Nest’s Sweat the Details podcast continues. We just released our 14th podcast, and we’re excited to bring you interesting conversations that touch on real estate, and how we look beyond real estate for inspiration.
You can listen to the podcast here, and subscribe to the podcast here.
Jennifer Kjellgren of Nest Realty Atlanta sat down with Jonathan Kauffmann and Jim Duncan to chat about how she learned about Nest, meeting Jonathan at T3, and her journey to opening the Nest Realty office in Atlanta. Some highlights include:
– New experience of opening a Nest in a large market
– Value of the Nest brand when growing her brokerage
– Nest’s marketing department and integrating her brand with her existing brand
– The “F” word, franchise
– How Nest was a solution for the things they needed—technology, marketing scalability
– Friends of Nest’s value to the agents and the Brokers—the “Secret Sauce,” in Jennifer’s words
– The value of the Nest brand to agents and the consumers
– How Nest is a growing niche brand that offers value and support to it’s Brokers and agents
We hope you’ll join us for the next episode of Sweat the Details. View the full transcript below.
TRANSCRIPT
Jim: We’re sitting here with Jennifer Kjellgren with Nest Atlanta. Jennifer, if you don’t mind, tell us how you came to Nest and how long you’ve been with us and a little bit more about who you are.
Jennifer: Perfect, so I have been in the industry for going on 20 years and Nest came across my radar in 2012 through a friend of mine and we had just been gaga over website and marketing so when I opened my own independent brokerage, in 2015, we actually borrowed quite a few of the ideas. The cookie jar, some of the marketing and I got to know Jonathan Kauffmann through a brokerage incubator training T3 Fellows that I was in and learned from getting to know him that there was a lot more behind the hood than just pretty marketing and there was a lot of methodology and what we were trying to do in our brokerage of being a very consumer centric, relational based brokerage saw that there was very much a lot of cohesiveness with what Nest is about and when the opportunity to franchise came, I think we talked on like the first day.
Jonathan: We talked pretty quickly.
Jennifer: And then, here we are.
Jim: So what do you mean by the cohesiveness?
Jennifer: So, you know, I think aligning, there’s a lot of ways to practice real estate, there’s a lot of real estate models out there and the end of the day, my belief in practicing as a real estate agent and as a broker is it’s about an empowered educated consumer and in order to do that, you have to have agents that are empowered and educated and I’m just the anti Body Shop model and so finding a company that leads with the consumer and leading with quality over quantity is a rarity. I also found that just in getting to know more than Jonathan Kauffmann and the partners at Nest, I mean everyone just is a really sold human being. They’re not leading with ego and a lot of puffery, it’s walking before the talk and that really spoke to us.
Jonathan: Yeah and I’ll jump in and say it’s exciting for me as we got to know each other through T3 and then had started to have conversations about possibly working together. It was exciting for us to, it’s always exciting for us to find like minded folks. There’s plenty of independent Brokers out there, but there’s not a lot of independent Brokers that have that relational vision and are focused on client experience and are focused on quality over quantity. So like, we talked about, I think the only concern, challenge from our perspective was, “Jeez, we’ve been operating in small and mid tier markets. ” we call then secondary and tertiary markets, so it was a new venture for us to go into a big city. Atlanta is a big city, it’s like many big cities.
Jonathan: So it’s a new experience for us and I think it’s been great for us and for our team to kind of learn and understand the nuances that Atlanta has versus Charlottesville, versus Wilmington, versus Asheville, versus the other spots that we’re in. But it is… I think the way that we’ve talked about it is Atlanta is broken down into a lot of different smaller pocket cities and with what you’re doing, it just really worked for us. So we’re excited to have you on the team.
Jennifer: Totally and while Atlanta is such a huge city, the way that I’ve always practiced as an agent and as a brokerage, it really was within a five mile radius so it was very much like a town and with now being a part of Nest, it’s letting us expand in areas we weren’t able to. So the brand is really helping us, so I think it’s a win-win.
Jim: Expand on that. How are you using the Nest brand to branch out and to extend a little bit?
Jennifer: So, as an agent, the team that I created in 2004 was In Town Expert and when we opened our brokerage, it was In Town Expert Realty and it was funny, even a thousand guys and I talked about it, “That is not a good name for a brokerage,” and I’m like, “Yes it is. That’s why I practice real estate.” And I realized it wasn’t because I had agents that were not just going to share the same philosophy of a very small geographic area. So a, just getting away from the name that didn’t make sense in other parts of town was helpful. And just having the ability of just other people at the table making decisions, having access to a phenomenal technology and marketing package. We couldn’t touch it.
Jim: Right. From the marketing team perspective, it’s something that we sit here in Charleston all the time and we can express copious words of praise and humble amazement at how the team works. Tell me a little bit how that’s been working with them from an onboarding perspective and from an ongoing, as the brand I won’t say it evolves, but as it grows and is refined and it gets frankly I think better, how is that process been for you? From Atlanta to Charlottesville?
Jennifer: Well I’ll say that was something that, this was a big move for us, you know, creating a brand and going through all the brand identity was kind of, there was a giving birth to that that we knew we were going to lose. And so I think our process of going back and forth and getting to know each other, we wanted to really make sure this was a solid relationship and the second that Jonathan Freeman, our business partner and I came to Charlottesville, we could see how the team worked and you could tell that everybody really went beyond their JOB, they owned it and worked as a well oiled machine and since that time 18 months ago, I mean it’s grown and you all hire, obviously very, very well and the people who have their jobs, I think that they must be in tune with their why in the big picture of really what they were trying to accomplish. And so, as a broker being part of that, it’s been phenomenal. We have resources we couldn’t have dreamed of doing before or executing before.
Jonathan: It’s important for us to not fit everybody into the same box. So you had a broker Jen, you had a brand and you had brand elements that you were in love with including your heart in the circle and so for us, you expressed this to us, you said, “I don’t want to lose all of it.” And we appreciate that and so I think that it’s great that our team was able to integrate in certain marks and certain language and obviously imagery and your personality in the Nest Realty Atlanta brand. And we’ve done that a couple times, we did it in Durham with 501 when they came over.
Jonathan: So it’s something that’s important to us and we don’t want to strip the soul out of somebody who’s put their heart and soul into building a brokerage. We just want to enhance and so once again, it was a great partnership where you knew kind of what you were getting into, you knew that you had to kind of fit certain things within the next but we didn’t want to just have to cram everything that Nest does down your throat because we know every market’s different and your brokerage is different and defined.
Jennifer: Yeah, I mean it was an education on franchising for me. I considered franchise to be Subway and McDonald’s and I was like, “That’s not who we want to be.” And so having that ability to stay I would say kind of indie and boutique, yet be under a large brand that it just gives us a lot more opportunity.
Jonathan: Yeah and we don’t love the word franchise, it’s a legal term but it is what it is, right?
Jennifer: Yep, got to [inaudible 00:07:43].
Jonathan: The lawyers.
Jim: You said it gave you access to resources and it’s something that we see, again from this angle and from my perspective is practicing every day, what are two or three you did not have before or you had your eye on, like one day I’ll get to that?
Jennifer: So I’ll say that I think I’m exceptionally lucky in the department that my husband/business partner is not only a software engineer, he’s a graphic designer. So we, in our company, had at the helm a true CTO, CIO and graphic designer and we executed some very amazing marketing, technology stack, but we just… It was unscalable so I felt that even though we had this talent in house, we just couldn’t do it in a duplicate of effort and A, the man hours to get one beautiful piece of marketing out the door, customized and then talking about putting pieces of software together. So starting in 2012 I would look at the best in class product here, product there and then when Jonathan Freeman came in we were bolting on technologies. It was kind of a hot mess and we just as a small brokerage, we didn’t have the money to invest truly in the right kind of technology not did we have the resources to scale the marketing the way that we wanted to.
Jennifer: And we weren’t going to cut corners and do it halfway.
Jim: Yeah but I think, before you came on, I remember some of the videos that you put together, they’re phenomenal.
Jennifer: Thanks.
Jim: And it was something that I think that-
Jennifer: We kind of got the idea from what you guys did in 2012.
Jim: No it was amazing to watch and seeing how you all have, I won’t say integrated but just meshed and merged and sort of taken the Nest brain and run with it has been really fun to watch.
Jennifer: It’s been fuel for our engine and I’m really excited because I imagine the next year we’re going to really see the benefits of that.
Jim: Oh I haven’t told you this, so I have a client from Charlottesville who’s traveling in Atlanta for work and she texted me and she said, “I saw a building here and I knew it was Nest before I went and saw the name.” She was walking on the street and she’s a multiple time client here, and she was just walking down the street and she was like, “I didn’t know Nest was here but that’s Nest.”
Jennifer: That’s cool.
Jim: So I haven’t shared that with you and I just remembered that.
Jonathan: That’s great, that’s a great story. The other great story we have from a few years ago that I’ll say is we had clients that are people that just came into our office Charlottesville and they opened the door and they said, “We just wanted to come in and say hi. We just closed on a property in Blacksburg and we just wanted to come in and see the Nest office here. So it’s great to have these situations where we have happy clients that have a strong affinity for their realtor and also for Nest that they feel some sort of connection, even just to come in and say hi and you know, it just puts a huge smile on my face every time I hear stories like that.
Jim: From an agent satisfaction perspective, I mean, tell me hopefully the answer, you know I know the answer but how have the agents responded to bringing on Nest and how the new ones come on as far as their happiness quotient if you will.
Jennifer: I tell my agents, if I had all of this I might be selling real estate still. They have responded very well. You know, change is not easy. There’s always that period of going through a transition that has its challenges. But oh, the agents they love this and as we have brought on agents that are not brand new who do have some experience and have worked in other brokerages, they really see the value that this is not some stock, corporate something that is everything to everybody. So they very much appreciate it and both whether they’re brand new agents or agents that have been in the business for a little bit, their tools are easy to use, they look completely custom and executable. So…
Jim: Cool, I mean, mark this. I’ll ask about Friends of Nest.
Jennifer: And I have a referral story with your referral that I think ties into what Jonathan just said if you want me to say something.
Jim: Yeah, so I’ll ask about friends of Nest and then about that.
Jennifer: Okay.
Jim: Cool. So we have the Friends of Nest program which again, practicing agent, it’s changed my business.
Jennifer: It’s secret sauce. It really is.
Jim: Yeah, it’s phenomenal. So again, because I clearly am biased. What do you think about it?
Jennifer: Well, I’ll give you real numbers. So I have a large sphere-
Jim: What is Friends of Nest mean to you?
Jennifer: So, yes. So Friends of Nest is a proprietary mailing program that is extremely custom and it’s just brilliant and I don’t know if I need to go into the nuts and bolts of how it’s brilliant but it’s absolutely brilliant. And for an agent to be able to produce seven times a year a quality, a very thought through curated marketing to the people that they know they’re friends of Nest, in a very easy way, it’s secret sauce.
Jennifer: So when I came onboard I plugged into Friends of Nest and I counted this morning as a matter of fact and I brought 20 opportunities to the company simply that I attribute to that program. In 14 months.
Jim: So I was talking to one of the Brokers in the last couple days and he said that Friends of Nest had been I think he tripled his business in that 18 month period because he was just doing these things that agents were… You know, I’ve been doing this for almost 20 years as well and it wasn’t until we started this program that I started doing what we’re supposed to do and it had made a life changing effect on his business.
Jennifer: Well that’s NRA’s number one reason people are satisfied with their agents but their agent doesn’t keep in touch with them. I mean you made it completely…. I mean I can’t imagine an agent not wanting to participate in this program. It’s amazing.
Jim: Yeah.
Jennifer: I don’t want to say too much.
Jonathan: Yeah. The stat is 74% of realtors never follow up with their client after closing.
Jennifer: That’s crazy.
Jonathan: So that was the impidus for… Look, we were very fortunate at Nest to have great people as agents but also very productive, busy agents. And so, we see this from a broker’s perspective as an opportunity to add value and this is something that we can and should do as a brokerage and we’ve got a team that can execute it and the challenge over the past couple years has been, how do we personalize this so it’s coming from the agent? It does come from the agent, right? There’s personalization that agents can do but it doesn’t take a lot of time from the agent’s perspective. So I mean I say, many times that once you do your first Friends of Nest mailing, you can do as an agent you can probably spend somewhere in the range of 30 to 45 minutes over the course of the entire year and you can send beautiful direct mail personalized pieces to your clients.
Jim: And authentic and genuine.
Jennifer: At a very reasonable cost. So I mean all of that, I mean I created it. My eight years at Coldwell Banker and six years at Remax, trust me, I have looked at every templative marketing program and I am on the receiving end. We’re in a neighborhood that has a lot of desirability right now and I get these pieces from other agents and I know there’s nothing that really compares to the quality and then the ease of having the agent do it quickly.
Jim: Yes. So a couple weeks ago, yeah 4th of July, I had a client of mine from Charlottesville who moves to Atlanta, texted me, hadn’t talked to him in three years and he said that, “I saw you have a Nest Atlanta. I’m ready to sell my house. Can you help?” I said, “Yeah, absolutely.”
Jennifer: And so I he was lovely to work with and it was funny when I met with him, he said, “Oh, I’m in this predicament because I have all these long time…” and this is a family house that his family’s been in since the 50s, tons of neighbors are realtors. He’s like, “Ugh, how am I going to make the decision?” He’s like, “Oh, this is perfect. I know this company, I know how well they treat me.” So I did the listing presentation, met with him and then the next day when he was ready to sign he gave me back the listing presentations. He said, “I know how much work goes into this, I know what you guys do. This is exactly why I’m hiring you, I don’t need to see all that. Here, give it to somebody else.”
Jennifer: And that was actually the first time I had a client give me a listing presentation back in a nice way but-
Jonathan: In a nice way.
Jennifer: Yeah, the experience that he had in Charlottesville, knowing exactly what we did as a company, it was… I could have brought a listing agreement that day, talked with him for five minutes and have him sign that. So that was a really great experience and speaks to the brand.
Jonathan: That’s great, that’s an amazing story. Love it.
Jim: They were great people. They were just ones that you look back and like, it was just lucky to work with them.”
Jennifer: Yeah.
Jim: And I get to pass them on to you and take care of them. It’s great.
Jennifer: Having a collaborative client is a wonderful thing.
Jim: I have, you know, two more questions but one of them is, from the agent’s, from a value that the agent sees, we’ve talked about Friends of Nest, we’ve talked about the brand, the value of the brand, what do they see?
Jennifer: So I think that’s an interesting question. I don’t know that a lot of agents know the value of the brand because a lot of the brands out there I don’t believe give value to the agents and our industry is really going through a lot of change and segmentation because of that. I think the agents that are agents that see value in the brand. I mean we’re taking a lot of time and energy that they would have to even try to figure out how to do these things like stay in touch with people and it’s just done in a very human, thoughtful way that it lets the agent do what they do best and that is spending their time prospecting, negotiating and working with buyers and sellers and not trying to create the wheel of all of the other components of being a successful agent.
Jim: Yeah.
Jennifer: So I think that again, my experience in the agents that we have who have experience recognize that immediately because they compare it to the places that they were before. I don’t know if the new ones know any different but I know I’ve traveled around the real estate conference circuit starting in 2012 and it’s unique. It’s unique for a brokerage, and a brand to offer all of these things to the agents in a way that just doesn’t feel so templated and stale.
Jonathan: Yeah, that’s great to hear and I think that that’s still… We’re a niche company, we’re a growing niche and like I said, we’re not for everybody but when we do find the agents that appreciate us, they are raving fans, they buy in and we’ve seen how we can save time, we’ve seen how we can help them become more productive. We’ve seen how we can help build relationships with their clients and it’s really great to see.
Jennifer: Yeah, so diversity in the market I will say, so our clients, we have first time home buyers, sellers, at $150 000 and we sell properties that are $2 million and it’s very unique, the brand fits and works for everybody in our client base. And that’s something I wanted to be very thoughtful about when we created our brokerage is like, I don’t just want to be pigeon holed and just appeal to the luxury or just appeal to a little bit edgy. And Nest just, it really fits across the board and that’s a well executed and thought through brand.
Jonathan: Great, well thank you. And thanks for being part of it. So we like to wrap these conversations up with a question so we’re a company that focuses on details and we know from knowing you the past couple years, we know that you care about details too. What’s the one detail that you sweat on a daily basis and that you’re really focused on?
Jennifer: Professionalism. Professionalism in our industry and just professionalism. It’s a personal mission of mine, we have too many agents in our industry and the bar is very, very low and there is… When a agent does a wonderful job and treats this like a business and treats their clients and works with them in a relational way I feel like I’ve done my job. So everything I do, I sweat a lot of details in working on raising that bar in professionalism.
Jim: Awesome. Jennifer, thank you so much. Really appreciate it.
Jennifer: Thanks for having me.