Full Transcript is Below:
– Hey everybody, Skye Perrin here, I am the Marketing and Business Development Director for the Miltenberger Team with NFM over in Washington State, super excited to be here today to talk about My Voice Matters campaign, but first of all, major kudos to NFM for hosting this campaign, I just think it’s fabulous, and it’s been super important to me to be a part of a company that really wants to be a part of positive change and actually take action, and so I just think this is awesome. Really, this campaign is near and dear to my heart, because for a really long time, I felt that as a white woman, that my voice didn’t matter, and I stayed silent for a really long time, not because I didn’t care, but really because I thought there was someone either more educated or who had more context around the issue and I thought, you know, I’m not the person to speak on this, but something that’s really shifted for me in the last few years, as I’ve become more educated, I’ve also realized, you know, I’ve come face to face with my privilege and realize I have these opportunities, I have these platforms, and I have really a duty to do something about this. And so and just speak up about it, so I wanna encourage you if that’s you, just know that you have a sphere of influence you have people around you, a community around you, there’s always people that trust you and look to you as a thought leader on certain topics, so use your voice, don’t stay silent. And if it isn’t education issue then go seek out that education, seek out that context, it’s something I’ve really done, and it’s just really empowered me to do some of the things that we’re about to talk about, which is starting to make this work, not just something I do personally, but also something that I involved in the work we do here in the mortgage industry. Really quickly, here’s some of the ways that we’re actually making this a business model. The first is, spreading awareness and education. We do this a lot of the time through social media, but we also host events. And so events around financial wellness, there’s just so many community groups that just don’t have access to that kind of education. They don’t know what to do, they don’t know how to get started, and there’s no one there to teach to them. So bringing that to those people has been really phenomenal. And then also spreading awareness with our partners and our vendors in this industry, about just the intricacies of the way the real estate industry has honestly perpetuated systemic oppression of people groups over time. We can’t do anything if we don’t know what’s happened over history, so it’s not about saying, you know, oh, this is good, bad, right or wrong? No, it’s just about knowing what, was what is today and then where are those ways that we can continue to make positive change, especially within this industry. So we do that a lot through events, we’ve actually been hosting specific spaces where we wanna have courageous conversations, that’s what we call them. So we’ve done one called the real estate agents as agents of change, we’ve done one, we’ve done a series actually just open conversations on race, and this is really just a place for people to come and ask the tough questions and get more perspective. And I don’t think there’s a lot of that going on it feels very scary, it feels overwhelming. So this is something we’re doing for our community of our partners, our past clients just say hey, that we can provide the space, now come ask the questions, and let’s get together and figure some of this out. Let’s do the work, you know, so that’s been really amazing. And then finally, it’s something I encourage everyone to do, especially if you’re in this industry, and that is being heavily involved in our local real estate associations. So specifically, we’re heavily involved in the Women’s Council of Realtors, which is an organization kind of within you know, the National Association of Realtors, that specifically helps to empower women as business leaders and advance them that way, so that’s been phenomenal. And then as you get deeper into these associations, you get opportunities to actually get involved at the policy level. And so, we do a lot of work with Washington realtors, where they’re empowering agents title mortgage industry, everybody to go out and actually lobby for bills that are gonna create positive change around issues that matter to this industry, like affordable housing, and other things. So that’s just been amazingly phenomenal. I really encourage everyone, if you have the opportunity, if you have the time, or if you have a heart for this work, I don’t think you’d be watching this if you didn’t, go get involved in those organizations, because it’s not only gonna help your business, it’s gonna help you move from success to significance and that’s really where we make the biggest impact. So I hope this helps, I hope this encourages you today, thanks so much for having me and feel free to reach out if you have any questions.