7 Business Mindsets to Live Strong as a Yakima Mompreneur
We're kicking off Living in Yakima's podcast with our 'Badass Women in Business' series 💪 💅
Our first go-getter guest is Summer Pineda and she is dropping some MAJOR truth bombs 💣💥
Summer is a local business woman with CMG Home Loans in Yakima, WA. She’s been a mortgage lender for 16 years now, and a local resident of Yakima her whole life.
Today, we’re chatting about 7 key mindsets that have helped Summer and Moriet succeed in business:
Business Can Be a Family Journey
Moms Can Be Entrepreneurs Too
Battling Mom Guilt is Normal
Dark Times Grow Experience
Relating to Clients is Key
Keep Learning and Always Plan Ahead
Remember Your 'WHY' and Use Your Support
Business Can Be a Family Journey
Summer's journey starts out in the hustle and bustle of her family’s restaurant at the age of 12. The restaurant is called Papa Baird’s and is located in Terrace Heights. Her mother ran the restaurant for 35 years before selling it to Summer’s brother at the end of 2019. He and his wife are still running it today.
In the beginning, Summer used to beg to do dishes because she was so shy and didn’t want to talk to people. But then, she saw that the servers were making these things called “tips,” and she decided to try to have fun talking with people.
Summer is so grateful for the support and relationships that she has had from her youth. Many of the same customers would come in day after day, year after year. Some even chose to go to Summer for their mortgage needs!
She absolutely believes working at the restaurant set her up for success as an entrepreneur. Her parents bought the restaurant when Summer and her brother were just babies. Watching her mom run the restaurant everyday, 5+ days a week, starting at five o’clock in the morning was inspiring. When Summer asked her parents what drove their successes, they said they did it together. They trusted the process and kept showing up. Failure wasn’t an option.
Summer took her parents’s mindset with her into her lending career,
“If you can help keep a hungry person happy, you can do anything.”
2. Moms Can Be Entrepreneurs Too
Since her time at the restaurant, Summer started a family of her own. I asked Summer how she manages being married, having two beautiful boys, and being a working mom.
She feels it’s very important to teach her sons what it looks like to be part of a working family. Not just working to get by, but to create a good life they all want to live together. She emphasized her “failure is not an option" mindset.
Sometimes that means bringing her kids with her to work, or taking calls around family. Her kids may even chime in and say hello! Or Summer might say, “Hey, I’ve got to drop my kids off to school real quick. Can I call you right back?”
Summer has found clients appreciate her honesty and approachability. Entrepreneurs seem more human when we can share a little of our personal life.
I asked Summer what she would tell herself as a young mom 10 years ago. She said,
“Go for it. You just have to go for it. You only get one chance at life, and I truly believe you can have it all, whatever that is to you. Just go for it.”
I thought about my own experiences, and how they mirrored Summer’s. I really do feel there has been a generational shift; people are more accepting of bringing your kids with you nowadays. It’s still a little bit of a dance for me that I haven’t always been comfortable with, but I love seeing that the generation after me has decided to say, “I live a full life.”
3. Battling Mom Guilt is Normal
Taking a family approach to business can mean lots of "mom guilt." While it's normal for us to question ourselves - especially as business owners - "mom guilt" can be an everyday struggle for Summer. Thankfully, she has two ways of fighting it,
Focus on the big picture.
Showing her kids what it’s like to see mom working and being successful is really important to Summer. Sometimes that means having a PB&J in the car on the way to practice - but it's not every day, and her family spends as much time as they can together. Overall, her kids are happy, healthy, and she gets to tuck them in every night.
Enjoy the little moments.
Routine, systems, and procedures are very important to Summer in both her personal and professional life. It’s how she thrives! Part of her routine is taking the kids to school in the morning and picking them up in the afternoons. Her kids have their own playlists on the phone labeled "jams." They love singing and dancing to their jams on the way to school! Summer chooses to enjoy and make the most of those little moments.
4. Dark Times Grow Experience
Summer stepped into the lending industry in 2006. She began by working with our dear friend Diana, who had a small community bank. Everything was going great…and then the entire economy literally tanked.
Fortunately, Summer was still in college when she got started in lending. At the time, she wasn’t really in it for the money. What got her through the economic downturn was choosing to focus on gaining experience.
She decided to become obsessed with our industry: what was happening with the economy, how it all happened, and how things were rebuilt because of it. By taking an experiential mindset, Summer learned how to better relate to clients and explain why things were the way they were.
Lending is a hard industry with a lot of risk, and Summer has definitely ridden the rollercoaster.
5. Relating to Clients is Key
During the economic downturn, Summer learned how to relate to clients during times of stress and confusion. She was able to carry this skill into her business today.
During the recession, clients were terrified! Their safety net had completely fallen out from under them. They were coming to her for solutions, for help navigating their options, looking for what could be done, and wondering how to get through that time.
There were some people who made good choices and did things the right way. There were some people who made poor decisions and made it more difficult for everyone trying to do things right.
Even on a peer-to-peer level, Summer noticed colleagues and other realtors could get really upset and frustrated. Sometimes, they didn’t understand what was going on, or the situation was constantly changing. It was difficult for everyone to know how best to help their clients. Sometimes “the professionals” had things going on in their own lives.
But 16 years into the industry, Summer acknowledged that having all those different interactions really molded her ability to help people in all sorts of situations.
“We’re all-in, all day, every day. If somebody came to me, and I was terrified or I didn’t know what to do, I’m not going to do my best job by running away with my tail between my legs. If I don’t have the answer right there, then I’m going to go find it. If there is no solution, I’m still going to map it out for you, and we’re going to find a way through it. Going through all those things with people and finding success helped build my confidence for sure.”
6. Keep Learning and Always Plan Ahead
Real estate and lending is definitely a high-risk industry. We ride with the economy, and there’s no set dollar amount or honest predictability in our line of work. For those reasons, I asked Summer how she would encourage other young women stepping into our industry.
Here are her 3 key pieces of advice:
1. Have a mentor and someone to shadow.
It’s paramount; working with Diana was huge! Summer said she wouldn't have known how to market herself and her business without Diana. Some people can just jump in; they’re good at sales, ready to go and brave enough to do it. But that doesn’t always work. Having a mentor can be a game changer.
2. Save your money and keep your bills low.
In our industry, we ride the wave. There’s nothing worse than a hungry agent or loan officer. Being prepared is how a lot of us remain confident through downturns. You have to prepare for slower times so that you can continue to hone your skills and systems throughout the unpredictability. You always want to come out on top.
3. Keep learning.
Summer is a big fan of personal development books. She doesn’t have much time to sit down, so Audible is her friend. She just finished “Million Dollar Listing” by Josh Flagg. The book helped build her confidence and belief that she can carry herself through any situation.
I myself had just finished Jay Shetty’s book “Think Like a Monk.” The person who recommended it to me knew it had a message I needed to hear. It was fantastic, and I’ve passed it on to lots of people!
7. Remember Your 'WHY' and Use Your Support
As entrepreneurs and business owners, we all get those little demons in our head that say, “You’re not good enough. Why are you trying to be so much?” I asked Summer how she quiets those little voices.
She acknowledged that sometimes we have hard days, and there are moments where we might feel defeated. She personally had to make a choice many years ago and decided to say,
“Alright, self, you can have your pity party for 24 hours. But after that, it’s not fair to everybody else who needs you. My ‘WHY’ for doing what I’m doing is bigger than that little feeling of defeat.”
Summer also said that support through those times was critical. She feels very fortunate in this regard. She couldn’t imagine doing what she does without her husband, her parents, and her in-laws to help out with the family. As a single mom, I too had leaned on my friendships and my parents.
It takes a village. We wouldn’t be able to do any of this without our support.
Thank You!
You can connect with Summer at CMG Home Loans, or call (509) 594-6828. If you want to see more Living in Yakima and Women in Business videos and podcasts, go here.