The Confidence Curve
The Confidence Curve is a podcast that explores the dynamic journeys of successful professionals who have scaled organizations and left lasting legacies. Hosted by Ashley and Rick Bowers, each episode delves into the challenges, victories, and lessons learned. Through engaging conversations with leaders across industries, this podcast offers listeners valuable insights, practical advice, and inspiration to confidently navigate their paths—whether in business, leadership, or personal growth. Join us as we uncover strategies that build successful careers and impactful legacies.
The Confidence Curve
Navigating Growth and Change in the Workplace
Join us for an engaging episode of the Confidence Curve as we welcome Jen Folk, the dynamo behind the operations team at TriPoint Connect. From her beginnings as employee number one, Jen has been instrumental in scaling the company from a mere concept to a thriving team of 75 members in just a year. Her insights on navigating the whirlwind of a startup environment, while balancing the need to wear multiple hats and eventually delegate, are invaluable for anyone facing similar growth challenges. Jen's journey is a testament to the power of resilience and strategic thinking in the fast-paced world of the mortgage industry.
Discover the art of developing people and aligning personal and professional goals with Jen as we explore the intricacies of building a cohesive team. We discuss the balancing act of placing the right people in the right roles and the importance of reassessing team needs in a constantly evolving landscape. Transparency and strategic communication emerge as vital elements in fostering a positive organizational culture, helping to avoid the pitfalls of controlling information out of fear. Jen's experience offers a masterclass in leadership and teamwork, highlighting the benefits of nurturing an environment where everyone feels valued and empowered.
As we navigate the complex post-COVID-19 workplace, Jen shares her perspective on the shift back to in-office settings and the strategies used to encourage employee attendance. From flexible scheduling to creative incentives, we look at how organizations can address employee resistance and integrate hybrid work models effectively. Additionally, the episode touches on the impact of external factors like election years on the housing market and the importance of personal development within the team. Jen leaves us with inspiring anecdotes and actionable strategies, making this episode a must-listen for those looking to scale confidently in their careers and beyond.
Thank you. Welcome to the Confidence Curve with Ashley and Rick Bowers, where personal and professional journeys define the art of scaling with confidence. Whether you're a business leader in an avenue of change or someone seeking personal growth, this podcast offers insights and actionable advice to help you thrive. Now let's dive into today's conversation with our incredible guest.
Speaker 3:Welcome to the Confidence Curve. Thank you for being here, jen. So Rick and I are here today with Jen Folk of TriPoint Connect, and Jen and I have had the opportunity to work together in the past for a few years and we've known each other for a while, and so I'm just so happy that you're here to join us today.
Speaker 4:Well, thank you so much. I am really appreciative of the invite to join you and looking forward to the things that we we were looking to talk about Awesome.
Speaker 3:Well, we're gonna jump right in. And if you could tell us a little bit about you and about TriPoint and what have you been up to on this new journey? Oh gosh.
Speaker 4:Well, let's see, I've been in the mortgage business for more than 20 years and so in that time I've done a few things, you know, and it's been a great journey.
Speaker 4:It's been one of those things that nobody ever actually chooses to join the mortgage business. Nobody wakes up one day and says you know what? I think I want to be a mortgage professional, so a lot of us just land there and then, as you go through the journey, the highs and the lows, you find yourself in different positions. So that's been a big piece of my journey has been different parts of the mortgage operations side in particular, and in the last year I've actually been a founding member I would say founding in the sense of TriPoint Connect as a startup organization, and I've spent the last year growing and so I'm kind of excited. There's a lot of things you and I did in our past lives together and some of that comes into the new organization I've been with. But TriPoint Connect is the wholly owned mortgage company that serves TriPoint Homes, which is a national builder, and we actually do have a presence here in the local Phoenix market. So we've built our fulfillment operations team here locally and that's a big piece of my passion is building the team.
Speaker 3:And you know, just talking to you a couple different times over the last year or so and the growth that you've experienced. So can you kind of talk about that startup and you know employee number one versus where you are today within TriPoint and maybe share some lessons learned? Obviously, we both have a big history in employee development and hiring and so it's always great to hear what best practices have you been implementing as you've been growing that team and creating culture inside TriPoint.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's funny, I was employee number one, in the sense of the organization was just fully starting and I joined in October of last year. So just last week I celebrated my one-year anniversary and you know we joke around a little bit about it because we thought one year, you know, it's going to be forever, it's going to take a long time, and you blink and then the year is over. So you know, we started in October of last year. I added a handful of people before the end of last year, but we really focused on creating our core team, starting in January, and in the time since we've added I think I'm up to 75 team members as of now.
Speaker 4:It's exciting. You know it doesn't sound like a lot, but when you're trying to add them in rapid succession and you're hiring in batches, you've got 10 new hires every Monday and it's a flurry of activity. It's exciting Building a startup. For some people they don't understand the depth of what you're putting into it, but I've enjoyed. Really. It's a combination of adding to the team and a combination of developing the business at the same time. So you have to be prepared for the pace of that and you blink and a year is gone already.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean lessons learned, right, obviously, your history with assessments and the coaching and stuff that you do with people. I mean that's rapid, rapid growth and having to almost hire in those cohorts, as you mentioned. You know, 10 new people starting on Monday. I'm sure you have some serious questions on that for her.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was just thinking too. I was employee number one with TTI back in 1988. So when TTI moved to Arizona, it was just father-son that were the founders and that was the first one that they hired, going part-time at ASU and kind of doing a little bit of everything. So you kind of get that you understand the business from a whole different level when you're the first person there, and so it's exciting from that standpoint.
Speaker 4:I think it's fun that you mentioned being employee number one and wearing many hats, and that is kind of the key right. When you're employee number one or five or in your you're in that first dozen, you are wearing a lot of hats at that point because everything hasn't been fully developed. There's not a department to handle that. You are the department.
Speaker 2:Yeah and I think that the tricky part then is to understand when to take the hat off, because you're wearing so many hats for so long, but now you're bringing in all of these people and you're bringing in 10 people a week and it's like, all right, I need to get rid of this hat. It's like who can I delegate to? And that's one of the things that I find a lot with with clients is that they struggle with the delegation because they don't always have the trust levels, and so it's like how do you build the trust or do you delegate? Which comes first, the chicken or the egg?
Speaker 4:in that situation, I feel like, did you just look in my notebook? I carry this notebook with me and these are things that I constantly am like exploring and reminding myself and saying, okay, am I doing the right thing? Am I empowering my team? Am I entrusting you know something to be done? Have I given them a good picture of what needs to be done? So I just literally, when you said that I'm going to show you the page it's written on, all of those things are all written on the same page.
Speaker 3:That's amazing, you know. Obviously we use the stages of growth model. We used it, you know, in our past life together and we use it inside Apex and you know stage one is one to ten employees and you know already being up to 75 employees. That's looking at a stage five company. It's getting really large and having time in each of those stages is what helps you build a culture and sustain operations and have that foundation and that infrastructure. So talk to us a little bit about going from stage one to stage five in 12 months. Obviously, you have the support of a large organization behind you too, but you really were spearheading all that here and how did you create a culture that could handle that type of rapid?
Speaker 4:growth. You know, I think we're pretty fortunate because we do have a fantastic parent organization that has a lot of infrastructure already, you know, embedded in it right, and so we were able to lean heavily on a lot of that. But also on top of it, I was fortunate enough to staff my core leadership team with some people that I have some history with and I think there's some value in you're able to ramp up and you hit the ground running a little bit faster and people you have those relationships with you know the trust and the proving yourself all over again. That timeline is shorter, so I think that would probably be one thing I would point to which helped me. You know, I staffed my core leadership team in January and then they also were able to bring in folks that they had from their past.
Speaker 4:I know that's I would say that's probably also a byproduct of the market we're in right now. You know I don't take for granted that the mortgage industry we have our highs, we have our lows and it's been one of the longer lows. So we've been really fortunate to be able to grab the right people at the right point in time as far as trying to keep them engaged in culture and those things. That's a daily effort for us. I mean it's weekly. There's a lot of things we're still learning and working on together, and collaboration is a really big piece of that for us.
Speaker 2:That's one of the things that I talk a lot with clients about is that transparency and the communication aspects of it, and that's a big piece of trust, which is when you think about the five dysfunctions of a team. Trust is kind of that baseline. It's like how do you build the trust and the transparency, the being comfortable having those conversations when you bring in people that you've worked with in the past? You kind of hit the ground running with those people, but then how do you build that trust with the people that you just hired and just met?
Speaker 4:I'm going to tell you that is a challenge we're continuing to work on.
Speaker 4:You know that is definitely we've had a lot of conversations because we all see the vision. At our level right, we're high up and we see the vision and we've bought into it and we're working on it and we want to think that we're able to cascade the information down and we're doing it regularly. But you can take any survey, any employee survey, and I don't it doesn't matter what organization you're in. Probably the number one piece of feedback you're gonna see is we need more communication.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm always like what does it mean? Yeah, right, and like, please, if you're gonna say communication, define it for me. What specifically are you looking for? Because it can mean multiple things to one person, much less if you're surveying 100 people or 300 people or 500 people, you're starting to multiply that complexity of figuring out what is communication, meet and what type of communication, what frequency of communication. We talk a lot about push-pull right, and how can we push out the communication three times but then turn it into something that every employee can pull and and they have access to, so that we can flip that accountability of keeping informed to the employee versus the management team constantly having to make sure, like, did every single person here understand and are they able to act on whatever it is that we were trying to communicate?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then there's the nonverbal communication. I mean, you and I are both famous for that is, our teams would ask us a question and they would just watch our faces they didn't even really need to hear the answer because they would get that and so we would call that facial comments as opposed to expressions, they weren't always positive.
Speaker 4:I think I've seen that once or twice. We knew exactly how Ashley would respond to something, and you'd look and you'd go yep.
Speaker 3:Yeah, usually when facial comments are before words come out, it's not a positive reaction. That's the hard thing.
Speaker 2:There are a ton of books just on learning to read body language and it's like how are you? They're like you twisted sideways, are you straight? Are your hands crossed?
Speaker 4:I mean there's just so many things that can indicate how the conversation is going to go and that's a huge part of communication that people don't think about well, and I think one of the biggest challenges is, like, for us, we're actually in an office three days a week and so we have the ability to interact personally, right, but when you're dealing with we have some folks that are remote, and so when you're dealing with that remote side of things, the communication you're pushing out, you don't always know how they took it and you can't always tell. You know the body language, because cameras are off or those types of things, things, and so those are the challenges you continue to face when you're trying to get the whole team on board and understand, have them understand where you're going with things.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the famous, like they yelled at me like, did you, did you talk to the person? Like, well, no, they sent me an email. Okay, well, was it in all caps? Well, no, but just based on the tone. Like I'm like, was there audio with that email, or are we just associating? Right, but it's hard, and then we find ourselves doing it too. We have to check ourselves. Even though we can teach that and coach that with the people who work with us, we have to. Then also, how did we take an email? How did we understand? I feel like this was my midnight conversation with our teenager last night about his work environment right now.
Speaker 2:Midnight conversations are never good, no. So, growing up in the assessment world with TTI and kind of understanding from the ground up how assessments work and how important it is to kind of get that true understanding of an individual, what are some of the ways that you utilize to kind of find the uniqueness in the different individuals? So that you utilize to kind of find the uniqueness in the different individuals and so that you can do the things like delegate and which roles are they going to be most successful in?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I mean we always start with kind of what are their motivators, what excites them? Because if you can understand really where they want to go, like why they're coming in, why they do what they do, then you can think about how you're going to get them where you need them to be. And so a lot of our leadership, their interactions with their team members, are really understanding like, why are you doing what you do? We do a lot. Obviously, we have a skill set that we have to have. So we start there and we understand what skills they have. But on top of that, it's important to us that they feel like they have a development path and so that development could be either personal or professional.
Speaker 4:And so we've done a few things. We're really trying to encourage our team, saying hey, you know what, we're here for you, but we want you to take these skills and we want to transcend the day-to-day of your job and we want to help improve, for example, relationships at home and with your teenagers and the folks that you know that you're dealing with outside of here. So for us we start with how, what, what motivates the person? Like, how do we get them where they're at today? Where do they want to go, and? And what do we play into that?
Speaker 3:you know, it's just so interesting when you talk about that motivation and the driving and that fit right and just like kind of the energizers right. So how do you get them where they? Just they want to be in it and at it all the time and I know obviously in our work together it's really hard drive going really fast. You know, at a point we were, you know, trying to ready a company for an IPO.
Speaker 3:During your journey and those rapid growth moments, the startup moments, obviously there's a lot of lessons learned and sometimes when we're in it, they aren't really lessons that we want to learn right at that moment or we're not seeing the value or the benefit that that's going to play out later. It's like, looking back, what are some of those lessons learned that maybe while you were experiencing, you're like what am I doing or why is this happening? But now there's some of the biggest lessons that have really helped you propel your career. And my follow-up to that would be you know, what advice would you give that emerging leader who's maybe going through some of those lessons right now to keep pushing through?
Speaker 4:You know, I think, gosh, where can I start? So many lessons learned. I really think that the main one is, for me, has been you know, don't it's? We all want to. We want to be successful, right, and we want to take what we're doing and we want it to be magnified and we want people to see that we've done these things. But what's most important is to take what you're doing and to stay focused on what you can control, right, what is within your control.
Speaker 4:And we oftentimes start spiraling because there are things that are outside of what we're working on and we think that if we can just bring this back in and work on it and control it in our space, then that's going to change what we're working on. And so this is a personal life lesson. I'll tell you what my mother has been telling me my whole entire life. You know what you cannot work on. You cannot control everything. You need to worry about what is within your control, and so I I probably practice that on a daily basis.
Speaker 4:But you know, the lessons you learn are just, honestly, you, you need to stay focused in what is in this sphere today and then you can move to what comes next. I mean, I'm a big picture person and I'm always looking so far in advance and my problem there is that I'm looking so far in advance, I'm not always seeing like what's right here and what is today and what have I just done yesterday, and and you can't forget those things because that's taking you where you need to go for the next year yeah, that kind of goes back to the having the right people in the organization, but are they in the right seat within the organization?
Speaker 2:Can you, from a big picture standpoint, like break it down into the compartments where everybody kind of fits into these different places?
Speaker 4:I love that you just mentioned that, because you know, as we staffed our team, we said, okay, these are the people we need today in these seats. But you know what who we need today and who we need six months from now, and what seats have changed. And so we are constantly reevaluating and we're saying, all right, well, we brought this person in and they've been in the seat, but now we have this growing need for this other area and is there a reshuffle? And that, for me, is one area. I do have to be careful, because I'm a very love-to-move-quick. Put me in something new. I get excited by it. Some people need more continuity and they want to stay in a seat a little bit longer and, as a startup, you may need them to move faster. So, are they in the right seats? Do you have the right people? It's constant.
Speaker 2:And sometimes that goes back to being able to utilize the assessments because you can see, from a behavior standpoint, are they very dynamic when it comes to pace? Are they steady when it comes to this? Are they direct when it comes to pace or they study when it comes to this, or they direct when it comes to problems? Are they more reflective? And so you kind of get an understanding of how they prefer to do what they do, which ties into the why they're getting out of bed every morning and coming to work, and so those two simple things tell you so much about the organ or about the individual and how they fit in the organization it's not you talk about.
Speaker 3:You know control right, and I think a lot of us that are really, you know, driven and, and you know, trying to achieve things. Um, ultimately, like, we like to win, and I always think, like, does anyone not like to?
Speaker 3:win like I don't know anyone that wakes up and like how do I lose today, right, um, and in, you know, just in that conversation? I think sometimes we try to control information and the dissemination of information out of fear that, well, if people know this or you know, if I have to talk about this, like maybe that'll redirect them or it might deflate them. How do you decide what information and what really you know, vulnerable, candid information, you share when you're trying to coach people toward, towards that win? Because I always feel like if someone has a scorecard in front of them, they can always know where am I at and having that information, even if it's not great information is much more kind. Someone used to work with used to always say clear is kind and and it really is, because people want to know how am I scoring up if I, if I don't know if I'm winning, like how do I know when I've won right, like how do I ever get that satisfaction? So how do you determine what kind of information to disseminate?
Speaker 4:yeah, I'm probably more on the side of an overshare category, right? I really, because I am one of those people that wants to know myself. I tend to want to share and be very clear and be very candid and transparent. Where I draw the line is, again if it's not something that they have any control over and they're not going to be able to influence the outcome of it and it's just going to create conflict for them or it's going to create a problem where they are struggling, that's something I won't necessarily share and through my career, obviously I've had to be a holder of information strategic decisions that mortgage companies are making, we're going to close this particular market, and so knowing that information in advance and then maybe having to not share it because you can't, you kind of create this place where you say, okay, if I had to know that information myself in advance and it was going to tear me up, is that the kind of information I should be sharing with people?
Speaker 4:And so for me, that's where I've kind of created the differentiator. Sometimes I'll share the information with them and I'll say to them I actually don't have an answer for this right now. I want you to know about it because it's something that's coming at us or it's something we're working on, but I don't have an answer for you. And again, you have to kind of create the line where you say, if I give this information to them and I don't have an answer, is that also going to create conflict that I then have to manage? And if I can't manage through that, then I just choose not to pass it on until I have more information for them.
Speaker 2:Do you ever give permission for them to ask you questions, or excuse me to question you?
Speaker 4:That is such a great question. Yes, and, by the way, I love that you mentioned the assessments, because that is something that has been near and dear to our heart. That is a part of our organization, as well as understanding the different styles, characteristics what drives people. But I had a recent example where one of my leaders and I have vastly different styles and my expectation is to be questioned If someone doesn't agree. I want you to challenge me, but based on their style. That's not how they operate right.
Speaker 4:And so we kind of kept going back and forth and I just in my mind kept saying, why are we here? And so we really sat down, we had one of those very, very raw, candid conversations with one another and ultimately I said I don't want you to be a yes person, I want you to ask. And then it became the I think I need to tell everyone this so you know, those are the moments where you, where you, you define and go. Okay, I assume you would have known that, based on how I think I operate, but you didn't know that. So now I need to change how I operate.
Speaker 2:I mean you just see the light bulbs when you're talking to a leader and have you given them permission to ask the question or to question you, because everything that comes out of your mouth shouldn't just be taken for granted. I mean when you really start to question things and have a constructive conversation, that's where the magic actually happens with the team.
Speaker 3:Or even the expectation to question right, not just even permission, I think you know, and even on certain procedures and things like that, you know looking at it and saying, okay, hey, you've been following this procedure. Is there a piece of the process that once a month you're saying, hey, does this process still work right? Is there anything broken in this? Could this be improved in any way and actually make a piece of the process? Questioning the process or, you know, questioning the individuals and things like that, just in the spirit of always moving the organization along and doing the right thing by each other and, you know, building that culture.
Speaker 4:I think one of the things that we've learned through our growth has been that I'm certainly not afraid to make any decisions. And I'll make decisions. I'll make them very quickly. Sometimes I'll make decisions, I'll make them very quickly. Sometimes I'll make decisions one after another, all related to the same topic, and sometimes that causes my team's head to spin a little bit. But what we also have started doing is sitting down and saying like, okay, well, we made that decision at that point in time because that was what we were working with.
Speaker 4:But as we've evolved, as we've grown, is that still where we need to be? And you know, we again I say collaboration, that's been a really big word in our organization. And what we're, is that still where we need to be? And you know, we again I say collaboration, that's been a really big word in our organization. And what we're building is saying, hey, we want to collaborate on how we solve. I am going to tell you, collaboration is phenomenal, but you can't make all your decisions by committee, right? I think that would probably be the one thing you know. We started off and I wanted all of my teammates to have the ability to help build. And no pun intended, right, we work for a builder, but we wanted to build something really exciting. And then what we found is you get 10 people in a room. They have 10 fabulous ideas. You walk out and say, well, we're going to think about that. And you come back and you still haven't made a decision.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's kind of one of the things that you know you, you go okay, this is one of the things we want as a founding operating principle how we operate, but we can't let that be how all the decisions get made, right. Yeah, I mean, people really ultimately just want to be heard, like they have the opportunity to put their ideas out there. They have the opportunity to kind of be part of the discussion. Whether their ideas is accepted or not isn't as big a deal as actually the fact that they got to talk and put the idea out there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, I think, being transparent about it too, like, hey, I'm looking for input and information on this, but ultimately, I'm going to go back and I'm going to consider all things and I'm going to make a decision. Or, you know, three of us are going to go back and we're going to come back to you with a decision. Or like, guys, this is a really open discussion and let's work at it until we get to a decision today. But we're going to get to a decision today, right? I'm just kind of clarifying, is it what type of decision process is going to happen? We have a client right now and they use the saying quite a bit. We need to make the best right decision for right now. I love that right, because there could be three or four right decisions. So, what's the best right decision? And it's for right now, right? So, yeah, it's pretty interesting. So what about, uh, workplace flexibility?
Speaker 2:it kind of goes into some of the things that you've been working on yeah, I think that our world has changed over the last four years with covet and moving from that majority of organizations were in the office to going outside, with having to be remote, and then when is the right time to come back in? I think, based on the industry that you're in, you have a lot of people in the office, I understand. Was there a transition for that? Only being a year old, you kind of just started from that direction, or was there any issue from a culture standpoint?
Speaker 4:oh gosh, this is our every week management topic, so I'm so glad we're talking about this.
Speaker 3:Uh well, you and every other company out there, by the way.
Speaker 4:I really am and and we do look at the news we're like look at what other major organization out there is now calling people back? Um, you know, we've worked really hard and so we did do it from day one because we believe that, as you're building this organization and we are all brand new, all of us it was important for us to be in person together and there's a lot of value in that. But we are continuing to. I'm going to say we're going to continue to fight the tide, because people have said well, we've been successful working from home, why should we come to the office? And so you know we're looking, we look at ways that they want to come, like again, what motivates you? So we have some people that have said you know, I enjoy working from home, but I've been wearing pajamas for three years and I look forward to getting dressed on Monday, tuesday, wednesday.
Speaker 4:We do work in the office three days a week. It's been a challenge. I'm not I'm really not going to lie like commuting people that haven't commuted in a long time, and maybe some of them have never actually commuted, depending on what their role was, so encouraging them. We do offer flex schedules. So it's like look, if you, if you leave your house at a certain time and you can get here 15 minutes faster and you want to come in earlier, we allow that. We run, you know, a long shift and so people can it's not an entirely like pick your schedule come in whenever you want, but you know we run a shift that lets them come in earlier or later, based on what works for them. You know the other thing, too, for us that it's like okay, what are some of the things that people love in an office? Well, spirit week. You know the other thing, too, for us that it's like okay, what are some of the things that people love in an office? Well, spirit Week. You know we feed them a lot.
Speaker 4:There's a lot of that that happens in the mortgage industry around certain times of the year or the month. You know it's like we really need you to stay, so we're bringing lunch in today, some of those things you know we've worked on, but it does continue to be one of those things we talk with our peers hey, we're in the office three days a week. What are you guys doing? Oh, we're in the office two days a week, but we're thinking about going to three. It's like let's stick together on that. So so I think that we as a nation are going to start seeing more of the back in office, and what will be interesting to see how they implement is those that let their employees move away from the office proximity. How they're going to handle that, because you shouldn't be limited to the geography for your talent pool, but that is what's going to happen.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I know there's a large organization that announced that everyone has basically until January, I think it is in order to move back where they can be in the office if they've moved away, which even in the housing market and the things that are going on right now. That's not an easy ask, right? I mean, sometimes it might be an easier ask than others. You know the phrase like workplace flexibility, because it was. You know it's remote, it's hybrid and I feel like a lot of people are moving towards.
Speaker 3:It's flexible, meaning you know you're not going to only have to do one day or only have to do two days as a hybrid piece, but maybe we want you in five days a week but you could come in at nine after you do the kid drop off or if you need to leave, like there's just a little bit more flexibility put into that. How is that impacting your applicant flow? We've had a few clients that are hiring people that are in office and they talk about it through the hiring process and you know everything is set and then kind of like day day before start, well, I really need to be out of the office two days a week, and it's like this last-minute kind of push to renegotiate, which used to be, you know, a sign-on bonus or something like that. It's like a renegotiation of which days are in the office.
Speaker 4:Have you found anything like that? How are you dealing with applicants?
Speaker 3:Oh, have you been in my meetings lately?
Speaker 4:It feels like all the things. Look, all the things that you guys are talking about are exactly the challenges that we're facing. You know, we have all of those upfront conversations during the recruiting process, and one of the shifts that we just made is that we really are one of our biggest focus. Questions is why, specifically, are you interested in this in-office hybrid job? Right, what we want to understand from them is more of why do you want to be in the office with us three days a week, versus you know, is the commute a problem for you? Those were some of the questions we used to ask. We be in the office with us three days a week, versus you know, is the commute a problem for you? Those were some of the questions we used to ask. We're in the office three days a week. Will the commute be a problem for you? They're going to, of course, say no, it's not a problem, because they're looking to get the job. But, to your point, day before, it's like well, I have a little. I feel like I have a little bargaining power now that I'm supposed to be there tomorrow. Can we make some accommodations? And so I think for us, our focus is more on trying to get to the candidate pool that want to be in the office.
Speaker 4:It is a challenge. It is a challenge, you know. We have probably had had hundreds of applicants for our positions and many of them are not within driving distance. I mean we've got folks that are in the valley but not what I would consider really a daily comm driving distance. I mean we've got folks that are in the valley but not what I would consider really a daily commutable distance, and so you have to really understand like Is an hour and a half in the car each way something that works for you, for your life and for your family and for your balance? So those are all questions you vet out as you're working through that hiring process.
Speaker 3:I was just talking to a client the other day and they have company vehicles and the rule around the company vehicle is in Metro Phoenix, right, but what's considered Metro Phoenix has expanded? Right, but what's considered metro phoenix has expanded, and so where one employee lives is actually further in mileage than to prescott, oh wow, from the office. But prescott doesn't qualify for the company vehicle but the other one does because of how things were labeled, right. So just on the communication, on the culture, on the fairness, on the flexibility, it kind of all the ties together. And it's just, you have to be so careful with implementing those types of policies and things because it can have unintended consequences. You know that maybe aren't exactly what you want and maybe that would be a higher level employee, but years ago we've been driving from Prescott. Why would you do that? But people drive that far every day.
Speaker 4:I actually have to tell you we've had several applicants from Prescott, prescott Valley area and in the conversations with them they say we aren't opposed to that commute. You know, and truly it's actually not that far it's an hour and 15 minutes. It's probably just as far from Prescott Valley to our office than it is, you know, from the West Valley to our office.
Speaker 3:So okay and they didn't have 100 days over 110. No, which I think everyone's been tired of, Kind of continuing on workplace flexibility and just staying nimble. Obviously, being in the mortgage space, I think that's a primary element to being successful in mortgage. How have you been responding and kind of giving assurances to people to join the mortgage industry and come in during a time where you know it's not necessarily seen as this great industry? Obviously, with a new home builder there's a lot of advantages there. You've been able to capitalize on some talent, so it's really worked out in your favor. But how do you kind of respond to market changes and the ebbs and flows of everything and keep that culture and that spirit really high, as they, you know, potentially are not hearing great things on the news every day about their space?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I think I feel really fortunate. Definitely the mortgage industry. We have our peaks and valleys, but when you work for a home builder, we're not immune to the market but we are a little bit more insulated, so I call them the rolling hills. So for us, that, to me, is one of the greatest features of being able to say to a team that wants to stay in the mortgage business we have some consistency in our overall flow. But really, when you see what's coming in the market, we say all the time okay, it's an election year, and election years tend to do those things.
Speaker 4:They put people on the fence or they have them wait and then in the end they're going to get off the fence.
Speaker 4:Some of them will, some of them won't, and so it's more a matter for us of trying to anticipate what's coming and trying to lay the bricks now, like, okay, we know that after the election there's going to be a portion of people that will say I'm ready to buy, I've been waiting, now I'm ready to buy. And then there's others that are going to say, well, that was exactly what I thought and that's why I'm not going to buy. It doesn't matter, people still buy homes, right, they get married, they move, their families grow larger, their families grow smaller, and so what we're just trying to do is anticipate what else in the mortgage market is going to change, where we want to wrap our arms around our team and have them feel like this was the choice for them. So a big piece for us is, you know, as I mentioned a little bit earlier, but the personal development as well. So it's not just a job. This is we're giving you skills that help you across the board. So what?
Speaker 2:type of opportunities do they have from that personal development standpoint? Because you mentioned in the beginning, you start with the motivators, and so some people are motivated by gaining the knowledge, some people want to lead a team, some people want to create these really nice environments. So everybody has kind of a different direction of why they're excited to come to work every day. So what are some of those opportunities that you guys provide?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I mean we. Well, we started off and did a soft skills training with the entire operations team, right? So I should probably clarify and say, when we have 75 people that's on my side of the house there's a sales organization as well, that's probably equal or slightly larger. So we did this soft skills training and then, as as part of that, what we also did is work with our teams to understand like, where, where are you wanting to go? We're building more departments pretty much monthly, you know. So it's like the thought of okay, if you are looking to move into this arena, what are the things today, as we're building them, that we need to start building your core knowledge for? And a little bit of his special projects. There are a lot of special projects.
Speaker 4:So, when it's every day. It's like hey, I have another special project. You know, is anyone special projected out today? But really spreading the special projects out because I think we've done this and I, literally my team and I were just talking. You always know who your A players are. You know who your go to people are. How do you start leveraging more of your next level players that have potential to be A and win? You know when do you do those things?
Speaker 2:Because you also have those people that really just thrive on routine work and it's like, okay, how do you make sure you have those people where they're just keeping on doing the things that they love to do? And then the ones that want the special projects are the ones that love to troubleshoot.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think it's always important too, right? The only way to grow in an organization is not necessarily to go up, right? Are there lateral moves and spreading out their competencies or starting to mentor others, without necessarily taking on that management or that leadership role? Not everybody wants that and that's okay, right?
Speaker 4:It's okay to know what you want and what you don't want, and you can still have growth within an organization it's funny that that you mentioned that when I was a fairly young leader, I assumed that everyone else also wanted to climb the chain. Right, that's, that was my goal. I assumed that everyone wanted to, and I had someone that was incredibly talented as a closer, for example, and she was really good at it. And one day I approached her I said I really need a closing manager and I think you're gonna be phenomenal at this. And she looked at me with deer in the headlights, looks like I don't know what you're talking about. And I said well, I think you could be a great closing manager. And she's like that was kind of one of those moments in time about learning.
Speaker 4:All right, maybe not everyone is motivated to grow up. So when you mentioned lateral moves, you know that has been a really big piece for us. We definitely are building departments and it's it's saying hey, who has enough of a background in that to be able to move into that department? Maybe they're the cornerstone of the department because of the depth of their experience.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and for our listeners. There is a very big difference between, you know, lateral growth and dry promotions.
Speaker 3:Right Dry promotions are a buzzword out there right now. You know, here's a new title and some new responsibility, but no wage increase and and things like that that are going in an organization. And so those lateral moves do come with you additional compensation, additional responsibility, maybe, additional exposure and opportunities, but not necessarily people management responsibility, right, and so how people can just grow in different ways. But yeah, and it in my younger self as well it took me a long time to realize that I had to be okay with people who had a different view of their potential and desires than I had of their potential and desires. And um, and that was because I was so driven Like it was very difficult for me to grasp that that's not what they wanted.
Speaker 3:And um, one of my, my former colleagues and I are talking about working together on a project again and um have both kind of reset what those priorities are for us. And I told her I said my biggest concern so her biggest concern is about the flexibility that she needs. And I said, well, my biggest concern is you and I are going to get a room and work on a project and we're not going to afford each other the flexibility because we're going to feed off of each other too much, and we both just started laughing because we were coming at it completely caring about the other one and what the other one needed out of the relationship. But it was, you know, obviously well intended. So, thinking of your younger self, we're going to go back a little further than a younger leader. What would you tell 16 year old Jen today as far as advice to achieve whatever her dreams and aspirations were for her career?
Speaker 4:um Well, funny story first, and then I'm going to answer that so funny story. First I was digging back through I had an old high school yearbook, was going through it with my kids and we were laughing at you know pictures.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:Late 80s, early 90s, and in my senior high school picture I wore by the way, I'm wearing a business suit today. Right, so I wore a suit jacket as a senior in high school. Not a surprise, but what I would have probably told myself back then is it's okay to get some things wrong, because that is something that I have struggled with. Is it making a mistake, letting someone down, letting myself down? Those kinds of things actually are what have gotten me where I am today, and not always have I been accepting of the mistakes that have been made or being wrong about something, and I really feel like if I could have just told myself these are going to happen and it will be okay, I don't know, maybe things would have been a little easier for me along the way that was interesting.
Speaker 2:Just this morning I was with a client and they have a role. That was a little the person struggling in this role, and so they're probably going to bring in a person above the role. And it's like, how do I tell this person that this is a good thing for them as opposed to a bad thing? And that was where I was like okay, think back through your career. Where did that happen to? Because it happens to all of us at some level or another and it's hard to take. But if you can kind of like show that you grew from something like that and that this is really an opportunity, not a threat for this person because we're bringing in this person, they describe this person as a potential unicorn. I was like you have this opportunity to learn from this person and then think about a year from now where you'll be, versus you keep banging your head against the same wall for the next 12 months. What's that going to do to you?
Speaker 4:too. I love that you said you have the potential to learn from this person, right? Because I do think that, in particular as younger leaders, that is one of the things like we think we want to learn but we don't recognize all of the opportunities to do that, and partly because maybe we feel threatened, Maybe we feel insecure, Maybe it's like, well, this person's you know, I'm never going to have a chance to move up if they're there. And so I do think that's one of the things that's the most important is to take those opportunities and say, hey, you know what? I'm going to learn, everything I can learn, because there will be some other opportunity that is going to come available for me.
Speaker 4:I had a manager once and again. Everything I've learned about leadership has been through the managers I've loved and not loved. So I had a leader once that said to me you know if I'm not, he said I'm here to teach you everything I know, because if I don't do that, then when there's an opportunity for me to grow, I won't be able to move up, I won't be able to move into that role, and so that was very eyeopening for me to say I actually need to be a sharer of my knowledge and not a hoarder of my knowledge. That will help me move into the next role. I need to be available for.
Speaker 3:Yeah, teach and delegate your way out of a job, right, and because that's the only way you're going to have ready-made successors who are, you know, able to sit there and also like never being the smartest person in the room, right, like A how boring of a room is that? And you know so. Like you, really you want to have people who are around you who are smarter, where, if somebody from the outside walks in, they shouldn't be able to tell who the leader is? Right, because everybody's collaborating, everybody's challenging, having productive conflict, you know, and sitting around the room and not just shaking their head at what one person says right, right, all right. Well, I appreciate you being with us today and being on the confidence curve with us. I think that our listeners are definitely going to gain a ton of insights If they want to follow up with you and connect. How would they do so?
Speaker 4:I love that and no pun, right. Tripoint Connect. Actually, I am on LinkedIn and so I would love I am a big connector I would love to be connected on LinkedIn. You know we are perpetually hiring right. We are a growing organization. We have a lot of opportunities. You know you can visit our tripointhomescom website, which is where our careers are posted. But definitely the LinkedIn is going to be the best place and I think that you guys will have some access.
Speaker 3:Yeah, when we share everything out, we'll definitely make sure to tag you in that so that people can connect with you, and I can definitely vouch Jen is good at connecting people. If anyone in her network that you need a referral to or anything like that, she is fabulous at following up with that. Well, rick and I, jen, we thank you for being here today. Thank you to all of our listeners for joining Confidence Curve.
Speaker 1:Thanks for tuning in to Confidence Curve. We hope today's episode left you inspired and ready to embrace your journey confidently. Remember whether you're leading a team, growing your business or pursuing personal growth, each step forward builds your curve. If you enjoyed today's conversation, don't forget to subscribe, share and leave us a review For more insights and resources. Visit us at apexgtscom. Until next time, keep climbing the curve.