On this episode of Broker to Broker, host Marc Summers talks to a familiar face as he’s joined by Broker Owner of Align Lending, Samantha Shelton. Samantha’s story is one shared by many in our community, one of constant growth; starting with her own business, to nurturing and ensuring the success of others under her leadership. Starting in the Retail channel, she made the jump by joining Marc’s staff of Loan Officers, where she worked for 8 months. Now, from employee to peer, she’s the Broker Owner of her own brokerage, and is doing amazing things in her and Marc’s community by making herself a local resource, and establishing her brand. Samantha is known to be a very proactive leader and team builder. She shares her experiences and strategies in how she sets up all of her employees for success. On top of her proactiviry, she’s known as an integral part of her community, utilizing events, outreach, and strong branding to generate leads and expand her network. Sam shares her philosophy behind strong community branding all throughout, and has a few slogans to keep in mind that may help with branding consideration: “Find something you're passionate about and execute it and execute it at the highest level possible. Get your brand out there. Your brand speaks highly of you even when you aren't there. So getting out into your community, buying water bottles for the school, doing a local festival, free events like Easter egg hunts, just making yourself very noticeable in your community. People would have t-shirts or water bottles, and now brand recognition is important. You want them to look at that and be like, Oh, I remember I took my kids, this or that event, we did pictures with Santa, and so on. That recognition of ‘Oh, I need a loan. We went to this event.’ It's just like going backwards. It’s important to make sure that you're always representing yourself in a way that you would be proud of, even if you weren't around.”