How CENTURY 21 Scheetz Became a Real Estate Empire

She looked at me and she said, "I want your job." And I went, "What?" And I'm like, "Okay, how do how's she going to get there?" It was the worst process of my entire life. A great realtor makes it look very [music] simple and easy. Oh, yeah.

You have to know what you want, and you have to be okay if you don't get it. And it's [music] up to you. And I think anybody has room at the table. Individuals in the real estate industry that want to scale their career in whatever way that means, what advice would you have? From South Bend to Evansville and everywhere in between, this is Get In, the show focused on the Hooser State and the incredible stories happening here today. I'm Nate Spangle, founder of Get Indiana, and I will be your host for [music] today's conversation.

Before we dive into today's episode, a quick shout out to our friends at NCW, the team that's been building one of the fastest growing staffing and recruiting companies in America for over 25 [music] years. They specialize in the skilled trades. But here's the thing, they're also growing their own internal team. If you or someone you know is interested in recruiting sales, or just making businesses run smoother, you'll want to check them out at teamncw. com. This is just another job pitch.

NCW has been voted a [music] top workplace by the indie star, landed on the IBJ Fast25 list, and made the Inc. 5000 list multiple times. I'll tell you, I've got plenty of friends who work there and they all love it. Go check [music] out teamncw. com. Now, let's get into the episode.

Today, I have two special guests. [music] I'm joined by Tracy Hutton, CEO and owner of Century 21 Sheets, as well as the owner of Milestone Home Lending and Dominion Title. I'm also joined by Annie Hamilton, chief operating officer of Century 21 Sheets. Together, they lead one of the most wellrespected real estate organizations in Indiana and one of the top five Century 21 franchises globally. That's in the entire world. I'm so excited to dive into your story, how it starts answering phones and real estate back in high school, how you guys have built this incredible Indiana real estate empire that that is respected around the globe.

Uh, welcome to the show. Thanks, Nate. Uh, we were talking before we uh we we got on. How long have you guys worked together? 24 years. You've worked together for 24 years, and not once have they done a podcast together.

So, this is a true It's a first. This is a first. It's not often uh I feel like even in your adult life just in general there's not a lot of firsts like when you get to do something for the first time as an adult. I don't know why we stopped doing first time things but it's great to be the first time that that you guys get to uh come on and talk about the journey together as a as a dynamic duo and I'm I'm honored to be a small part of that. So appreciate you and shout out to our friends upstairs at Neighbors and Dan and the whole crew up there for making this introduction. Absolutely.

I'm really excited to learn about, oh my gosh, how you guys got started and then how you're innovating and really pushing the the needle forward for your customers here in the state of Indiana, but the journey for both of you begins answering phones in high school. What got you interested in real estate to start, Tracy? You know, at a young age, I wanted independence and I got tired of asking my parents for money to go do something and they'd tell me no. So I I mean starting at 13 I was or even before I was babysitting but I was looking for a career. I was looking for a job actually. 13.

Yes. I mean I can remember calling around and no one was hiring a 13 or 14 year old. And then before my 15th birthday a Century 21 franchise owner's wife said we're looking for someone to answer the phones on the weekends. And I'm like please let me do it. I'll do a great job for you. And so I cut my teeth early in real estate and you know I've never left the industry.

Was it here in Indianapolis? Yes. Okay. So, you are the most illustrious job, the weekend phone answer. Like, who were there was there a lot of call volume on the weekend? Yes.

There was back then, I'm going to age myself. There was I mean, there weren't computers, right? So, we were changing out keys for listing agents when they'd go show properties. It was a different world. But I'm grateful that I learned, you know, at an early age what made successful realtors successful and what made agents have to leave the business. So it was the introduction into sales like never before.

So you were answering the phones on the weekends and like what were people calling like, "Hey, I want to go visit this place. I'm calling on a listing. I drove by a house. I want to know what the price of 123 Elm Street is." Because remember they didn't they weren't going online as searching. So did you guys have like a filing cabinet or a data like how did you have all MLS books?

We had a binder with all the listings in them. Yeah. It was old school. Wait, so Zillow wasn't I'm just kidding. But Right. They weren't around.

I remember when they were launched. That's crazy. Okay. So you get your start there. This is through high school. And then what what steps did you take to really make a career?

And was it from the beginning you knew that this was the career you wanted to pursue? No, actually I didn't. I actually worked through high school and then college summer breaks I they would call me back into the office, come back and work on summer breaks and which was great. But then after college I had an opportunity to go into title insurance sales. So I think I was destined for sales. My dad was in sales, different industry.

Um and I started calling on builders and developers and lenders and real estate companies. And I did that for three years and then got bored with it and had got a call from Mick Sheets. No way. Okay. So, you're you're just uh from the beginning real estate and like a real estate adjacent was your story. Uh Annie, talk to me about your start.

Where did you get your first taste of real estate? So, in high school there was a program called DECA. Yeah. And I was part of that program. We got to leave. Where'd you go to high school?

Carmel. Okay. So, starting in Carmel in the DECA program. Yes. And actually, um, Tracy's sister-in-law was in my DECA class, just a small world. And that's so they connected me with the Century 21 office.

And I worked 4 to 7 Monday through Friday and the weekends um, all through high school, my junior and senior year. Answering phones as well. Answering phones, scheduling showings, um, delivering the MLS books to the agents when they got delivered so they knew what houses were on the market. Wow. And then when you finished up high school, did you know that you wanted to go in the real estate direction? I always knew I wanted to be in real estate, but I didn't know what function or what role that would look like.

And I went to Ball State and I worked in property management. And then in breaks, I would come back and work for Century 21 doing whatever they needed me to do. And you were always on the sheet side. No, a different Century 21. Oh, a difference. So where does And this is actually just interesting in general.

Can you take us through how real estate brokerages and companies kind of work? I I feel like you see a lot of the same let's say let's say there's 10 large national brokerages. I don't know what the number actually is, but let's say there's 10 of those and they're everywhere. Like how does how does that structure work? So I think we've seen it evolve and change over I mean the 354 years that I've been in the business. Um franchises are locally owned and operated.

So, we own the Century 21 Sheets franchise in central Indiana and but there are national companies too that you'll see everywhere that they're publicly traded Wall Street companies. Um, and then you also have the independence. So, that's what's great about real estate. There is such a variety of different types of brokerages that are out there and you just have to find your right lane and pour into it. Yeah. And I'm excited to dive into how you stick out and build a different kind of business when it does seem uh from the outside looking in like a pretty commodity thing.

It's like someone shows up, they tour the house for you, they do some contracting and stuff. And I'm sure you're going to dive into the ways that you can stick out and and help people build a career in the business. But I want to know how did Century 21 Sheets get started. So Mick Sheets, I I love his story because it is I mean weave through our whole the culture of our entire organization. Mick grew up in northern Indiana as a far farm kid and went to Purdue University and then graduated and served our military. When he got out of the military, he said, you know, I can go into two types of businesses that I can have unlimited upside.

This is after a short term in banking, which he said was a really tough he felt handcuffed, you know, being in the banking world. So he said, "I can sell insurance or I can sell the American dream and sell houses." So he's like, "Death benefits or the American dream? Which do I sell?" And he's like, "The American dream." And so he just had hustle and grit and hard work ethic.

Just amazing. So when I got in to the business, when he hired me, he said to me, Tracy, you know how I can tell if someone's going to be successful? And I'm like, "No, do tell." He said, "Watch how they walk across the parking lot." And he said, "You find someone that has skipping their step and walks fast, I can guarantee you they've got hustle and they're going to be successful in sales. You walk someone that's meandering or watch someone that's meandering slow through the parking lot, probably aren't going to make it."

So that was probably the first day that I went to work for him and I'll tell you what, I was running through the parking lot every single day. [laughter] Yeah. Wow. Yeah. So I think that um when I joined Mick, he was a probably one of the top producers, personal production on the north side, actually probably in central Indiana. And he also developed commercial and some residential neighborhoods.

And when I joined, we probably had 50 agents. and I came in and I was he was gracious enough to say, "Hey, figure out how to do businessto business development. Lots of relocation um transferies coming in at the day with GM, Eli Liy, [snorts] uh Conco at the day. Remember Conco? They were doing acquisitions." So, we started I did businessto business sales for him or for the company and generated business and we continued to grow.

And I said, "We've got to grow this brokerage because Eli Liy transferries on the south side don't want a caramel agent coming down to list their property. Real estate's hyper local. People want to deal with people that live and understand their community. So then he said, basically, here are the keys. Go build it. And he was just an unbelievable mentor to me.

Wait, how how old were you when you first started working? So I I was 26. Okay. And uh yeah, I mean had had a three-year career in the title insurance out of college and then he lit the entrepreneurial entrepreneurial spirit in me. Okay, wait. Let's we got to unpack this and then we're going to unpack where your journeys cross.

Say, okay, so you get there as 26. You you've worked in the industry, but you haven't sold houses. No. No. So, you show up in day one as a 26-y old. How do you build trust?

How do you get respect? I think a lot of people come in with good ideas and it's all fine and dandy, but there's an aspect of getting someone who's built this from literally nothing up to 50 agents and it seems to be working. You know, how do you get them to trust you to come in there and and get the keys to the castle? Well, I think you got to create value. So I went in and said, "How do I create value for the agents that are affiliated with our brokerage and how do I create value for the owner of the company?" So then, and this was through business, like the the initial start was through business to business, business to business.

And he said, "Tracy, I'm tired of, you know, the corporate relocation business being referred to the two biggest competitor, the two largest brokerages back in the day, and we're not getting it." So he wrote three words on a piece of paper, STP. And I was like, "Oil?" He's like, "No, see the people. Get out there and see the people." I love the people.

So I started I mean, I remember getting in my car, driving up to um the relocation company in Detroit. And well, you drove from Indie to Detroit. Yeah. I mean, I was 26 and my dad was saying, "You're going to Detroit by yourself?" And I'm like, "Yeah, I'll be fine." And you know, I got in the door there and then we started getting business.

And I think what I learned from there is the bigger you become, sometimes complacency sets in and you feel entitled to the business. And I loved that. I didn't I didn't have any expectations. I just knew I wanted to create value and I wanted to win [snorts] and I wanted to do it with a high level of, you know, um, integrity. And so I started building relationship with the corporate community and whether that was figuring out a way how to get into, you know, behind the gatekeepers. And my dad always told me, Tracy, don't ever underestimate the person that answers the phone and the person that you see when you walk through the door.

Treat them well because often they're not treated well and they will help you get connected. Oh yeah. It's like the everyone, you know, when you call someone, they have like a the gatekeeper like and it's like their job is to not waste whoever the person's time is. And if you take good care of them and and you're polite and kind, good stuff can can definitely come from that. Wow. Okay.

So, where then do you kind of get more of the leadership opportunity to help expand and grow and and be I don't know, like really It just seems crazy to me. the 26-year-old comes in there, works B2B sales, and then like starts to lead the vision of a company that has 50 other agents. I think what happens is your capacity becomes, you know, really thin. So then you got to learn to delegate. Yeah. And how you hire people like we were getting a lot of relocation business.

So I'm like, now I've got to build a team. And Mick would say, well, who are you going to hire first? Or he would say to me, why are you doing that? Why are you behind the computer or behind the desk doing, you know, some administrative function when you need to be out there? Yeah. Doing business generation activity.

I'm like, well, cuz the time it requires to service like it's one thing to bring business in. That's the first one, but if you don't service it well, it doesn't keep coming. So, then I had to scale and hire people. Yeah. And is that how you your two cross path? Okay.

So, how take me through how uh how you guys ended up working together. So, I think I had a conversation with at the time her boyfriend um through a family event that he was invited to and he said, "Yeah, my girlfriend works for a certain agent at another brokerage." And I'm like, "She does? What did she do before?" And then he said, "Well, she used to answer the phones at Century 21 at the Crossing back in the day and then she did property management when she was in college." I'm like, "Let's connect.

I I'd love to talk to her." So, I hired her as a relocation coordinator, and it was like it was it was really a match. She was so eager to learn, but then I can remember doing a um one-on-one with her, and I don't even know back then if we called them one-on- ones, but I asked her where she wanted her career to go, and she looked at me and she said, "I want your job." And I went, "What?" And of course, great leadership lesson for me because I was like, "Well, you know, she's got a lot to learn. I mean, she hasn't been here that long.

Maybe my one year review. One year review. And um I didn't know if she could get there cuz she wasn't comfortable talking in front of people. I was traveling around with like Eli Lilly and Kiko at the time as they would do um you know, acquisitions or if they were closing, you know, one of their locations down. And I'm like, okay, how do how's she going to get there? Yeah.

And which was a great leadership lesson is that I can't let my doubt of someone's ability ever get in the way because if they want it bad enough and you know she ran circles around me. So she jumped in the role and learned a ton of leadership lessons along the way because then I moved out of the relocation division and started working on scaling the company. Yeah. And you know we look back and you know when you're when you're in a growing company there's a lot of hats that you wear. And Annie, I can remember, you know, we never said that's not our job. And we laugh at the days where we used to have holiday Christmas parties and who was the cleanup crew?

Me and Annie and our husbands probably like cussing us behind the scenes like like, "Oh god." But you But you do it all. Yeah. Right. Okay. Wait, I need to hear Annie's side of the story.

So you you're like maybe you get a call. You're hanging out on a date with your boyfriend. Hey, I have this I have this woman you need to meet. Yeah. He came home and he said, "Um, Tracy's gonna be reaching out to you. She has a role."

I was like, "Well, I'd be interested in meeting with her." And um then it was just we met a few times and then I started and Okay. Wait, what was the like what was the first impression? Like you show up to meet Tracy who I'm sure was, you know, this outgoing, charismatic, like, you know, big vision. You're what, early 30s at the time? Probably.

Yeah. Somewhere in there. And so it's like seems like crushing it on the relocation stuff. And what was what sold you about joining the team and seeing her vision? Well, at first when I met her, I was scared to death. You know, you walk in and it's, you know, because how Tracy talks.

I mean, I horrible social anxiety. I couldn't talk in front of people. I cried all the time. I mean, it was just it was it's been a journey. And meeting her, I saw a future. I saw things that I could learn from her.

and I wanted the opportunity. What would you say to others out there? Like I'm I would say I definitely fall more in the Tracy camp where it's like you could put me in a room with someone and I'll talk their ear off. Like we'll have a great like experience and and I knew from like early on in my career sales like when in doubt I'll just sell something. Whatever it is, we'll figure it out. But I think there's a lot of people, especially um maybe individuals that are starting their careers like kind of post 2020 that like you know weren't out shaking hands, kissing babies, trying to get their first gig.

What would you say to people about like what advice would you have of kind of finding a path that's outside of your comfort zone and like building up the courage to go and pursue that? I deal with that a lot with our employees where trying to grow and develop them and what they want to be and what I see in their future because I see greater things often than they see in themselves. But it comes down to making sure and knowing that there's somebody that believes in you and once you have that I feel like all the confidence can fall into place. So knowing I could feel comfortable telling Tracy on my one year, I want your job and knowing that she would have the confidence in me and to help develop me. Yeah. And I was willing to do the work.

Yeah. Cuz this is interesting too is like um no two paths quite look the same, right? It's like you think about getting your job and like it doesn't have to look the exact same way that you the exact same path. And it's like both pushing people to, you know, continue to grow and learn and get better at what they're doing, but also realizing that, hey, you might have different strengths that that aren't what my strengths are. Doesn't mean it's right, wrong, or different. When you talk about leadership, how did you lead uh different styles that way as visionaries, you need people that complement your Are you EOS people?

Oh, yeah. We operate on traction. And I sat in that visionary integrator role for a long time. For anyone that doesn't know, this is a book by Gino Wickman. It's called Traction. It's operating on EOS where you have a visionary and then an imple.

I believe an integrator. Integrator. Yes. Uh that's kind of like the yin and yang of how a lot of successful businesses with co-founders are are ran. Uh where someone has like the wild crazy ideas and someone is like, hm, I guess [clears throat] we could figure out how to get that done. Yeah.

She she's always like, I don't know if that's the best idea. Tracy, when did you guys implement that? Oh, so I was introduced to that through YPO. Yeah. And I read that book and I was feeling all the pain points that Gino talks about in the book. So it was probably 14 years ago.

That might be you pretty early on. We we were early on and Gino, you know, his dad ran a real estate coaching company. Oh, I didn't know that. Floyd Wickman was like one of the iconic real estate coaches. So what was interesting is that book was being you know I mean that whole entrepreneur operating system was being ran through all different kinds of businesses and I connected with it from the real estate side. It's super interesting I would say for people that like you've you've got your business kind of off the ground you're going and you're looking on how to kind of organize systemize and like move to the next level.

Well, it's predictability like how you, you know, business has cycles, economy has cycles, and so how you make sure that you're building that, you know, repeatability into your business. Yeah. Wow. Okay. I love that. And did you kind of realize that you might have had uh offsetting skill sets early on as you guys were going?

Well, I think she probably knew what all my weaknesses were and she's like, "Let me help you, please." So, then you took over relocation. Yes. And then you kind of moved up in the organization and thought about like total company strategy and how you guys were going to take it. Yeah. I think you know the benefit for me and you said everyone's journey is different.

When I started the company was small. So there there weren't a lot of seats you know I think I mean we probably when I started we had maybe five or six employees because this is this is an interesting model piece for everyone to realize. agents is different than staff. They're they're independent contractors, you know, who who choose to affiliate with us. Yeah. So, you had six full-time staff that were doing maybe I mean, you had maybe we had a bookkeeper, we had, you know, Mick is the owner operator.

We had a sales manager and maybe a front desk person. And was Mick selling? Yeah. And also kind of like recruiting new agents and doing that whole thing. Typically what you've what we've seen historically in real estate a top producer then decides you know what I'm going to go do my own thing and I mean he was a top producer at FC Tucker and we have tremendous respect for that company and he said you know I'm going to he heard of the Century 21 franchising sweeping the country so he was the first Century 21 in Indiana and then you realize that you know it's hard to you know be a producer and build the company you get caught in that thing and okay, I want to dive into this really quickly because I think it's really important in real estate to think about this. Um, you know, you get your license and you go out and sell houses and you can hustle your way into a really a very successful career.

like you can make a nice amount of commission. You can then when you want to build the company out and the team out, it's a I think a lot of maybe smaller brokerages or or any sort of like agents that are trying to grow their team run into this balance of well, what makes what pays the bills today is going out and selling more houses. So instead of going and training and building my team and the systems and the operations, I'm just going to go out and sell more houses. And then you might not set up the right training plan. You might not give people the opportunity to go through challenges. Like I think that's a really hard balance.

Uh they just people end up trying it. Maybe they fizzle out. Maybe they have a couple agents and they're like, you know what, I can make more money just selling my houses. And some people are more, you know, just gifted in the sales side of things and they don't love the whole leading, developing, holding people accountable because it does take time and patience. Yeah. And sometimes not a quick return on the investment of your time.

So that's I think in our business where it gets which which fork in the road do you Were you out there being a producer? Like were you selling? No, but I was generating business. Yes. So I always think as in in when you're in a sales organization like we are Yeah. sales service organization as a leader I can never take my foot off the gas.

My job is to continue to develop opportunities but but also teach teach our agents that join us how to generate their own you know versus just feeding them. M most agents get into the business because they want the independence and they want the unlimited income that they can generate. Nice in theory, right? Well, it is, but but if you are not developing, it's like kind of like the old fish story. Teach a man to fish and feed him for life. Give him a fish and you feed him for a day.

So, and this business has always been built on, you know, you got to list to last. How do you how do you list? Wait, say that again. list to last. So when you look at the when you look at the top producers in any real estate market, they typically become very strong listing agents over time. And can you explain the difference?

Like if you're you're either a listing agent or you're Well, I mean you do both, right? I mean so that would just mean like people trust you to put their house on the market. That's a listing. Well, think about it as a store. you know, if if you have a store and you have no inventory, the the listing, the piece of real estate's the inventory that generates business, you know, from it generates calls. And also, I mean, it's a different skill set than being a buyer's agent.

How how does it differ being a listing agent versus a buying agent? If you think about listing a property, you have to you have to definitely understand what's happening in the market. you do when you're a buyer agent as well. But I mean, how you bring a market a house to market is critical to success, right? So pricing strategy, marketing strategy, especially coming off of, you know, the big I would call, you know, rise in property values in Indiana, which heck, we always said, you know, the great thing about Indianapolis and central Indiana is the highs aren't high and the lows aren't low until COVID hit and the highs started. We we we got that ramp up in value that you were a homeowner.

[snorts] You loved it. Um but those we're still seeing appreciation in our state. However, the we are not seeing it accelerate as fast as we were. So pricing a property today to move is important. And we all have we all have short memories. So what we think about is just because properties were rising in value 10 15 20% a year depending on where you were doesn't mean that happens today.

As a proud 2019 home buyer, I did get to participate in the upside there, but now I'm like, well, shoot, I have a great rate and I'm like, like if I sell my house, I'm buying the same house for the same price somewhere else. I got we got to have more people watch our videos so we our housing budget increases there. That's what we need. Yeah. So I think you know there is there is um market positioning that you have to be really skilled at and you have to be able to really handle difficult conversations with sellers right now if they are still living in that 2021 2022 market and thinking that they can price it 20% over what wow prices are today. Okay.

So you are as as it's going on. So Annie, you take over kind of the relocation operations there, right? And what was your role at the time when you moved out of relocation? I was more on expansion like how do we grow this thing and do it the right way? So and on solid ground. Yeah.

So what were you what were the levers that you were pulling to help grow the business? Mergers and acquisitions. So, you know, people that may have gotten into the brokerage business, the very successful agents, and you know, they realize that, you know what, the time, energy, and effort I'm spending on scaling this thing, I could probably go back and focus on personal production and make more money. So, so what are you acquiring if you buy a brokerage? Like, what do you get? Well, you get the agents, which could I mean, you could, this is the tough part, you could acquire a brokerage and the agents could walk across the street to a competitor tomorrow.

Yeah. Yeah. So there's tremendous risk. Are you paying like do you have to like this is the because it's not quite like a proprietary like software company or whatever, right? It's like uh in the people business. Yeah.

And you have to have sticky stickiness, right? So you that whole thing of you've got to create value. So how do I go in and create value and an organization that we're rolling in? And I think that it has to be more than just like one piece of it is, hey, when I work with this brokerage, there are going to be people reaching out to the brokerage that want to buy/ell houses. Like the leads feel like that's a really really hot button word in the real estate game is leads. But the other piece is if you're new, I'm from a small town in northern Indiana, went to Depal, moved to Indianapolis.

I don't have, you know, my parents uh, you know, social circle. I don't have the like golf community. So like learning how to build relationships and build a community of people who will use you to purchase house that's important. Learning how to be the best agent possible like the training and development piece I think is a large part of the stickiness. What are the other aspects of a great brokerage that are sticky? So I think the big difference for us is we want our agents to what STP out seeing the people and being able to represent more buyers and sellers and allowing us to do all the behind the scenes.

So we have transaction managers that will help from when you have an accepted offer to closing to help all the behind the scenes pieces. Our relocation department generating and being part of the corporate community is a big value. and then our um IT department to have somebody walk up and say, "I have an issue with this." They can help with that. And that allows our agents to be more forward- facing and they're not in the the administrative behind the scenes pieces cuz that's I think an underrated piece of real estate is like contracts going back and forth and you know pictures and all of the different things that go into selling, buying, transacting on real estate. It's the proven process that EOS teaches us.

Ah, there it is. Come on. So, how do we and you know agents are independent they want their own process but not if we can provide them a simpler one more efficient. Our job is to drive efficiency and you know I would say the highest level of quality service in every transaction and help our agents do that. The other thing is I've always said Century 21 sheets has always been known as a training company and it's training at all levels. So I think it's our responsibility as a brokerage to have the most professional trained agents in the marketplace.

So when a consumer says I want to work with this agent and I want to work with them Century 21 sheets I know that they're are good quality agents and I also want brokerages in the marketplace when they have a cross transaction they say I love doing a real estate transaction with a Century 21 sheets agent. They make it easier for me and my clients to get it to the closing table. That's really really important. And then when I hear other agents in the marketplace, and I've even had other brokerages tell me, Tracy, I always tell people they need to start their career with you because you guys have great training. Now, what we've had to say is, you know what, we don't only train the new agents, but as agents scale their business, I can't tell you, Annie and I, when we built out the transaction management team, we had agents that are saying, Tracy, I'm burned out. I they're so successful as agents, but they wear all the hats and they haven't quite learned how to delegate.

And so, we've had to help them as they scale their business. Here's how you effectively delegate so then you can have your life back and you can also be a very successful entrepreneur and realtor. Wow. Okay. So, when you were kind of getting going there, what were the first levels levers that you had to pull to help grow? because I I think if we had the numbers right, there was five or six full-time staff and there were 50 or so agents at the time that your paths crossed.

How did you unlock that? I mean, today you have over 400 agents. Mick was instrumental in saying, Tracy, just make sure you never erode the foundation, you know, being financially strong, not leveraging too much. Um, don't chase empty numbers, which that in itself to me, I have talked to agents about that, you know, because real estate can be very ego-driven. I want to be the number one brokerage. I want to be the number one agent.

I want to have the most listings. I want to have the most buyers. I want to have the biggest brokerage with, you know, agent count. But you know what? It doesn't really matter if the business you aren't doing isn't getting, you know, a respectable return, a fair return. So, don't say I mean, I've seen realtors that make sell a lot of homes, but they've gone about it the wrong way.

So, they're in financial distress. Yeah. It's like you win based on just cutting price, right? You're like, "Okay, well, I'll sell this house for almost nothing." And it's like finding a fair amount that that translates to the value you're offering. Yeah.

Or lead generation. How much are you spending in lead generation? And where's your time, you know? Yeah. So, this a real that's that's a real struggle I will say uh so I bought a I have uh my college room and I have two rental properties that we bought around Broadpole and after the so I had bought my house I bought another one with him and then we bought a third house and by the third one I was like you know what I've done this whole I've purchased two homes in my life I'm really smart I'm going to do this one offmarket with no realer oh My gosh, it was the worst process of my entire life. Like going back and forth on contracts and this and that and like just the I mean all the different pieces of appraisal and lenders and inspection.

It was as a non I'm definitely the visionary side like not a not an integrator. Yeah. Oh, a great realtor makes it look very simple and easy. Oh my gosh. So then it leads people to say, "I can do this on my own." And you don't realize all the behind thescenes.

Yes. Work that's being done. It was crazy. Just like little changes here cuz And I was like, again, I I had like convinced the buyer. Luckily, the buyer was a uh like an acquaintance, like a friend. So it was very patient.

I was like, "Oh, no. I can figure this out. I know what I'm doing." Did not know what I was doing. And this was before like AI or ChatGpt or anything. And it was just like read on forums, read over here.

And I'm like, I think this is definitely so screwed up a lot. And I was like, it literally convinced me how bad the experience was. Doesn't matter if you're trying to save money or anything like that. I was like, I will forever use a real estate agent because it was just such a like I lost years of my life in that process. It was also right at the time as like prices felt like they were spiking and so like we were getting like rates weren't like we weren't like our guy didn't lack in our rate at the right time and DTI like all of this crazy stuff and I was just like you need an experienced competent agent to be able to cut through all that for you. Yeah, cuz your time's valuable.

Oh, back then this was like 2021 maybe I didn't think it was that valuable. Now I literally I was like nope again. So it matters. I think that you're right though. A good agent makes it look so easy that you're like, it's almost like so easy that you're like, "Why am I even paying you?" Like, "What do you mean?

What are you even doing?" Consumers see the sign go in the yard and they see the sold sign, but they don't see everything that goes behind the scenes. And we listed a property a couple weeks ago and the agent out of our Zensville office, she spent 5 months working with that seller, prepping the house, helping them navigate all the stuff and things that were in the home, paint, carpet, all of all everything to be prepared to go on the market and to get an offer within 24 hours. But it was all that 5 months of work that the cons normal consumers um they don't see. Well, in like five months in Zensville, that could be the difference between $150, $200,000, maybe more. Condition matters now.

You know, like in certain places like the village in Zensville, you know that that thing is going to have a ton of offers immediately. And if you have it prepped the right way with the right all the right things, right pricing strategy, like you could you there are still places where you get 10 20% over where you're starting the listing at. Yeah. I mean there there are still we're still in a in some pockets multiple offer situation over list price escalation clauses. But the difference today versus 20 I would say 2020 2020 20 and 2021. You could throw anything on the market and it really didn't matter the condition because rates were low, people were buying.

But today, you can't just throw anything on the market in any condition and expect multiple offers and a premium price. Yeah. I mean, [clears throat] definitely if you have something good in the right area, it's still like running. But like, yeah, I I totally see what you're saying there. It's like, yeah, you could have put up like a a small shed and it would have sold for literally, we had so many conversations going, I cannot believe that that property bought that or brought that price in 2020 or 2021. What time frame was this when you all started working together?

Like what year roughly? O2. O2. So, you're running through there. Things are going well, right? Like relocation, all that's doing well.

I mean at some point in there there is like a huge crisis literally the financial crisis that happens and which is the time we did our our our largest acquisition. So I had been working on an acquisition of actually the Century 21 office that she answered phones for. Nice. They had they had three offices and I can remember Mick going, "Oh gosh, are we crazy? We're going into what we know is a big downturn, big financial crisis. Should we be doing this?

So, we were very prayerful and we took the leap. But I think that's what really catapulted our growth because we got synergy from being able to, you know, consolidate, streamline staff, um, and and weathered the storm and grew through the toughest financial crisis. Yeah. Cuz like no one that was not a big time to buy houses. No, but people still had to sell. I mean, we had to shift the conversations.

I think that's the benefit when you've been through these cycles. It's easier to help lead people through because cycles don't last very long. That one seemed to last a little bit longer than we wanted it to. Yeah. But the conversations at the dining room table changed when you had you had executives who were upside down in the house that they bought four years ago. Their ego um they tried to protect their ego, but you really needed to lean in and know about their financial position so you could help guide them through how to because that's what was going on.

short sales, foreclosures. Yeah, I was 12 maybe at that point. So, I don't know it super well, but like something you had bought, the prices were just tanking. Yeah. We didn't feel it like, you know, the East Coast or West Coast or Vegas. So, I always said when you have to sit across the table and tell someone that they've lost 60% of their value like they were in Las Vegas or Florida or some of those other states.

In Indiana, you had to sit across the table and say, you know, you bought that for 400 and I might be able to get 350 or 375. That was a tough conversation. Yeah. Right. And was it getting to the point though where like was it to the point where like people were getting foreclosed because of like that like your value didn't match what your loan was? If the banks would work with you, if you understood how to navigate short sales and and if you were as an agent, you were really willing to dig in there and ask the tough questions and break down those barriers, you know, especially when people, you know, were, you know, executives.

Some of them ran companies or, you know, had dream jobs and then guess what? They lost their job. and having them feel comfortable enough to be vulnerable to say, "Okay, this is it's not your fault. You didn't cause this economic [snorts] financial crisis. So, let's see how we move you through it." And so, we had to educate our agents on how to do that.

Um, and weather the storm. So, that's just part of leading people through with confidence that we'll get through. And, you know, we went through I can remember during 9/11, I was at Cafe Padachu sitting with one of the owners early in the morning. I can remember like it was yesterday and then trying to build that relationship knowing and believing that one day our two companies would come together. I drive back to our office in Carmel. We were having a sales meeting and that's when you know 9/11 hit and I can remember watching how Mick responded to that crisis where many people were just shutting down like life won't go on and you know he served our military so he he knew how to move through and he would say you know what we have to keep putting one foot in front of the other and we'll all get through this as a country and we got to keep doing our job.

And that was really impactful for me at a young younger age to watch that. And then, you know, that prepares you for another crisis, the the the financial crisis. And then it prepares you for how you lead through co and communication is key, but breathing confidence and certainty that we'll get through it. Let's lock arms and move through it. Here in Indiana, chances are you've heard the name Keller and Keller. [music] And there's a reason so many Hoosiers trust them when something goes wrong.

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Keller and Keller. Get the Keller edge. [music] Now, let's get back to the show. So, on the on the back side of the financial crisis, where did you feel like, okay, we're in a good place? Like, how long did it take for things to stabilize? I think we were very um intentional about the things that we did.

We got really a lot better at managing the money and building up reserves and not living over and above our means. Where does Mick's journey because you are now the owner. So where Mick still Mick still is in Is he still involved? Yeah. Oh yeah. I mean he's still he will be there.

I mean he's a farm. He he's just the hardest worker I've ever met. How old is this guy? Well it is a mystery. Oh. Oh it's a mystery.

But he's the hardest. He's But is he still out selling houses? Oh yeah. Oh, that's And you'll see him on a weekend trimming trees, taking care of the property that are all what? Yeah. But it's just I mean, you know what?

I think he has the philosophy that you know what, if you retire, you die. Keep I told him the other day, I said, you know what you remind me of, Mick? You know that Allan Jackson song, don't let the old man in. I think it's Alan Jackson. Have you ever heard of that? He's the youngest 80-year-old.

But you know, like when you keep when you have a some sort of purpose. You wake up, you have like an agenda. It's like when then when you wake up and you're like you don't know if it's Sunday or Tuesday. Yeah. He just he's always lived with purpose and you know he's Yeah. He's just been he has been an unbelievable mentor to me and not only in um not only in the business side but also um as it relates to family and faith as well and because he's always been willing to share his missteps and you know he would always be like if I was in the office late he'd be like get home don't you know and I'd be like well you're still here he's like I know but you've got young kids get get home and so he he was always an encouragement manager.

How important do you think having the right mentors and people are to your career versus the right company or the right role or the right job? I think it goes hand in hand. If you don't have the right mentor within an organization, you're not going to stay. Yeah. But if you have the right mentor and somebody that believes in you, you'll you will stay and you'll see that there's growth within the company. I think the mentor is always more important than the company.

Really? Yeah. Yeah. I mean that you talk about just like the life lessons you glean from Mick, not even just the real estate. I could write I mean I could write I could write a book. The mechisms.

The mechisms. Are there any good mechisms that are top of mind? You know, so sales people love to talk. This is true. I can remember Mick saying, "You know what? Some people just like to sit around and chew the fat."

And I'd be like, "Chew the fat?" He's like, "Yeah, you know what? You talk and talk and talk, but you got to take action. Get, you know, talk can only get you so far. You got to do the work. Yeah.

So, I mean, I could I mean, I could name, you know, whether it's how fast people walk through the parking lot or I mean, don't chase empty numbers. And he goes, I don't remember ever saying this. I'm like, well, I remember you saying this. Two things to fear in this world, the good Lord and the IRS. [laughter] Yes. In that order.

So, I feel extremely blessed that I got to start at 26. And people told me, "Don't go to work for him. You won't like it. He won't. It's not going to be good for you." And something in my gut said, "You know what?

I'm going to take the leap." And so, when did you get the official CEO title? I'm not a title person. Yeah. Really? So, I don't I can't even tell you, but Mick made me feel like his business partner probably from after I'd been there for five or six years.

Why? What do you think he saw? You You'd have to ask him that. Annie, what do you think? Why do you think he did that? I think he saw something in her and he um saw that he could teach her things and you just both work really really well together.

Yeah. and he wanted to invest in you and you were willing to lean in. He was also willing to let me make mistakes. I can remember going, I think I'm going to work on a different compensation plan for how we incentivize this position. What do you think? He'd be like, I don't know, go try it.

You'll figure it out. I mean, it was but I also felt a huge sense of responsibility that number one, I never wanted to take the company in a direction that wouldn't make him proud. his name was on the building and so I just felt a great sense of responsibility with you know the opportunity that he gave me and we didn't always get it right. I mean sometimes we'd be like oh we screwed that one up but you learn through that. I mean you have to have the stubbing of your toes or the mish hires Annie calls it well that was a swing and a miss. Sometimes you don't get the right the right person in the right seat.

So, we live in a place where I feel like uh and for the sports analogy, women in sports super celebrated here in Indianapolis. Women sports executives super celebrated in Indianapolis for you guys to I don't know be leaders and executives. What advice do you have for uh ambitious future female executives and how they can make their path in um and I would say for real estate it does seem as though like real estate agents there are tons of females but like leading a company and taking the direction uh and taking over a company that was led by a male for a long time like I think that's really inspiring and impactful and there's a lot of knowledge that can come out of that for any you know again ambitious female females that want to sit at the executive table and make decisions and run companies. Like I think it's awesome. That's a big question. Big question.

We asked the big questions here. Annie, do you want to take a stab at it? You know, my advice would be the same to a upand cominging male or female in real estate or any industry you have. There a professor at Ball State her name is Dr. O'Hare and she wrote this quote on the board on our first day and come to find out it was a Barry Manalo song and it talked we were like oh this is so good. It was a Barry Manalo song.

It was her favorite singer and she talked about how the only person that's going to regret not getting something is you and you have to go out and get it yourself. And so I still have that written out and I reference it a lot and that would be my advice to any professional is you have to know what you want and you have to be okay if you don't get it and if and it's up to you and I think anybody has room at the table. I mean that's a pretty big answer. Number one, you have to know what you're signing up for. You know, some people like want a title, but they don't necessarily want to do the work and and the sacrifices that you have to make along the way. I mean, it's definitely a smarter life decision to sell to be an agent.

You know what it's like? Like like just the work life balance, flexibility. Well, I don't know. There's not a lot of work life balance as a realtor. Really? No.

You think Well, if you're a productive realtor. Yeah, it's fair. I mean, if you're a big producer, I mean, you think about real estate never sleeps. So, it's evenings, weekends, you know, during kids soccer games, you're taking calls. I mean, it's but there's a there's a trade-off for that. You can earn a lot of money in real estate, but you're 24/7.

You're you have to handle your own medical insurance. You know, there's no expense account. You're running a small business within the brokerage that you're affiliated with. But I think that you have to um you have to be a servant leader. You you have to show up to help make not that you make other people successful, but you've got to create the environment that successful people want to work in. Yeah.

And I think um for women, you know, you've got to you've got there none of us have the the superwoman or on our on our chest. We have to rely on others to help help us along the way as a as a mom, as a wife. You know, I I had an unbelievable support network that helped me do what I do in my career. You know, I had a a husband that was, you know, took on a tremendous amount of responsibility at home. I begged him to be a stay-at-home dad when our youngest was [snorts] a year old, and he looked at me and was like, "Hell no." [laughter] Uh but we had two boys so it worked out.

Um and then my my parents and my husband's parents, you know, were always there. It was a community, you know, and so I think family becomes very important. If you're a if you're a woman or a man that is very driven and has big visionary dreams, you don't do it on your own. You've got to you got to have a support network around you. That's really interesting. Um because that's not I feel like the answer that a lot of executives or a lot of you know ambitious people would say it's like put your head down and keep doing the work which you have to do that too.

You you have to but you also have to create value and you know what titles can be easily stripped but the work you do and the impact you make can't be. Yes. So so that's like my thing. Uh I totally agree. I've like as I've as I've matured and gotten older, I've cared less about titles. Like so we have like a you know a small team like we have less than five full-time employees.

We have another like you know five or six like part-time people in the state of Indiana that help out and so I'm like I'm not the CEO of anything. Like we're six people like I'm not putting CEO. Well, some people throw it around like it's and you know what? I'm even uncomfortable when people like I don't know what it is about me, but like don't I don't want people to identify with me because of a title. Me, it's more about the people connection. And somewhere along the journey, I feel like if you're going to be successful in in whatever is not just focusing on the product at the end, but the process, like I I feel like I just get that um experience and and that vibe from from you all of, you know, it wasn't yes.

Is it more lucrative to run a bigger company? Is it more of this and that? But like sometimes no. I mean, people always think, but I have had the opportunity of looking at companies from across the country, and sometimes some very big companies when it comes to real estate aren't that profitable. That's when you're like chasing vanity numbers. Yeah.

So, individuals in the real estate industry that want to scale their career in whatever way that means, what advice would you have? Tell me what scale and growth looks like for you and how will you measure your success? I have to know how people want to measure their success. And then you know what? Annie is phenomenal at this, but she coaches some of our top teams on how they scale their business and build accountability and process into their individual teams and she can probably speak to it really well. I encourage our agents to read the EOS book.

So we've we've implemented within our company, we've implemented in our departments, but when an agent comes and says, I want to create a team, you know, asking those deep questions, but why why do you want to do that? And I think reading that EOS book and getting into a cadence of creating their VTO, where do they want to be? What does that look like? How are we going to scale this? And so I have a great opportunity to meet with several of our top teams. We meet quarterly.

We do quarterly pulses and we really look at their business and where they need to be in the next quarter to make their goals. And it's been it fills my cup and seeing how they each show up in the development of the team because they learn what it takes to hold people accountable, train, and navigate when things aren't working well internally. Wow. Holding yourself accountable is sometimes the toughest part. See, I have a harder time holding others accountable. Like I'm definitely like a if I I would say for the most part if I say that I'm going to do something, it's like I'm it's it's write it in stone.

But then when other people like maybe they say something or I ask them to do like whatever that piece is, I'm so lenient. I'm just like, "Oh, you know, it's okay. I'm sure they had a hard time or I'm sure something came up or I'm sure." And like being I almost feel like a jerk when I'm like so and so says, "Okay, I will get that thing done by Friday." Friday comes around, it's not done. Monday comes and it's like, "Hey, just check it in.

What? Oh, XYZ happened. Oh, it's totally okay." And it's like that's where my like I feel like biggest potential for growth on like the leadership side comes from. when it's also when you don't hold your team members accountable, you're you're really impacting their ability to grow. So, I always say it's kind of like your kids.

You know, if you really care about some someone, you're you're going to ask the questions that get them reflecting on why they're not doing what they need to be doing or what they said they were going to going to do. Is it kind of hard? I feel like that would be so hard from employees or kids or spouses or whatever standpoint there of I don't know how you hold a spouse accountable [laughter] but like I'm not just fixing the problem. It's a kid comes to you and says XYZ thing and you're just like oh I'm I'm instantly going to go fix their versus like take a step back ask some good questions prompt them on their journey to go fix the problem. Got to have patience I think. You know what?

Fixing problems makes you feel like a hero and you're as a leader. Often people are like, "Oh gosh, you're the best. Thanks for fixing it." But you're really not developing people and you're not saying to people, "I trust you." And I think that's what Mick did with me. He didn't fix the problem.

I can remember he had um he started traveling probably I don't know a lot five years into my or six years into my journey and I remember would call him with questions and he didn't I'm like why hasn't he called me back and then I got to point well maybe because he wants me to figure it out on my own and even if it's figuring it out the wrong way the lesson isn't it crazy you had to figure out that he wanted you to figure it Oh, well, I don't know. He would say, "I don't know if that's really why I didn't call you back, but I'm like, but I'm glad you didn't because it caused me to have to try to What advice do you have for leaders maybe even outside of real estate in any industry that are growing and learning about building teams?" Cuz one thing is with real estate, you there's a lot of human capital from agents. It's all I feel like literally you know there's not like there might be some proprietary software or proprietary techniques or whatever but it's largely a people business.

Mhm. What advice do you have for leading lots of people in a similar direction that like other business leaders could use in their careers? I I've never believed that leadership is associated with the title. Um, I think to be a great leader, you have to be able to positively influence people in the direction that's good for them and also good for the organization that you're leading. And sometimes that's not in alignment. And so you have to make sure it's in alignment.

And I think you have to bring great clarity, transparency to your discussions that you have. Um I think there's and then also I have always said follow great leaders be careful not to follow bad leaders and studying leadership you know from iconic leaders of the past can be can be some of the best lessons that you can ever get. And there's some there's some people that used unbelievable influence to do really bad things. Think about it. Think about some evil system. I mean, Hitler influenced so many people.

Yeah. Horrible. Terrible. Be cautious who you follow. Yeah. It's almost like the uh is it Spider-Man or one of the with great power comes great responsibility?

And it's like are there are there in uh leaders that you guys have studied that have made a really big impact in your life? Love everything that John Maxwell Who's John Maxwell? He's really a faith-based leader. So Oh, yeah. Um yeah. the 21 indispensable qualities of a leader.

They're timeless. I think you can study great leaders of publicly traded companies, of privately held companies, and it's like you're never going to replicate exactly one style. It's like you absorb a bunch of it in, use your filter, and put together your your best leadership style. And I also think that I mean I can think of some you know my both my boys played sports and you're a wrestling coach. I am. I have watched them go through some really tough seasons in their careers where they had losing teams.

My oldest son played college hockey and he was a leader early on, assistant captain and captain. And he said to me, "You know what, Mom? this is business and if we don't win, you know, our coaches jobs are on the line. And it was really reflective about the pressure you carry and the leadership style of coaches. And so I think leaders show up in our lives everywhere we turn at a very young age as well. Wow.

I love that. I think that yeah, leadership is something again and especially in an industry that is largely human capital. you know, it's like agents and staff and people transacting like it just Yeah, I think it takes a lot to get your brand, your values, your messaging through to individuals. Like I think that's important, too. Now, one, as we kind of get towards the end of the show here, I want to kind of wrap up learning how you guys as Century 21 cheats, how you're able to diversify. I feel like a lot of in the real estate game in the real estate industry it feels as an outsider commod commoditized.

It feels like you know pick whoever it's going to be a similar experience. What are you guys doing to set yourself apart from the competitors? It's interesting that you feel that it's commoditized because it's it's accurate for someone that's not in the in the business. that's that's your view. And I think that's one of the challenges in in real estate brokerage. We believe when you become uniquely clear on the type of agents that you want affiliated with your brokerage, that helps lead and attract the right talent.

But also, we believe that training is the fundamentals is super important. We are not the brokerage for part-time agents that want to dabble in real estate. Okay. That was a piece too where it's like I felt like everyone in their and their sister and brother and aunt and uncle had their real estate license coming out of co Yeah. Everybody's so because people think it's glamorous and you know and I mean like really showing up putting in the work leveraging the platform and I think you've got to get really crystal clear on what your platform is you're offering agents to plug into every day and you're like how do we make it easier for agents to do business drive efficiency so they can better serve their clients and probably everybody says that our brokerage isn't the one that says, "Hey, come here. We're going to be the least expensive place for you to plug into, and we're going to give you your business.

We're there to teach salespeople how to sell and do it in a very high caliber way that leaves people wanting to refer them to their friends and family. And we also are there to help provide our very top producers the support that they need to continue to grow. What traits make someone a top producer? If they have outside sales experience before they ever entered into real estate in a service industry, they do really well because remember, they're trained early on. When you go into corporate America and and you sell, you get sales training and you get held to a high level of accountability. You have to make x amount of prospecting calls, right?

When you get into real estate, you're an independent contractor. So, there's no one really holding you accountable unless you align with the right right brokerage and manager. And if you're willing to be held accountable. So, people with that come in with outside sales skills do very well. Or people that are coming in and haven't developed bad habits and are willing to be coached. Yeah.

And are willing to follow a process. What are the what are the actions? Like if I sit down and sell software, I know it's like, okay, I sell to CMOs of software companies. So I just LinkedIn, email, DM, whoever, call CMOS, software companies. For a real estate agent, it's like when you're when everyone could be your customer, I think that's that's a it's great, but it's also how do you focus? It's like, oh, how do I start to narrow the scope of like what are the actions that you take to be good at real estate?

Well, number one, you have to be will. I mean, we all say it's how many people are you talking to a day? Make mixed thing STP. How are you getting out there and see the people and how are you providing value when they're ready to do a real estate transaction? So, I mean, you've got to get up every day and you got to manage your schedule and you've got to prospect for business in the morning. And whether prospecting could be like, I've got five listings that I need to get sold on.

I'm prospecting for buyers for those listings. So, you're going to work every day for your sellers that have their house listed. So prospecting is a big big part of your day. Wow. Then you're doing lead followup, you're managing transactions, your customer care, you're helping I mean your past clients through like Neighbor Serve when they have issues with their property that they need vetted contractors that are reliable and dependable. You partner with Neighbor Serve.

So, this is an interesting piece I did want to dive into, which is how you guys are working with the crew upstairs at Neighbor Serve to create a different experience for your current and previous customers and kind of how that whole thing got started. Cuz I think it's when I heard about it, I was like, "Oh my gosh, this is so smart, but it's not, I would say, traditional throughout the real estate industry." So Dan was relentless. Of course he was. He had a vision of how he could help us and we sat down with him a few times and how he and his team support our agents and when because the biggest pain point in real estate transaction is the inspections. So, you have the buyer has a home inspection and they want these items done before closing and you have a tight time schedule and partnering with Neighbors allows our agents to contact Neighbors, get connected with vetted contractors that know the timing that this has to be done very quickly and correctly in order to close.

They understand what's on the line and it's just been a beautiful partnership. Dan and Jason and the entire team, they get it. We're test piloting something right now where when you have a home inspection, you have these items that Neighbor Serve is going to jump in and coordinate those contractors on behalf of the seller. That's crazy. And so then it's one less thing that the seller has to be managing and doing as they're packing up their home. So it will be fun to see how that unfolds.

So, so this is like a typical process for anyone out there that isn't familiar of the home buying process down to the tea. So, you go through all the thing, you put down your earnest money, you know, inspection comes through and then both parties get a copy of the inspection and it's like there's a gutter falling off in the back and the sighting here, there's a chunk in the drywall here. There's usually, let's say there's a list of 10 things. Maybe there's more. I don't know what the average number is, but let's say there's 10. And then there's negotiation of like how many have to be fixed versus if there's money gonna come off or or things like that.

Like it is you're negotiating again. You're negotiating the contract again. Yeah. And it's like you you're you thought you were at the finish line. You're almost at the finish line and then you have another thing that's like another hurdle to jump through. Mhm.

And sellers that purchased back during COVID, they waved their inspection. So this is a whole new process for them that they didn't have a home inspection. So now this buyer that's buying our home, that's crazy to think about, right? And not that we ever recommended don't have an inspection, but when you I mean there were properties that we were getting 15 20 offers on and some buyers felt like in order to compete, you know, they had to remove any and all contingencies. It's crazy. I just remember getting my inspection report from the first house that I ever bought and it is like when it's your first home it is a hu it's always a big deal but it was just like oh my gosh this is not a GFI outlet like I will like you know and it's like what I cared about then is like no way like I'm not getting electrocuted and I was like I think that's I mean I always say that an inspection if you if you really set expectations and educate buyers especially especially first-time home buyers going into a purchase to purchase a home.

An inspection report may reveal some red flags, but some of those flags shouldn't have been thrown. So, I can't tell you countless times we may see, oh, possible foundation issue. When a buyer hears foundation issue, they freak out. Yeah. Don't don't freak out. Don't freak out until you really have an engineer come look at it and really tell you because we have engineers come out and they're like, "Actually, this is fine.

There's no structural problem here." Yeah. So, I think you've got to make sure that don't let just because something comes back in an inspection response or inspection report to think that the the sky is falling. That's why you have additional time to get experts in. An inspector's a generalist. They want to call out things to get others, you know, professional opinions in there to just make sure there's no issues.

Have you guys seen any of the social media stuff about inspectors? Like where I just I don't know, probably like once every 3 weeks I get like inspectors going through and like finding all the like coverups or like landlord specials or like whatever. And it's like I watch the video every time because it's like oh wow like this is supposed to be a new build construction and it's like all the things I just find it so fascinating. Yeah. Some of that's alarmist. Yeah.

Just trying to but I I do think Oh, for the views. Come on. It's for sure for the views. Exactly. Exactly. So, you know, you got to do your homework.

You got to get experts in there and do the discovery before you wave the white flag. Yeah. And the other piece is interesting with your guys's partnership with Neighbor Serve is I feel like that was one thing where even if it wasn't necessarily an inspection, like it wasn't like this is a red flag, but after I I was like, "Oh, I want to get I want to do some work. I need this that like I don't have any I think I was constantly hitting up my real estate agent saying like do you have a recommendation for landscaping or do you have a recommendation for a remodel or whatever it was and that's like yeah you're that's where you show up and provide value after the transaction. Yeah. Neighbor serve I my mom is 88 years old.

She lives on her own and healthy as can be, but she needs maintenance done in her house and so, you know, I never want her taken advantage of of. So, I signed her up for the concier program. Yes. And it is fabulous. I mean, she got trees trimmed. She got I mean, all kinds of stuff done that was just lingering.

And you know whose plate that it typically would fall on is me or my brother to help. and we've got jobs and we love to help her, but I'm like, "Oh, here's something that can get done quickly for you, mom." So, now she's got her own concier that helps her when and she feels still empowered too that she can still manage it all. Yeah. Which like I I do think cuz sometimes it's like home projects, especially if you don't know like when it's the first time, let's say the first time your garage door, you're getting someone out to like you could tell me it's going to be $300. You could tell me it's going to be $3,000.

I just don't even know like the like how much one of those springs costs. Yeah. It's like I don't even know the right ballpark. So I have no idea if I'm getting fleeced or not. And having someone like uh from the Neighbor Serve team or someone just in general having a like an expert it just an advocate for you is really what it is is you go through that process. Yeah.

Just Yeah. I mean, you talk about getting a quote on I don't again like I'm just so far removed from home projects where it's like quote comes back and I'm like, "Oh, wow. This is a $10,000 thing. I thought it was a $10 thing, you know, like not really, but I think that's really really interesting." We made the investment into neighbor serve to being really um aligned with them as a provider of the service for our agents and for our clients because it solved pain points that we reoccurringly were seeing. So we made the investment you know Century 21 sheets and that's a differentiator.

Um when you look at brokerages not all of them can make or are willing to make that investment. They'd say, "Agents, you need to figure it out on your own." And we're like, "No, this is a it it reduces risk because they're all the contractors are vetted, right, and have to go through a process to become a neighbor serve, you know, um service provider. And it I think it makes Annie and I rest a little easier at night knowing that our agents and their clients are in great hands." Because that's the other piece too where it's like if someone comes in and you and someone on your team recommends or someone that maybe they just like they just Googled it and sent the top recommendation over and they do a shoddy job. That is a direct reflection upon to you guys.

It most certainly is that often comes up after closing that something wasn't done right by that contractor. So knowing that Dan and Jason and everybody at Neighbor Serve, they have our back. Yeah. Is reassuring. Yeah. This is a relationship business through and through.

And we always get connected with great people through recommendations. And we heard about Neighbor Serve through a YPO connection. I had Brian Hasbro and I think someone else called me and said, "You need to check out this." Yeah. What Dan's doing. And I was intrigued.

And Annie was like, "What? What is this again, Tracy? I'm always throwing out ideas. Yeah. Has Rick's a good dude. It ended up being I had an agent that joined us, an experienced agent from another company out of our Greenwood office, and she said to me, this is probably about seven months ago, neighbor Service is one of the best things that you have done for me as an agent.

Wow. Which was great. And she's a highly productive agent. So when you save time and drive efficiency, Y that does matter. I love it. And I I love uh Dan and I kind of started really getting things rolling at similar times.

So, it's been really fun to see their trajectory upstairs and just Yeah. all the cool stuff they're doing and ways are growing and expanding and it's awesome. And so, it's cool to know that uh that awesome companies are working with each other. Yeah. And it's good to be in business in Indiana. I could not agree more if you couldn't tell from And it's good to be in real estate in Indiana or to own real estate in Indiana.

Um, I was just reading Indiana has I mean growing in migration numbers. So we have more people moving into Indiana than a lot of the neighboring Midwest states. So we are we are thrilled with that and it just says Indiana is a great place to live and do business and the word is out. You've come to the part of the show where we talk all things Indiana as we wrap up. So this question is brought to you by our friends at JC Hart. They're a leader in creating enjoyable living experiences at apartment communities all across Indiana and beyond.

Check them out at homejcart. com. Before you're ready for your first house and you're looking for an apartment, there you go. Right. Then the natural progression there. But my question for both of you is why do you call Indiana home?

I grew up here and I can't even imagine living anywhere else. I live across the street from my parents. Oh yeah. So that is that's nice. I love that. I was born and raised here.

Or no, I wasn't born and raised here. I was raised here. I was born in Columbus, Ohio. Oh, one of our largest city competitors. Yeah. Moved here when I was just before I started first grade.

So, I married my high school sweetheart. Um, family and community is really important. And we just were never willing and we had opportunities to uproot and go somewhere else, but we're like, this is what we know. Amen. Okay, we've we've got our final three questions that we ask every guest you come on the show. So, first, this is your opportunity to shed some light on a part of the state that more people need to be talking about.

Could be a restaurant, a park, a place, a thing. What is a hidden gem in Indiana? The Scott Starling Nature Preserve. Yes. So, it connects to Eagle Creek. So, if you're training for your ultra, you can get a additional I think it's 10 miles back there of trails.

Yeah. And then connect to Eagle Creek off of 56th Street. Okay. Wait, this is It starts in the planks. It does. And you like walk the plank for the first mile and then it's a huge hill.

Uphill. Yes. That's why you've never invited me, Annie, to run with you. It's uphill. Annie, [laughter] are you a big runner? I'm a slow runner, but I'm a runner.

But you like I was at Eagle Creek on Saturday. Yes. Okay. Trails. That's I prefer trails. Wow.

Okay. Have you done any big races? I mean, I've done a marathon. Yeah. But not trail racing. No trail.

You just do it for the love of the game. I just love it. I had a friend training for 50k and so I helped um do that. I probably should have just done the 50k. Yeah. So, have you ever seen the uh the like night eagle creek halves?

One of my buddies did one of those and said it was hard but a fun time. It's like some people are just crazy. Uh I love that. The Scott Starling Nature Sanctuary. Yes. Yeah, that's a good one.

I've ran those. Uh but it is funny. So, like my like running group I would say are very non-traditional runners. Like one of them was an ex uh D1 football player. He played left tackle. So he's 6 foot six and he's lost about I think 90 lbs.

He's like 220 225 now. So he's just like looks like an anomaly out there. Like I'm like short and stocky. The other guy is like 6'5. And so when we started bouncing on those planks, it's like, "Oh man, are we about to break through these things?" Uh, it was uh but it's a it's a good little rip.

Have you had a deer stand on the wood planks before? No. So it was in the fall and we had two big deers just standing there on and I mean we had to just wait until they moved and we probably stood there for about 20 minutes. No, they weren't budging. They they were they [clears throat] were standing their ground. What a I mean that's that's a true nature sanctuary.

Holy. Uh, Tracy, what is a hidden gem in Indiana? After living here the majority of my life, I never knew about the strip mines. Are you familiar with strip mines? Uh, like down in southwestern Indiana. Well, so actually the ones that I have been to or the one that I'd been to was in Kingman.

Do you know where Kingman is? Uh, Fountain County out on the west side. Yeah. Yeah. So, one someone that we work with bought this piece of ground and invited several of us out there and I'm like, where am I? This is the most beautiful property I've ever been around in Indiana.

And it's this beautiful um I would say it's a big lake. And what happened, I think it was in 1977. And I did write it down because I was like, I got to I got to really understand the history to this. Um, in 1977, I believe, um, it was the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act, um, which required mine operators to reclaim um, the land and either they would fill it in or the ones that were really deep, you know, their ground sped water. I mean, they're beautiful. The water is the clearest I've ever seen.

And it is like the most peaceful. I mean, the nature, the I mean, it's breathtaking. So, these exist in Indiana and they've never been really developed. They're more privately held and people will have like a little cottage or use it for camping. They're they're beautiful and I didn't really know the history until I went out there a few years ago and they're building a little retreat out there and it's just a little slice of heaven in Indiana that I didn't know that existed. Okay, next question.

This is where we get new guest recommendations and learn about other people in Indiana that that more people going to be talking about. Who's a hooer we need to keep on our radar? Someone who's doing big things. I've listened to a lot of your podcasts, but not all of them. I don't know how I missed this one. This is a good really early one, but it is in my top 10.

Um, it's Will Schuler with Willpower. Yes. I mean, part of it he's moving Indiana Earth literally. And an entrepreneur that came out of Hamilton Heights and you know what? That school system supported him as a young entrepreneur. I mean, I think I heard the story.

He went in and gave them a business plan so he could miss some school. No, he walked in with a uh maybe like a 15 or $20,000 purchase order. like that was he wanted to do like the the half-day school internship and they were like he's like but I want to work for myself and they I think they were like questioning it and then he put like a like a like an invoice that someone just paid him 15 grand or 25 grand or I know people like move out of this kid's way and he was like all right and the craziest part is yeah his senior year he would go to three periods of high school his employee literally he has an employee employee gets to the job site at 8 he'd go to high school they'd meet around lunchtime they'd work together till employee would leave, he'd finish out till like 8 or 9, 10 p. m. He is, if you haven't gone to listen, we'll link that episode in. It is uh one of my top 10 all-time faves.

It's a crazy because he's the youngest member of YPO. Oh, he was. I mean, he joined. I'm like, "Holy cow." Do you remember um what year you interviewed him? Uh it would have been I believe late 2024, early 2025.

So, I mean, he's only 24. Is he now 24? I think he's 24 now. No way. So he's I mean just the lessons that he's probably learned in leadership over the last 18 months because he's doing that big project up on 31 that water park Sky Lake Sky Lake. So I just think I mean I could learn so much from him just in his it went live March 25th of 2025.

So that's almost two years ago at this point. One year ago. Okay. A year and a half. Almost a year and a half ago. He I mean he he you should bring him back.

We could do that. I' I've been meaning to catch up with him anyway. Uh but yeah, they've grown so much. Crazy. That's a great one. His also social media.

You don't you don't think of that type of company having venturing out there on social media, but he's got a great Oh, yeah. It's Willpower Excavating. It's one of those ones, too, where you see a lot of the videos and you're just like, hell yeah. That's But you think about the grind that it takes to be an entrepreneur. He is the epitome of it. I mean, he just Yeah, he's he's he's great.

We'll have to bring him back. I think I think you just you just convinced me. Annie, who's a whoer we need to keep on our radar? Someone who's doing big things. Kenzie KD. Is this KD's?

So, she's the daughter, but she runs a marketing and marketing agency. And she is a mom of two. She has had a baby. She has a toddler. She's running her own agency. Her family is the KDles and they're approaching their almost 100red years of furniture in Indiana.

Wait, is she also like very well known on social media? She is. Wow. She does stuff for Indie Car. She's amaz I've learned so much from her in the last year. This has been so much fun.

We have one final question that really just encompasses everything it means to be a Hooer. uh throughout the you know your guys's experience from selling different houses and from running the trails and doing all sorts of just iconic Hooser things. When you close your eyes and think about it, what is your favorite Indiana memory? Gentlemen, start your engines. Yes. I mean it is it is such a family event that we have been able to bring friends, family, my kids, college teammates to Indiana for that hospitality, that who's your hospitality that it is something that we look forward to as a family every single year.

You can't beat the Indy500, the pageantry like leading up to the start and then the awe. I always ask everyone that comes into town, is it is it what you expected? And they're like, it is so much better than what I expected. Everyone needs to go at least once in their life. Even and at the end, you realize like, you know what, I went I don't ever need to go back again cuz I don't like 350,000 people in one place. But like going at least once to experience it, it is it's so amazing and it always blows people away.

You don't have to like anything racing. It's that the IU championship last year. I mean, yeah. Or this year. This year, you can't beat that. No.

But those two, those are good ones. Okay, Annie. So, I'm going to go a completely different path. So, my grandfather owned the very first TV repair shop in Indiana and was the only one that knew how to fix black and white and color TVs when they came out. So on Rosh's property at 116th and no 96 and 69, there's a pond right there on that exit and that's where his TV repair shop was. So my mom used to mow that property and I always look at that property of just history and every time I drive by it or I drive I heard about the kiddles about how kdles picked their property because people were moving to the north side.

So I always look at land differently of what was the history before that was built. So you can look at what what was the land before the Indy500 was built there, where what was before Lucas Oil. And so that's always fun to learn. I love that. I'm like a sucker for history. I've like officially entered my plaque reading stage.

Like I will stop and read like every plaque and it annoys a lot of people that I'm with and I'm like and then I'm always like we'll you know pull it out like 20 minutes later. Did you know that, you know, before it was the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, it was actually Farms and then, you know, blah blah blah blah and you get to go through the whole thing. Were you a history buff growing up? A little bit. I liked it. It was probably one of my favorite like besides like, you know, gym is obviously everyone's favorite, but history was cool.

And then over the past like two or three years, I've just like specifically Indiana history and Indiana just like knowing about the people before us is just so cool to me. And uh I think the a part that I love is like small towns like what happened in some places and like learning about the heritage and the history there and how they're you know continuing to honor their lineage. And so it's just really really interesting and fascinating to me thinking about like how towns that might have two or 5,000 people now had two or 5,000 people 75 or 100 years ago were booming metropolises. I just think it's so fascinating. But I'm I've officially become a plaque reader. Um, y'all, this was so much fun.

It was so great learning about one, it's not often that someone finds a passion and a career path while they're in high school and ends up pursuing that as their career. I think that that is just uh a piece that I feel like, you know, with younger generations, it's like you're in one industry, you're on to the next one, you're constantly jumping around versus becoming a true expert in your craft and finding ways to continue to challenge yourself and push the status quo. It's been incredible learning more about your journey. If people want to learn more about you all, if they want to learn more about Century 21 Sheets, if they want to learn about, you know, becoming an agent or doing anything like that, where can they find you at? Well, they can find us online, which I'm sure you can put our Yep. We'll have that on LinkedIn or Yep.

We'll have that linked in the show notes. cinemat. com. If they want to look at houses, if they want to buy a house, how do they do that? have them reach out to us and we'll connect them with the agent that can best meet their needs and where they want to buy or sell. There we go.

Wow. The the chat conversation on the website with a real person has gone Paige. Paige, come on. Let's go. That's fire. And Paige was an intern that started with us and then moved into different roles in our company and now is responsible for that community.

See, I feel like now that's all AI. So, it's kind of nice that there's a person on the other side of that. I really appreciate that. I feel like that's the touch that uh it's like for a while there, everyone was like, "Oh, yeah, everything should be AI and then everything became AI and now it's like, wait, no, I forgot I like talking to humans." Yeah, I want to talk to a human. Yeah, I'm a human.

I'm fine if humans use AI. Yeah, but I need the human connection. I want to talk to a human. That's how I am. Well, we appreciate y'all stopping by. It's been so much fun learning the story.

I'm glad to be the first dynamic duo podcast together. Uh, it's been so incredible learning your story. Keep up all the great work and we'll talk to you soon. You [music] too. Thanks, Nate. This episode was brought to you by Accounted For Indiana CPAs who built the firm they wish they had existed when they were growing their own businesses.

Forget hourly billing and slow responses. Accounted for wraps tax, bookkeeping, consulting, and virtual CFO services into one simple monthly fee. All cloud-based, all under one roof. You get a real CPA who knows your goals and actually picks up the phone. Check them out at accounted4cpa. com and tell them that the Getin In team sent you.