<img height="1" width="1" src="https://www.facebook.com/tr?id=113643043990058&amp;ev=PageView &amp;noscript=1">
6 min read

Executive Letter #18: How to Recognize & Grow Potential

Feb 7, 2022 9:00:00 AM

In my last letter, I talked about why now, more than ever, potential is what I’m about. I feel strongly about ensuring that every single person on my team feels like they are growing farther and faster than they ever thought possible.

But you might be wondering, what does that really look like?

To better demonstrate what I mean by seeing and pulling out potential, I wanted to share more about two people who have become essential members of my team: Deidre and Nate.

I hope that by telling a little bit of their story, it’ll help you see more clearly why potential is an invaluable asset to your grind.

A Blank Slate

I interviewed Deidre one-on-one after she’d already met with a few other members of my team. She was 22, fresh out of college with no other professional experience, but had done her research about our company before meeting with me. I could see she was eager—though if you were to ask her, she’d say she was terrified.

She came on as a Closing Assistant for the Sales Department, a front desk jack-of-all-trades. I could see right away that she was open to being trained in more than what was right in front of her, which has come in handy in the ten years since she started with us.

As Deidre grew in her role, she discovered what were and were not her strengths. Though she was initially interested in sales, that type of extroverted work wasn’t a match for her soft-spoken personality. Instead, she learned more about sales through closings. In a little over a year, she was promoted within the department, and five years ago transitioned to handling closings for our entire buying department. Turns out she has more of a head for the financial and legal aspects of the business than she ever did for salesmanship.

I don't mean to zero in on Deidre to call her out, but I’ve developed an instinct for sensing when people can do more than what they may have thought initially, and she is one of those people. A year ago, I decided to set a pretty wild goal for Deidre: close over 100 properties in a month.

We’d never done that before, and I wasn’t entirely sure how we were going to do it. But every day, I asked her if there was a path to 100 closings. Every day she said, “We’ll make it happen.”

That month, we did. She did. What wasn’t clear at the beginning of the month became more and more clear as we looked at new possibilities, new methods to hit that goal.

To say I was proud is an understatement. What stands out to me most, though, is how proud she was of herself.

Discovering Strengths

I met Nate pretty early in his life compared to the majority of my team members.

He and my son Brett became fast friends in middle school, and I’ll be damned if I haven’t been able to shake him since.

That kid who played video games at my house until the wee hours of the morning, then was freshman roommates with my son at Ole Miss, was introduced to my business on the weekends when he and Brett would come up to Memphis hungry and loaded with dirty laundry. I would take every opportunity to develop Brett’s understanding and interest in my company—the company I hoped he would help me lead one day—so I didn’t mind if this Nate kid rode along with us to properties that we were renovating or renting out.

A year or so after graduating, when Nate was looking for a new professional opportunity, we made him an offer.

The offer was: we don’t know exactly what you’ll be doing, but you’ll get a paycheck!

Nate agreed, for whatever reason.

His first job was cleaning out a commercial property I’d recently taken on, a music studio that was essentially trashed and needed some major repairs. Nate completed the job, no questions asked.

After that, he learned the company from the ground up: performing maintenance, showing houses, collecting rent, managing moveouts, and more. In under a year, I had him overseeing property management at a company I co-owned with a business partner, from which I would later expand separately into Premier Property Management Group. I took Nate in the amicable “divorce.”

After a while, it was easy to figure out what Nate was good at—people—so there wasn’t any need to keep moving him around. He’s now my VP of Property Management, overseeing several teams including Customer Service—which, if you don’t know by now, is pretty close to my heart.

Growth Never Ends

Both Deidre and Nate earned promotions with their willingness to learn, take on more responsibility, and challenge themselves. That doesn’t mean that they stopped learning once they earned a certain title.

I continue to pull Deidre out of her comfort zone, asking her to present numbers at our daily accountability meetings, fully knowing how uncomfortable she gets speaking in public. Over time, though I’ve seen her gain more and more confidence as she practices presenting professionally.

It took Nate years to cultivate a management style that he begrudgingly attributes to me. Some call it micro-managing, but we know better. Sometimes you have to pester your team members, ask them the same question weekly, daily, even hourly, to get the message across that this ball cannot be dropped. Now, that doesn’t work for every team member. Not everyone can handle it or see what you’re after. But Nate has made that “pestering” a tool in his arsenal, which you need when you’re overseeing as many people as he is.

Both Deidre and Nate know that I’m never going to take it easy on them, no matter how many years they’ve been with me, no matter what executive title they earn. But that’s what has made us the team we are, collaborative and tight-knit like family.

Commit to The Grind

This is what I mean when I say average people don’t work here. Every once in a while, we hire someone who looks around after a few months of being on our payroll and realizes they aren’t cut out for what we’re asking of them. And if they can’t handle a few months, they’re certainly not going to become a Deidre or a Nate—with over a decade under their belt and plenty to show for it.

That’s okay. We don’t mind saying goodbye to those folks. All it does is free up focus for those team members who stay and dig deep.

Finding your essential team members is a commitment, often years in the making. Don’t shy away from what it’ll do for you and them.

Until next time,

Article Graphics (8)-1

Kent Clothier
Chief Grind Officer

 

About Kent Clothier

CG5A0010-1Entrepreneur, Real Estate Investor, Husband, Dad, and Granddad. Through decades of personal experience, and a few other titles, Kent built a strong community around him at REI Nation. But it didn’t start there. It took 22 years of entrepreneurship – of losing money and making money, building small businesses and multimillion dollar companies alike – before he founded a family business-turned-empire. His sons Kent Jr, Chris, and Brett have worked alongside him, as well as leading successful ventures of their own. Real estate trends, managing towards efficiency, excellent customer service and leading the industry are what fuel him. Over the years, the skills he’s come to value are financial acumen, honesty, and forging new paths in business, investing, and winning.

Featured Articles

Posts by Tag

See all