Jennifer Hendry: Faith, Focus and Integrity

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Jennifer Hendry  1:46  

Hey, this is Jennifer Hendry at cross view Realty. If you're looking to improve your real estate business, you need to be listening to the real estate excellent podcast with my good friend Tracy Hayes.

Podcast Intro  1:56  

Welcome to Real Estate Excellence, making lasting connections to the best of the best of the best in today's industry, elite. We'll help you expand your circle of influence by introducing you to the leaders in the real estate industry, whether it's top agents who execute at a high level every day, or the many support services working behind the scenes. We'll share their stories, ideologies and the inner workings of how they run a truly successful business and show you how to add their tools to your belt. Now, please welcome the host with the most Tracy Hayes,

Tracy Hayes  2:29  

Hey, welcome back to The Real Estate excellence podcast. Your host. Tracy Hayes, my guest today is the broker and co owner of the number 39 of the fastest 50 growing companies in Jacksonville in 2022 recognized by Jack's Business Journal. They made this list now three years in a row. Yep, her brokerage is opening a new office November 5. She's very excited about it, putting furniture together last night and having a huge grand opening party that all must attend. So we're going to definitely post those highlights on our Facebook. Her faith is very much part of her business. She is dedicated to helping people in real estate sales and property management while upholding the highest level of integrity. Let's welcome Jennifer Hendry of cross view Realty to the show. Thank you so much. Thank you, Jennifer coming on. I know I had Steven on, I think, about a month or so ago, and really had a great conversation with him and what you guys are doing and growing. And I, I think we need to get out and share with everybody what's going on across you and why are, why are more and more agents joining your your team?

Jennifer Hendry  3:32  

Yeah, so I have one correction, okay, I'm not the co owner. I actually own it. I bought my business partner out years ago. Okay?

Tracy Hayes  3:39  

I saw that somewhere. So once I get that corrected somewhere on your social media that might have been on the LinkedIn we were talking about prior to the show.

Jennifer Hendry  3:46  

But my husband does work with me, so I guess I can fall with the co owner with him. Okay, all right, we'll

Tracy Hayes  3:53  

go that way. That is all shout out that that's that's great news. And I will lead as we go through your story and get in there, and you know your why, so we're going to dig a little bit into that. But what I really like to get out to everyone in that, you know, listening, obviously, agents are listening all the time to the show, hopefully a new agent, or maybe an agent who's just hit a lid somewhere, and they're looking to somewhere where they're getting that added value. Again, some of the stuff we were talking about pre show adding value to the agents. And, you know, get a little bit of about you, learn about you and cross view today. So, so as always, we're going to kick it off with, where are you from?

Jennifer Hendry  4:32  

I was actually born in Jacksonville, which is not super common. My parents to work. So I was about two and a half, and I moved to Tallahassee with my mom. My dad always lived here, if you're familiar with Carol's meat shop in town. My family owned those, and my cousin actually still owns one off University. Oh, cool, actually, university, and then Old St Augustine so and came back here for college, and just kind of like said always been, really the I 10 Tallahassee and Jacksonville, excellent.

Tracy Hayes  4:59  

Yeah. Now what's I read on there? The obviously, I know what UNF is. What is the Mac clay

Jennifer Hendry  5:05  

school? McLay, McLay. So

Tracy Hayes  5:09  

m, A, C, L, E, Y, or LA, okay, yeah, that's why I mistyped it on my notes.

Jennifer Hendry  5:14  

So it's, it's kind of actually the equivalent to bowls in Tallahassee. They don't board. But when Jacksonville got evacuated, I forget which hurricane it was, the bulls boarding kids actually came to our school in Tallahassee and stayed in our gym. So the head of schools for both are pretty close, but that's the easiest equivalent that I can put it towards.

Tracy Hayes  5:33  

Okay, so you end up going to UNF to get your undergraduate degree. I mean, at that time, what was your, if I finance, was your major? What was your What was your vision at that time of what Jennifer was going

Jennifer Hendry  5:47  

to do for a career? I had no idea. My dad was a regional vice president for primerica, which was part of Citigroup. And so at 19 I took all those tests. I had a life help, variable annuities, prepaid, legal. Had all those license. I actually had a mortgage broker's license for a little while, until they changed the laws where you had to take the extra test. Yeah, that's why I decided not to keep that one. I was like, No, thank you. So because I was already in that world, I had a series six and 63 license going into college, basically. And true. So I figured Investment Finance would be the easiest route, and it was, got in trouble with some several professors because I knew more than they did, because I actually had the license. And I'm like, No, this is wrong. I just took that state test, like, less than a year ago. Oh, wow. So that was a I wanted to get in and out as fast as possible. Interesting.

Tracy Hayes  6:38  

I mean, you're talking, you're, what did you like? You're like, 20 years old, and you took the test.

Jennifer Hendry  6:43  

I was, yeah, like 1919. And 20 was the two years I took pretty much everything. I mean,

Tracy Hayes  6:47  

what kind of prep did? You know, there's a lot of studying involved in that test, isn't it? You saw something, you know, the mortgage test for me when Florida started having requiring that test. I'd already been in the business numerous years, so the lingo and everything already knew that, so I didn't have to study those, the basics. You know, it was more like when the renewal was and how much the renewal was for the state of Florida, right? Real important stuff. So, but for for the series seven, I mean, that takes a lot of that takes time and studying, doesn't it?

Jennifer Hendry  7:19  

It's not, it does. I'm just weird. That's probably the best way where you have

Tracy Hayes  7:23  

one of those people just absorbs it. You have a photographic type, damn. Or you just, okay, it just clicks with you.

Jennifer Hendry  7:29  

And I wasn't a partier. I had nothing better to do than I mean, I was school and then work and whatever else I needed to do. I just, I didn't really have social life. I still don't. I'm a homebody. But, yeah. I mean, when you don't have anything else to distract yourself, why not grow and learn and do something with it? So eventually you do

Tracy Hayes  7:47  

work for several large builder in the market. But I mean, so you have this degree in finance, you have the licenses. Do you actually go into that field? Yeah.

Jennifer Hendry  7:59  

So I was actually part of prime America for a while. What I didn't care for it was, I wasn't about the recruiting aspect of it. I really liked helping people. It's, it's actually a very much so core value of mine, you know, the getting, you know, getting out of debt, buy term, invest, the difference. I mean, all of those things are a lot of who I am. And so I did it for a while, but it wasn't anything I didn't want to be across the table for somebody and have to make a sale so I could pay a mortgage or so I could eat. And so I only did it on the side, and with the thought of, well, let's see where it goes. When I was in college, I there was I ended up with Pulte as an intern because they needed somebody Friday, Saturday and Sunday. And I went to college Monday through Thursday. Oh, and they paid the most per hour. So I was like, this is a no brainer. And I sat in the model, and I was the greeter. Wolf Creek actually, on Beach Boulevard was my first location. Oh, cool. Back when they were building that. And so I just happened to get into it only because it paid the most. And I never thought it would actually turn into a career

Tracy Hayes  8:56  

for me. I don't do it. I mean, the builders do that anymore. When I was in Northern Virginia for most of the 90s, that was a common thing to have that greeter, you know, again, a college student, that type of person, to come in and least greet or on during the slow times to be there. Do any? Are any of the builders doing that anymore, at least

Jennifer Hendry  9:14  

locally, not that I'm aware of, and have it for years. I mean, back then, you got to realize that was an oh five so, I mean, it was crazy. So they the it was to the point where the person greeting was keeping everybody in the model office right while the sales people were writing contracts. And as soon as wanted to free up, I would find the person that was next in line, connect them with that sales person. And that mean that was essentially my job.

Tracy Hayes  9:36  

It's it's slowed down a little bit now, but last year, those having some of those greeters? Because I know exactly you're from you when you're in retail in another life, 20 years plus ago. Well, actually have it just short of 20 years right at the moment, because I've been in this business, I went from the retail stores. But having those, those greeters, is so important. And when some. One walks in the door. You know, we kind of laugh now, like you walk into Firehouse Subs and everyone says, Hey, how you doing? You know, kind of like the most, kind of like cheers and hey, what was that character's name? I can't remember. Or many years ago, at a mattress company that everyone knows here in town, it was important when someone walked in the door. And on a Saturday, every salesperson, a lot of times, you only had two people, and they're, everyone's busy. If someone you know said something that person walk in the door, otherwise they'd walk in and turn around and go out and go to another store. You know, kind of not even realizing but it's because you didn't greet them and didn't recognize that they

Jennifer Hendry  10:34  

were there. And it's so important. I mean, my husband myself, we're guilty of that. If we go into a store and somebody does not say hi. You know, welcome. Hey, I'm so sorry. I'll be with you shortly. If we don't really, really want something in that store, we're gone. And it doesn't help that we usually dress like bombs, and so people probably think that we can't afford anything in the store. But still, it's it's definitely happened multiple times, and we just, we just leave.

Tracy Hayes  10:57  

I remember just that brings up a story. A few years ago, we were in up in North Carolina, and my wife and I walked were the small town we walked in one of these furniture stores, high end furniture stores. And, yeah, I don't know if we were under dressed. There was, there was a couple in there that definitely, least they looked the part and that they were but it was only, you know, you kind of got that, that greeting, kind of like the Beverly you see the stories of you in Beverly Hills on Rodeo Drive, like somebody walks in and they don't even want to talk to him, like, because they're already evaluating their dress. But anyway, we don't do that here in Northeast Florida, because we have a lifestyle. And like, I was talking to Cole slate on Monday or last week. I'm sorry. You know he's, he's a flip flop guy, and I and, and I'm wearing my, I got my shorts on because it's a little warmer today at jeans all week. But that's our that's our lifestyle. And so really, here, there's what's that's one of the great things. I think you'd agree north, you can go out to Ponte VRA, where, you know, you could be walking among some, you know, CEO, or, you know, their, you know, family money, or whatever it is out there and not know it because they're just dressed in T shirts and shorts and look like they just came off the beach too?

Jennifer Hendry  12:05  

Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, there's the people that want to stand out, and that's probably not the people you want to be around, yeah. And then there's people that blend in, and you'd be surprised if you take the time to get to know a lot of the people that are dressed pretty poorly, you know, you'd be surprised, they might be some of the wealthiest people,

Tracy Hayes  12:21  

yes, no doubt, no doubt. All right, let's get back so we so you start getting a taste of real estate. You're still at UNF. You join up with polti, but you literally for about 10 years, if I saw on your LinkedIn correctly, roughly 10 years between polti standard, Pacific and Cal Atlantic in their marketing department. You start running some marketing departments for some of these. Our departments for some of these large builders, and some of them need

Jennifer Hendry  12:46  

that help today, for sure. Yeah, it was a an interesting I really wanted to be a VP of Sales and Marketing, and so I was in the sales side and sat at several models. Once I got my license and sold there. Made it through, you know, the crazy times. And then one of the division presidents, Jim Burke Holtz, actually, he was running Sarah Pacific at the time, they brought him in to run the Jacksonville division. We bought a house, or we were under contract in nakati, in Greenland Chase, or Greenland Chase, Greenland Lake, something. First houses in nakati, yes, yeah. And we were under contract. And basically he said, I want to, I want you to come over and do our marketing. And I said, Well, I don't know how much I'm gonna make, so you gotta let me out of my contract of my house. And he did. He said, You're out. Just come work for me. So I did that, and then worked my way up, actually, my sales and marketing, VP of Sales and Marketing, she went on maternity leave, and so I got to run the entire division for that when she was gone, and when she came back, we, we weren't quite eye to eye. And so that was, I think there was a rough transition back towards her. And so that was when I just kind of was like, All right, it's time to go. And two weeks later I was

Tracy Hayes  13:53  

gone, so that that that was Standard Pacific that moved then you went over to Cal Atlantic.

Jennifer Hendry  13:57  

Well, Standard Pacific merged with Ryland, and they became Cal Atlantic. Oh, and you know what's really funny about that? They when we were in the room, and they were like, Okay, we're merging with Rylan. We're gonna become this new company, Cal Atlantic, and we're doing it so big company, so big company, can't buy us out like Lennar. And after I left Cal Atlantic, not too much longer, Lennar bought Cal Atlantic out. That was the builder they used that. Hey, we're doing this merge, so big companies like Lennar won't buy us out. Interesting. It was very,

Tracy Hayes  14:28  

yeah, that's kind of funny. So that can kind of more or less to, like an abrupt stop for you, like you just kind of enter, is this something like, Okay, it looks like I'm going to end here. Let me start looking to make that because I your resume on LinkedIn, it looks like you go from Cal Atlantic, basically into your first brokerage, unreal

Jennifer Hendry  14:47  

to Yeah. So working with home builder, you can't sell any of your own real estate. So I had someone named Chris Hone, and he was the one who I referred all of my stuff to. That was not new construction. So. He actually sold my town home that I had at the time, my husband's grandfather's house, his aunt's house, things like that. And when I was thinking about making that switch, I'm gonna give Josh Rogers some props here, because I knew him from he worked at Del Webb Pulte back when I did and he was somebody that I called and I said, Hey, what is it like to go into general you know, what do you wish that you would have known? And he basically said that he just, he loved it. He's glad he made that switch. And there was just a few things he said that kind of resonate with me. And started that kind of going, you know, that bubbling in your stomach, of, okay, maybe this is something I need to consider. And so I prayed about it, and really, I was very much at peace about not leaving. And then one day I woke up and I was like, I gotta go. And my husband's like, Wait, hold on a second. We need to breathe for a minute. And I think he convinced me to wait two weeks before I put my two weeks notice in. So it was, it was very much so switch for me and I had met along when all that was going on, I met with Chris and Chris Hone, and we sat down. I was like, Hey, have you ever wanted to have a business partner? And he's like, Yeah, I've been looking for somebody, but couldn't find anybody that worked as hard as he did. And I said, Well, I'm thinking about making a switch in a general you know, would you want to partner with me? And he was like, Yes. And then his wife and him, and my husband and myself, we all sat down and decided that we were going to do this. And so he was at edge, not the edge out at Ponte vras, a smaller edge brokerage. I think she only had like 10 agents, and he was there, so I hung my license with them. He was going to go be our broker. With the intention, we were always going to open a company. And when, a week before, he went to go take his brokers class, he was like, you can't also own a brokerage unless you have a broker. If you have a real estate license, you can't be an owner unless you're a broker. So the week before, I signed up for broker class two, which was not expected, and we did that that summer, and then we opened cross view as soon as we could, right after that, about a month and a half

Tracy Hayes  16:52  

later, because I saw the little brief time that you were with. Okay, that's how it explains the edge part. So diving right into your your first brokerage, I mean, without, yeah, I mean, I told you weird, yeah. Well, you take massive action, which a lot of top people will tell you, if you make the decision, and, you know, take massive action, don't sit there and dwell upon it, which, I mean, you you did, but for a very brief period of time, most people probably would took years, and what you did in in two weeks, or even just the, you know, the couple nights you were praying there to settle your mind and that this is what you were going to do. So well, how much of was your partner's experience at this time

Jennifer Hendry  17:31  

he had done, oh gosh, I want to say that he was making ride around six figures being his one man shop.

Tracy Hayes  17:38  

Okay, so he had, he had been doing, even if it was just for a few years, he was doing really well. Yeah, he was, he got it. He was doing

Jennifer Hendry  17:45  

he's phenomenal with people, with customers. He just, he's just, he's a great person, and I wouldn't be where I am today without him.

Tracy Hayes  17:53  

So, all right, so he's got a little, he's got a, would imagine, least a few years experience on the retail side. Yes, you're bringing in new construction, new construct. But I mean, obviously you're, you're involved. You're around these agents all the time, because you're, you're working with them, you're, you've got experience marketing, you know, new construction homes. So, I mean, you're putting all these pieces together. So I get what I'm, what I'm looking for is when you go to cross you, and I think it's very important, as I say on every show, every brokerage is a little different. They some are really good at, you know, the super green agents that are coming out, or you got, like an Ingalls and Volcker, who are looking for experienced agents and proven agents, and they want to take them to another level. What are you guys? Well, I'm sure, what was your partner's name again, Chris, what were you, Chris, you know, a sense of creating an ideology. Or was this something like, Hey, we're just going to, we're going to go create this on the fly, you know, across that like, yeah, so you're jumping in. I mean, what was your initial vision? Or did you even have a vision of, like, where you're at today, and the number of agents Was that something that was in your cards?

Jennifer Hendry  19:04  

Yeah, so it's changed a lot, but what I used to say is, I want to be bigger than Watson. And the reason that I was saying that, you still say that, I don't, and I'll tell you why in a minute, but that was my original thought. And the reason why I said that was because there's, you know, kW was here, and cold banker and everybody else, but they were all franchises, right? So if you actually looked at Watson, with Bill Watson owning it, it actually, really was by far the largest brokerage taking out, you know, you know, if you actually separate the different franchises out, and I am one of those that, hey, let's shoot for the moon or shoot for the stars or whatever, and if we don't quite get there, we still went pretty far, right? So I think primerica did that for me. Set goals really, really big. And even if you don't hit them, and that's not how I feel today, if you don't hit them, at least you've you've really gone far, you haven't capped yourself essentially, right? And so when we started cross view, it was, I think, more of a you. The two of us that are going to do it. We didn't. We didn't know how the whole team was going to work. We didn't know what kind of agents we wanted to bring on anything like that. We actually wanted we're going to be 100% brokerage. Was our plan when we were going into the brokerage class. And by the time we got done with that class, I'm like, I'm not going to be responsible for all these people. And, you know, I've got to get compensated for looking at paperwork and training them and making sure that they're doing a good job. You're adding Yeah. And so during our brokers class, we actually made the switch that we weren't going to be 100% brokerage. And it

Tracy Hayes  20:30  

explained that a little bit to me, because I don't know what that what does

Jennifer Hendry  20:33  

it mean when you say 100% Oh, sorry. Commission structures so your commission splits with your agents board of all the mortgage

Tracy Hayes  20:39  

rights you know you were going to keep the roof over the office by just charging a brokerage fee to the it's

Jennifer Hendry  20:47  

usually a small, a small fee. It could be like a monthly fee, transaction fee. It can be a small percentage. They call it 100% but a lot of times it's like point 00, 2% of the sales price. So fee, okay, yeah, exactly. Very minimal. Not enough that you can you have to have, it's a great model, but you got to have a lot of people. And it just when we were going through that class, we just realized that wasn't for us

Tracy Hayes  21:09  

right to get going in the time and energy that you need to put in to get the return. All right. So we talked about what your the initial steps in getting in. Tell me a little about the time you spent marketing, because I think it's a joke right now. What's going on? As far as our builders were literally 12 months ago, they didn't even want to see a real estate agent. Now they're begging you to come in paying you 5% commission.

Jennifer Hendry  21:34  

Oh, got a text yesterday. There's 6% on anything that can close this year. 6% real trick mission got that yesterday from agent 6%

Tracy Hayes  21:43  

to the to the buyer's agents, getting 6% people, yes, not, not split between the buyers and sellers a buyer's agent, if they, if they can sell one of their spec cones by the end of the year that, I mean, that's actually, it's not actually I laugh. And the reason why I laugh is not because of the situation. It's because they're having to do it. That's obviously a sad part. The why I laugh is when I was working with a large builder myself from the lending side, and looking at their marketing department being very primitive, almost as if, like, Okay, well, we call them our marketing department. They're doing some social media stuff or whatever they were not doing like, I mean, how many cocktail parties have you been invited to by the builders recently? You know, come over, we're gonna take you out and do the art class, or, you know, the things they do to entertaining agents. They weren't doing any of that.

Jennifer Hendry  22:33  

Yeah, it's changed a lot. You know, back when I was doing it, they were still doing, you know, going to this agents offices and bringing breakfast and then doing events at the models. I mean, some of the grand openings. I mean, I remember in Del Webb, down in nakati, we had a car show. I mean, we brought in tons of amazing cars and did a huge event, and the agents came in before the customers came in. So then they kind of got that preview, and definitely wined and dined.

Tracy Hayes  23:01  

And I will did you go to, did you go to the rebar event back last spring?

Jennifer Hendry  23:07  

No, I'm, like I said, I'm very anti social,

Tracy Hayes  23:11  

but I was surprised there was no builder there, not I don't maybe there was a builder there, but I didn't see him. I guarantee you watch the rebar event this spring. Everybody there will be representing. They'd want it. They want to get out in front. So coming from that, you know, being involved in that marketing, and what have you taken from what you've learned in your experience with worth the builders, and now you're at cross view. And I think marketing is two edge sword for you is you're not our only marketing the brand. You're recruit agents, but obviously to attract the obviously consumer to call you as well. So you're working a little way with the builder. You're probably, you're more or less just working towards the consumer, but you're still recruiting. You want to show agents that, hey, we're, we're doing this first class. So what are some of the things that you took from there, that you or in maybe even tweaked, you know, not directly took from, but that you learned that worked from the builder side to where you're at now.

Jennifer Hendry  24:04  

This is where I think a lot of people are gonna disagree with me, because so many people are still stuck. I feel like in the old ways and the just listed postcards and all of all of those different things, and being in the new new construction world, I mean, my budget was well over a million dollars in marketing a year just for Jacksonville. And if we had openings for communities, I mean, that even increased that. But it was like, we, we spent all those monies. I was we had ads in certain magazines. We we did the postcards, we did this, and I saw what actually drove traffic and what didn't interesting. And so what I one of the struggles that I have when I'm recruiting agents is because they get, they go to other brokerages and talk to them, and they're like, Well, we do this and we do that, and I'm like, I don't do any of that, but it's because I never, even with a massive budget, I never saw those results. So it's like, I would rather spend our money on other things. And so some people get that, and some agents don't, right? And I think. One of the biggest things. But I had, like, said I mentioned his name a minute ago, Jim Burke Holtz, he was amazing. He really helped me grow confidence. He let me sit in rooms I should not have been in. And I helped. I actually was flowed out to California to meet with architects, design floor plans, mana villa, my mom actually named that community. I The original duplex plans. The ones Lennar builds now are not the same, but the other ones, I was in California with the architects, and we designed those together cool. So I just really was exposed to a lot of the business. He really allowed me to be a part of all of the different vice presidents, you know, for land and finance and construction, and they just all really allowed me to be a part of it, and so I just took all of that and moved it over to my brokerage. And like I said, it's some people agree with me. Some people don't. I don't. I don't do most of the traditional things. I'm big on photography. I'm big on how houses look when they go out. I just create a buyer's packet, because I've never needed one. But then I've realized that just because I didn't need it and I was successful doesn't mean that Susie Q that comes over doesn't need it. So that's really where I'm learning right now, is I'm trying to change and do things for agents that was necessarily stuff they don't need. But especially a newer agent, they think they need all these things, right? And it's like, you really don't, right, just go be you, knowledge and go be you, I mean.

Tracy Hayes  26:27  

And if they're listening to this podcast, they would hear much of what you're saying. You know, there are some agents that put together some great listening pack, yeah, where others will tell you, they just, they just go out and be them and and understand what the client's wanting to do, and obviously create the strategy there, but to kind of give us, give us something to chew on there, a little bit like something maybe you learn, you know, one of those things you learn not to do because you saw the results didn't work as the builder, so you're not doing it now, or something you saw there that you are doing, or maybe tweaked.

Jennifer Hendry  27:02  

So broker open houses, having the agents actually come to the models. Most of the people that go to those, now, they're, I don't want to generalize, and I'm going to make somebody listening mad, I'm sure, and I don't, I don't mean to, so I apologize. But most of the people that go to those, they don't have a customer, they aren't going to bring you a buyer, they are just there for the free food, and

Tracy Hayes  27:23  

so pretend they're, well, do I mean, we know, and this is discussed all the time, so you're not throwing I'll throw people out there because I've done it before where you have a marketing campaign going on, or you, you know, I'm a loan officer and I'm teamed up with some other support vendors, insurance, movers, whatever. And what we realized after a short period of time, the same people show up, yeah, and they're not, and they Yeah, they have your lunch, and they and they sober, but they actually very few are actually referring, and the ones that are referring are actually not the ones who are coming all this, which we would love to do that, because obviously we will, you know, continue to build relationships every time you shake hands, but you have these agents that just show up all the time, almost like they're there for the free lunch, but they're not giving in. And I, yeah, I agree with you, totally they're there for the cocktail and the social hour, to say they are actually doing and involved in the business, but okay, we got to do business, though. Yeah, well,

Jennifer Hendry  28:26  

and I think what that also did to hurt me a little bit was, I am, I don't. I'm not a snoozer, right? So like, when I'm talking to agents, or I'm talking to customers, I don't, I mean, I follow up when I'm supposed to follow up. So I will ask them, Hey, should I follow up with you in a week a month tomorrow? You know what's best, but I am not the person that's that constant, like, are you ready yet? Are you ready yet? When agents interview with me, I one of the things I leave them with is, look, my lack of not following up with you doesn't mean I'm not interested in you. It just means that right now, my time needs to be with my agents I currently have, and I don't want to talk you into coming here. I don't want to talk somebody into working with me, or, you know, from an agent standpoint or customer

Tracy Hayes  29:07  

standpoint, tell them when you're not interested what

Jennifer Hendry  29:11  

I find ways of I still return phone calls, but I will maybe be a little bit more harsh on a certain answer that I know that they that'll turn them away. Okay, okay, so, yeah, slightly. So it's definitely always polite and

Tracy Hayes  29:24  

but the ones you're interested in, you let them know. Hey, I'm interested in carrying on this conversation. Call me when you're ready.

Jennifer Hendry  29:30  

I do, and I leave it with the fact of, look, you know, when times get tough, if I've talked you into coming here, or I've talked you into working with me, you're most likely gonna jump ship. You're most likely go somewhere else. I need you to self realize, after doing your research that this is where you want to be or who you want to work with. And then when those times are bad, that's what I help remind them of. Is like, Hey, why did you pick me? Why did you come here? And then a lot of times they're like, Yeah, you're right. I did my research and and again, they didn't feel talked in. They didn't, they didn't. Feel like, you know, somebody wove, you know, wave something shiny in their face and said, All right, so, all right.

Tracy Hayes  30:06  

So here's a direct question, though, on on that, and those who want to open their own brokerage, or be that recruiting broker at one of the franchises, or something like that, see across you itself, were you guys four to five years.

Jennifer Hendry  30:21  

Now, technically, we just finished Six years. Six years. September.

Tracy Hayes  30:24  

How long did it take you to realize that, just that what you just were talking about in finding the person who wants to be there? Yes, you're putting all the things that you want to you're willing to pour into them. Should they want to be there? But I think everybody experienced that, where they just, they want to love everybody, and they want every they think everyone's going to come in and be great, but after a handful, or at some point, you realize you know what, I got to be a little more pickier or a little more challenging to them to make that jump over. Because I hear it commonly with the top agents who are building teams that they almost try to convince them not to come over, yeah, and see how bad they actually, you know, yeah.

Jennifer Hendry  31:07  

Really want it. Yeah, I would say I'm still learning it. You know, I don't feel like I'm quite there yet. But when I bought my business partner out, that was December 31, of 2019 I was actually in Israel when our buyout happened, which was pretty cool being I was at the Dead Sea, and it was midnight, and I just remember looking at my husband and saying, oh my gosh, we own cross view all by herself. I think when that happened, I really started to figure out who it was and and what I what I wanted, and where I wanted to take the brokerage. And that's when I started realizing that I don't have the time to spend with agents that that if I'm constantly having to talk them into being here, right? And so I looked at the time value of money for me, and it wasn't how much money is that agent going to bring, because I have agents that produce a little bit, and I have agents that produce a lot, and everybody in between, but it was just, you know, who do I want to spend my time with, right? I mean, I don't want the headache that, you know, all these people over here that I want to spend my time with don't get any of it because I recruited this one person that I don't really care for. And it was a hard lesson. A couple people left, and some because I asked, some because they, you know, wanted to go somewhere else. Didn't like the change in direction I was going in. And I think that it's just taken me confidence in myself that God's got us covered. And it's, you know, one of my prayers every day is, Lord, bring us the agents that you want to be here. Keep the ones you don't away. Keep the bring the customers you want us to have. Keep the ones you don't away. And so that's really what I always, constantly turn to, and when somebody doesn't want to come our direction, I'm just like, oh, obviously that was not one God wanted here.

Tracy Hayes  32:47  

Yeah, I think we, a lot of times, we lose the realization of the fact that if it was so easy, everyone would be doing it, right? You know, if marketing was so easy, or having, you know, because we, we go through these challenges. Like I said, like you're recruiting, do they want to be that? If you, if it was so easy, everyone would want to be doing it. But you have to persevere and keep pushing on. You're in, you're in the spot. And like I said, he's teaching you by throwing some of these people in front of you that, hey, yeah, actually, I remember that interview, and I probably should have not hired, not well, recruited him to join the team and that. And you learn, and you you keep you getting better every day.

Jennifer Hendry  33:25  

And we've had those moments for sure. And you look back and you're like, Man, I knew I wasn't sure about that person. And like I said, it still happens. It's happening less and less, but I think also we've really started honing in on our core values. We've really started honing in on, you know, our mission statement and everything from that standpoint. And so as we've done that, it's helped, because I put that in front of people, and I'm like, Look, this is, this is our core value Slide the paper across the table. And if you don't align with them, then you're not going to be successful here. And I really think you should go somewhere else. And a lot of people have actually appreciated and they've come back to me later and said, You know, I just thank you so much, because that really helped them figure out where they needed to go.

Tracy Hayes  34:05  

Well, a subject I've been bringing up with a lot of people more recently on the show is and in one of the consistent things that I told you pre show, I like to think that maybe a new agent who's thinking about because I really, like, I keep saying, and I'm going to do it people, I'm going to put a book together of all these great stories, of all these great agents that we've had on because the themes are similar, but, and it's in, I think, right now, in the title of my book is, so you want to be in

Jennifer Hendry  34:35  

real estate, right, exactly,

Tracy Hayes  34:37  

and if you're a new agent, and I Imagine, and I my question to you is, how, from a broker side, your your interviewing or your recruiting process has evolved over the six years? Because obviously, like I said, initially, you had more people that ended up not either working out or less desirable. Now you're a little more picky. Or so, if you could touch a little bit in on how your process has changed, or some of the things maybe you're looking for have changed, because that new agent going out there has to understand, and I think you'll agree with me, they have to buy in. They want to have to want to be there. You're not hiring them putting in that salary. They have to want to be there and see you as the broker, as their coach and mentor, someone they want to follow and take advice from. And if there's a lot of brokerages out there, will hire you just because you're a warm body. Yeah, no doubt. So how has that evolved for you to make sure you're you're bringing in the right person, and there's a match and not a divorce six months down the road, because promises weren't kept

Jennifer Hendry  35:39  

well, and I used to if somebody wanted to come on, I would bring them on, and I and I never talked about other brokerages, and I don't like to talk about anybody badly. Everybody's different. There are some, of course, that I like, and there's others that I just cringe when somebody goes there. But I'm not going to let anybody know that who those brokerages are. But I used to be afraid to talk about them, and now when I'm talking to an agent, I My goal is for them to walk away with a ton of great things to think about, right? So I do let them know, especially the new agent. I'm like, Look, you have a license, you have blood going through your veins. You can go to pretty much any brokerage with exclusion of about five in town that would hire you in a second, because it's all about numbers. So you really need to be the one doing the interview. You need to be the one asking me, What can I provide you? And so I start giving them tools. I basically teach them how to interview brokers while they're interviewing with me, and it's worked. And then I'll also talk to them about, you know, what do you what do you want in a brokerage and an age a new agent usually doesn't know they think they want a whole bunch of training and support. And so I start really diving deep into that, finding out what kind of training they're looking for. And then after I ask them a lot of those interrogating type questions that most of the time, they walk away with, I can't really think about this. Then I start saying, Well, let me tell you of everything you said, how our brokerage does or does not fit into what you've said. And then I kind of go through and say, Well, we do this, we do this, do we this? But you said you really wanted this over here, and we don't do that, and we don't do it because of this reason. And, you know, and I just kind of work through that. So for me, it's more it's not even an interview. For them coming to work with me. It's more of a let me leave you with so much to think about. And then if you can't stop thinking about us and what I had to say, then maybe we need to go to the second interview and it really be okay. What can cross you do? What are your splits? What are your this? What are you that

Tracy Hayes  37:36  

I I mentioned it with, uh, Jennifer Henry with lung Ranger, yeah, you know, to have some sort of, you know, I'd love for everyone listening to my podcast, because I try to make this part of every show talking about, you know, that new agent and what they should be asking for, what they should be looking for, but almost part of their, you know, especially these trainings that they go to to prepare for the Test, that there is this little part where, for 30 minutes, you know, whether just a top broker comes in and explains what you just were going through. Because I think, like you said, they they're they think they want something, but they don't really, really know what they're even asking.

Jennifer Hendry  38:15  

They don't. And I actually have an interview with an agent tomorrow that interviewed with me a year ago, and he's been with two brokerages since. And he said, when he called, I didn't follow up with him. He just called out of the blue on Monday, and he said, you know, we interviewed about a year ago, and I just I know now a lot more of what I'm looking for, so I know what questions to ask. And he remembered our conversation, and he remembered that a lot of things that I said fit into what he was looking for, and so him and his wife are coming in tomorrow afternoon. So it's kind of cool that a year later, what I said still resonated with somebody,

Tracy Hayes  38:49  

yeah, and it'd be interesting how that, that story progresses, if he, you know, latches on. And then three years ago, three years from now, we can talk about how that relationship was, was really great. That could be definitely a story, because I really believe I've had some really young people on the show that got it early. There are some of this older and at my age, I look back and I'm somewhat jealous of these 30 year olds that are killing it in the business because they just get it and they're in the right place and doing the right things and following the right people. But then there's this other group of us who have taken a lot longer, some of us haven't reached that where they got to really look inside. You know, whether it's your faith or whatever, you got to understand you you are. You stop trying to be someone else. Someone else may be really great at cold calling. And you go, hey, I can do that too well, trust me, if you're not good at it, after the first half an hour, you're going to be ready to quit.

Jennifer Hendry  39:47  

Yeah. Well, something about me, I have never called an expired or FSBO in my entire life. Interesting. And it's, it's true though, you know. And one of the when I am interviewing agents, one of. Things that I tell them is you can be successful in real estate in a lot of ways. You can do it by doing podcasts. You can do it by Facebook and this social media. You can do it by door knocking. You can do it one person I talked to, he goes to garage sales, and that's all he does. I know you're talking about and you know you can be successful in real estate, but you can't be good if you're doing everything so all at once. But if you get good at one thing, right? You get what good at that one thing, you get that train rolling without stopping, without any, you know, hiccups, just easy, where you can basically put it on cruise control, then go pick up the next lead source, get that working, get that on cruise control. Now you have two spokes in your wheel, and then you do the third one and do the fourth one. And that's really what I teach people to do, is don't be good at everything yet. Get good at one. Get it working, and then add to it,

Tracy Hayes  40:48  

well, you bring up a common theme. You didn't say that the word that I'm going to use, but you were describing it. And that's consistency, whatever that is that you're good at, to get that train rolling, it takes consistency of doing it. You know, there's agents that have had sales the first moment they had their license. There's others that have taken six eight months. I haven't heard anybody going a year yet. I think they probably quit at that point. But I heard, you know, six months is a lot of agents say, hey, it took me six months to get my first first sale. But whatever you're doing being consistent. Can you, Jennifer, in your experience, whether it was you or you just saw, you know an agent you've worked with something just to share. You know someone either again something you did or something another agent did that when they were just being they just were consistently at it. And their businesses continued to grow, and that consistency moved their needle

Jennifer Hendry  41:41  

every day. Well, I would say, you know, just using my example, I picked a lead source, and I saw that Dave Ramsey was on my Facebook page again, going back to primerica, he used to, he learned a lot from Art Williams and the buy term, invest the difference. And Dave really took it out there and shared it with a lot of people. And just, I got really, really good at those leads. And we actually became the number one ELP in Northeast Florida. Oh, great. And we, I think, out of the nation, we got to number six for his entire program. Wow, because that's where my focus was, and but at the same time, that's the lead source I worked. I didn't work anything else, and I've been able to pass that on to others. And, you know, it's just it truly worked, but consistency. I mean, my husband, he got into real estate for a while, and it was horrible. Everything he touched just was like crap. And he just, he put, he really pushed through it, and then really started to see some success. Unfortunately, we had a our son decided to hurt himself when he was three, and that kind of changed everything, and got him out, but it just took a little while to keep pushing through. But here's the thing, you can't be consistent with something if you don't like it, right, right? So if it's I'm not saying hey, go, go. Call expireds and fizz buzz, because I never would have been consistent with that. I never would have seen success out of it, because I can't stand it. So I had to find something I was passionate about that I believed in for those days you don't want to make those phone calls, those days that you don't want to keep doing this, but if you love what it is, you can get through those days. You know, yes, so that's my I

Tracy Hayes  43:15  

know, I don't know, you've rolled right into one of, one of the things I've become very passionate on the show, especially having John and Brittany Brooks, they kind of led, but now I'm I am seeing because they have alerted me to it or awakened it within me to look for it. And that is finding what you are good at in would you agree matching up with the right broker that's going to help you find that is so important to your business and how fast it can grow.

Jennifer Hendry  43:44  

Oh, for sure, leadership. I mean, it just depends on what you're looking for. But one thing you know, going back to the interview piece that I always tell agents, is, look, you say you want training today, right? Which I get. You need training. You know nothing. But what are you going to need in six months? What are you going to need a year? And what are you going to need in two years? Because what I don't think people realize, people realize is switching brokerages when you actually have stuff going on is extremely difficult to do, and a lot of people don't want to do it. They might want to go somewhere else, but they're like, I don't want to rebrand. I don't want new signs and shirts and everything else. And so you really are kind of marrying where you are now. You can move right. You can move anytime you want to. You're not stuck there. But if you really take the time to do that research on the front end and figure out that broker that not only is going to give you what you need today, but what you're going to need in six months a year, two years down the road, then you're going to find yourself so much happier there. Then, okay, I got through my training, and this broker has nothing for me left. Okay, let's go find and then now you start the whole process again.

Tracy Hayes  44:42  

100% I'm gonna switch gears just a little bit, because I want to dig in. You mentioned Dave Ramsey. I imagine you still follow I do him. Yeah. So who do you what do you do to stay sharp or in? Do you maybe recommend to your team? Do you guys share books, podcasts, events? And said, hey, you know, this was a great one. You should go to that. What do you do to stay sharp?

Jennifer Hendry  45:05  

So Steven, in my office is amazing. With podcasts, he's always sending me stuff. And I'm like, Oh my gosh, dude, I don't have time to live seven of these a day. So I'm probably again, I'm weird. I'm against the grain. I don't get a lot of my stuff from real estate, I get a lot of my stuff from outside of the industry, because if everything you get is from the real estate world, then everybody's talking about the same stuff. So how do you how do you learn something new? How do you take something so I am a part of C 12, which is a like, it's not a mentorship program, but it's, it's a round table, it's not a BNI, but a mastermind, mastermind group. You have 12 people and and it's every industry, so you can't, there's not two people in the same industry. That's part of it. And just listening to even their problems. I mean, there's people there that own restaurants, but there is still stuff to take away. How, how do they maintain employees? Well, you know, if you really look at that in real estate, you're maintaining agents, because they and really they can go anywhere at any time. So, you know, how are, how are they having that great environment? What can I bring that into my world? So most of the stuff I listen to, and I'm a part of, actually, is business self development. I love Dave Ramsey's entre entree leader book. It is a very easy read. Highly recommend. Everybody I've given it to has been like, oh my gosh, that was amazing. So highly recommend that book. But I am a big Dave Ramsey fan, and that's where I learned a lot of the ways that we've done business is because he's his mentality is, how do I help business owners and across every industry? So I always know what's going on in real estate, but most of the people I listen to are not real estate Well, I

Tracy Hayes  46:45  

mean, I totally agree with you, when you're out there doing it, and I'm going to give you Billy Wagner's book. I got extra copies over there on the table. Thank you. Make sure you take and because he he goes on, he was on the podcast. Obviously, he's very respected insurance agent in town, but he's also now being drawn out to these events from the insurance world to speak again, like how to retain employees, whether that's an insurance office or restaurant or, you know, you adding value to the agents or transaction coordinators within you. A lot of the principles are the same, and sometimes, if you do get listening to just someone who's solely real estate. You're not getting any new ideas Exactly. They're in the same box you are. So I totally agree from that standpoint there, I'm going to jump down, because from a time standpoint, what do you think you guys have gotten some accolades here on your growth, opening a new office and so forth. What do you think? What are you doing? What's like? The secret to ingredients in sauce you think you're doing? You know in this may change over time, because it will right now. What are you doing right? What have you been doing right the last couple of years that people are catching on saying we need to go over to cross view,

Jennifer Hendry  47:59  

I don't think I'm really doing anything as right as I feel like I could,

Tracy Hayes  48:03  

and that's life that's never gonna end

Jennifer Hendry  48:07  

right, because I'm not stagnant in growth. I feel like I have so much more to give and so much more to do. And so for me, I don't feel like anything is really right. I think we're moving in the right direction in a lot of different ways, but I wouldn't say that we're anywhere close to what we're capable of. But you know, again, my faith is very important to me, and I believe that God has a bigger plan for us and and maybe that's what's driving it is because I I don't feel like I'm quite where he wants me to be to go to that next level yet, and it's been a really rough year, and so I probably would have answered this very differently eight months ago. We were supposed to be in our office in May, and we actually just got possession yesterday. So that was very, very stressful, but there's a lot of stuff that I learned, and the biggest thing is just I care, and I'm how do we get better? How do we serve people? How do we all grow and be better together? Because I am not good by myself, but I can be amazing with other people around me.

Tracy Hayes  49:11  

You said something there. God has a path. A few years ago, I really dug into John Maxwell. I really enjoy his stuff. Went to his conference in 19 over in Orlando. And you know, just the one thing, the one thing I there's a couple things I took from that that you've kind of mentioned here in so many words. And you know the path for you, and then you know the challenges that come up. You know that you learn something, or because of the delay in the in the you know, you being able to take possession of your new office and get it, get it up and going, which takes time and energy. You have to go. Why did he, why did he throw this curve ball at me? Right? What? What did he need me to delay a few months because I needed to fix something else that I wasn't realizing it, and he's now delaying it. So. I now can focus on that for whatever reason, but I think we can get complacent in our ways. And we talked a little bit about earlier before the show, about leadership and how some people can get to a level and they're like, Oh, I made it. And they relax, not realizing that you're there for a reason, and that's to lead people and add value to people in whatever way that is and whatever business you're in, and being inspirational, like you said, you never feel like you're, you're, it's perfect. Well, that's because you're growing all the time. You you know you're not going well. I know it all. I don't need to read another book, I don't need to listen to another podcast. I don't need to go, you know, go another Dave Ramsey event or whatever it is, and that's what makes you so valuable. And a lot, I think a lot of people overlook that, but you when you're not satisfied, you're continuing the journey. When you're satisfied, people start to relax. And what do they end up doing? They end up going backwards. Yeah. So Central on the term faith, and obviously the According to Stephen cross view, that's the names and how much of it of your your faith, which I think is a lot, but I want you to describe. And then the people, these agents, I think, are obviously attracted to that, because you're not hiding it. No, yeah, we're not how much your faith is part of your business.

Jennifer Hendry  51:17  

So we wanted, when we were naming the business, we wanted it to glorify God, but we didn't want it to be like, you know, Jesus Realty, you know, and we didn't want to scare people away, because there's so many customers that believe completely different than I do, that we want to help, right? I mean, it's, it's a mission field for us, and so when I'm meeting with agents, you know, I do talk about it, because we do pray before our meetings. Now, you don't have to be a Christian. You don't have to believe the way that I believe, to be a part of our brokerage, but I don't want somebody to join and then come to a meeting and be like, Oh my gosh, they just prayed. This is so weird. What have I done, right? And you know, our first core value is Christ centered. And so I would say that's probably been one of the biggest things I've learned over this delay, is that I said it's a Christian brokerage, right? But has it really been right? I made a sign that goes on my desk and it says, This is not my company. This is God's company, and it's in a frame so I can look at it and core values. Nobody can list our core values. We've had them because I went to a Dave Ramsey conference, and that's what they said we needed. And so I did it. But our new training room has each core values 15 inches by 15 inches, you know, across the walls, so you can really see what they are. We're just, we're really taking extra steps right now to live that out. And it's, it's, I'm not really working with customers anymore. I mean, I have a few that I work with, but for the most part, it's, how do I serve my agents so that they can best serve their customers? And are we living our core values? And we're putting into place this year a like a scale, okay, here's each core value, and then I we're going to have everybody rank how the company did on each core value to make sure that we hit them right, versus it's just out there. So that thing that's the biggest lesson I've probably learned, is just, I've, I've said that this is the company, but I don't know if I've really lived it the way that I feel like I can. And so we're still working on that.

Tracy Hayes  53:16  

Well, you know, when you get to that point, let me know I'm, a little older than you. I don't know if I'm gonna last that long. I don't think that's ever gonna but that's what you're driving for perfection, and that's what's important, knowing that ultimately, we'll never actually get there, but hopefully you get close, and that's and I think anyone looking in, and some people might, yeah, say she's got this sign on her desk about God owns the company, and she's crazy. I told her that was weird. It is proven that we will go further if we're hard on something bigger than ourselves. Yeah, right. And I think people discount that, and that your faith is that bigger purpose. Whether someone totally agrees with the faith is not the important thing. The important thing is that you're part of something bigger than you. So you're driving forward. Does someone want to get on your coattails because you're because your journey is never going to end and you're climbing Mount Everest, and there's never that you're never going to reach the summit, and you're going forward. Someone want to get on on your coattails and learn how to climb a mountain, because they can go for a long way. And I think that that's really what I get out of, what you're, you're you're driving for, and obviously, why people are following you, they want to be part of something bigger than themselves. And I think the real estate world to say, like, Hey, I'm, you know, pro Keller Williams. I'm Coldwell Banker REMAX. They're not, I mean, not take anyone from this coming second list. Every brokerage is out there. The actual desire for customer to come to you is you as an agent. That's correct. They're coming for you personally. They're not coming for cross you're not coming for Keller Williams, they're not coming for REMAX. They're coming because of you some so a good little. Different than from the lending side, you are the actual everything there. So you have to have something bigger than yourselves to attract other people to you. Because if you all, all are about you probably look at, probably actually, you know, people are going to run away from you. Yeah, they'll get tired of you real quick. So, all right, that was my preaching this morning. All right, I want to go through a few things, and I want just Yes, just make a quick statement from from from a time standpoint, some common things we did already talk about consistency, but I did touch on you meant you threw out some names. Obviously, Dave Ramsey was one of those in your, you know, following him and and being part of his program. And obviously you truly enjoyed whatever he's saying. Rings with you, and you following his leads, but surrounding yourself by successful people. How important is it to hang with the Dave Ramsey, you've even said you've been to his house, but even some, you've probably been introduced to other great people that he knows, or in the circle of this, my mastermind, would you call it C 12,

Jennifer Hendry  56:03  

Yep, yeah. And I just started, so okay, that's fresh. Well, yeah, so yes, you're

Tracy Hayes  56:07  

you're again, so you're finding something new to keep moving on your journey. How important is that in the growth, like I think you mentioned earlier, when you're working with the builders, being invited into some meetings that you were you didn't realize why you were really there, but they were bringing you into the circle. How important has that been in your career?

Jennifer Hendry  56:25  

It's been really important. I think for me, I like to sit back and listen. I like to ask questions. I like to just observe and see what all is going on around me, and what can I pick up, and what can I grow from? And sometimes you see characteristics and people, and you're like, I think I do that and I don't like that. So obviously I need, I need to self realize, you know, so for me, I think always being around others just it just helps me be better. But I also realize that when you have a team, you get drained, right? You get pulled in every direction. Your phone's constantly ringing. You're just exhausted because you're the key person in the room, right? And they're pulling from you, yeah? And so going to, like a Dave Ramsey conference, or going and doing this C 12, and it is a chance for me to fill my bucket, because if I fill my bucket, then I can help others. And again, you know, I love Dave. I keep talking about him, but he has an analogy. It's a Kaddish cup. I believe I might have said that wrong. I apologize we did. But it's a saucer with a like a wine glass, essentially sitting on top of it. And his whole metaphor is the fact that you need to fill your cup up so that it overflows, and the saucer holds the the excess right, so that you can do that. And that's really what I want to do, is I want to fill myself up. So then I'm overflowing with information, with positivity, with what up, care, with whatever it is

Tracy Hayes  57:49  

that's our agents are the saucer catching the overflow.

Jennifer Hendry  57:53  

Yeah. But if I'm empty or I'm not overflowing, there's nothing for anybody else. So, so going back to, you know, those events and things like that, that's a chance for me to fill my cup up so that I can come back and I can be better. And our brokerage definitely grows when I've done those things. And, you know, it's like you're at the airplane and you put the mask on yourself before you put it on somebody else, right? When I'm filled up and I'm happy and I have energy, everybody does better around me. All the agents do better. Everything is better. And when I'm drained, you can see it like it's so obvious. Well, I

Tracy Hayes  58:27  

mean, I think you, I mean, you summed it all up perfectly. When, when your your cup is flowing over you've got the energy flowing through you. It's flow. It's pouring into the others. I mean, that that sums up the you had some great analogies in there that were just perfect and to understand. Again, when you're looking to hang with successful people, someone who has their their cup is flowing over. You want to be around that person because, you know, like said, you catch this. You know, if you want to call it catching the scraps or the drips that are coming down the side, it doesn't matter what analogy you want to use, but their cup is flowing over. And I think there's one of the common themes of all the great agents. And if you're new out there, trust me, every single one of them are willing to pour into you. You just got to ask, yep. I mean, that's really what it comes out to, because they've given a lot. I guarantee a lot of agents have just given, and no one's there to receive. So they, you know, they retract a little bit. They're full, and they so want to give. They're just waiting for that, right? That person that wants to step up and ask, yeah, and then they're just going to flow into you showing up. Probably, I didn't describe this back, like in your in at cross view. How important is it? You know, especially for new people that are trying to get these your culture, your would you call them core values? They need to show up and show whether you're having a training or social, whatever it may be to share with others what's going on, because there's no, no one will ever do every possible transaction that ever could exist in real estate. Right, or in the lending side, everybody's completely different. Every house is different. Every neighborhood's different. There's this issue, there's that issue. You need to come how important is showing up physically, and you know whether it's coming in the office or being involved in different events in the community or nefar, etc.

Jennifer Hendry  1:00:18  

So it's so important to me that I just am opening a 5000 square foot office, wow. Our training room, seats, seats, 25 with tables. So if I remove the tables, we can fit more. But I don't like trainings to be too much bigger than that, because then people don't feel like they can interact and learn. But I there's a lot of unique things that we've done at this office and but we've done fun things. We added a shuffleboard table into our office, just because I want people there. And sometimes you get burned out and you get tired and you need a break. Go play shuffleboard for a minute, you know, go play corn hole down the hall. Yes, go do that, and then come back and, you know, work some more. But what I found too, is when we were between offices. It really hurt our morale in our office, because so many people would, they'd come in, they go to lunch together, right? They'd learn from each other. They build those relationships with other agents, and they're like, I'm not a talented my customer this house came on. They absolutely have to see it. Is there anybody that can help me? Well, my agents will step up and they'll go show it, and they won't ask for anything. They're not going to ask for commission. They're not going to ask for this. Ask for this. Because the thing is, is it's going to be returned. Comes around, goes around, and that's the environment. But you can't have an environment if you're not in the office to get to know each other. Like, when we do things, I want people to know and feel comfortable and not be like, I don't know anybody here, you know? Like, I like doors open. I very much. So hate when doors get closed, so we prop everything open. We possibly can. My husband gets really mad because then my day gets ruined because people are constantly walking in and out, and I can't get anything done, but which means I get it done at home, which a big plug to my husband. He I wouldn't be where I am today without him. He's been amazing.

Tracy Hayes  1:01:59  

Rock, awesome. So showing up is very important. Yeah, I just, I didn't even know that, and I poked into it and opened up the whole thing, but we learned a little about your new office. Yeah, that that is so awesome. I mean, I reach out to just say landmark title, for example, and they're one of our sponsors. Yeah, that's right, they're one of the sponsors for the event. And, you know, they had their they open it with a training room to be their headquarters, to be a place where people hang out and come and they can learn. And then they have a lounge for the realtors and to get on them Wi Fi so they so they're comfortable there, and they want to be there, and that's where business takes place.

Jennifer Hendry  1:02:37  

Yeah, and I had coffee with David last week, I think, and, and when I was talking to him, he said his training room was, I think, one of the very best things that he did in that 100% I am pleased with it.

Tracy Hayes  1:02:48  

So I had the year of 102 episode. I put together a training last Friday for celebrating the 100th episode that I'd done last week with with Cole, and I put out. When I put some little videos out, I, you know, I actually say landmark title, the new mecca of education in Jacksonville, because I'm going to put it out there. NIFA, you're falling down,

Jennifer Hendry  1:03:11  

yeah, they're training room. It's pretty awesome.

Tracy Hayes  1:03:13  

100% greatest thing, you know, next to putting a nail salon in Davis, got it going

Jennifer Hendry  1:03:19  

on and masseuse would be great walks around. Does like chair masseuses, chair massage?

Tracy Hayes  1:03:24  

Yeah, yeah. 100% I didn't want to go there, but yes, I totally agree. Well, if you actually led into it a little bit or with that last statement, because the last thing we didn't like really hone in on is we talked about, like, going to events and being around great people and learning from outside of the business to help your mind grow and come up with new ideas on how to do real estate better. But actually, just simply, you know, the design of your office shows, I guess, how important this is, how important is education? Because I imagine your vision is to have a regularly scheduled education coming in, talking about all parts of our business,

Jennifer Hendry  1:04:03  

yeah, extremely important, and that was why the training room became the size that it is. Again, I don't think if you get too big, you really can't get that same type of learning in. But 25

Tracy Hayes  1:04:14  

people is a good number for a good training. Yeah. I mean, I very rarely you're gonna get more than that. I mean, nefar has some classes like at the end of the year, when they're trying to get their CES and stuff done. And stuff. They're already there at that time of the year because of that, but on a regular basis to fill 2025, seats, that's a nice little classroom.

Jennifer Hendry  1:04:30  

So for our standpoint and where we are, very different as a brokerage. And what I tell people is that our training program morphs consistently, because I'm not going to train on foreclosures and short sales the last couple of years, because there really weren't. And, yeah, waste of my time. So our trainings were on multiple offers and what you can do. And so we basically, what I do is I take any problems I'm hearing through the brokerage over a 30 day span, I'm, you know, I'm struggling with this, or I ran into. Pair problems, like anything I'm consistently hearing, and then the next month, our training calendar is filled with all of that kind of stuff. Because if one person's dealing with it, chances are multiple 100% so we're we don't we, we put our training calendar out. We're actually behind for November, actually been focused on getting this office open, but we try to put it out by the 15th of the month for the next month, so that agents can put it on their schedules, and it's out for the whole month, and then they kind of pick and choose what they want to come to. And then I run a contest, usually. So a lot of times my contest will be around what training classes they've been to. So you get so many points for different classes. And then you have, like, at Christmas, at our Christmas party, the top three people are getting cash prizes based on how many training classes they've been to over the two months time span.

Tracy Hayes  1:05:45  

I'm gonna assume you did not listen to Michael slate and no is going

Jennifer Hendry  1:05:50  

I thought it was gonna play. That's the

Tracy Hayes  1:05:52  

greatest thing about podcasts. They're out there, and it's out there forever so and actually, he'll be when the video is finished, she'll be on the YouTube if you actually want to watch it. But it's out on Apple. I'll be watching it what I love. And I would just challenge you to put this through your thoughts, because of your focus on education and your in your training class, to actually, you know, when people are putting on it's so you can the power of influence that you can get when you have something you you say, Hey, come on in and do a training for me, whatever subject it is, and you fill the room, and you then become, oh, my favorite place is cross view. And the reason is because you fill the room, and it's you that's filling the room, you know? Hopefully the speaker eventually builds up. Here's where we go. Cole designs his comp plan. He gives incentives within the comp plan, if you're involved in something in the community, on your HOA board, ne, far, far, whatever it is you're involved in that, I would almost incentify you to take it just from a like a bonus or prize or drawing, to like, Hey, if you go to X amount of trainings, you know, we two trainings throughout the year. Well, we'll take a couple weeks 50 trainings, and you show up to 25 of them. Yo, we're going to compensate you differently on your commission, just because I truly believe, and I've seen it in the cell phone world, to go to other businesses if you have the wrong comp plan, or if your comp plan drives the behaviors that you know are going to make your agents better, you will be better. Your whole organization will be better.

Jennifer Hendry  1:07:23  

Yep, that's very true. Another I'm all I'm preaching.

Tracy Hayes  1:07:27  

Must be this great coffee from dailies over here. So we've covered, we've covered all those, those common themes, looking back, and just kind of, as we close out here, what's been since you've had cross view, what's been, what's been your biggest mistake, and that could be just a transaction that you did, or how you run cross view, or just something that you look back on, and you're like, you know, we know he threw that failure in front of us, or that mistake that we, you know, didn't produce for us to know, not to Do it again or do it differently.

Jennifer Hendry  1:08:01  

I would say, it's actually personal. My biggest mistake is putting so much towards the company and not what I needed to towards my family. I have a seven and 10 year old and my husband, Scott, who's amazing, and I really haven't done a good job of balance. And I don't believe there is balance. I think that, you know, you're you work a whole lot, and your family life suffers, but then at some point the work suffers a little bit, and the family life is great. So it's more of an average. That's how I feel balance is achieved, and not truly, everything's balanced. And I think that's probably my biggest thing over the years is trying to figure out how to do everything, because I am a workaholic, and if I hadn't met Scott and I didn't have kids, I probably would be single right now, because I just love to work, and I think that's really hurt me, because it stopped me from growing in a lot of ways that I could, and I could have been a better leader. I can be a better leader, right? So I'd say that's, that's really it. Honestly, there's

Tracy Hayes  1:09:08  

no doubt you're not the only one in that struggle. I mean, I mean, I'm in that same struggle that you're, you're it. I mean, I feel I gotta, I gotta provide, like, there's, there's times where I'm listening to some of these people, or I even said to my wife recently, I said, Hey, it's probably going to be slow. This could go on for a couple of years, but I will. I do know this. I've been doing this long enough that the reality is it's going to, you know, weed out a lot of just people that were just here for the money. They're going to be out of that when, when all of a sudden it breaks through. On the other side, we're going to, we're going to be running, and we're gonna be working like crazy, because that's the way we are. We know it's feast or famine, and so we got to go get, you know, pick the fruit when it's there. Right now, there's a little less fruit on the tree for multiple reasons. How long it's going to last? It's only a season. Now, the season might be two years long, but it's a season. It is a season. And. We need to work on ourselves. And in this case, I'm right with you. I said, Let's we need to take some time do the travels that we wanted to do, and take the kids on and take advantage of it. Because both of us have that mindset that when we break through the other side, we're going to be running crazy like we have been for the last, you know, 1824, months, and just grab, grab, grab, grab, then, now's the time. Like, Hey, okay, we're still want to improve ourselves. Work on go to the damn Tracy. Want to work on our skills. So when we break out the other side, we're, we're ready to go. We also got to spend the time, you know, and get caught up with with the family. Because the beautiful thing about people love you, they'll forgive and forget about what you did yesterday, because what you're providing today, and, you know, doing the thing. So I'm with you. You're not the only one in that struggle. There's my that's a, yeah, I wanted to, this is last formal question, and let you go on a, you know, a little bit of a sales pitch, so someone's listening. Why you're I got this is like your elevator speech. Gosh, why should an agent doesn't know anything about cross view, right? Just knows you guys, you guys are growing. Say, you know, walks up to you at a social and said, you know, hey, tell me about cross view. Why should I come over there?

Jennifer Hendry  1:11:11  

I'd, I'd say the biggest reason is because we care. You know, it's not about the paycheck. It's going to come if you do the right thing. It's all about heart. You know, if, if you want to grow, not just in real estate, but you want to grow financially or your health, or whatever it is, that's our goal is for you to be well rounded. You know, even with your family, we want to include them. So it's, we're not the brokerage to go to if all you hear about is money. I mean, you need to want to make money. Okay, so I don't want to get that wrong it, but

Tracy Hayes  1:11:40  

it does make you go home. It makes it makes eating dinner a little

Jennifer Hendry  1:11:43  

easier, a little easier, but it really is. It's, it's a family and and going back kind of to what I said the very beginning, about being bigger than Watson through the years, what I realized is you get so big you can't be a family. And so I want to grow until we reach that point to where we can't be a family, and that's where I want to stop. So as soon as we get to where I don't know everybody and their spouses and their kids and we can't do things together, then at that point, we're big enough, in my opinion, so that's it's all about. It's all about community. It's being able to make a career out of it. My dad is actually one of my agents as well. And you know, it's really fun working for him, because I working with him, because I used to work under him at prime America. Now he works for me. It's great. But really, it's looking for that family environment. It's, it's not the oh my gosh, this person is doing this and this person is doing that. It's, How can we all grow? How can we be better? How can we just self develop? How can we, at the end of the day, be proud of what we did? And we wake up and, you know, we're proud of how we handled our customers, we talked them out of something, or, you know, we got overpaid. We've given a customer back $1,000 because title overpaid us money. You know what that customer felt like? It wasn't even our customer, it was the other side of the deal, right? They were like, wait, what?

Tracy Hayes  1:13:00  

Yeah, exactly. Well, that goes into your integrity statement that you have in your social media, yeah, yeah.

Jennifer Hendry  1:13:06  

So that's what it we're we're the family, right? And people are

Tracy Hayes  1:13:10  

going to cheer you on. You're going to want to come to the office, because people are going to, you know, encourage you, and hopefully you're encouraging others. You're not competitors, you're collaborators, really, that's, you know, again, another common theme that a lot of you just say you're, from what I'm reading from what you're saying is someone wants to come to the office because they want to hang out with like minded people and positive people and people who are going to encourage them in the endeavors and challenges that

Jennifer Hendry  1:13:37  

they have well. And I will tell you, we do have competitive people, so we have a leaderboard, and you can compare yourself with phone calls, you've made hours, you've worked customer, sales dollar. And we actually have a TV, hopefully my husband and his stuff that are hanging it right now. But it's a leaderboard that just rotates through all of that. So at any point in time, you can see where you stand, or they can log into their system.

Tracy Hayes  1:13:59  

And it's a sales organization, so you got to have you got to have that. Hey, there are some guys doing something you might want to step up your step up your game. There's something in the air that I lost my mind. But anyway, let's go to our Two Minute Warning questions. These are this last two informal questions. If you listen to all my podcasts, I ended this. This is this latest one I've been doing for a couple months now, because I think here in Northeast Florida, we sell lifestyle. I think people come to Florida for a lifestyle. Now, there are people that are moved in by corporations as Jacksonville brings in, but, you know, they're excited about coming to Jacksonville and coming to Florida because they're they're looking for a community. We have so many different just, I mean, whether you want to be over on the west side of there and have property, you know, and run a horse, or you want to be out at the beach, or somewhere in between, there's something for you here. You want to be a boater. You want to be a kayaker, hike trails, whatever it is that you like to do. What is the what is the when you're not doing real estate? What is your favorite thing for you and your family to do here in Northeast Florida? What do you guys like to do? Yeah, well,

Jennifer Hendry  1:15:00  

we have acre and a half that's in town, which is great, and so we like to not leave. We are big kind of movie people, so we watch a lot of movies when we go. We tend to like to do things where nobody's around, quiet, get away. That's I know. Again, we're weird.

Tracy Hayes  1:15:19  

No, that's not weird at all, trust me, my other three people in my immediate family, they like amusement parks. Oh, we do. I only tolerate that to a certain level, and I just want quiet. And so we were at Disney World this weekend, and we fortunately, my sister in law got a tour and everything. So the tour was over, like, four o'clock, and I'm like, I'm ready to go back to the hotel. And they did. They're like, my wife's like, yeah, go, go enjoy it. We're gonna stay here to the fireworks at nine, pick us up at 930 and I had no problem going back, taking a little nap, getting something, go down to the hot tub, relax all by myself. I had no problems.

Jennifer Hendry  1:15:57  

We do, like roller coasters. Our son's a little too small, so husband, I actually just came back from Universal. We met without the kids so we could ride roller

Tracy Hayes  1:16:07  

but leave the kids with grandma and grandpa, and then you guys went to the universal cool.

Jennifer Hendry  1:16:11  

But you know one thing that really is my de stressor, and what I love to do is puzzles. So my my record is 40,230

Tracy Hayes  1:16:20  

pieces. 40,000 pieces. Wow.

Jennifer Hendry  1:16:23  

It's that take you a year and a half. It was six feet tall and

Tracy Hayes  1:16:28  

22 feet long. Oh, my God, where did you have a table for that

Jennifer Hendry  1:16:32  

together in 10 section? Oh, my goodness. But that's my that is my de stressor. That's That's my

Tracy Hayes  1:16:39  

puzzles that are about as big as the pieces are as big as the things on the back of the wall here, that because my eyes can't take that any longer, like looking at it going, oh, where's that pattern fit in? There are last question some more important, who you know or what you know, and why

Jennifer Hendry  1:16:57  

it's neither it's who knows you because if you know somebody, I can I can know you, but do you know me? So what good does that do anything? So it's not who you know, it's who knows you. Because if they don't know you, they're not really feeding into your life. They're not making any impact in you whatsoever. And so many people are all about, well, I know so and so, and I know this person, I know that person. It's like, well, if do you have their phone number in your phone, if you called them, would they know who you are like? So it's who knows you. I like that.

Tracy Hayes  1:17:31  

That's really deep. That's the first time on 102 episodes. I don't think I've asked it every time, but well over 90 times that everyone's actually come back, come back with that, that 100% 100% and to kind of tag on to that, I think, you know, some of the themes with social media and building relationships, because we can't hang out with someone that much is, people do start to get to know you a little bit. They see what you're doing, you know, they see your universal I was at Disney this weekend, or whatever, and they do start to get to know you a little bit, and maybe, oh, hey, you know, I like doing that too, and and so forth. We're social media, but that's, that's a really deep thought, and something for everyone to really think about. Yeah, you may know somebody, but today, know you, because I think that that's one of my quest actually, I think a lot of people I know for sure throughout life, and actually had a manager one time. Both of us are big guys, and they're like, you guys realize when we walk into a room, people already like, step back, yeah? And they don't realize that we're actually just big teddy bears, and we give the shirt off our back for anyone but our just our mere presence puts the average person in a defensive position. Yeah. Very interesting. I love it. Thank you for coming on, Jennifer. Thank you so anyway, obviously, Jennifer's all over social media. Reach out to her event. November 5, hopefully, is that gonna be on schedule? Sure. 100% you're gonna work 24/7, to make sure it's open on the fifth. Yeah.

Jennifer Hendry  1:18:52  

210, to two food trucks, face painting, DJ, we've got an obstacle course. We've got some vendors that are going to be there. It should be a fun time for all

Tracy Hayes  1:19:01  

excellent we'll see you on November 5. Thanks so much.

Podcast Intro  1:19:05  

This may be it for today's episode of Real Estate excellence, but we both know your pursuit of excellence doesn't stop here, to connect with the best of the best and really take your skills to the next level. Join our community by visiting Tracy Hayes podcast.com where you'll meet more like minded individuals looking to expand their inner circle and their personal experience that's available at Tracy Hayes podcast.com

Speaker 1  1:19:33  

there's only one road into Key West, but you won't believe where it can take. You travel back in time to a city rich with history, discover amazing artists and musicians, taste seafood Fresh Off the Boat, or just kick back and soak up the island vibe. For more about Key West, visit flap keys.com Key West close to perfect. Act far from normal, the.