and on. It’s more meaningful questions about, for example, why they decided to move here. Just those kinds of questions that get them thinking. Growing up in materialistic Dallas, the joke was that the questions at a party were like, “Where do you live? What do you do? What do you drive?” And so it’s not questions like that. It’s asking them more about their life experience,

Bunny: You just brought me to another completely different point, which is for any realtors out there listening: I think it’s really important to convey to your clients how grateful you are for where you live. I mean, if our lifestyle is such a selling point, don’t you think you should share that?

Craig: Oh, yeah, exactly. I mean, living in Santa Fe there’s so much beauty. I’m looking out my window right now at the beautiful blue sky. When I leave my house in the morning and I see the mountains, and then when I’m coming home at night and the sun is setting over the mountains and I see all the different colors and everything, it’s just breathtaking. It’s great to live in such a great and wonderful environment and in a place that is very spiritual, going back with the native Americans—respect for the earth and nature and all of those things—I think it does help center us more than a lot of other places.

Bunny: How do you convey that to your clients? I know you’re doing something really cool online that’s different from some other realtors.

Craig: Well, I’m not just posting on my Facebook page,” Hey, I just sold this house or just sold that house.” Well, that’s great. But I’m more talking about new experiences in Santa Fe: new restaurants, or a new place to go hiking, or something exciting that’s happening at one of the museums or things like that—enthusiastically talking about the experience of living in Santa Fe. And if down the road, by the way, you’re looking at this stuff and you decide you want to buy a house here, I would love to help you. But it’s more about conveying the reason why we all want to live here

Bunny: And tell us about your blog, because I think it’s amazing.

Craig: So I created this blog, which is called Santa Fe Scenes. It’s that same kind of thing where it’s just talking about having fun in Santa Fe. One of the things was, you know, we’ve got the old Santa Fe trail and we’ve got the old Pincus trail, but did you know that we had a Margarita trail and a Chocolate trail? Stuff like that. Just being whimsical about it and talking about some of the things are unique about the city and sharing my own passion for Santa Fe. I was very fortunate to be able to do a lot of international travel for my job. I was grateful for the opportunity that I was given to see places that I wouldn’t have seen otherwise from Bogota to Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro and Beijing and places like that. So I’ve always been enthusiastic about travel and now living in such a beautiful place like Santa Fe, I want to share that enthusiasm with people.

Bunny: And you’re getting some good feedback on that I bet, right?

Craig: Yes, I am. I’m getting good feedback on it. It’s been a wonderful thing to reconnect with friends who are saying, “Good for you, you old dog! You’re back out there trying something new.” Because whenever someone says, “Oh, you’re a new realtor,” I say, “Well, I’m an old new realtor. I’m 61 and I’m starting this for the first time.” But it’s been great from that perspective and the support that you get from your friends. Then people are saying, “Oh, well, I know somebody who might be interested in sending you that information.” I think that’s one of the positive things that social media has done where we’ve been able to reconnect with so many people that we might have completely lost touch with.

Bunny: Oh yeah. I did a post not very long ago about how grateful I was, and it was in the middle of all the fear over Facebook and Twitter. And I just said that it’s such a great platform for reconnecting with cousins that I haven’t seen since I was six. I mean, I just turned 60. I’m an old dog and this is a new trick for me, but I think that if you use it the right way, it’s a real gift. I also think there are so many realtors, like you said, who just post either pictures of houses that they have listed or their accomplishments. And I think they’re really missing an opportunity.

Craig: Yeah. Because then you’re just talking at someone. You’re not sharing information and excitement about things with them. People don’t want to look at that stuff. They want to look at things like the fact that there are like six great chocolate tiers in Santa Fe. And then the next time I’m in town, I want to go to each one of them. Or discovering an amazing new hiking trail or a beautiful image of a shop window or a piece of art or something like that. 

Bunny: Yeah, it’s so much better than “I just listed this house at 123 main street. Don’t you wish you owned it?” Exactly.

Craig: Exactly. I think more people would react to it. I’d really like to have some of that green chili chocolate over at The Chocolate Smith or whatever. It’s much more interesting than a picture of a kitchen that has granite countertops. Oh my goodness.

Bunny: And, you know, Craig, I found that people will call me and they’ll say, “Well, I’ve been following you on Facebook for two years. And I feel like you’re my best friend. I think you’d be the right person to show me around and help me find a house.” And I bet that’s happening to you too.

Craig: Yeah, exactly. It’s funny, you mentioned that. One of the people I’ve been mentoring told me a story about how she posted a lovely picture of herself and then somebody called her and said, “I feel like I already know you because you just look like a nice person and I feel like I can trust you.” I think also that it’s our eyes and our smile and everything that conveys so much of what you’re talking about. If you have a spirit of gratitude and service and a sense of abundance, not scarcity, it shows in your face, your eyes, your smile, and your whole persona.

Bunny: Well, we’re going to have to wrap up here in a minute, but I would love to hear if you have just three great tips that you would give to somebody who feels kind of stuck in their marketing. It could be what you’ve learned in 30 years or in the last three days, whatever it is.

Craig: I think one is changing your question from “How do I market myself?” to “What can I do for this client?” or “What can I do that’s going to excite the people? How can I make them feel appreciated and valued?” And this can work in cases where you’re actually working one-on-one with a client or cases where you’re trying to figure out how to promote what you’re doing. How do I find ways to surprise and delight people? So I like to do that with social media buys, where you come up with quirky, little things to talk about that are authentically Santa Fe or a funny picture of my dog or something like that. You want to put a smile on people’s faces. And social media gives us so many opportunities to be able to do that in ways that we couldn’t before. So the main thing at the end of it is to put your client first, and then I think everything else will come from there.

Bunny: You’re absolutely right. I think as long as your passion is helping people, then success is just a natural by-product of that.

Craig: Exactly. People feel that energy and then they want to tell their friends about you.

Bunny: What I’ve found is that people want to be able to trust somebody, especially in this business where they’re making possibly the biggest purchase of their life.

Craig: Right? I’m thinking back to these younger clients. We were touring houses, and they were interested in one particular house and I was like, “No, I’m not going to let you buy this. This is not the right move.” And I think all of a sudden they’re like, “Wow, he really cares. He’s not just thinking ‘Tick tock, tick tock. We’ve seen three houses.’” This is not House Hunters International where there are the three properties and you have to buy one. So again, it’s not a transaction. It’s a journey. It’s a relationship.

Bunny: I think that’s the most important tip for somebody to take away. Whether you’re selling widgets or earrings or house cars or houses, this is not a transaction. It’s a relationship. We want people to trust you and come back over and over. I don’t know how you can love your job if you’re not doing it the way we’re doing it.

Craig: Yeah, exactly. And have fun with it. We get to meet interesting people all day long. We get to see things. We get to use our own creativity to express ourselves. I know there are people that are in jobs that don’t have that. But I also read things about  the janitor in an elementary school who takes real pride in what they do, and they are going to do the best job that they possibly can. So I think in almost everything, you can come at it with a mindset of “How can I make this a great experience for me and for others?”

Bunny: That’s great stuff. Tell us where people can find you and where they can find your blog.

Craig: Well, probably the most fun thing I’m doing is the Santa Fe Scenes blog. 

Bunny: Okay. And we’ll share that on the information page for the podcast. And then, of course, if people want to buy a house from you, they can find you through there?

Craig: Yeah. All my information is on there. So one stop shop.

Bunny: Craig, I’m so excited that you were here. This was fun. I think we could do it again.

Craig: Yeah. Yeah.

Bunny: Because I think this is the place where people get stuck. People who are self-employed get stuck in this part. And so I think there’s a lot of stuff that we can talk about.  But I’m of course really grateful that you agreed to talk with us.

Craig: Oh, thanks. It’s been a lot of fun. I appreciate it. 

Bunny: And to everybody else, thanks for being here. This is once again, the Lifesaving Gratitude podcast. I’m Bunny Terry. You are welcome to go to my website if you’d like to learn more about me and about buying my book, which is all about gratitude and how gratitude helped me kick stage four cancer’s ass. And we’d love to have you follow us and subscribe on spot Spotify, Apple, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks so much, Craig.

Craig: Thank you. Next time.