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Good morning, good evening, good afternoon. Paul Andrigo here.
Today I'm doing a very, very interesting episode that is part of a new series
of podcasts that I'm doing.
And I've done a number of small business podcasts over the years,
trying to get the word out to help others who are in either the same or similar
businesses, or in some cases, completely unrelated businesses,
but basically a way to share their story.
So this is something that I'm doing as part of my Ontario business podcast directory.
And today I'm really, really happy to have, I think my first guest of the year
for this program. And I want to welcome Melissa to the show.
And I'm going to basically let her introduce herself because I don't like mispronouncing names.
So I'm going to let you pronounce your name and then I'll try to remember it afterwards.
But introduce yourself to everyone listening, Melissa.
Thank you, Paul. I'm Melissa Kuchepa. I am a licensed mortgage agent for the province of Ontario.
I'm based out of the Durham region and I became licensed in 2020,
kind of at the height of the pandemic. And I've been doing this ever since.
Amazing, amazing. So obviously, because you've been doing this now long enough
to have been sort of dealt with a couple of ups and downs, and that's usually
the first two years of any small business.
And every small business owner listening knows what I'm talking about.
The first year, if you're lucky, you just lose a little bit of money,
but you stay in business.
Second year, you break even. Third year, you hopefully go well beyond that.
I know, again, a lot of others listening will know that cycle.
But let's start for you, Melissa, because again, we sort of connected on one
of the many Facebook groups that are out there for business owners like us.
So let's start a bit with your background and again, where you grew up,
where you went to school. And of course, again, the very interesting thing that
you did before getting into mortgage.
Sure. So I'm born and raised in the Durham region. I grew up in Whitby and then
I moved to Oshawa and I've been living in Bowenville for the last seven years.
I went to school in Whitby. Anderson was my high school.
Right out of high school, I've always really been interested in emergency services
and kind of what goes on behind the scenes that nobody ever tells you about.
Yeah. I don't know why that's always interested me, but it just has.
It's so it's, it's the most interesting part of every, you know,
for me, music, movies, business, all the behind the scenes stuff,
which is kind of what we're letting people know. Yes, absolutely. Agreed.
Yeah. So that's, that's always been something I've been really into.
And after high school, I decided to go to Durham college for a 911 communication certificate program.
And lo and behold, after graduation, I find out that it's actually really,
really hard to get into the industry.
And at the time, this was back in like 2007, there weren't a lot of opportunities
to get into the industry because they were only hiring full-time people.
And when people got into those jobs, they didn't want to leave.
They stayed there until retirement. There wasn't a ton of turnover.
The world was a very different place at that time. Okay. Okay.
I needed a job. I went to work at Rogers for a while. I was there for just over seven years.
And, you know, I learned the ins and outs of customer service and how to deal
with angry people and all of that stuff. And then I just wanted to do more.
I felt like I wasn't making a difference. I wasn't getting enough out of my
work. So I started looking for other jobs and I came across a posting for an
ambulance communications officer based out of Whitby.
So I was like, you know, it kind of feels like fate.
Nothing was available before when I was looking. Now that I'm looking,
the job that I've always wanted is here.
Oh, wow. Let's give it a try. So I applied for it. They called me for testing.
I passed all of the tests, all of the interviews with flying colors.
And I got hired as a trainee.
So the training program to become an ambulance dispatcher is very long and rigorous.
If I remember correctly, I think it was nine weeks of in-class training that I did.
And so like I was saying, I live in Bowmanville and the training was in North York.
Typically they bring up in a hotel for a week at a time and then you can go home on weekends.
But my daughter was only three at the time. She really needed me at home with
her. So I did the very long commute every day back and forth.
I went extra early in the morning. I spent all of my free time studying to make
sure that I did really well.
And then when I finally passed, it's called entry to practice training.
So when I finally passed that, I went back to the dispatch center or the ambulance communication center.
And I started learning how to take emergency calls. And I mean,
you do nine weeks of training and simulations and you think you know what you're
in for. You don't. You don't at all.
It was a completely different beast than I thought it was going to be.
And it was a lot harder than I could have ever imagined.
And I did that for...
Just over three years and I found that just
taking the calls that I did and living in the community that
I was dispatching for and you know being so
it just being so connected in
my community it made it really hard for me to not
stress out every single time I take a call that you
know it could be one of my family members on the other line
it could be a friend it could be someone know and then
hearing about the incidences online on
tv you see the pictures of the scenes posted from
people that you know go to the scenes and take pictures
for for the media and it just it became very mentally
taxing and i just i couldn't do it anymore it was taking a very big toll on
my mental health and on my family life so i i decided to go to college again
and i i took a leave of absence from my ambulance position.
I was able to pick up a couple shifts, but I took a leave of absence and I did
a two-year program at Durham College for office administration in the executive stream.
And I had to do a field placement toward the end.
And through my job with Ontario Public Service, like still being a dispatcher,
they offered me a placement in downtown Toronto, working with the Ministry of Health.
And I thought, oh, you know, this is perfect. I'll get a really great salary
job out of it. It'll be great.
I tried to do the placement and I just, I got nothing out of it.
I didn't feel like I was going to be making a difference. And I was right back
to my Rogers days. It was just flashing in my head.
So I was like, okay, this isn't going to work for me.
I decided to decline the placement position that they offered and I scrambled
last minute to find another placement.
I was friends on Facebook with my own mortgage broker and
you know she had just spoken in a cross-country mortgage
conference tour and she appeared to
have a really great work-life balance and she was super successful and I just
thought you know I want what she has how can I do this so I asked her if she
needed a student for a placement and she was super happy to take me on and my
very first day there I just I fell in love with the industry.
It gave me everything I wanted from all the different things I've done.
So I get to problem solve and work with finances like I did at Rogers.
I get to make a difference in people's lives because truly sometimes they come
to me in dire financial situations and I'm not able to turn that around for
them and actually make a positive impact.
And it still gives me enough time to give back to my community and do fundraisers
and things that I'm really passionate about.
So it's like the perfect mix of everything that I've wanted and I'm absolutely loving it.
Well, you know what, that response and that explanation of your journey,
again, to me is exactly what I was thinking is because of the fact that you've
had that experience with, you know, true life and death situations and keeping
people calm on the other line, all that kind of stuff.
If, you know, you're dealing with people who are in, in mortgage and for me
in real estate, the same thing, you're dealing with people who are in some cases,
you know, maybe at their, you know, last, you know, last.
Last choices, they don't really know what to do and they need someone who's
again, been through this and they can, you know, sort of keep you calm and let
them know that, you know,
other people have gone through what you're going through.
Obviously you don't feel like that. No one, none of us do when we're going through it.
So it is such a really good thing that you have that ability to,
you know, to be able to explain that to people, you know, in sort of a,
you know, sort of with a service provider mentality versus just sort of, you know,
being just, you know, just being like another, you know, mortgage agent who's,
you know, just going to answer just the typical questions.
I think it seems to me like you're going to be able to, you know,
go a little bit beyond that.
Yeah, I tried to, so, I mean, there's two ways that we could,
we could really do our jobs. Same as yours.
We could look at it as a transaction or we could do our very best for them,
approach it with compassion and understanding and make a difference and be their person for life.
And that's what I try to do. I, I try to be their mortgage agent for their,
the entire life of their mortgage, when they go to their, their,
their friend's houses and family get togethers.
And, you know, inevitably they start talking about the housing market and they
talk about their mortgage.
I want to be the person that they're saying, you know, Melissa is amazing.
She is understanding. She's compassionate. She does great things in the community
and you should talk to her.
She will help you. I want to be that person.
So I work really, really hard to do that.
Yeah. And that's the way actually, that's the way you're going to be,
you know, getting well past, you know, the fact that you've been doing this
now for three years now. So 2023.
So to get to the point where you're, you know, going to be doing this for as
long as you want, it's definitely important.
And this is something I have to sort of learn as I, as I went,
is that the more I looked at relationships.
And I've always said it relationships and I kind of use the,
the, the, the greater than symbol on your keyboard.
So relationships greater than transactions.
So for me, it's always been very simple. It's almost like, you know,
it's, it's like right in front of me at my desk.
And it's, it's, it's just constantly, you know, looking back at the people that
I've dealt with including the client that I've talked to as,
as recently as yesterday, who I have, who have been working with,
with, you know, for over 20 years.
So you you develop these relationships and
of course people you know people move they
they they you know they have life changes of course they
also have you know their own changes of careers and
things like that so uh you know you sort of want to just
you know stay in touch with them uh
you know wish them well on the new job and the new move and
everything else and of course yeah as you said you
know you you kind of said this and i always i always sort of make the
comment as well that at every house party at
some point in your 20s or 30s every house
party you go to the the topic at some
point in the kitchen is going to eventually come around to
real estate just because it is it is and it will probably always be you know
one of the you know it's one of those top three it's you know it's food clothing
shelter but obviously you know right now shelter seems to be even more of a
hot topic social media you know and and other people doing podcasts about it as well. Absolutely.
So I definitely wanted to make sure that I, again, sort of had you on the podcast
to be able to sort of, you know, put a voice to your, you know,
to your services and what you're doing.
And now we'll talk a little bit about your, you know, you, you came up with
a really great offering that you added to my, my program, which is called again,
the Ontario Business Podcast Directory,
which is connected to something I do for people that I've been working with
for, you know, for long years, for many years, and also new clients.
And it's called my VIP podcast perks. So you're, you're now one of those people that's on there.
And so I guess maybe if you want to explain a little bit about your offer,
cause I've already had a few people say, what a great idea.
And hopefully it'll, you know, come back to come back to you eventually.
So talk a little bit about the offer that you've got there. All right.
So I am willing to do a free mortgage review for.
Anyone that listens to the podcast or connects with me, I do a deep dive into
your financial situation to find how best I can help you.
So whether you're a first-time buyer and you're looking for a pre-approval or
if you own a property and have equity and perhaps you need to utilize some of
that equity to pay off some of your debts,
maybe clean up your monthly expenses, improve your cash flow.
I do that completely free of charge. It does take me a bit.
I collect all of the documents up front. I spend a few hours reviewing your
file, your application, all of your documents.
I do a comprehensive overview and I do that all for free.
I come up with a game plan for you to decide how best to move forward and what
we can do to put you in the best position for whatever you're looking to do.
Again, whether you're a first-time homebuyer and you're looking to get into
the market. I do my very best to get you up to the maximum purchase price.
I have access to 57 different lenders.
So I have a lot of options and I can really help solve problems creatively when
needed to make sure that, again, you're in the best possible situation when we're all finished.
That's, again, that's really the main thing is about giving people as many options as possible.
And again, I'm talking to people just this morning. I'm talking to people who
are in positions where they literally have said to me in the email that,
you know, we need to sell by a certain time or, you know, or we're in trouble.
So when I'm, you know, when we're trusted with those kinds of,
you know, things where, okay, they, you know, they, you know,
they need help or they, you know, need to move on.
It's really important. This is why I am so...
Focused on having certain people especially problem
solvers you know sort of on my team
as far as the you know as far as you know the working together stuff
because the last thing you know anybody wants when they're in a position where
they're you know in danger or or you know getting into some financial trouble
the last thing you want to do is you want to have someone who can't you know
empathize who can't understand and unfortunately some people do think about you know,
the business end of things more than there's
you know there's a person on the end on the other end of that transaction
and you know they need you know they need
us so that's something that you know it's really important for for
people to hear that which i think they have you know in
the podcast that we're doing today i mean this
year more than than i've seen so far
in my three years doing this this year it is
a very predominant issue that people
are really really struggling like inflation's high
the cost of groceries even though they say it's not
this high like i feel like things have have actually doubled in price the cost
of just eating your home has increased exponentially it it's a really hard time
for people and wages are not matching so no no i i I have a lot of people now
more than ever coming to me saying,
you know, I'm really struggling to get by.
If I can't come up with a solution, I will have to sell my house.
And I mean, when you think about it, the cost of rent is pretty on par with
owning a house, with the cost of a mortgage and property taxes.
So it really won't get them that much further ahead.
Just simply they'll have the equity in their bank account to give them a cushion.
So if we can tap into some of that equity pay off
some of their debts and clean things up yeah we can help
them get them back on track and then you know prevent them
from having to sell their house because when you own a
home it it like it's your biggest asset
you don't want to let go of that if you don't absolutely have to
so i i really try my best to keep people in their
homes because again it's your largest financial asset and
it it really does help you and and once
you've sold and you start renting it is so much harder
to get back into the market again when you want to own so i i feel like this
is going to be a very very big issue this year and i just want people to know
that they're not alone it is super it's a massive issue right now yeah yeah
i'm so happy to to help and and fix things in any way that i can.
Well, and that's exactly what you're bringing up is, of course,
you know, there's, there's, there's a few different sides of the scenario,
but of course, on my end of things, of course, I get a lot of people that are
telling me, you know, again, they, they, they've been in their properties for so long.
They are sitting on a lot of equity and the best advice for me to them is what's
going to make you happy at the end of, let's say,
you know, the winter season, like, you know, is being in that house giving you the joy that you want?
And if not, let's talk about the option of either downsizing,
which is a big, big discussion I'm having with a lot of people.
And other people are also in the position where what's best for them is the idea of, you know,
sometimes making a move, you know, either to a different city and a lot of people
from Toronto over the years, I've moved more people to from Toronto to Durham
than just about any other kind of move, just because it is a little bit more affordable.
And of course, even further east
going to, you know, even like different provinces and things like that.
So, so many different things that of course come up, but again,
being the problem solver that again, you obviously were before and you,
you have to be now is definitely going to help people.
So Melissa, I guess the last thing I'll say is what is the best way for people
to reach you if, and when they want to reach out to you, of course,
they're going to see your name and all your info on my, my podcast perks and all that.
But what's the best way for them to reach you?
So email or phone text, all would be fine.
My email is Melissa at mkmortgagesolutions.com. Phone number is 905-925-4762.
Those are really the best ways. Phone call, text, email, all are fine.
Do you have like two minutes for me to just tell everyone about the fundraiser
that I'm running? Well, yeah, absolutely.
That's part of not just this podcast, but even future podcasts having to do with upcoming events.
By all means, you're welcome to come back and let me know or even send me.
Sometimes other people have been doing that, sending me a little bit of a recorded
message about what's going on. So by all means, please tell me about the event.
Yeah, so I'm really excited about it. It launches tomorrow, Wednesday, February 1st.
So from my time as a dispatcher, I took a lot of cardiac arrest calls,
which means, you know, the person's heart has suddenly just stopped and people
are doing CPR to try to keep them alive.
So what I noticed is that there were not a lot of defibrillators in the community
when people do go into cardiac arrest.
Yes, there are some now in grocery stores and a lot of gyms and recreational
facilities have them, but not every public place has one.
So I wanted to change that in hopes that I could try and help save some of these people's lives.
So in Canada, every 12 minutes, someone goes into cardiac arrest.
So while we've been talking, one or two people have gone into cardiac arrest in the country.
Wow, that's powerful. And every minute that a defibrillator is delayed,
that person's chances of survival decreases by 7% to 10%, which is huge.
And if you consider that it takes the average ambulance anywhere,
like if they're really close by, maybe two or three minutes to get to you.
If you are out in the middle of nowhere, it could take them 10,
15, 20 minutes to get to you.
So if there's no defibrillator available, the chances of survival really decreases very, very quickly.
So I am raising money to place more defibrillators throughout the Durham region
in publicly accessed locations.
I'm working with the pre-hospital care program at Lake Ridge Health.
I've been working with the Durham region paramedics. I've been talking to various
different cardiac arrest survivors who are going to be sharing their stories.
So if if anyone is interested
in finding out more of the details and how they can donate to this
I can give you the link to my Facebook page and
all of the details will be there local businesses have
donated some items that I've collected and put into a grand prize so anyone
who donates is going to be entered into a draw on March 1st for a chance to
win this grand prize valued over a thousand dollars right now we've got hockey
tickets in there we've got gift cards for restaurants and And we've got a lot
of really cool stuff in there.
So if anyone's interested, like I said, my Facebook page is going to be the
best way to check that out.
And yeah, I'm really excited. I hope it goes well. I'm hoping to place a few
units throughout the region and hopefully make a difference.
Well, I definitely hope that, again, everyone who's listening,
who's going to want to be part of all of this is going to reach out to you.
Obviously, they'll have a few different ways to do that and help you get to
this goal, because I think it's super important as well.
On a side note, my father-in-law who passed away was a CPR instructor.
And and one of the things that he did and i
actually was also a cpr instructor with him for a little while
is he was one of the people that trained people on
how to use defibrillators and and again from from just knowing how powerful
you know those tools are it's so it's so great that you're doing what you're
doing so i'm going to wish you the best of luck on that and again anyone listening
that wants to to get involved and to lend a hand obviously reach out to melissa and she will,
you know, let you know what to do next.
Yes, absolutely. Thank you so much.
Well, thanks for, again, thanks for joining me on the podcast.
And by all means, we'll hopefully have you back again as a return visitor and
update people on what's going on in the mortgage world here in the,
you know, the Durham region, you know, Ontario area.
And then again, any questions that they might have. For sure.
I'd love to. Thank you so much for having me. This has been great.
Thanks, Melissa. Appreciate your time. All right. Take care. Bye-bye.
Okay. So that is the end of the podcast. Awesome. Yeah.
How do you feel it went? I think it went okay.
I think it went great. I said everything I wanted to say. You did.
Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.
I really want to get too much into the 911 calls and stuff that I took.
Even though I'm sure lots of people would want to hear about it,
sometimes it makes me kind of emotional.
Okay. All right. So I get that it's probably,
it has to be something that, you know, you have to do it from your own heart
and can't, you know, do it because I think it's interesting or somebody else
does, but it's definitely something that I think gives you the advantage in
terms of like, you know, standing out because it isn't even necessarily the, you know,
the, the real estate stuff that I do that gets me the business that I do.
Sometimes it's just the fact that I do this podcast more, more often than you
might believe just, but that's just how life works.
So, uh, if you, if you're a really good storyteller, if you're good at what
you do, and of course, you know, you follow up and you do all the other stuff
you're supposed to do, you know, then of course, good things happen from there.
So, so once again, this should be up and running probably by,
I would say tomorrow or Thursday at the latest, I like to do something like
a little bit of, um, I like to do a little bit of marketing buildup for, for the podcast.
So once it's recorded for me, that's the beginning of it. And then sort of,
you know, I'll sort of do a little bit of a countdown to try to get some interest
and some buzz. Same thing I do with listings.
And hopefully even the next time I have a Durham region listing and I do one
of my big grand opening events and grand opening and, you know.
Neighborhood appreciation events that I do.
Hopefully you'll be able to join me there for one of those if things work out
that way. Yeah, absolutely.
Just let me know. I'd be happy to. Oh, yeah.
Yeah, I'll keep you in touch. And again, you'll probably see it on the social
media networks as well about when I start announcing it.
So by all means, make sure you let me know if you want to be part of it.
Awesome. Yeah, for sure. This has been so great. Thank you so much for having me. Well, yeah.
It's again, to me, this is just, again, this is just, you know,
two people that, you know, are in, you know, complementing, you know, fields.
You're in mortgage, I'm in real estate. We have automatically something to talk about.
So if there's anything that goes beyond that and it becomes interesting,
and of course, if it leads to, again, someone emailing me about,
you know, a conversation that I had with you or vice versa,
saying that, you know, that they might be interested in, you know,
buying a house with us or, you know, whatever, making a move.
Again, that's all what this is for. And hopefully it'll lead to good things. Perfect.
This was great. Yeah. Fantastic podcast. You're doing such, such a great thing
for, for small business owners and, you know, bringing attention to people that
wouldn't otherwise really get noticed.
So that's, it's really awesome. Good job. Uh, well, you know what,
again, and I thank you for that.
It's something that again, I wish it was around when I was starting.
Cause again, there wasn't really a lot of, you know.
Affordable ways to, you know, get the word out about what we did,
especially in like the year 2000, there wasn't even there wasn't
even social media so you basically were on the
phone every day you know 50 100 phone calls a
day letting people know one by one what you do and
and and 90 of them either yelling at you or or not wanting to talk to you just
because that's not you know that wasn't what they wanted to you know that's
not who they wanted on the other line so this is a little different the people
who are listening generally speaking are somewhat preconditioned and are of course,
you know, they're listening to either real estate or business or just like podcasts,
whatever the reason, I don't care if I keep them interested,
chances are they'll say, you know what, you know, he seems like a,
you know, decent guy's got a, you know, great guests on there.
And of course I want them reaching out to you guys, which is why the,
you know, the whole directory and all that stuff came up.
So, yeah. So hopefully again, we'll continue this to be continued as always.
And, you know, otherwise have a good day and enjoy, you know,
the rest of real life and kids and, you know, everything else that goes on, all the other stuff.
Awesome. You too. All right. Okay. All right. Well, have a great day,
Melissa. You too. Bye. Goodbye.