Benchmark Happenings
Brought to you by, Jonathan Tipton & Steve Reed of Benchmark Home Loans, Benchmark Happenings is a podcast that is a biweekly discussion about living in and moving to Northeast Tennessee along with the local real estate market. Join your host Christine Reed as she interviews Jonathan & Steve, local business owners, sought-after industry experts, Veterans, Realtors, Benchmark clients, and more.
Benchmark Happenings focuses on discussing all things related to mortgages and Northeast Tennessee. Placing the spotlight on all the reasons you would want to live in and move to Northeast Tennessee, Benchmark Happenings highlights upcoming events, local businesses, things to do, and other aspects related to Northeast Tennessee. We will also be answering mortgage questions from buyers, sellers, and real estate agents as well as discussing everything going on in our local real estate market.
To help you to navigate the home buying and mortgage process, Jonathan & Steve are currently licensed in Tennessee, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and Virginia, contact us today at 423-491-5405 or visit www.tiptonreedteam.com.
Benchmark Home Loans | NMLS # 2143
4138 Bristol Highway
Johnson City, TN 37601
Jonathan Tipton
Senior Mortgage Planner
NMLS # 1188088
jonathan.tipton@benchmark.us
Steve Reed
Branch Manager
NMLS # 173024
steve.reed@benchmark.us
Benchmark Happenings
Behind the Lens: Tina Wilson's Journey from Photographer to Business Maven
Ever wonder what happens when you release your white-knuckle grip on what seems "too good to let go"? Tina Wilson's remarkable journey from portrait photographer to business maven reveals the surprising gifts that come from open hands and divine timing.
From finding her cordless phone in the freezer as an identity-starved new mom to hearing a mysterious voice on a drive home from Chattanooga, Tina's path to founding Reclaimed Home unfolds with raw honesty and unexpected turns. Her story resonates with anyone who's ever questioned their purpose or wondered if they've taken a wrong career turn.
The conversation explores how Tina's early photography success at JC Penney's portrait studio in 1991 evolved through seasons of pride, painful business lessons, and personal growth. We dive deep into the moment she received the vision for Reclaimed Home and how surrendering control created space for something far beyond her original dreams. Today, her business employs around 20 people across retail, interior design, styling services, and photography – a reality she "couldn't have been sold for a nickel" would exist a decade ago.
Tina shares her beautiful philosophy that we're all "always on the middle step" of life's staircase – reaching up for wisdom while extending a hand to those coming behind us. This perspective has transformed her approach to leadership and creating spaces that "welcome story and warmth" for families throughout Northeast Tennessee.
Whether you're questioning your professional identity, facing tough business decisions, or simply looking to create a more meaningful home environment, this conversation offers wisdom that transcends interior design. Discover why Tina considers her work "stewardship rather than entrepreneurship" and how that mindset creates exceptional experiences from the first phone call to the final pillow placement.
To help you to navigate the home buying and mortgage process, Jonathan & Steve are currently licensed in Tennessee, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and Virginia, contact us today at 423-491-5405 or visit www.jonathanandsteve.com.
This is Benchmark Happenings, brought to you by Jonathan and Steve from Benchmark Home Loans. Northeast Tennessee, johnson City, kingsport, bristol, the Tri-Cities One of the most beautiful places in the country to live. Tons of great things to do and awesome local businesses. And on this show you'll find out why people are dying to move to Northeast Tennessee. And on the way we'll have discussions about mortgages and we'll interview people in the real estate industry. It's what we do. This is Benchmark Happenings, brought to you by Benchmark Home Loans, and now your host, christine Reed, and now your host.
Speaker 2:Christine Reed. Well, welcome back everybody to another episode of Benchmark Happenings. And you know, every couple of weeks, businesswoman, entrepreneur of Reclaimed Home downtown, Just a beautiful, beautiful store. Tina, we've known each other for a long time, so welcome to the show.
Speaker 3:Thank you, I'm so happy to be here.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm happy to have you here and I know that you know just our brief conversation of some things that you've been involved in. I know we met years ago through the Emmaus community. I've met you and your husband through that. Actually, that's how I met Steve was through Emmaus. It's a good place to hook up who knew Christian community? Okay, girls, if you are a believer, proclaim, profess, believer in Jesus, that's right. Get yourself on an Emmaus walk. Be looking for a husband in the right places. Don't think you're going to find one in a bar.
Speaker 3:Although I did find mine in a bar, so I can't really sit here and say it.
Speaker 2:But God did a lot of great work, right? God did a lot of great work in that one. He's gracious that way. So, tina, I just lost my earring. That's okay, I'll just take it off, it's fine. So really want to talk a little bit about your endeavor in so many things and to be a female living here in this area just all the different venues that you have put your hand to and the multiple talents that you have. You know you. I knew you from photography. You're probably one of the most sought after, best photographers. I would do wonderful family photos. They're beautiful. We need to do that, by the way.
Speaker 2:And then you talked about on an AMA. I remember we were on an AMA walk together and you had talked about opening up this store in Johnson City yes, city, yes, and at the time it was going to be new furniture, used furniture, making, renovating things that people could love again. So I'm just going to open it up to you. So tell us about your business.
Speaker 3:Okay, so I started photographing, probably when I was a junior in high school. Yeah, so I've been. I'll tell my age here at 90, at 91 is when I started photographing JC Penny portrait studio. Um, so, throughout life, um, my, I thought my calling was to be a? Um, a hairdresser. I wanted to be a cosmetologist and I had all the same hopes and visions at age 14 for that industry that I'm pretty much doing now, which is just really odd. But never expected photography to go anywhere. Just thought that it would come and go, as things do in life, and it's just been the one that kind of came to stay. So I started, I tried to get out of it several times. I had children Right before I had kids. I tried to get into real estate. I tried to get into insurance. I tried my hand at the technology world and worked in the computer industry and sales.
Speaker 3:I tried all kinds of things and life just kept leading me right back to photography. So when my kids were born, I tried to be a stay-at-home mom. That did not work for me. I very much lost myself in that, just kind of spiraled into an identity crisis and found my cordless phone. Back then, before cell phones found my cordless phone, I would find it in the freezer and find my jelly that's supposed to be in the freezer in the bottom of the pantry. I mean, I just kind of was like who am I? I used to be smart. I don't know who I am anymore.
Speaker 3:So so I ended up I needed to do something, but I didn't want to, um, to go too far outside of what felt natural to me. So I just started photography in my home when my babies were, like I don't know, six months or so, and so I started building the business in 2003. Business in 2003. And then by the end of that year it had built to a place that I was not really sure when to be a mom and when to be a business owner, and being a wife wasn't even on my radar anymore because I was so busy. And so I moved into my first studio downtown Johnson City and I was there for a couple years. I immediately hired a couple people did not want to do that. I had worked for a company that they would hire people, train them and they would leave and start their own businesses. And so I was like, well, I don't want to create my own competition.
Speaker 1:So why would I do that? My own competition, so why?
Speaker 3:would I do that, and so, anyway, started learning leadership, started learning started going to some conferences like Catalyst.
Speaker 2:I don't know if you remember that in Atlanta, oh, I used to go to Catalyst. I thought that was the best thing since sliced bread. I thought, oh my God, have you been to Catalyst? It was pretty awesome. It was pretty awesome.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it definitely was. So did that a lot and really went into it with the motive of just like I'm just going to give and not expect anything in return. But you know, when you start doing that and you start getting a little bit of notoriety, it's hard to not kind of take that on as an identity, you know. And so prod comes before the fall. These girls left and started their own business.
Speaker 3:You know, and so, looking back on it now, I can see it. You know, cliches are cliches for a reason. We were talking about that before the show and you know, hindsight really is 20-20.
Speaker 3:Like you can just see so much more clearly years down the road and you know, hindsight really is 2020. Like, you can just see so much more clearly years down the road and that's a gift. But in the time it stripped me, I mean, I just it was so hurtful and it was like it was kind of a confirmation of I knew better, I shouldn't have. So, anyway, fast forward, ended up hiring some new people and reexamining my motives and kind of finding my really finding my identity was in more than just what I was able to do through a camera, and that was a beautiful growth journey and so, anyway, I kept photographing, uh, kind of rediscovered myself, if you will. And, um, every year I would just kind of meet with some friends that own businesses and we would get re-inspired to do something um, different or new or better or what have you.
Speaker 3:And that's really where the vision was planted for Reclaim. There was a store I went to down in Chattanooga and I was just awed by it. It was incredible. I was just there to build my photography business up and to get some inspiration, and as I'm driving back up the road, I literally hear this voice you're going to have a store like that someday. And I'm like what in the world. It was that like, what was that?
Speaker 2:It was so clear to me, that's a yeah, that's a God moment. It was a God moment, for sure, Absolutely.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, and so I just started praying about it and this was in 2011. About it, and this was in 2011. And I had at that point, I had four people on staff, I think, and was healing and had been to got to take me to Rwanda to teach me about forgiveness. I'm like these girls just started a business because they were probably being mistreated honestly at that point, you know. And so, yeah, so it was. It was beautiful Met with a lady that that just kind of helped me to understand that what I did and what I was known for was not necessarily like my core identity, which was a huge message for me back then. And meanwhile, I'm still photographing and still building the business and building relationships in the community and and loving all of that. And, anyway, ended up, ended up, yeah, um, sorry, ended up, um, what was I saying? I am so easily distracted.
Speaker 2:So, talking about the business, so you were. You pretty much had a clear, almost a clear indication that I'm going to start this business, like one that you saw in Chattanooga, yes, and then you had, um, gone through. You've had some several life-changing journeys, tina, which I really appreciate you talking about those, because I think, as women, we have so many expectations put on us and we struggle with so many things and we struggle with that identity. What do I do?
Speaker 3:And we don't feel like we can share that with anybody, because what will they think about us? Right, and so it is. I mean, it was what it was. I was very prideful I had I never knew who I was, but suddenly everybody knew who I was and so that definitely went to my head, you know, and it just. That is just the way it works, but anyway. So circling back to um, to the, the store, to the store.
Speaker 3:Yes, so I just I was just praying and just said, like I don't, I'm just a photographer. I don't know how to open a furniture store, I don't even know if that's for me, but I just need you to like, shut all these voices down if that's not of you, and if it is, then just start opening doors. And so he did. He just started opening doors and I ended up in it was either 2011 or 2012. I ended up, just like I just agreed, like I will write down everything that feels clear to me in the moment and we'll just see where it goes. And so I ended up writing a vision statement for each part of this crazy business that was coming to me.
Speaker 2:That is awesome.
Speaker 3:And we still, to this day, we still are tethered to that same vision. So it's really beautiful. That is yeah, yeah. And just along the way, so many doors have opened. So I will talk for three hours about this.
Speaker 3:I'm trying to manage our 20 minutes well. So I mean, every everything that was supposed to happen had realized what that actually gets you is not notoriety, it is pride, and so so now we have, like I don't know, 20 employees. It's crazy. And so, yeah, and it's in there, and I'm learning.
Speaker 3:I have learned and I'm continuing to learn that my opinion is not the only opinion that matters and we can really create so much more than anyone ever dreamed of. You couldn't have sold me for a nickel 10 years ago to tell me that I'd be sitting right here right now doing the things that we're doing, to the level that we're doing them, and it's because the people that come into my life, I've just learned to, to approach them with, they're here for a moment and they may be gone again tomorrow or maybe they're here to stay. I don't get to choose that, Because we can't hold on to people, you know. So I just and that that was one of the things that a very kind lady said to me right after the girls left and I was just reeling and stripped. And she said when people come to your life, you're closing your fist because it's the best that you've ever seen and the best that you've ever experienced.
Speaker 3:But what God wants for you is he will bring people to you and then they will go through you and he will always be replacing with better and better and better.
Speaker 2:Not better people, but just different, right, and using all the different personalities, and because we're also different, we're also unique. We always say that you know, there is no other Tina Wilson, there's no other Christine Reed, because God designed us genetically, through our DNA, to be so unique. But to glorify him, that's right For a reason. So everybody is so unique and different. So I love what you're saying and I think, if I hear it correctly, you know tell me if I'm wrong. I think, if I hear it correctly, you know tell me if I'm wrong. But he uses all those different people coming in and out of our lives kind of like a swinging door. But it's that sanctification process. It's always refining us, making us better. You know, maybe we're seeing faults in ourselves that we don't want to see, that somebody else can see, sure, sure, I have this picture.
Speaker 3:I'm just, I'm such a picture girl, which is why photography is so important to me and and I'm just, I'm so connected to it.
Speaker 3:The picture that I have of life is or one of them anyway is like this set of stairs and you're always on the middle step.
Speaker 3:It doesn't matter how far along you are, it doesn't matter how smart you are, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter who you are, you're always on the middle step. There's always someone above you that is better, faster, prettier, skinnier, more successful, whatever, and there's always somebody right down below you that needs something. They're trying to learn, they're trying to discover, and you have something that they need, and they probably have something that you need. And so always just thinking of myself, like right in the middle, like I reach up and I get wisdom that pours into me, and then I just turn around and empty it out to whoever's right behind me, and that is beautiful, that because I feel like you know, age doesn't have anything to do with that and experience doesn't even really have much to do with that, because you're right, like we're all created to be exactly who we are, and when we just show up in our identity. It just yeah, everything, it all just gels and it all just makes sense.
Speaker 2:It works it does, really it does, it does, and so you've you've stayed true to that vision with reclaimed home, you know, providing a place. So what are some of the things that that I mean? 20 employees, tina, that's impressive it shouldn't be too impressive.
Speaker 3:I don't zoom out and look at it like that that's a lot.
Speaker 2:I just know, and you know, Steve, managing the mortgage industry for 40 years now, people who have come and gone, and just you know managing people, leading people. It's so. It's not for the faint of heart, it's true. So what are some of the things that you're doing there at Reclaimed Home?
Speaker 3:So we didn't really tie in photography to Reclaimed necessarily. So I'll circle back to that, because that's something really beautiful that's happening right now and I feel like it probably answers what you're getting to. And, tina Wilson, photography is something that I've built for 22 years. I haven't built it alone. I've had all the different employees that have come through that business in the years that it's been alive has helped to create what it is today. And so once I started Reclaim, the vision that I felt like the Lord had given me is that over the course of five years the photography would just kind of like no longer be a player, or could kind of fade into the night, if you will. And five years came and I wasn't ready for it to go away. It wasn't prevalent anymore.
Speaker 3:It wasn't the pressure and the stress to keep it alive and well and me being the only commodity there which I mean, I'm like, if I want to go away for a couple of months not that I will, not that I may ever do that but what if I had to? What would happen to the business? It would shut down, and I really wanted something that would keep going without me. And so I ended up having I had a phone. High school or not from high school, I'm sorry Graduated from college, I've got a job, I've been living in Charlotte, I've just moved back home.
Speaker 3:I just, I don't know if I want to do this, I just can. Can we just meet and, you know, just chat, and so that's my love language. So so we met, we walked and we walked and we walked and we oh, my goodness, our legs were numb and she just shared where she was and I shared where I am. And then that has turned into me basically mentoring her to take over Tina Wilson photography, and so the name doesn't make sense anymore, because it's not Tina Wilson that you're going to get. But it also didn't feel feel, it didn't feel natural to take it all the way away. And then and we've explored, you know, every, every way that we can possibly explore this, but anyway, we just decided to name it Wilson and Co and let her be the head photographer and I'll still photograph, like clients that I've always worked with, because that's what.
Speaker 3:I love to do is grow with families and watch them grow in front of the lens and kind of document that journey. It's so beautiful and now she's going to be taking on all the new clients and all the new shoots that come through the studio and she's so passionate and she's so good and I've known her since she was two. It's just, it's so beautiful. It's so beautiful and so I known her since she was two.
Speaker 2:It's just it's so beautiful. It's so beautiful.
Speaker 3:And so I was willing to let it go away. But then, when it came, when that time frame came and then it just, it perfectly coincided with the time that she called and it just, it was just kind of serendipitous, which is how all of this is when my hands aren't full when.
Speaker 3:I don't have my hands closed on what seems too good to be true and I'm just willing to let it go. Then new doors open and new opportunities come when I could have never dreamed that they would. So it is. It is really beautiful, so the photography is going to continue. And it's underneath the umbrella of Reclaimed Okay and we may not have 20 employees right now. I don't know but 18 to 20 is probably where we are. I don't know if anybody's fact checking me, so I want to be careful for that.
Speaker 2:I don't think you've got to worry about that, Tina. We don't fact check.
Speaker 3:But it's really beautiful, but it's really beautiful. I've learned that as a leader I can be a really okay leader of like seven to ten people. When it surpasses 13, I tap out. But that is under a structure that all of those people answer to me. I can't do that. What we have now is we kind of have different divisions. So what Reclaimed?
Speaker 3:Home is, is we have a retail store and the retail store has home goods it has. It's not necessarily reclaimed, is not the word for reclaimed, is the word for repurposed. But that's not what we do. We do source some found things because authentically worn when it is in, when you, when you put something that's authentically worn into a room, it welcomes story and it welcomes warmth instantly a room.
Speaker 3:It welcomes story and it welcomes warmth instantly, and so that is the part of the look of something that's reclaimed that we really love, and then marrying that idea with things that are new, that wear really well, that live really well with families.
Speaker 3:And then we have gift items and so reclaimed is really just about coming to find things that make your home better, that make your home feel irresistible, to where your family and your friends want to. They want to be there, they want to come, they're comfortable there, because that's where really connection, I think, is birth, and then meanwhile, if your home is perfectly the way you want it, there's always a great gift to be discovered, right, absolutely.
Speaker 1:So we do gifts.
Speaker 3:And then we do full scope, full service interior design. We do new construction, working with architects all the way up to or down to, if you will, just selecting paint colors to a room and everything in between. We do full home furnishings. We leave a space so that you can walk in and just put your feet up and start living, and that's really beautiful and we love that. It's personalized, it's not static, it's not. We marry heart, story and intention for each person into the work that we do and all of the team members there they have that same heart for it. We joke and we say that we probably care more about your home than you do, and so we do lose sleep over our projects because we just we love what we do so much and we want it to matter and we want it to um, to impact, and we want homeowners to be able to to run home and just be so excited to connect with their people in their spaces.
Speaker 3:And so, um, we have a styling service, and the styling service is basically you have all your big furniture, but you don't know what to put on your shelves, and you don't know what pillows and window treatments and all of that, and so we'll come in and just put all the final touches on it for you, just to kind of finish the space out. And then we still do photography as well, and so, yeah, so we're, yeah, we're just kind of a.
Speaker 2:My goodness, I'll tell you what. I am so glad that you came on today. I mean I have learned so much and just knowing what the things that you're providing to the community, I mean you truly are making our community a better place. Tina.
Speaker 3:We hope to. Our mission is really to enrich the homes and the lives within our community and we do that through creating exceptional experiences that, from the very first phone call to the time that we're leaving you in your home, it's very important to us all along the way to really just be. It's a stewardship, right Like it's. It's not a transit, we're not a transactional business, we're a very relational um business that we feel called to. That is that that we treat more as a stewardship than an entrepreneurship.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's wonderful and you know you, you marry so well to what we do here at Benchmark Home Loans. I mean, we consider it an honor when we're entrusted with the biggest purchase that most people will probably ever make. Yes, and so it's a very high-touch hand-holding service, absolutely, and I love what you're doing and how you value people. They're not just a client. That's not just a customer, it's you're bringing them in, it's almost like a family member.
Speaker 3:It is.
Speaker 2:It's relational and it's probably they probably send you their children or maybe, down the road, their grandchildren, and, yes, and that's a beautiful thing, yeah. So, tina, you're doing a great work. Thank you for being here today, I hope, and that's a beautiful thing. So, tina, you're doing a great work. Thank you for being here today. I hope you'll come back. Yeah, because I think we just barely kind of brushed the surface of Tina Wilson and what you're doing.
Speaker 3:So store location, tell us where that is. So we're right downtown Johnson City, we're. You know parking is what parking is we are located in the parking lot.
Speaker 3:So we're on the corner of Rhone Street and State of Franklin, right at the public parking right there. And, yeah, you can, we're open, not at I'm sorry 10 to 6, monday through Friday and 10 to 4 on Saturdays Wonderful. We also have events. I didn't talk about those, but if you follow us on social media, we have some really fun events. Some of them are open to the community.
Speaker 3:Some of them are paid private events where we teach people how to do things how to throw a dinner party or how to make a flower arrangement or how to create a tablescape. There's lots of different fun classes, so you have to check that out.
Speaker 2:I need to check those out. So check you out on social media for sure.
Speaker 3:Yes, reclaimedhomeco.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for all of those wonderful events. So, tina, thank you for being on today.
Speaker 3:Yes, thank you for having me. I've loved it.
Speaker 1:This has been Benchmark Happenings, brought to you by Jonathan Tipton and Steve Reed from Benchmark Home Loans. Jonathan and Steve are residential mortgage lenders. They do home loans in Northeast Tennessee and they're not only licensed in Tennessee but Florida, georgia, south Carolina and Virginia. We hope you've enjoyed the show. Georgia, south Carolina and Virginia. We hope you've enjoyed the show. If you did, make sure to like, rate and review. Our passion is Northeast Tennessee, so if you have questions about mortgages, call us at 423-491-5405, and the website is wwwJonathanAndStevecom. Thanks for being with us and we'll see you next time on Benchmark Happenings.
