Podcast Transcription

Dave: How long does that chocolate last?

Melina: Listen, there’s nothing that chocolate and wine cannot solve. Seriously, right?

Dave: That’s all it takes, this chocolate and wine?

Melina: They can solve all the problems of the world.

Dave: Really?

Melina: Welcome to “Flippin’ Off,” a purpose-driven podcast about flipping houses and making a difference.

Melina: Hey, everybody. Melina Boswell with Dave Boswell here on this awesome day of podcasting. Today in the house, we have a special guest, Ms. Yonnie Boss, who has joined us. Mr. Tim Wilkinson is in the house as well. Oh, here he is. Was this my announcement voice? It’s my DJ voice. You know why? Because me and Yonnie earlier were talking about being in the club like, you know, way back when, and she’s like, “Oh, my God. I can’t believe you said that.” Anyway, so like, you know, 20-plus years ago. Anyway, so I just was going into DJ mode, but the truth is we’re here for a serious reason today.

Dave: Great.

Melina: Today we get to…The reason we have Yonnie in the podcasting today is to discuss an amazing, awesome event that she has created that serves not only our community, homeowners in distress, and has brought a ton of value. And so today, we wanted to take a little bit of time to talk to Yonnie about the event that she created a couple of years ago, and it’s really focused on and dedicated to homeowners that are in distress, which has been a huge part of our business over the last several years just based on the real estate market in and of itself that has created a lot of challenges and a lot of distress situations for homeowners. And so, it’s in line with what our business model is, which is to serve people always before thinking about making a deal.

Dave: Right.

Melina: And based on that model and based on that philosophy, I think, anyway, that’s what really created or gave Yonnie the opportunity to create an event that actually put feet to, you know, [crosstalk]…yeah, to all of our words actually. So it was a really big deal that she created something. So we wanted to have her in the studio today to talk about the event that she created, why she created it, and really what it’s for.

Dave: Yeah, and if you’re listening to this, how it might be able to serve you whether you’re a homeowner that’s listening and saying, “I’m in that position or I could potentially be in that position. Let me get some information that’s free.” And it’s of public service. And if you’re a club member associated with a club, how you could listen to this and get more information about how you might be able to use this to serve the homeowners that you may come in contact with as well. Because ultimately, that’s what we’re looking to do, is serve those homeowners first. And so with that, Yonnie, hi. How are you?

Yonnie: Good.

Melina: Welcome.

Yonnie: Good morning guys.

Melina: Good morning. It’s great to have you today.

Yonnie: It’s a pleasure to sit here with the both of you.

Melina: Yeah.

Dave: So let’s title this event. What do you call this event?

Yonnie: The BHS Foreclosure Prevention event.

Dave: Say it one more time for me.

Yonnie: BHS Foreclosure Prevention event.

Dave: BHS, which is?

Yonnie: Boss Home Solutions.

Dave: Which is your last name?

Yonnie: Which is Boss is my last name.

Dave: There we go. Okay.

Yonnie: And Boss Home Solutions, that’s my business.

Dave: Okay. Great. So if I was gonna go find this event, if I wanted to go online, I know you created a website for that just so really quickly it will be out there for anybody who can’t listen to this whole time.

Yonnie: So my business website is bosshomesolutions.org, but more importantly, the foreclosure prevention event itself is at foreclosurepreventionevent.com.

Dave: Great. Okay, so you guys have that in case you get cut off from us here or you don’t have that. We have Tim in the studio again as well this morning, so, hi, Tim.

Tim: Hey.

Melina: He’s laughing. He’s like here I am.

Tim: I’m laughing because Yonnie said it’s a pleasure to be with the both of you, and I’m like, “What am I, chopped liver or what? I’m right next to you, Yonnie. Geez.”

Yonnie: And you Tim, it’s a pleasure to be with you.

Tim: On cue.

Melina: Very well then.

Dave: All right, so a couple years ago you had this idea of creating the foreclosure prevention event, right? And so I know you and Melina kind of sat down and I know Tim, at some point, was in that conversation as well, but would you mind sharing with us like why did you want to create this? I mean you do this at no cost, right? This is free to anybody who wants to show up. All you need to do is basically RSVP, so you put a chair out for them. And it’s a huge service. And we can talk more about the credibility that you have with providing that service in a minute, but can you just share with everybody, why did you do this?

Yonnie: Well, as I was door knocking to reach homeowners and to invite them to the event, I was shocked really by the fact that today, still, people don’t know that there are programs out there to help them. They don’t know about Keep Your Home
California. They don’t understand that there are still so many scams perpetrated by people who claim to be attorneys or be affiliated with attorney services. And the problem was more extensive than I had imagined. And my being just one person reaching one homeowner at a time, I decided that it was important, or I wanted to be able to reach out to more homeowners. And I thought that if we could invite them and educate them all at once, that then we would be able to reach more homeowners at a time.

Dave: That’s a great thought process.

Tim: On top of that, Yonnie went and connected with Keep Your Home California. So, you know, Keep Your Home California has a representative that comes to the meeting and educates directly to the homeowners. You know, she’s done a lot of good things with actually putting the right people in place to really educate homeowners for no cost really to the homeowners.

Dave: Right. So you got a representative from Keep Your Home California who comes and speaks to them about their opportunities through that program, right?

Yonnie: That’s right.

Dave: Then you’ll have, whether it’s Melina or Oscar or Tim or yourself or whomever is in there kind of educating them about all…the process of foreclosure and what’s gonna happen, or what they’re looking for so now they understand that, right? Because plenty of times we’ve seen homeowners say, “I got a notice of default. They’re taking my house tomorrow, and I have to move out today,” and just walk away, right? Which…

Yonnie: Right. Yes, homeowners are in a very stressful situation, and they’re not very clear on what their options are or how to proceed. And really it’s a black hole how to talk to your bank or how modifications happen. And so we educate the homeowners about what to expect so that it’s not a black hole, so that they know what to expect, what the timeframes are, what their options are. And there are so many more options than just one program. And I love the fact that we can educate them about all their options, different programs. We even have an attorney. And I’m just so blessed that Keep Your Home California has supported our event, that we have an attorney, a very reputable attorney, not one of these fly-by-night services that claim to be attorney services that will help. But we’re so fortunate to have Nathan Fransen of Fransen and Molinaro in Dos Lagos to come to each and every one of our events to educate the homeowners on the scams that are being perpetrated and what to look out for. And then we have Melina Boswell from New Wealth Advisors Club who can also educate the homeowners on even more options than they ever knew were possible or more options that they ever knew that they had.

Dave: Right.

Yonnie: So it’s just…I’m just pleased and I can’t tell you how grateful I am to everybody that has supported the event because homeowners are afraid at the door. They’re afraid, you know, that they will get scammed. They don’t know who to trust. And so as one person going to knock on someone’s door, there may be a bit of resistance or a bit of fear. And sometimes it’s difficult to get through. So the fact that we can bring them to the facilities that New Wealth Advisors Club…and, again, Melina and Dave, thank you so much for providing that beautiful facility for us to meet at and for homeowners to be able to come to and feel that they are in a safe place, that they will be taken care of, that their needs will be primary, right?

Melina: Yes.

Dave: Great work.

Yonnie: And once they sit through the meeting, I find that they are grateful to be there, that they do bring down their guards and know that they will be guided, that they will have the information that they need, that we are going to seek out what’s best for them. I just can’t tell you how grateful I am that it has evolved to what it is today.

Dave: Yeah. Because you’ve been doing this now for two years we decided, right? Two years?

Yonnie: Yes.

Dave: And the goal of this is to do this quarterly, correct?

Yonnie: That’s right.

Dave: Quarterly on generally a Saturday afternoon?

Yonnie: Uh-hmm.

Dave: Yeah, so Saturday afternoons when most homeowners can make it and try to make it as convenient as possible. And then, you know, the fact that we have someone like Nathan Fransen, who is just a phenomenal guy and donating his time to be able to come over and educate. It’s not often you’ll find an attorney on a Saturday afternoon that will be willing to give off himself to do that. You really have put together a powerful team and a powerful event that I believe a lot of people miss out on that opportunity. So today, we wanted to really just be able to talk about that and then take this podcast and put it out there and anybody who’s going to your website and anybody who finds these events that they can hear, like, “Oh, this is what I’m coming to.” And, you know, I can’t stress again that this is of no cost, and that’s been a challenge. I mean we even got challenged…maybe you can speak on that, Honey, with, you know, people have a tough time even wrapping their mind around, “Oh, wait a minute. What do you mean it doesn’t cost me anything? Like, how can you do this and not charge me?” Because everybody’s coming to the door. I can’t say everybody, but a lot of people come to the door and they’re taking money from people and telling them that they can somehow help them or modify them and those types of things. And so maybe you can speak on that, because we have been challenged on this.

Melina: Oh yeah. Absolutely. So yeah, it’s…well, it’s the thing that separates, I think, us and the way we all have chosen to run our businesses versus how many other people are out there. So the idea is that you have a homeowner who is, unfortunately, in some sort of distress situation, and they need a solution. So you have a lot of people, like Yonnie said, that are scammers that are out there taking advantage of people. And unfortunately, homeowners, oftentimes, will believe, you know. Oftentimes, they’re not even aware that they’re being scammed until they’ve been scammed, you know.

Dave: Absolutely.

Melina: So they aren’t even aware. So, generally, when we have a conversation with somebody and they’re aware of being scammed, it’s because they have already experienced it. In other words, they have paid money maybe to somebody, which they should never do, and somebody has taken their money, made promises to them that they were never going to fulfill, and then the homeowner is left holding the bag, out money, more terrified than ever. Like Yonnie said, the black hole just gets deeper and darker. And, you know, people who are in very stressful situations, and oftentimes they just do nothing. They kind of shut down because they get paralyzed by fear. They get paralyzed by not knowing. They’re being guarded. And so all the more reason that we feel so strongly to reach out to them in this way. We’ve been challenged. I mean I’ve had homeowners, like, literally question me, you know, trying to understand, “Why, why? What’s in it for you?” Like, “What is it really? You know, “What’s the catch,” you know? And oftentimes, this is my answer, “Well, let me ask you something. If you could run your business, if you had the privilege of running a business where, you know, you were able to keep food on your table and part of being in that business is you put homeowners…you were able to help them out at no cost, would you do it?”

Dave: Yes.

Melina: Right. And they usually say, “Well, yeah, I would.” Well then, why is it so surprising to you that that’s what we do? You know, we were having this conversation like, you know, why is it that it’s difficult to believe? Because most people would do it themselves, but very few people actually get the opportunity to live out what we’re able to live out. And that’s all that we’ve been able to create. That’s all we’ve done, is just to put together a program…actually, Yonnie has put together a program, that enables us all who have chosen to run our business this way to actually live it out and truly serve homeowners. And I would say, you know, I always use this analogy. I don’t know if the numbers are exactly right, but I’m gonna guess they are. If I talk to…if we talk to 10 homeowners, we usually can help about 7 of them save their home, actually, keep their home. So that’s the whole goal. The whole goal is to help people avoid foreclosure no matter what. That’s really the intention of the event.

Yonnie: And if I can add to what you just said, you know, attorneys do pro bono work, okay?

Melina: Yes.

Yonnie: And so why is it so difficult to understand that people in real estate also will donate of their time to help others? And then my question for the homeowner is, “Who do you want to help you solve your real estate problem? Somebody who’s just trying to make some money or people who are very experienced in real estate and actually know the ins and outs, and are very capacitated and capable to help you?” Because there are so many different situations that homeowners can be in, and it takes a large network of people from different real estate specialties to be able to solve the number of the various problems that out there that homeowners encounter.

Melina: Yeah. Exactly right. That’s great.

Dave: That’s fantastic. Well, Tim, anything you want to add as we close here?

Tim: No. I’m actually feeling bad for calling Yonnie out for not naming me because I haven’t said two words.

Dave: So we’ll just edit Tim out of this whole thing. He wasn’t here today.

Melina: But we took his time, so I don’t know. I feel like that’s important.

Yonnie: It is important because I wouldn’t be doing this, and I wouldn’t have stuck with it if it wasn’t for the support and mentorship that I got from Melina and Tim. Because it’s not easy, it’s not easy to continue to help homeowners because homeowners don’t trust you. They slam the door in your face. There’s a lot of rejection involved when you’re trying to give something away for free. But, in the end, it’s absolutely fulfilling when that one homeowner says yes, and we’re able to leave them in a better position than when we first met them, like Melina says. So thank you both for supporting me in doing this because it’s absolutely fulfilling for me.

Dave: Very good.

Melina: That’s really great. And I know that that’s the truth, that Tim has really been able to support you, because I know that you go to Tim way more than you come to me. I know that’s the truth. I know Tim has poured in a lot of time and energy and effort, and I also know that Tim 1000% believes in you. He believes in you so deeply, as do Dave and I, which is why you’re sitting here, which is why we’ve invited you to come onto the podcast today to share the wonderful work that you are doing and that you’ve allowed us to be a part of it, is…if we were a little bit of a spark that sparked you into action, for us, that’s why we do what we do. And so it’s fulfilling for each one of us. So thank you for that.

Yonnie: Well, I love you guys.

Dave: Well, if you’re listening to this, check back. I know you’ll continue to update your website with the next event that’s happening, and we will see you down at the club, and we appreciate all the work that you’re doing. So with that…

Melina: Boswells.

Dave: Yeah. Flippin’…

Melina: Out.