Doing Business with You v. Your Company

As a small business owner, it wasn’t too long ago when much of the operation of the company was done directly by me. I had to convince people they wanted to do business with me and prove that I could meet their needs as a client of my company. As Birmingham Title Agency grew and we started hiring, I had to learn to let go of certain tasks so that we could progress and grow. This new skill of delegation was difficult for me to learn, but luckily we grew at a pace that allowed me to slowly off load tasks and monitor my team until I was satisfied with their performance. The last few years look widely different from when the company started. I used to have every single address we did work on memorized. There wasn’t a single transaction Birmingham Title Agency was handling that I wasn’t at least familiar enough with to recognize the property address or the parties involved. That’s not the case today. While even writing that out jumpstarts my anxiety, I know it’s a good thing for growth. But more importantly, I know that the slow and steady growth is working.

How do I know this? Last week, a new lender client of ours invited myself and one of my processors out to lunch. I didn’t pay much attention to the “why” of the invitation, just put it on my calendar and made sure to show up (we all have weeks like that, right?). We were invited to lunch because the client had such a great experience closing a transaction with Birmingham Title Agency that they wanted to introduce us to other lenders they’re connected with, to get us more clients. We did that good of a job.

When did this deal close? No clue. How big was the transaction? I don’t know. Where there any issues that we resolved for them? I couldn’t tell you. Admitting this makes me more than a little uncomfortable, because I still feel like I should know every detail of every transaction and admitting otherwise reflects negatively on me.

But instead of feeling like, “Woah, what did I miss?” I felt an enormous wave of pride not only for this processor that clearly did an exemplary job (and she’s our newest processor!), but also for Birmingham Title Agency.

I don’t have sales reps that go out and try to solicit business from real estate professionals. I did for a brief period, but it didn’t work well with how I wanted the business ran. I wanted our clients to want to work with Birmingham Title Agency, not a specific individual. This is a very ambitious goal, as we all know that we do business with the people we want to do business with and this is a very relational industry. It wasn’t that I didn’t want certain clients to form attachments or have a preference for a person at my company to work with them, but more that I want a team that any of my clients would be willing to work with because of the basic level of competence I require of them. Personality and preferences will always exist, both with my team and my clients. But if I can maintain that level of competency, I can truly trust that anyone that gets assigned any file will make the client happy.

That was my big win last week. A file that I was involved in 0% not only closed without any issues, but my newest processor was able to deliver an exceptional level of service for them. She clearly is very good at her job and her training with my agency is only a small portion of why she did such a great job. While I still have a few OG clients that want to do business with me, it’s exciting to me that the vast majority of Birmingham Title Agency’s clients today want to do business with us, with Birmingham Title Agency. I think that might be the best compliment I’ve ever received.