Speaker 1 (00:00):
Is it time to hire your first full-time recruiter? How do you know? What do you need to do to make sure that they're successful? And how might that evolve into a recruiting department? Tiffany Williamson, owner and president of Navigate Realty breaks down the recruiting and onboarding systems that have driven their growth to hundreds of agents in multiple markets in a $1 billion sales pace. Why it took three tries to find her recruiter and what the first 90 days should look like for yours. Why? Stories of agent transformation are just as important as your agent avatars and value prop. How their two week onboarding offered every two weeks has evolved over time. Why the real estate industry is moving more toward bigger teams and bigger brokerages. Get insights into all that and more with Tiffany Williamson right now on Real estate team os. No matter where your business is today 

Speaker 2 (00:52):
Or where you want to take it, you'll get there faster and more profitably with an operating system. Welcome to T Os, your Guide to Starting, growing and optimizing Real Estate Team. Here's your host, Ethan Butte. 

Speaker 1 (01:04):
Tiffany Navigates obviously got hundreds of agents in multiple markets and that does not happen without great people and process, so I'm excited to learn a little bit more about the Who, why, how behind it all. Welcome to Real Estate Team os. 

Speaker 3 (01:18):
Thank you so much. Yeah, I'm super pumped to be here and share our story. It's been a wild ride. We've learned a lot along the way, but yeah, I wouldn't change a thing. 

Speaker 1 (01:27):
Cool. No, you can't. I mean the energy and spirit that you just came out with, there is a reflection of what's necessary. I feel like to achieve what you all have. We're going to start where we always do Tiffany, which is a must have characteristic of a high performing team. What comes to mind for you? 

Speaker 3 (01:44):
Consistency is the first thing that comes to mind. Without consistency, you don't have anything because things are going to get hard. Not everything's going to work out the way that you want it to work out, but you've got to figure out a way to work it out, whether it be, if you can't go through the front door, you got to find the window. And I feel like with our team, we do a really good job of looking at problems and saying, Hey, we tried this, but let's figure out a different way because it's not working. And that consistency has really one of the main reasons why we are where we are right now. 

Speaker 1 (02:19):
I hear persistence in there too, a little bit, some determination. Is this just kind of how you've always carried yourself and so as you started bringing people around you in your real estate business, that kind of carried on culturally or was this a formal declaration one day of like, we're not going to experience that again, we're doing this with persistence and consistency. How did that come to be? I expect that it's probably a cultural element within Navigate. 

Speaker 3 (02:45):
It is, and from an early age, my mom would always say, when Tiffany makes her mind up, watch out. And now the things that I don't care about, I'm not like that at all, but if I truly care about something and I have a goal, I'm going to do whatever it takes to make that happen. And so I think a lot of times when you meet business owners or entrepreneurs, it is already done. I don't know if that makes sense, but you see a goal, you can visualize it in your mind and I've already made it happen. It's just figuring out a way to get to that point. And so I've always been like that with things that I actually care about. And then fast forward to business, I learned at an early age that I want to be the best salesperson I can be. 

Speaker 3 (03:32):
And I know that that is a taboo word at being a salesperson, but I look at it as an advantage for my clients. I look at it as I can build relationships. We create an amazing culture within Navigate and all of that matters. People matter. If you can make people feel important and you can figure out what is important to them, whether it be financial, whether it be freedom, whatever the case may be, that's when we can really make change and build a successful culture together. But yeah, I'd say for me that the sales piece has just always been something that I've been really passionate about and I use that in a positive way. 

Speaker 1 (04:12):
Awesome. If anyone feels like sales is a dirty word, I would point you to Dan Pink's to sell as human. It will open your mind to what sales is and why. Essentially all of us are in sales all the time. 

Speaker 3 (04:23):
We're selling everything. That's right. Yeah. 

Speaker 1 (04:25):
What was going on in your business, Tiffany, when team were brokerage occurred to you? What was the state of affairs? What was going on where you're like, this can be something more or this should be something more, or I need people around me. What was going on for you in your business when that started to open up as a possibility or even become, as you said earlier, a clear goal of yours? 

Speaker 3 (04:47):
Yeah, great question. I didn't set out to do this. I was the COO of a larger real estate firm in Raleigh, and I did that for several years and I was very, very close to buying that company and I was super excited about it. I mean, the culture was great, but it just wasn't the best fit. And I think I knew that deep down. But despite that voice in my head that was like, no, don't do this, don't do this. I wanted to because I love the culture, I love the people so much. So at the very last minute I decided, Nope, I can't do this. This voice is getting louder and louder and louder. And so I said, no, I cannot buy the company, but I will help facilitate this sale. I'll do whatever I need to do to make this a success for you. 

Speaker 3 (05:33):
I did help do that. And in August of 2018, I started navigate. My husband, Brandon and I, and actually Navigate was around before that, because we were at the coast, Brandon and I were investors, and we would allow agents to dual affiliate because we had a lot of agents from Raleigh that went to college there, used to live there or whatnot, had a client base there. So that's what Navigate was for. But Navigate was never when we bought that domain name, it was never supposed to be our business. But in August of 2018, I had to reinvent myself a little bit because I was so caught up in this is who I was at this job, and I thought that was going to be my retirement. Honestly, I loved it. And so I had to figure it out. So I took a couple of months to figure it out, and then I started full throttle January of 2019 at Navigate, and we just started to grow and grow and grow. 

Speaker 3 (06:36):
And then one day I sat back and I thought, oh man, this is really going to be something. But it was me selling it first at Monica, who's been on our team since the very beginning. She has sat on every seat in the bus at Navigate Transaction. Well, first buyer's agent, transaction manager, broker in charge numbers, now she pays the agents head of the compliance department. Now Christie, our COO started with us about four years ago, same situation. And so we all were wearing so many hats and it was just an exciting time, but we were just head down doing the work and then we realized, wow, this is something special. 

Speaker 1 (07:17):
Why indie brokerage for you versus the Williamson Group brokered by somebody else? And what were some of the considerations there? What advantages, disadvantages, how do you think about all that, particularly for someone who's trying to make that decision for themselves? 

Speaker 3 (07:33):
And what I'll say is there's no right answer to this, right? But I'll say what is true to me. I was at the firm I was at, one of the core reasons why I did not purchase the company is because they were attached to a franchise and the franchise fee, it was a lot. And what was happening is we had a retention problem because people were getting better splits and better value at other firms. And I just saw the industry changing. I saw it changing in a big way, and I thought, this is not the future of real estate. And so for me, not only that, the technology that we were given for free, all of those things weren't great, but we had to sell it to the agents. And I just have a hard time doing that when I don't love it. So that was a real challenge for me. 

Speaker 3 (08:19):
And then we were also supplementing because that technology wasn't great with other things that cost more money, and so it was never even in the cards for me to partner up with a franchise. My experience was not great with it. Now again, it was for other people. So my story doesn't mean that it's the same for everybody, but for my personal experience, I was just never going to do that again. What I love about being an independent brokerage, we get to choose our own technology. If I want to recently, most recently, we just implemented a sliding scale for our agents. We didn't have to look at our franchise fee. We didn't have to have this big community debate about it and how that's going to impact. We said, you know what? We want to reward the agents, and that's what we do. We can give back to the agents, they can build teams. They can do whatever they want to do under our umbrella because at the end of the day, we get to control that. And so for me, that was most important. It was able to just be able to allow the agents to stay and grow and have a successful career in real estate with us. 

Speaker 1 (09:28):
Good. Yeah, I mean that tracks with, we have had some of that feedback in recorded conversations on the show, including the, we were using our own tech anyway. We had our own culture anyway. It didn't make sense to continue paying quarter million, half a million dollars a year, 

Speaker 3 (09:45):
Especially when you get to a certain size. It's crazy. Yeah. 

Speaker 1 (09:49):
And then speed and flexibility are the two other ones I've heard a lot is I had a lot of ambition and some of the constraints that I was operating in, even if it's just approval layers, I could maybe get it approved, but I had to, I don't have time for that. So set us up as we record this in the back half of 2025, what is Navigate Realty today? And you can characterize it however you like, market size, structure, culture, anything you want to share about Navigate? I would love to hear, 

Speaker 3 (10:17):
Yeah, a couple of highlights. We're on track to do a billion dollars in sales this year, which I'm pumped about. That was a goal that we threw out last year. And I remember I mentioned it in a meeting and everybody was like, huh, no way. But it was something we just kept at the forefront. We talked about it all the time. We set goals around it and by golly, we're doing it this year. It's incredible what happens when you put that out into the universe. Beyond that, I would say our retention rate as a company is one of the highest in our area. Another thing, we use a platform called Corded, and it shows number one, as far as who's recruiting and retaining the most agents, we are number one in our area, which is incredible. Not only are we recruiting at a high level, but we're able to retain the agents because our culture really does cater to wanting them to be successful. 

Speaker 3 (11:10):
And our leadership team, our entire job is making sure we create that environment for them. We provide the best tools, the best resources, the best lead gen platform. So our agents are successful and they can make this whatever they want it to be. And I'll say one of the reasons that I did end up going full throttle with Navigate, when I had time to sit back and think, man, what is important to me? I remember when I was in real estate school and the teacher said, look around this room, over 85% of you will not be in real estate next year, and I don't care how smart you are. That test was hard, especially in North Carolina. I don't know where everybody's from, but in North Carolina that test is hard. And I remember thinking, gosh, everybody in here is so excited. There's over 70, I think there's 77 people in the class. 

Speaker 3 (11:58):
Over 85% will not make this a career. And in fact, over 85% will not make it past their first year. So with that stat, I knew at the time I wanted to be a part of that solution. I just didn't know what I could do. But then when I was an agent and I started in training, I realized really quickly, it doesn't matter if your brokerage has a great training, that's awesome, but if you don't have momentum and you don't have a good leads platform, and I'm not saying this for everybody, I'm saying this for most people because that stat is a real stat. There are some people that come out of real estate school and they don't need any of that, but for most people, most brand new agents, they need that momentum to get going. And most people can't go six months to 12 months without a paycheck. So what we were realizing, the Navigate our agents are going under contract in 30 days or less. Two weeks of that is training so that we are a part of that solution in such a big way now. But it's interesting to look back and think how I felt in that moment, knowing I want it to be a part of that solution in some way and not know. And then here we are today doing it in a really big way. 

Speaker 1 (13:07):
Awesome. You have opened up so many doors that I could knock on and go into with a how this that. So I guess where I'll start, I wanted to go to retention, but I guess we'll start kind of in a logical order. Let's talk a little bit about recruiting. I remember in a previous conversation of yours, I take a lot of notes when I talk to people and it was like, don't be afraid to hire key people. You've already mentioned some of those key people that also echoes Camilla Rivera from a couple of episodes back. You may not know how exactly you're going to pay for somebody, especially if you're early stage, but when you find the right who you figure out how to make it happen, and one of those people for you was a recruiter. So I'll open this up. You can kind of go wherever you want with how this came to be. But I would love for you to start with what are some signs where it makes sense to go with a full-time recruiter, and then anything else you want to share on that role and how to task it and maybe how to hand off some of what you might've been doing in that zone. There's a lot there, so go wherever you like. 

Speaker 3 (14:07):
Yeah. Well, what I want to say first is a lot of people, and myself included, get this wrong, the first hire, maybe even the second hire. And I think that's really important because I've heard a lot of people, I go to a lot of masterminds across the country and I've heard a lot of business leaders say, well, I've tried that. It didn't work. Wait, I did too. I tried it a couple of times and it didn't work. And I think the goal is figuring out each time you hire somebody, give them 90 days with very clear goals and objectives and have them immersed in the culture and be able to sell the culture and just the whole value of the company. I mean, think that's so important. You can't put someone in a job and just expect them to figure it out. They have to deeply why it's important for agents to join and they have to have buy-in. 

Speaker 3 (14:56):
Now, I did not do that in the very beginning. I was like, all right, let's go. You've got this recruiting background meet with these agents, but I learned over time, okay, there's a disconnect here. And what I want to say, just going back to 90 days, let them go. Don't hang on to someone hoping habits will change. They're not going to change. I always say, and I know this is something that a lot of people say out there, but it really is true. You need to hire slow and fire fast. I learned that the hard way. I want it to make it work with people. I would see things in people, but they've got to show up and prove that they're up for the task. And so it's okay if you hire someone and it doesn't work out. That doesn't mean stop doing that. It goes back to consistency of whatever it is you're doing, just keep doing it. 

Speaker 3 (15:42):
Try different ways and be open to feedback. And so Jacqueline was the third person I think we hired after going through a few different recruiters, and she and I had been friends for a while. I didn't even think about her honestly. And we went out to dinner one night and she had said, Hey, I'd like to get into recruiting. She has been a top producer for a while. Then she said, I'd like to get into recruiting. And I am like, wait, what? No, at the time I was not looking. I was not looking, but I knew her and I knew her personality, and we figured out, we figured it out. I was like, we're going to create a space for you. And I remember texting my COO Christie the night I hired her at, we were sitting at a bar drinking, actually not like we were having dinner catching up. 

Speaker 3 (16:29):
She and I had been friends for a while. We were sitting at jail, Alexander's at the bar and having dinner and had a glass of wine. And I texted Christie when I left there and I said, Hey, I just hired somebody. And she's like, wait, what? And I just knew immediately. Now, usually I don't do that, but I knew that Jacqueline would get, everybody would just love her. Then she started and we just hit the ground running. But I had made so many mistakes early on that I knew when she started, okay, this is where we need to focus her, and she just did it. I mean, she's been a huge key piece to our growth. Now we have an entire team in the recruiting department that reports to Jacqueline. We've got two full-time recruiters under her. They do a lot of the setting of appointments now. So once you find that person, you really do get the momentum, but it's not always going to come easy. Same thing with ISAs. 

Speaker 1 (17:24):
Oh, could you just open another door for 

Speaker 3 (17:26):
Me? Yeah. 

Speaker 1 (17:26):
Okay. So what I heard in the beginning of that was, or actually an element that I really identified with or a thought that occurred to me was that it really is about shared belief. Someone does need to understand what they, I mean, recruiting job is a sales job and they need to understand and be excited about and buy into and reflect what they're selling. And maybe in a couple of your earlier attempts, it wasn't there. In this case, you knew her well enough and it was something that she was interested in doing. And then of course you ended on a recruiting department where a lot of people are like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I still need to figure out if and when I need a full-time recruiter. So what is the gap between I'm bringing agents on myself and I have a full-time recruiter slash I have a recruiting department. Is it number of agents you want to hire? When do you know that the time is right to even delegate that and hire that out? 

Speaker 3 (18:26):
I think you've got to truly know what your value proposition is so you can sell to it. What is the value that you're providing and what is your agent demographic or what is your agent avatar who would join you? Is it teams, is it new agents at Navigate? We do have a mix of brand new agents all the way to 20 plus million dollars producers, but didn't always start out that way. We've grown as a company and are able to diversify that now, but I think when you're first starting out, you need to understand who your target audience is because if you cast such a wide net, you're not going to get everybody that you want. You may have an issue with retention. So you need to start very narrow. Who are the people that would benefit from joining your brokerage? And if you can define that, then it's time to hire a full-time recruiter. 

Speaker 3 (19:19):
Now, I look at this as people are like, oh, I don't want the salary. So whatever the salary is, you think about that for 12 months, but you're really hiring this person for 90 days. And if they are starting to add to the bottom line, so figure out whatever that salary looks like, whatever the bonus structure is, you want to provide to this person, how many agents need to be recruited, how many agents need to have a sale and within what timeframe for that position to make sense? And you'll be able to identify that early on 

Speaker 1 (19:52):
Some fix, some variable. It's not as big a risk as it looks like on its face because you, you're going to hire slow and fire fast. We already have a couple of elements of that 90 day experience. Did Jacqueline come from outside the organization? 

Speaker 3 (20:05):
Yes. 

Speaker 1 (20:05):
Yes she did. Okay. So in that beginning, whether it's specific to her, whether it's what you would recommend to someone else who's going in this direction, what does cultural immersion look like? How do you get someone steeped in the culture, the process so that they can get their own clear vision of what it is that they're representing and selling so that they can effectively recruit into that organization? Is it just hanging out at team meetings? Is it going through agent training? What are some steps that you would recommend to someone for that person in their first 90 days to really get a good handle on and get a good immersion into what they're representing? 

Speaker 3 (20:46):
Yeah, that's a great, I think it's connecting with the leadership team. I think it's tapping specific agents that have been on your team for a while to go to lunch with this person that you're hiring and talk about why it is they're there and what they love about it. Also, they could share what they like to see. It's tapping people on the shoulder to share their experiences. It's having this person sit in a team meeting, having them sit in a coaching appointment regardless if they're going to be coaching agents or not, but really immersing them in what it is we're doing and why we're doing it and why it's important. And talking about the transformation. I would say, for example, with a couple of our agents now, I know when Jacqueline first started, I said, Hey, this agent started, did not have any resources like car getting repossessed, all of these things happening in their life. 

Speaker 3 (21:37):
This lead program gave them the financial stability to now work it full-time, have a healthy SOI, all of the things. And then I want you to go out to lunch with them and hear their story. You have to tell these stories often, and they have to understand what the value proposition is. And then once they have stories, they'll start to create stories with the people they hire, and then you get more momentum there. But at first, it's us telling these stories, truly, I think we talked about this the last time we were together. A lot of people talk about culture, but a lot of people don't really know what it is or they may talk about it and then not implement it, or that's not something that's really at the top of their radar within their leadership meetings and their agents and this and that. 

Speaker 3 (22:22):
We do believe in culture, and I'd say that is one of the biggest reasons why we have that retention rate. Our leadership team is never going to gossip. We don't put up with any of that. We want everybody to feel like they belong and we want everybody to achieve their goals regardless if that's 10 transactions a year or a hundred, we want to be able to make that happen for them and be able to provide value for them to do that on their own. And I'd say for hiring anybody, it doesn't matter who we hire, that same thing applies as far as you're going to sit with every single person. You're going to know some of these stories, so then you can share that with agents that you're meeting with and then eventually you will have your own stories. 

Speaker 1 (23:07):
Yeah, the note I think I took around culture from our last conversation was people join people. People don't join value props. The value prop matters. You need to understand it. But that's not the way that I hear that when I talk to smart, accomplished folks like you is that the value prop from a nuts and bolts perspective is a checkbox. You got to fit some of these criteria. It has to make sense to them, but ultimately that's it is even for a kind of hardcore, logical, rational person, there's still an emotional decision there. And it's do I fit here? Do I belong here? And now I'm going to tie it into a couple of key words that I want to from your last share there, which is transformation and story. And both of those at some level are the same thing. I mean, the story is kind of the structure for the transformation. 

Speaker 1 (23:56):
It's the details, it's the color, it's the twists, et cetera. But that's essentially what we're selling. We're selling to someone a story of their own transformation and we need to see it. So when we have our value prop, we have our avatar, we know the type or types of people we want to be in conversation with. We have what I call proof of efficacy. We serve this kind of agent and we take them from here to there and here are three examples of it. And those stories of transformation are those three examples or that's that proof of efficacy that we can do that with you too. I love the idea of bringing your recruiter into stories, examples, et cetera. And then as you mentioned, they'll develop their own and they can pick up and tell those in perhaps in even more kind of convincing way. Not a story I've heard and I'm retelling. It's a story I've lived and helped bring to life myself. I'm a character in that story. 

Speaker 3 (24:49):
And just really quick just to kind of dig into that a little bit more, I think it's super important too for the person that's going to be meeting with all of these agents to really understand what is important to them. We don't do all the talking. We ask a question, open it up, and we listen to what is important to that person. And nine and a half times out of 10, it's training, support, culture, something along the lines of that. It's super important to them, but I think that is just important to highlight is listening and truly understanding if this person could be successful here. We do not hire everybody. That is one thing I will say we do not because not everybody is a good fit and we're not willing to compromise our agents if someone's like a record scratch. So we do not hire everyone, however we hear where they want to go and if they would be a good fit, we make sure we communicate that. 

Speaker 1 (25:45):
And I would also assume too, to the degree that, I mean, I assume Jacqueline knows the market really well, you might refer a bad fit to somebody else where they would be a good fit 

Speaker 3 (25:54):
Often. Yep, absolutely. 

Speaker 1 (25:56):
You don't need to go deep into the details, but you can go at whatever depth you prefer. What are the steps from We're going to have an initial conversation to this agent is now formally part of the brokerage and starting our onboarding program. 

Speaker 3 (26:13):
First and foremost, the appointments likely get scheduled by our two supporting positions that support our recruiter. They get scheduled. Jacqueline will then meet with them, chat with them, see if it's a good fit, and then it's ultimately up to her to decide if they're eligible for the onboarding. We have an onboarding every two weeks. The onboarding is two weeks long, and so we do our best to fill those as much as we can. And then we have the training director, Brittany, who is in charge of all of our trainings and then that it's Jacqueline's job to get agents to the training and then Brittany's job to make sure that we're very focused on helping them get under contract in 30 days or less. 

Speaker 1 (26:59):
Okay. And what pace of hiring were we at when we ended up with a department? Because someone's listening, they're like, okay, because you said fill it up as much as we can. Are we talking about you can support this structure with three agents or is it 12 agents every two weeks? Or is it, what kind of pace of hiring at any given time suggested that this was a necessary and appropriate structure to manage what you all were producing? 

Speaker 3 (27:30):
I just saw it honestly, and I went and chatted with our recruiter about it and she's like, I think I'm good. I think I'm good, but I could see it in the background. She's going to get overwhelmed. I don't want her burning out. We're just going to do it. So I ran an ad for someone who does not have real estate experience, this lady, she's awesome. All she did in her past was recruiting talent acquisition. And so when I met with her, I was like, oh my gosh, she's fantastic. And what we really needed is somebody to source and call out of our corded system or whatever it could be, and be able to understand our culture, understand our value proposition, and someone that's okay with hearing nos because that's such a high burnout job when you're calling all day. But she loves it. And I think that's important. 

Speaker 3 (28:22):
We had tried other, I kept it very real estate specific at first, and it just never worked out. And so when we branched out and we hired someone who did not have experience in real estate, had experience in recruiting talent acquisition, that's what she had done forever. I mean, she's used to that. And so she has even brought more creative ways that we didn't even think about to be able to stack the deck for our main recruiter. But by the way, we don't call our recruiter chief of people because that really is what she is. But just using this for so everybody can understand. But yeah, I mean it worked out beautifully. And then the other person that's in this role, he had started out with us, gosh, a year and a half ago now, and he same background now, although he is licensed, he had never sold real estate. 

Speaker 3 (29:13):
He had only been an ISA, only been a recruiter that called people. And so he was used to that. So I think that's more important than having a real estate license when you're looking for these individuals. Now, when you hire your chief of people or director of growth or whatever you want to call them, I think it is important to have some real estate. I don't think it's necessary. You can have this person that doesn't have experience, but I think it's helpful because they can relate to some of the agents that they're interviewing, but the other people that are booking appointments for this person, it's not necessary to have your real estate license. In fact, I've never hired someone beyond the one person that didn't have any experience who just had a license that had been successful in that role. So I think because if they were successful in that role, right? Think about it, they would be a successful agent because that's what you have to do. You have to follow up all day or a couple of hours a day. Follow up is key. And if you've got an agent doing that, why wouldn't they do that for themselves? And so I've found that going outside of real estate has been key. 

Speaker 1 (30:15):
That type of person who has some experience in talent acquisition or recruiting, but not necessarily any real estate experience is out there. They're out there right now. And I'll just give you one reference point for it. I've been in the software business for a dozen, and there was a period when interest rates were almost nothing. When money was cheap, there was a ton of money flowing into software businesses and they were hiring like crazy. The beginning of the pandemic set that off, and that went super crazy. There was just so much movement. And so there were a lot of people in these roles of hiring and moving people in and getting them onboarded and all these types of things. But obviously when interest rates functionally tripled a couple few years back, that dramatically changed that business. And you're just not hiring as much if at all in a lot of businesses. And so there were a ton of these folks just in my little corner of the universe software, which I assume there are a ton of those people in the Raleigh Durham area as well, but they're all over the country. So I just say whether it's out of that situation or another one, those people are available. And I also get the parallel you mentioned to the ISA, now I'm seeing it very much as the ISA is to the real estate agent, qualification, appointment setting, et cetera. So too is maybe this role in front of the head of people, new question, does retention fall under the head of people as well or the chief people? What did you call the chief? 

Speaker 3 (31:49):
Chief people officer? Yes, there. And it does. It absolutely does. And she will in leadership meetings, check that when we talk about a certain thing and maybe one leader will mention, Hey, I think we should try this. It's her job to be like, how's that going to feel? Right? And that's something that we talk about all the time. And so yes, very much that is her job retention. She's very focused on, yes, recruiting, but also the retention piece. 

Speaker 1 (32:14):
Yeah. Okay. So we established that people join people. That culture matters a lot. I'm going to kind of double into that a little bit more, but take it to the other piece that needs to be there, kind of like the way the value prop needs to make sense. I can love you, but if it doesn't make any business sense for me to partner with you and join the brokerage, then it doesn't make sense. 

Speaker 2 (32:33):
Yeah, 

Speaker 1 (32:34):
Likewise. I can feel really great about joining the organization. I heard some good stories of, but ultimately, if I don't get ramped up and into production, it's still not going to work for me. This's, another checkbox element. So talk a little bit about this. Okay, now I'm committed. You already mentioned a story of people getting into contracts right away because people can't afford to wait six to 12 months. What are a few key pieces that you've put into place or what are a couple of hard learned lessons over the years of bringing people into the brokerage that now you have this kind of systematic proven process that works most of the time with most people if they do most of the stuff according to the formula? 

Speaker 3 (33:22):
And are we speaking of someone who may be falling short and not having that specific, 

Speaker 1 (33:26):
No, just what did onboarding look like before versus what does it look like today? What are some tips around how to make sure that people make this transition well and start getting some of the value and benefit that they were hoping for and expecting in hearing stories of transformation? 

Speaker 3 (33:42):
So we're on version 3.0 of our onboarding and training. 

Speaker 1 (33:48):
Give us a snapshot of the three versions and maybe what sent you from V one to V two, V two to V three. 

Speaker 3 (33:54):
Well, I was always very passionate because I learn through action. And so for me, when we talked about onboarding and training, there had to be an element of inaction training, not just sitting in a classroom because most people don't absorb. So we've always been very focused on you learn, you put that into action, but then you go, if that makes sense. So you learn, prepare, do. That's a better analogy. But yeah, I mean the version 1.0 was, I mean, I think you have to make space as an organization to make these mistakes. You've got to try things, you've got to see what works, what doesn't work. It's not always going to be rainbows and butterflies. And now we have such a dialed in training, very systematic, but we didn't start out that way. Things were loosey goosey. I remember sitting in a meeting, I'm like, why are we talking about buyers on the first day and then this on the last day just doesn't make sense. 

Speaker 3 (34:50):
And so things felt really messy. And as a team, we sat around a table and it was a lot. I mean, everybody left feeling overwhelmed and like, wow, this is a lot. How are we going to reinvent this? But that's what it takes to be able to make these changes. That's what it takes. It's always going to feel like mess when you're trying to innovate a program or the onboarding, the training, whatever you may be innovating at that time. So we just kept going and kept dialing it back. One day we would tackle one subject and then say, this makes sense here. We put it on a board so we could visualize and see it kept moving things around. And then finally we were like, version 2.0, this is it. And then version 2.0, we ran a few classes, we came back and we were like, all right, this worked. 

Speaker 3 (35:35):
This didn't work. Let's figure out a way to move these pieces around. And now we've got a training that we will continuously reinvent for sure. But now we're looking at platforms to support the in-person training, right? This is a real version 3.0. We're so proud of our training and onboarding. I put it up against anybody's and the agents. We always make sure that we're getting feedback after we send blind surveys. We want you to tell us the truth about how this is going because that's how we can get better. We don't have all the answers. We want you to tell us what did you like? What didn't you, what could we improve on? And I think you've got to take that feedback in order to innovate anything and consider it. And so that's where we are now. But yeah, I'm super proud of how far we've come, but it did not start out that way. And I think anybody listening to this today, give yourself a little bit of grace. Just be proactive and determine that you're revisiting it. You may know it's not the best, but then what does the best look like for you with where you are right now? And that's what I would keep going back to. 

Speaker 1 (36:39):
I love that. I love so many elements of it specifically like be okay with what you have with the ambition to make it better in addition to being not just open for feedback, but going into, and I'll also pick up, you said almost any innovation could be pursued in this way. You go into it, you set some goals, and maybe those are generally quantitative. You got to be able to measure some aspect of it. We want to see agents doing this on average over the next six months rolling or something blended with that verbatim feedback or that qualitative feedback from the people experiencing it directly. And you take all of that and just keep moving forward. I really appreciate a V three of anything because it's so easy to bring something to life and let V one sit on the shelf because now my attention is over here and I'm distracted and I got to fix this thing. 

Speaker 1 (37:24):
I got to fix that. There are always things that need to be fixed. And so some dedication to getting to V two once V one is live is a thing. I want to go high level for a couple of minutes as we wind down. And in the beginning you mentioned I saw some of the changes going on in the industry and I knew now I'm maybe not paraphrasing as closely. I knew I needed to do Navigate to be able to do things my own way in light of where I think the industry is going. And I would love for you to give a little bit more color there. What have you seen about the decade prior and what do you see coming over the next three to five years that made you observe that there was a shift going on? What are some of the elements of the shift that people should be paying attention to? 

Speaker 3 (38:11):
Yeah, I think for me, when I first started in real estate, I think the brokerage that you chose really mattered. And I don't think it does anymore. I really don't. I think the agent matters more than the brokerage, and that's just the reality of the situation. People hire people, they're not hiring your brokerage. And that transformation has been happening, but really and truly now, you can look at some of the layers that have been a big brokerage for a while in the industry. Their numbers aren't doing that great because they haven't innovated what their current structure is. And again, it does work for some people. This is just my opinion. And I saw the real estate industry going more towards big team brokerages, and that was for me. I thought, man, this is really happening and we've got to get in front of this. And so what I love about Navigate, and again, people aren't hiring because you work at Navigate. 

Speaker 3 (39:11):
They're hiring you because you are a competent agent that they trust. Now we do our best to make you look good, have the best marketing, have the best that you can have access to. But at the end of the day, it's up to the agent to win that business. But the one thing that I can say as far as the brokerage is concerned, we give the agent the brand awareness. We celebrate the agent on social media. Although we operate as a team, it's still very much the agents are independent and they are able to, if they want to create a logo, if whatever they want to do, if they want to start a team, that's okay. We want them to go to the highest level that they can go to within Navigate. So we are here to help support them. And I think with that flexibility, it's been working so far. 

Speaker 1 (40:03):
If anyone wants to go deeper on some of the topics that we covered, Tiffany is going to be joining me in a previous real estate team, west guest, Jeffrey McGonigal, in a 90 minute recruiting workshop, we're going to do hands-on agent avatars, value props, marketing funnels, where are we going to find the right people and bring them in, et cetera, et cetera. That's going to be at Unlock, and that is not very far away. Link down below if you want to learn more about that. Tiffany, before I let you go, I always love to close with three pairs of closing questions. You can answer one or the other, or both if you prefer. Some people do prefer both. What is your very favorite team to root for besides Navigate or what is the best team you've ever been a member of? Besides Navigate? 

Speaker 3 (40:45):
I remember it would have to be back in my cosmetic days, we had such an amazing team. We were number one as far as the events that we would do in the store, and we were a smaller brand, so that was such a big deal. And I have felt this at Navigate, but I will tell you the pride that I felt from achieving those goals and the team around me. It's just something that it's tough to describe. So I would say back in the days of probably almost two decades ago now, it was a really special team and I am so grateful I was a part of it. 

Speaker 1 (41:20):
That's great. What is one of your most frivolous purchases, or what's a cheapskate habit you hold onto, even though you probably don't need to? 

Speaker 3 (41:28):
I should be a cheapskate. I wish I was, so that, I'll have to answer the other one. I would say one thing that comes to mind is I did recently purchase my first Chanel bag, so that was, I don't know if it was frivolous, because they do hold their value. But yeah, I definitely wanted to, I'd always wanted one. I love it. I love the brand. I wore the makeup for years, and I would say that was a splurge that I wasn't uncomfortable with, but I did it anyway. 

Speaker 1 (41:56):
Really good. Was it a reward for something in particular? I hear that story a lot. 

Speaker 3 (41:59):
Yeah. Yes and no. Yeah, I think so. I very much work hard all the time. I'm always on. It doesn't matter if I'm on vacation, it doesn't matter. And I love it. I would not change that ever. But there was a milestone that we had hit and I thought, you know what? If I'm ever going to do it, and by the way, it was secondhand, so I did not buy it brand new. It was much cheaper than what you would get in the store. But we went to this place in the Highlands, North Carolina. It's a beautiful place, but downtown they have this secondhand back store. So my friend Tracy and I go in and it's in the window and I'm like, man, I just got the news that we hit this milestone. Why not? There may have been a drink involved, but I wouldn't change it. 

Speaker 1 (42:45):
What does it look like? What are you doing when you're investing time in learning, growing and developing, or what does it look like? What are you doing when you're investing time in resting, relaxing, and recharging? 

Speaker 3 (42:58):
Well, one of the things that we didn't talk about today, I'm an investor. My husband and I are investors. We own around 25, mostly short-term rentals. And so when I am relaxing and recharging, I am learning about design, how to figure out the latest algorithms, whatever we can do to make sure that our short-term rentals are operating at 80% plus capacity. That's our goal. That is what we do in our spare time husband, he runs that division full time as well as our rentals department. But I would say my spare time goes to figuring out how we can maximize whatever we're doing and just make it better. And then if I really do want to disconnect, I'd love a good spa experience. So any spa wellness retreat. Most recently I went to this place called Canyon Ranch in Tucson. I would highly recommend it. It was incredible. And just focusing on health and wellness and recharging so I can be the best version for my team. 

Speaker 1 (44:02):
Awesome. If someone has gotten to this point, they probably have enjoyed the time together, and they may want to connect with you online. If they might want to learn more about Navigate Realty, where would you send people to follow up on this conversation? 

Speaker 3 (44:13):
Yeah, go to Instagram. If you look at Tiffany Williamson, you'll find me on there. Please feel free to DM me. You can also reach out to me via email. If you Google my name Tiffany Williamson, my number will come up. I'm sure all the things. So I am not the best at checking my voicemails because I get a ton of just calls that are not meant for me. But please do feel free to text me, but I think the best place would be Instagram. 

Speaker 1 (44:42):
Awesome. That is linked up right down below in the description. By the way, spam likely is my most, most common caller. I also, 

Speaker 2 (44:49):
Oh gosh, 

Speaker 1 (44:51):
Don't listen to any of those voicemails. I appreciate you so much. I look forward to meeting in person, and I appreciate this time together today. 

Speaker 3 (44:57):
Thank you so much, Ethan. I appreciate it. 

Speaker 1 (44:59):
Thanks 

Speaker 2 (44:59):
For checking out this episode of Team Os. Get quick insights all the time by checking out real estate team Os on Instagram and on TikTok.