David Heekin : The secret sauce of Landmark Title

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Podcast Intro  0:31  

Welcome to Real Estate excellence making lasting connections to 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  1:06  

Hey, welcome back to The Real Estate excellence. Best of the Best is an understatement. Today I have the best. If you are a real estate agent in Northeast Florida, you have not closed a loan with landmark title as a buyer or seller, you haven't sold many homes yet my guest today is the man behind it all. I do not believe there is a title company in the region that has the consistent reputation of landmark title. My guest is expanding his title company in the region at a rapid pace. Their reputation is second to none. They have created a foundation to give back to the community as well, which we'll talk about. Let's welcome today. The he can of he can law and landmark title, David, he can welcome to the show. 

David Heekin  1:48  

Thank you, Tracy, thank you very much for having me on. I really appreciate this. 

Tracy Hayes  1:48  

I appreciate you coming by today, and I know you are a superstar, as I was. You know the many people in the office that already knew you, any many of the real estates agents that are doing anything? And I want to really dig deep today into how you have created landmark title in the consistent quality customer service, whether we're I assume with the realtors, I'm doing it from the lending side, but I know stuff that I refer to you is always done very well by your staff, and I definitely want to dig into that. But let's talk about you first. Where's David from? 

David Heekin  2:21  

I'm born and raised right here in Jacksonville, Florida. Went to Bishop Kenny High School and then University of Florida for eight wonderful years. Got a undergrad in finance, and then law and MBA, it was a four year degree. And

David Heekin  2:36  

the really the best, I think part of that degree was the MBA. I use that on a daily basis. I mean, the law degree is great, obviously, but a lot of what I do is, is business related. You know, running the title company, running day to day. Now, sure, was the title company? Something in the family? Is this something law? Law is sort of the family business. My dad's a commercial real estate attorney, kind of a lone wolf guy. Represents a lot of big developers in town, shopping center developers and whatnot. So I kind of grew up surrounded by real estate developers and whatnot. And coming out of law school, actually the the law firm in town that I had taken a job with with, sort of blew up couple. The name partners died. It was an old boutique commercial real estate firm. And half the half the firm went to a mega firm in town. The other half went to another mega firm in town. Both called me and said, your offer is good here. And I just didn't want to go to either of those firms. I didn't want to wind up at a law firm. I have a big problem with authority. I wouldn't

David Heekin  3:32  

first week, it wouldn't have been good. So I actually came out of law school with no job, and was thinking about what I was going to do. And residential real estate closings was something kind of on my radar, something I could kind of teach myself, especially back in the day, used to be a lot easier, and we talked about how it's changed over 20 years, because it's just incredible. But

David Heekin  3:49  

right I was coming out and had nothing to do. My dad said, Well, I've got a one of my clients is just wrapping up a 60 unit ocean front tower in Jacksonville Beach, Oceana. And he said, I don't want to do these closings. So I popped in, bought a little program called Power closer for 400 bucks, and that exported the checks to QuickBooks, and I I did it all. I processed the the loan, I closed it, I post, closed it. So it was a great level experience that I got earlier in my career. And then I forgot the about the first two years I was the only employee. It was just me. So I answered the phone, I processed it, I closed it, I post, closed it. So I know this business front and back, inside and out, whereas a lot of attorneys or title company owners don't. Some of them were never involved in or some of them have only been involved in it from the attorney standpoint, and don't know what it's like, really, down in the trenches, doing the work to get you know, I have seen that, especially going to some of the law offices and doing a closing, the attorney comes in, and it's like he hasn't even seen this paperwork yet, right? And he doesn't know, actually the paperwork like the back your hand, like your closers do, the better closers in town and so forth.

Tracy Hayes  5:00  

And you know, to kind of jump a little bit, because I want to talk about how great your employees are. The closing person is really the last person that touches the the buyer in that transaction, and who the real estate agent is putting that trust into, is very important, because everybody's nervous. Oh, we're finally here. There may have been issues. There's some anxiety, but that closer can really and we have the best closers in the business, I think. And had a great breakfast this morning with another well known attorney in town who we might end up hiring. And same thing, we have very high standards. And

David Heekin  5:37  

you know, like you said, our closers are very, very when we talk about our four uniques, what makes us unique as a company, as closer as we say, We're knowledgeable, we're reliable, we're accessible, you know, and, and, and it's though, it's having the attorneys that have that experience. William Lee, for example, you talked about, you know William very well. Yep, phenomenal attorney. But will can also get down and get in our closing software and and crank out a CD if he has to. I mean, he knows I used to get him all the time. It could be 10 o'clock at night. 15 minutes later, he's sending me a pre CD so I can get some initial disclosures. And you might have attorneys who say, I Gosh, Tracy, I can't help you. That's gonna wait till tomorrow. Like exactly we, you know, our closers. We want them well trained in our closing software, so that they can get in there and do some basic things to help out when they need right. 

Tracy Hayes  6:25  

There's one thing I've learned in 15 years in the lending industry, and having worked for two of the largest lenders, they're online lenders, but having a sense of urgency in this business is actually very important and there's timings now, obviously, yeah, oh, well, it takes 3045, days to close a close a deal. Well, yeah, it does. But at the entry level, when that contract is signed, you've hopefully already talked to a lender, and they've already pre qualified you for me to get loan docs, initial loan docs, out, and get that process started right away. They're excited. They're ready to sign those loan docs so we can order the appraisal and order title and all that jazz and consistency, as we talked about earlier, a couple title companies that have great reputations, like yourself in town, but there's so many, like, Oh, we'll get to it tomorrow. Yeah. It's like, dude, got it. 

David Heekin  7:17  

We have a four hour turn time is our goal, or less if you request a pre CD, hey, which contract just came in? I've got to disclose today you're going to get that CD today. 

Tracy Hayes  7:31  

Yeah, and every day on the front end. I mean, because there's always, not always, but their bumps in the road happen. And if you get started early enough, the bump in the road is no big deal. You close on time. But every day we lose on the front end is multiple days on the back end. And so we always were taught not to truly believe, yeah, trade has added a lot of complexity, as you know. How long have you been doing this? Tracy A 2005

Tracy Hayes  7:45  

okay, so you're 16 years in September. You

David Heekin  7:48  

remember the days where if you were going to do a closing, the title company that morning had to get an overnight package from the lender and a cashier's check, because they didn't even start doing wires till about Oh 506, right? And they weren't electronically delivering closing packages by email till about that time, or a little bit later. But I remember when you know you had a closing set for a Tuesday and that Tuesday morning, if the Wells Fargo Wells Fargo package didn't show up with a cashier's check, we just called the parties and said, Hey, we're not closing today. Didn't come right? So do it again tomorrow. But it's such a need it now world that we're in now, and it is just so it talk about how the industry's changed in the 20 years I've been doing it. It is, you know, if somebody sends you an email and you don't respond in an hour, like, why would you respond to my email? And you know, back then we're still faxing back and forth in 2005 that's how I was communicating with lenders, yeah, faxing them the title, commitments, fax, maxing the CPA. We

Tracy Hayes  8:38  

still have in our system for the fax number.

Speaker 1  8:42  

We just, we just redoing our email signatures, and we're talking about simplifying them. And I said, Can we take the fax number off the email signature? I mean, it's just hardly ever used anymore.

Tracy Hayes  8:53  

So let's, let's go. So you, you two years by yourself. Are you landmark title at this time, or just he can?

David Heekin  9:01  

Yeah, I'm still closing under he can law. My first employee was a free UNF intern back and then I made him my first paid employee, probably six months later. And then, you know, slowly started expanding. I didn't hire my first attorney, Allen Allman brought him on in 2012 Will Lee came on in 2013 and now we've got about a dozen attorneys, but it was sort of slow ramping up in terms of, you know, bringing on a lot of staff. And again, TRID has just really impacted, like it has in your industry, the number of people that it takes to do a loan, yes, the number of people it takes to do a closing that touches and that's where a lot of my competitors don't keep up is they're just terribly understaffed. And you see it on your own when you're trying to get a CD out, or you're trying to get a closing schedule, and they say we can't do or last

Tracy Hayes  9:48  

minute one. I've got one right now with you guys, actually, and it was, it was a little fumble on our part, but I said to the agent, we have landmark title on the other side, so I know they're already ready. And.

David Heekin  10:00  

Have the staff that'll whip out that final closing disclosure. He's already wired the money. We'll be all right, and we're up to about 80 total employees. And that's what it takes to run a successful, you know, well, run customer service focused title company, and we're in just constantly in hired mode. We're always looking for good talent. With the amount of production going on right now it is,

Tracy Hayes  10:23  

I imagine you can't, it's hard to even keep good employees. We don't

David Heekin  10:26  

have a problem with that. We have a such a solid culture. We rarely lose an employee, and if we did, it's usually an employee that we didn't mind losing, you know, because they're at the point where they're getting Hey, you know you're falling short right in this core value. You need to, you need to, you need to raise the bar a little bit. And a lot of times people just kind of, they take care of this checkout. So they check out. They say, hey, this isn't the place for me. And they move on.

Tracy Hayes  10:49  

We were talking before the show. So I want to honest. We want to start at the beginning and what we got going now. So where was the was I assume initially, were you like, more or less working from home?

David Heekin  10:58  

No, no, I always had an office, in fact, where our sort of headquarters are, in Southside Boulevard. I was in a little 1200 square foot space, almost right away, I did those 60 or so closings for my dad's client, and I did them at my dad's office. And then I was like, I got to get out of here, because working with my dad. But, you know, I had to go. So went over, rented that space, and was was there for a couple years, moved down to Perimeter park for a few years, and then moved back down to where we are in Southside Boulevard. And as we were talking before the show, we're in four buildings there now.

Tracy Hayes  11:32  

So, so I want everyone to understand the culture that is important about landmark title. And those who don't know anything about landmark title, and they're listening those who do know understand, who do know understand what I'm talking about. You are telling us now, really, this is a real showcase, that you're a new office, that you're putting up. It sounds you're obviously excited about it, but it's all part of the culture. And listening to your employees and keeping those good employees, tell us about this new office. Where is it? Opening up? When should we expect it? And tell us all the goodies. It sounds pretty exciting.

David Heekin  12:05  

Yeah, it's a two story only, about a 20 year old building in very, very good shape. It is a JTB and I 95 if you know where they built, the new Maserati dealership. It's right behind that on financial way,

Tracy Hayes  12:17  

when you name a street, oh yeah,

David Heekin  12:20  

when you walk in on the first floor of the building, you know, to your right we're gonna have six or eight conference rooms. We're gonna have all the attorney closers down there as well, big welcoming waiting room. And then on the left, we've got 100 agent training room that we're putting in. We're putting in a cafeteria that'll serve breakfast and lunch for the employees. We've got a gym, showers, business development, marketing are all on the first floor, and then we have all the operations up on the second floor. And this building gives us room to grow, and not only as we expand our footprint in Northeast Florida, which we're not done doing. There's there's certainly locations in Northeast Florida. We just opened in Fernandina Beach. We want to get down to Palm Coast. We want to be in Mandarin. We'll need another office on the west side soon. We're in Fleming Island, but we'll need a second one. But as we have big plans to grow statewide, we want to be in every major market within the next five years. We're already in Palm Beach and Clearwater, major market of Florida, every major market in the state of Florida. We don't see any reason to expand outside the state of Florida. This is where it's at, low taxes. Everybody's moving here, right? There's plenty of opportunity in our backyard. We don't need to go looking around another looking around in other states, right? But we want to be in every major market, so Tampa, Orlando, Tallahassee, Gainesville, Alton, so like I said, we're in we're in Palm Beach, and we're in West Palm Beach and Clearwater right now, and as we expand throughout the state, all I need in these cities is a closer and a receptionist, because we'll do all the process right here at the corporate office, right because we can control the quality.

Tracy Hayes  13:44  

So you have, you have 80 employees right now. How many initially will be there at that office?

David Heekin  13:49  

We've got other offices, like our Durban office with Willie and his crew. He's got about 10 down there. So of those 80, probably about 55 initially, 60 will initially be over there, and then we think we'll be at 100 employees, if not by the end of next year, certainly by the end of 2023 we'll have to be at that number to keep pace with our growth. A lot of that's in operations. It's processing post closing accounting. As you know, what people don't see behind the scenes is that file that's this thick at the closing right? So, so we'll keep all the operations centralized. So we want to a place where employees come and they feel at home, you know, relaxed, because you the reality is, you spend more time at work than you spend at home, at least of the waking hours. And so we want people to come, and it's a sort of a lifestyle place they come. We've got a cafeteria. They can get a nice breakfast, a good lunch. They can grab a workout on a peloton during lunch, grab a wrap, go back upstairs. As far as the realtor training room you've got, most of your real estate companies are going virtual. And if they're not, they're going to small offices. They just don't have a place where they can meet with all their agents. So now they. Got place. They can come in, they can reserve that room, they can do their monthly or quarterly or whatever meetings

Tracy Hayes  15:04  

they imagine you're gonna and you're probably gonna have some top notch technology. And, oh yeah, well, because in the media world, you know, some of these big corporations, you go in, you're like, wow. And then you go in another one, and you got, you know, the hand projector, or whatever you're trying to do. You make that real professional plug and play. Well, they're gonna want to

David Heekin  15:22  

make Jaguar away games, yeah, exactly, massive screens. And we'll actually have two rooms like that one, a little bit smaller, and then that the training room will be connected to what I'm calling, sort of a realtor lounge, okay? Couches, nice, relaxed area, because we have a lot of real estate agents that come for a closing and then say, I don't want to go all the way back to my side of town. I've got an inspection an hour. Can I chill out here in your front lobby? Just use your Wi Fi? Sure. Now it's Hey, head on down to the lounge. We got couches. You got Wi Fi. We got a wireless printer, if you need to use it, connected to the cafeteria. Grab a sandwich. So we really want to make it a fun place where people can come and hang out, especially because so many people are going virtual, there's

Tracy Hayes  16:03  

well, and I think you're yet you haven't said it, but I know it's in your mind, is every podcast I'm listening to, I've had some, almost a common theme with every single person that has been on the show, is relationship Building. And I know you and your staff, the ideology building these relationships with the realtors. What expand on that for a little bit, on, you know, the culture, the ideology that you put out to your employees, and why? Why are they so good at what

David Heekin  16:37  

it all starts with having a vision, and if you don't have a vision as a company, and then clearly, share your vision with your employees and get that buy in, then, you know, you've got people rowing in different directions, and that's And so years ago, we got very organized. We've, we've always had our core values. They weren't always written down. They weren't always, you know, conveyed well to the employees, but we have five core values that were that we're very serious about. We hire on them, we reward based on them, we fire based on them, but it's white glove. Customer service is number one, fanatical attention to detail. Number two, having a proactive problem solving mindset is three. Continuous improvement is four, and then teamwork to make the dream work. In those five, our employees absolutely embrace them, and again, if they don't, that's those are the employees that usually check themselves out. Because I don't have fanatical attention to detail. Doesn't mean you're not a bad person, but this isn't the place for you, because you've got to dot the i's and cross the T's, or you end up having a closing go sideways. So our core focus, that's clearly conveyed, is helping real estate agents succeed and buyers and sellers close with confidence. And every one of our employees comes to work every day, and they know this is what I'm coming to do. So that's important part, having the vision laid out and then executing, having a team that can execute. And our operations team, Angela Williams, our Director of Operations, is phenomenal. And then the rest of the leadership team is William Lee and Nikki, cause he's our vice president of marketing and business development, right? Nikki was the fifth employee I hired back in 2005 so she's been with me forever, and our marketing business development department is just fantastic. Will's in charge of training the closers, including attorneys. We have about 15 or 16 closers that are in the conference rooms doing the closing. Most are attorneys, I'd say, like I said, about 11 or 12, or attorneys, five or six or non attorneys, but Will's in charge of that education component, making sure that they're delivering quality closings, that they're, you know, able to answer questions. Get back to the real estate agents in a timely manner, help

Tracy Hayes  18:36  

them. Where are you? Because I imagine, with the growth that we're having the amount of closings, and obviously, you know, the end of the month, like, you know, we know next week's gonna be crazy as it is at every title company and every lender trying to get stuff done by the end of the month. Where are you? Where are you finding these quiet or are you oftentimes leaving positions open and you because it sounds like you just don't throw a hot body in there.

David Heekin  19:01  

No, you can't we. Actually, if I have my way, everybody that we hire will will be completely not in the title business. Because the problem we found over the years hiring people that were in the title business is they come often with very bad habits, interesting, and we don't like that. So the problem, or the predicament that is, it takes a solid year to train someone to be a processor. We start them out as a processing assistant for as long as they need to, and then we move them up and actually put them through processor school. And we actually have three full time trainers. We're about to have a fourth, and these are just people internally who've said, you're the best of the best. I'm going to pull you out of production. I'm going to make you a trainer. So we invest very heavily, both internally and externally, in training our staff, but it does take a very long time. I'm not kidding when I say we're in constant hiring mode because we need to stay ahead of the curve. But

Tracy Hayes  19:52  

you're not reacting, you're being proactive, and this is such high level stuff right here. I mean, I mean, I'm on. To have you on the podcast, because I listened to some very popular podcast and have a guest of your caliber on there to have that vision and understand it and see it through. I think too many, you know, it's common people open their own business and they it's reactive, all of a sudden, there's a load. Now, I'm trying to find good employees. You're already foreseeing what's going on. You're involved in what in, in your predictions, obviously. I mean, I think you would agree Northeast Florida is probably for the next, yeah, Nassau County, which is why you've opened a Fernandina office, is going to be to me, the next explosion,

Speaker 1  20:38  

Fleming Island, green Cove Springs area is, is that with the expressway going in, there's just a lot going I

Tracy Hayes  20:44  

have said that so many times. It's come all the way down the plaque.

David Heekin  20:48  

Yeah, yep, all the way down, yeah. So, so the we're in constant hiring mode, and we bring them in, we train them up, and, you know, they graduate. There's a lot of opportunity to move up in our company. But to your point, we don't do crisis management anymore. Yeah, I'm very proud of our team. We don't. So the last Friday of the month, we might have 100 or more closings right throughout all of our offices, and the planes will run on time. Now there are hiccups because we'll get a loan package late sometimes, or somebody shows we're closing. Yep, that's fine, but we'll have all of our conferences. All 12 conference rooms will be going all day long, and there's no

Tracy Hayes  21:24  

one's allowed to take the last day of the month off.

David Heekin  21:28  

But, you know, I'm very proud of our team, because it is a busy day that last day of the month, especially if it falls on a Friday. But for Halloween or Halloween, you know, we crush it. We and it didn't always. Wasn't always that way. Yeah, I did have those years where it was crisis management, where I didn't have the help, and we weren't as organized as we are now.

Tracy Hayes  21:48  

But so for me, you talked about hiring people without any experience in title, obviously, someone hopefully you're going to interview as good work ethic and integrity and so forth. So what? What would be some like basic steps they enter as an assistant, they're taking that training. What is kind of the progression for them, I guess, short of being an attorney, I guess in your office, right? Yeah. Well,

David Heekin  22:13  

what we are, our hiring process is we, we will post on Indeed, but we typically go fishing, we go find a resume, and then the first step of our hiring process is two roughly 12 minute assessments that we're gonna send you. One is a behavioral assessment that's going to measure things like introversion, extroversion. This

Tracy Hayes  22:30  

is why he wouldn't hire me. I wouldn't pass that one. Well,

David Heekin  22:34  

our different positions is, you know, you have, let's just take the behavioral for a minute. It's going to measure on four scales. Like I said, introversion, extroversion, independence versus collaborative, how good you are with details versus how sort of relaxed you are with the rules that sort of things. And you fall on this scale, and there's no right or wrong answer for anybody. But I'm not going to hire somebody who's a screaming, high extrovert to be a processor, because they're going to want to spend all day on the phone and not get any work done, right? But I don't want somebody who's a super low introvert, because they're not going to want to interact with the realtor and the so we really have a how long you've been using this? We've been used it's called Predictive index. We've been using predictive index for about four years, five years, and it's a fantastic program. I'd recommend it to any small business owner, cost me around five or 6000 a year, unlimited, give as many assessments as I want. So we've got the behavioral and I know that, hey, this particular pattern, if you're in this range, you're going to be a good processor. From a behavioral standpoint, you're you're

Tracy Hayes  23:35  

you're not. Now, is that by your experience or just information that you're getting from the industry?

David Heekin  23:40  

That's by mine. That's but people, you know, we took our best processors when we started on this program, and we gave this in this assessment after the fact, and you kind of see they all kind of fall into a little bit of a range, right? And what it means is, you're not, you're going to go to work and you're going to be yourself. You're not going to go to work and have to fight who you are behaviorally to try to fit your position, because that's exhausting and stressful. You didn't have a good day. Yeah? So, but a closer's behavioral model is going to be different than a processors, right? Necessarily? I want an extrovert. I want somebody who's really outgoing, right, doing in that closing table, talking to people so and then the other assessment we give is a 12 minute cognitive assessment, just a general cognitive how fast are you going to learn a new skill? Because, you know, you have to We and we've got to cut off, and I won't say what it is, but we won't hire under that cognitive assessment, because that's going to tell me it's going to take me too long to train you. I've got to get somebody in there who we can train relatively quickly. I

Tracy Hayes  24:34  

this is actually very interesting. We've tipped into this a little bit, because now I'm thinking of your attorneys and the ones that I know, like William and some few others that I've been to their closings, and they either already have this test because you've hired them in the last four years, or they already fall into it because, like I said, we were talking earlier, that that closer is very important, and most people find. And the average attorney to not really have would say a great personality. They're they so your attorneys fall more under your

David Heekin  25:10  

our first core values, white glove customer service, and that's for every employee that that's important, from our receptionist to our processing assistance processors all the way to closers. I mean, having that customer service is so important. You've all been to that dry closing where it's sign here,

Tracy Hayes  25:26  

yeah, and you hear in the paper and the pen hit the table. It's too quiet.

David Heekin  25:30  

Kind of when was this thing going to be? Yeah, looking at each other, playing on their phone, and landmarks closers are, I'm not saying putting on a show, but we're having fun. We're asking questions, we're interacting. We're getting the closing done at a good pace. You know, let's say fast fun and flawless. That's, that's our three if we didn't hit fast fun and flawless for real estate closing, fast

Tracy Hayes  25:49  

fun and flawless. I love it. I love alliteration. When I, when I replay this, when it comes out next Tuesday, I've got, I'm gonna listen to take some of that because you said a couple others. You're five. Others. Your five, your five core values. Core values there. Write those down. Yeah. Those are excellent.

David Heekin  26:08  

So, yeah. So we the closer that the actual closing is so important, because this is a big deal for the buyer and seller, especially for the buyer. Okay, the sellers, a lot of times they come in, they do their pre sign. They want to go my funds. It's not the days of everybody sitting around the conference table are gone, right? It was already going away before covid. People are just busy. But then after covid, I'd say 95% of our closings are separate. Seller zooms in and close, or they're busy and we send somebody to them to close. That's the bit. That's the beauty of having 20 notaries. If a seller can't get out of CS, we say, no problem. We'll come to your house at night. We'll come to your night, we'll come to your office, we'll sign you up whatever it takes. But it's a big deal for the buyer, and they want it made a big deal out of Yep. So

Tracy Hayes  26:49  

I was focusing on there. But the question I had Next, if you're looking as a real estate agent here on Facebook, live or maybe might listen to the podcast, would, why should they bring their next client to you? Obviously, because, obviously, the show is what they're they're going to be surprised. But if you can express to them in very much more or less a sales pitch, or what are they going to experience? And why is it, and ultimately, really, because I think this is important. Why is it important to bring them the landmark to really, you know, seal the deal with that client and and hopefully give them that wow experience, no matter what happened prior to that day of closing, to seal the deal and then and make that that client look back and go, Hey, this realtor knows what they're doing.

David Heekin  27:36  

Yeah, yeah. We again our core focus helping real estate agents succeed, and buyers and sellers close with confidence, and that's what we do. We want we look at every real estate agent that closes with us as our partner, and we want to be their partner. We're there for them whether they have a question on a closing that we're handling or not. They know they can call us if they need an occupancy draft agreement drafted, or they need an escrow agreement drafted, and they're stuck at a title company that doesn't have an attorney and won't do it, no problem. Do it, no problem. Give us a call. We're here to help whatever you need. So just you've

Tracy Hayes  28:07  

kind of thought through all well, because your experience, 20 years doing it, every possible thing that could go wrong, sounds like you've got the tools in the tool chest and somebody can

David Heekin  28:17  

get it done. And we've got the the the highly trained staff, especially our closers in turn and attorneys that can jump in and do it. But everybody in our office is just like I said. We invest so heavily in training, whatever the position. So you know, our value proposition is being there for real estate agents whenever they need us. We always say we work realtor hours. And like you said, you'll email Willie at night, 10 o'clock at night. Hey, will I need this fast? If Will's awake, he's gonna crank

Tracy Hayes  28:43  

it out. Yeah, I actually, I didn't expect it till the morning, after seven, eight o'clock, he'll check in and get to me all of a sudden,

David Heekin  28:49  

it's back in my email realtors that all the time we work your hours, yeah, so we're nights and weekends. If you need us, we're there. That's just the way it is. Yes, and and then we make the experience so memorable for the buyers and sellers. We just white glove customer service. We're taking care of them the whole way. It's a real concierge type treatment. Real estate agents know that they can drop a contract off for us. They don't have to babysit. Did you order the survey? Did you order the estoppel? They know they don't to worry about those things. They know those are getting done. We've got a 68 I think it is point process for a purchase closing, there was 68 individual tasks on every purchase closing, at least that get done. And we're very task based, and our software that we use is very task based, and and our processors come in and they print their task list for the day. They know exactly what they need to do in each file. There's no guessing. What do I need to do today? It's all right there for them. The when we set up a file, we put in two dates. Date it's open. Date it closes. Every one of those 68 tasks is tied to one of those two

Tracy Hayes  29:46  

dates. So the kind of more of an industry question and just curiosity on my side, because I think, you know, most people don't understand, ultimately, what you're doing. You know, the average real estate agent doesn't, you know. So I know you, I know you're doing, you know, clearing the title, making sure we're the first lien holder as a lender, and that sort of thing. But in your industry, where are the major failures? And what are you? What do you what have you already implemented to make sure those are just there, those are stamped out right away?

David Heekin  30:19  

Yeah, the biggest thing that you can do is as much, as much as you can. You systematize and process whatever you're doing. You try to break it down its simplest components. So we do that. So the software we use is a fairly new software called qualia. You know, there are, I don't know how many mortgage software are, but there's hundreds of of Real Estate Settlement software programs right when we knew that we needed to get off the one we were on called closers choice, which is very popular in Northeast Florida, but it just is not scalable for us as we grow and we knew we needed to get off closer choice, I heavily researched this was about four or five years ago. We went with qualia. We had an internal person who learned this program, because it's a great program, but they didn't send a trainer out here, so we had to build it out. But out. But it's very task based. And like I said, we set up when we spend a new contract comes in, if the effective date is today, that date is entered, and then the closing date, let's say they say it's going to be August 23 we enter August 23 and then we've got 68 tasks that fall on one of those two dates. This within three days of this date, or three days before the closing date,

Tracy Hayes  31:21  

and you're getting a report every morning at home, this one's out of whack. We need to get this back online.

David Heekin  31:26  

Angela Williams, our Director of Operations, gets an overdue task report on every processor and processing assistant every day, we can see ones that are running into trouble and deploy somebody to help them if they're falling a little bit behind, sure. So as much as you can, you take the human error element out of out of the closing process. So by by doing this, you know, hey, if we have to order the survey, and it has to be in 10 days before the closing date, I need to order it about 20 days before the closing date. That's when that task is already in to do. Right? So

Tracy Hayes  31:57  

that is so from my experience in the lending room. I've worked for four different lenders, or three lenders in the bank. And if there's one thing that can screw it up is that that report that you're able to jump into your staff is able to jump into and look at every loan that's in process and know where it's at, what it needs, and making sure it's staying on that pace at a so, so important as the realtor, the biggest thing, obviously, you're concerned with after the contract is signed is closing on time, you know. And that huge, huge thing, I would thought you get more technical, like, hey, you know. But actually, when you mentioned that software, I'm like, That's exactly it.

David Heekin  32:44  

It's a huge help. And then, you know, every day, Angela Williams, who is our Director of Operations, she meets with what she calls her SEAL team, which is, which is four individuals that are there to deploy that morning if there's a problem. Hey, Nicole's out sick. Something happened, correct? I need you to get down to Fleming Island and cover her desk for the day, right? So it's all about being well staffed and have people to deploy to help out, because most of my competitors don't have that if, if Jill's out sick, they're just files in there to cover Jill's desk and that file sitting there until she gets back, even if it was a planned vacation. So part of you know, making sure that we deliver the level of service that we want to deliver, means we're overstaffed. And that's my goal, is to always be overstaffed. Does it affect the bottom line a little bit? Yeah, but everybody's quality of life's a lot better. And you know, you guys, like you said earlier, there's a there's a handful of title companies in town, only a handful that when you see you're like, Okay, it's one of these. I'm not gonna have to babysit. We're exactly on that list, exactly. But think about it. There's hundreds of title companies in town, and there's only a handful that are that, like you point out, are well, run, yeah, exactly.

Tracy Hayes  33:51  

I just so the vision of being overstaffed and having, you know, I'm 50 or 51 years old, I've worked in retail stores, I've worked I've done other things, been in this industry for 15 years. And when you when you see when you're understaffed, everybody's on stress, there's always a fire to be put out. And eventually someone just says, you know, I've had enough of it. Now, when you're when you're I once when you use the phrase young and dumb, but when you're young and don't know any better, you're like, oh, you know, let's go. But when you have the proper staff, your employees can then excel in what they're doing, versus running around trying to put a fire

David Heekin  34:29  

out all the time. Yeah, and I'm certainly not here to tell you that I run my title company this well, since 2001 there's a lot of bumps, and it was a lot of learning, me growing and being understaffed and see and live in that stress and live in crisis management every day before finally saying something's got to change and and learning to get more organized. I've got a business coach that helps us, that does a great job, and just, you know, it's good to not be living like that anymore, but, but when

Tracy Hayes  34:58  

you can go home at a. Regular hour you're not going, oh my god, is so and so gonna get those loans closed tomorrow over there, with

David Heekin  35:05  

rare exception, all of our employees are out of the house by sick or out of the office by six, and most by five or 530 with rare exception, there's days you got to stay late. Something came, but for the most part, yeah, and it didn't used to be like that, you know, I had plenty of 910, o'clock nights, and they don't want to do that anymore.

Tracy Hayes  35:22  

So it seems you do a lot for your employees. You got this new facility going up. That sounds pretty exciting. We're gonna have to go over there and have lunch. When you get it all, get the cook all going there. You have a cook already lined up. Or, yeah, what do you what do you do personally? And then what do you share with your employees? As far as is, I know you must do some personal development. Are you a big book reader or podcast guy? Or

David Heekin  35:46  

yeah, I'm big into business books. I really enjoy listening to business books and business biographies of other leaders and what they've done and their management style. And I'd say the two biggest books that impacted me. One is called E Myth revisited, and that's all about systematizing and processes. And basically, you know, you set up the process, and then you plug the people, right, okay, and then the other one's traction. It's a book by Gino Wickman, and it's really a holistic A to Z, how to run a small business, and traction, and you myth have probably been the two biggest influences on my life in terms of business

Tracy Hayes  36:19  

books. So how do you share? No, because obviously you got a lot, you got a, would you say, dozen attorneys, 16 attorneys, or something like that. So obviously they're very educated. That doesn't mean they're they're continuing to do that. How do you create that culture to move your people forward and improving themselves? They just sharing what

David Heekin  36:40  

you do. Yeah, they the attorneys know that one of the five core values is continuous improvement, and they know that they're expected to to make sure that they are constantly learning. So we have access to a lot of continuing education through our title underwriters. So we're constantly watching those we meet as a closer group once a month. Most of our departments meet weekly. I say all of them do, actually, except for the closers we meet once a month. But when we do, if something's come up that somebody ran into, they're going to share it with everybody. Will go around the table and say, hey, I want to let you guys know about this. It's kind of a unique thing happened in my closing. So we're educating each other. It's great to have people to bounce things off of. If somebody needs a form for something. We got a, you know, closer email group. It's going out. Hey, I've got a I got a draft, a sewer line, easement. I'm going through this property, and it's branching off to threes. Anybody have a form, and you've got a lot of people there just really pulling together, helping each other,

Tracy Hayes  37:29  

right? The vision that you have everything. I mean, I don't think anybody listening this podcast, watching on Facebook Live, this is you weren't just born with a lot of these ideas. This is stuff that you with your after hours, reading a book a month or week or whatever, your schedule is constantly improving and stealing ideas from other successful people who are putting it into a book or putting it on a podcast. Yeah, and I think you know, we talk about the industry I know here as loan officers, and I've had some coaches on the personal development is so, so important if you want to grow. And I think you're a great example of someone you know, the visions you just put out there. I think anyone is saying, Wow, I would love to work with landmark title. David just has this, this vision of what he's doing, and obviously the properly staffed thing, I think, yeah, it's probably a big help right there. But you're moving forward, and now it's such a rapid pace, because Florida's moving in such a rapid pace

David Heekin  38:31  

right now, right? We have a lot of we do, we do own municipal lien searches in house. Very few title companies do their own municipal lien searches. Yeah, I'd like to start a surveying company. Is ordering 150 to 200 surveys a month, sometimes, right? And we're having survey problems. So one thing that we're rolling out within the next few weeks is a portability department to help sellers, because when sellers go to sell if, if their market value of their house with the with the Property Appraiser is way lower than it should be. You can actually go to the Property Appraiser and ask them to raise it and give them proof through comps and a purchase contract that your market value should go up now, that amount that you're porting or taking with you, you take that with you and for the rest of your life, as long as you're living in the state of Florida, you're saving that on taxes. So we've got seller,

Tracy Hayes  39:18  

simple nugget for a seller, right there. Most people don't know one title company from another, right there. The man's trying to save you some money right there.

David Heekin  39:26  

We're talking, in some cases, it's 1000s of dollars a year that we're going to save people. Wow. So we're going to roll that out. We're just finishing tweaking it, you know, sort of our application. Make it a simple process. We're actually not going to charge any money up front of the seller. It's going to be one of those. Hey, if we save you money, we get a percent of what we save you, but if we don't save you anything you don't know, see money,

Tracy Hayes  39:45  

I'm going to share you a survey story that I just had last month. It was over in Clay County. Was an older home, didn't have a survey for whatever reason, all the local companies that this agent knew were all. Looked up, couldn't get it done in time, and we sort out, we more or less had a little bit of a flexibility. And it wasn't like we had to close this particular day, because actually, the renter was buying the house, or he lived there, so it wasn't that urgent. But they were like, they couldn't even give a date when they could do it. It's crazy. So they went online, ordered it in this online company, however they worked, there was no communication. And we're like, Hey, is it coming in tomorrow? When you're going to do it? So we can, kind of like, set a closing date so we can adjust to it, and it's this whole thing. So I want to have a vision on

David Heekin  40:32  

the surface, just so that we can move things around and shuffle and say, Hey, stop what you guys are doing. I need these five today. Get out of those. These ones can wait so for us to be able to control because with the weather delays and just general, I mean, surveyors are, man, they're backed up. Yeah, it is not. So we're looking for them, you know, crazy looking, but, but I've, you know, had conversation with a couple licensed surveyors, and so we'll see plenty,

Tracy Hayes  40:56  

plenty, plenty of business there that that, yeah, I would bring, I would do that

Speaker 1  40:59  

tomorrow, a couple 100 a month, at least, it will, yeah,

Tracy Hayes  41:03  

keep them very busy. Yeah. All right, so I'm gonna go. I call this my two minute warning, as I officiate football, and so I call them. A lot of people call it speed rounder. Just some simple questions. This one's the most important one to me and for those listening. But the questions to you, is it more important who you know

Speaker 1  41:22  

or what you know? I think it's always more important what you know than who you know. Is that right? I do because if you're, you'll eventually rise to the top in your field, if you're, if you're smart enough and you know what you're doing, and otherwise it's the old, fake it till you make it, right? I wouldn't

Tracy Hayes  41:40  

mistake. So I'll fake it till you make it. Because, I mean, you gotta, you gotta know something. But there's definitely, you know, obviously, you must have learned some stuff. One, I'd argue with you from the symbol, you must have learned some something from your dad. He was an attorney. He's a great resource. Yeah, he was. And got you, got you started there. But in really, what you started was who you knew, right?

David Heekin  42:00  

That is Tracy. They're both, yeah, pick one, but without a doubt, I got a agency license from first American title because of who my dad was. Okay, I may have gotten one, but it would have been a lot more of a struggle. I mean, this is back when it was also easier to get an agency license. They don't give them out like they used to. You know, you got personal financial What's your net worth? Show me your experience. But certainly, first American was able to take a chance on me after only about a year of doing this, you know, because my dad was one of their top agents. So yes, it's also important.

Tracy Hayes  42:32  

And I would also the, you know, in, you know, as I continue to give kudos out the landmark your closing, Nikki William and others, they have created, you know, their own little superstardoms, yeah, and their offices and who you know, and it's in this, you know, and I'm sure, I'm sure agents drop name, drop them all the time in conversations, because of who they are. Now, it's what they know, but it makes me a superstar, but, but going back just, just to circle back to my relationship thing, so you're out on the town, would you go to a jumbo shrimp game or the Jaguars, jaguars travel bucket list.

David Heekin  43:12  

I just got back from Glacier. I love the outdoors. I love the national parks. I'd like to go to the Grand Canyon maybe next summer, but I want to spend some significant time in Europe while I can still enjoy it one of these days. So Italy, Ireland, France, Germany. I'd like to, I don't know when I'm going to get across the pond. I've never been across the pond, but I know Italy especially, I think it's just beautiful. I'd love to spend significant amount of time

Tracy Hayes  43:37  

there. You're, you're, you know, all of Europe and so forth. I for years now, I've been following prior decade. There's a travel company called Band of Brothers, and it goes through all the world war two circles, like the first Airborne Division, landing, landing at Normandy, and following that whole track. And they have all these different things. And of course, as years go by, the people that are there to tell the stories, or, unfortunately, are passing away and so forth, but yeah, the same type of thing, and follow that, yeah, would be really all right, here's my last question. You could sit on a park bench for one hour talk to anyone past or present, ever Genghis Khan and forward?

David Heekin  44:20  

Who would that be? Oh, man. So I think the easy answer out, Jesus Christ. I would love to spend an hour picking a brain. But if I had to pick somebody of like, the more modern area American, I'd love to pick Ben Franklin's brain. I think Ben Franklin was brilliant, founder, yes, and was in large part him and Jefferson for giving us the document that we have today. So much so that I named my first born Benjamin family name. I said, No, I just, I love Ben Franklin. So

Tracy Hayes  44:49  

love it, yeah, that that, that is, that is, I would agree. I would agree with that that would Ben Franklin, enough, would be number one, but definitely be on. The list, because I had the same vision. What he the things and the stories you've heard and, of course, our founding fathers all together. I mean, how the division everyone says that the document is dead. We should be involved a lot of the things we deal with today. Yeah, it doesn't say the internet in there, but you can evolve from those, especially, obviously, the Bill

Speaker 1  45:22  

of Rights and so forth. So we got a big First Amendment issue going on right now with the social media that's got to get worked out. Yeah, a lot of lot of censoring going on there, but got to keep that thing alive. Well,

Tracy Hayes  45:32  

I think the my my faith, is in the American people, and that really there's a silent majority like you and I, that's there, and we go to work every day, and we continue doing what we're doing. And these people will will slowly fall out over over time and bring us back around. Ryan Sirhan Do you watch his show? I don't. You don't watch Ryan serhant. You know who he is, so no Million Dollar Listing. You know? I don't.

David Heekin  45:59  

I'm just I'm not a team. You

Tracy Hayes  46:01  

don't listen to bro. You watch Bravo. Obviously your wife doesn't watch House wise,

Speaker 1  46:07  

I know the show, okay, but I but I'm not well

Tracy Hayes  46:10  

then obviously you haven't read his book, which I've got right here. So it's a really easy you're probably going to laugh a little bit, but this is actually a second book, big money energy. But you know, we're Daniel and I are trying to work in to actually come down here and speak, because he's so Bobby awesome. And I'm actually ordering some more books because this is one of my last ones, but it's a real easy read. Is your gift for coming here today? Tracy, no problem. But thank you for coming by. Thank you, bud. Appreciate

Podcast Intro  46:40  

it. Appreciate it. Appreciate it. All right, 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 AI

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