Editorial
Front Page - Friday, August 6, 2010
Closing the gap between customer service and realty
Erica Tuggle
Denise Leach and Tonjia Landreth are the co-founders of Bridge City Realty. With a smaller office that can still provide realty services for Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama properties, the women say it is a good fit for agents who are looking for a change or like the feel of a smaller office. One of the properties they are currently managing is the Southern Railway Building lofts for sale in the heart of Downtown’s Southside.
- Erica Tuggle
Co-owners and founders of Bridge City Realty, Denise Leach and Tonjia Landreth, have established dressy casual as workplace attire. When you are the owner of your own business these are things that can be tailored to preference, and who wants to wear a suit to work everyday anyway? Both women wear jeans and dark blazers, and together look like sisters. It could be easy to mistake them as such as the two women not only work together, but also live in the same subdivision, their eighth grade sons are best friends and the women even finish each other’s sentences.
The pair began working together at Prudential Realty, and when Landreth got her broker’s license, first Landreth and then Leach went to work for Innovative Realty Group. When that company closed, Landreth says they decided, instead of working for someone else, they wanted to work for themselves.
Landreth says she began in real estate magazines, and that started her desire to work with the agents, while she was also managing a dental office. Leach had previous experience in finance with a banking background, so while Landreth took over the management part of the business, Leach leaned more toward the marketing.
Leach says Landreth was her broker, and she saw that they worked well together and how Landreth was good at compliance and making sure agents were informed.
“We took our experience together and it has worked well,” Leach says.
With Bridge City Realty, Landreth says they are trying to emphasize customer service and establishing relationships instead of worrying about what deal is next.
Landreth says, “We are trying to help agents understand once you establish those relationships, you can have clients for a lifetime. We hustle and are always going but have family and like to do family stuff, too. So we don’t expect everyone to be constantly working.”
Leach agrees that being accessible is a must for her and Landreth as well as their 11 agents. She says Landreth and she try to act as a support system for their agents.
“When one is out town, we try to take care of the customer. It doesn’t matter if it’s her customer or my customer. They are our customers, and if they are the agent, they are our customer as well, because if they lose that customer, we lose them,” she says.
Being a smaller company that doesn’t have to worry about franchise fees, Leach says they focus on taking care of the agents so that care will come back around to them. Landreth knows it is hard once an agent is in real estate to make the next step in being successful and that’s why the pair makes themselves as available to agents as they expect agents to make themselves to clients.
“You have different types of customers, and I try to figure them out when I meet them. Some are more demanding than others, but if you want to keep that customer and get referrals, you have to be accessible,” Leach says.
Bridge City Realty got its license on April Fools day of last year, and now the business is doubling their office space with a move into the Southern Railway Building at 1301 Market Street. Bridge City also is managing the properties within the building, which include the spacious, luxurious loft style living units that are currently for sale. The women say they are making the move to a larger location because they want to encourage more agents to consider their office.
Leach says, “We’d love to help agents if they are floundering, or don’t know where they want to go, or if they want to be with a big company. We have both worked for big companies, and have nothing negative to say about them, but I think each agent has to find what works best for them. If they want a smaller company with two women trying to make it work, they might want to call us and see if we might meet their needs.”
Landreth says, “Now that we are moving to our new space on Market, we are hoping to fill it up and grow.”
Landreth says they also encourage their agents to utilize the social media and build relationships from there.
“The thing I was first taught was that you have your sphere of influence of everyone you know and you just start calling and tell them you are in the business and ask for their business,” she says. “As long as you are doing something like that and are consistent, you meet new people and can show them they can depend on you.”
With 1,800 Realtors in the Chattanooga area, Leach says it is important to distinguish yourself and to keep agents, buyers and sellers informed of who you are what you are doing. Bridge City wants their clients to know they can show any property in Alabama, Georgia or Tennessee, no matter who the agent is listed on the property. These are things they have had to learn over the course of time in this ongoing training process, Leach says, that extends far beyond a month of real estate training.
“Sometimes I feel like you have to have your law degree to sell real estate,” she says.
The women say that when their social lives are not dictated by the activities of their sons, they use their social time to double as networking opportunities at new business openings, with clients and mortgage lenders who have become friends.
“There are a lot of great agents and good companies in this town so you have to constantly work at it, can’t just sit back,” Leach says. “And wait for it to come to you,” Landreth says. “Because it is not,” Leach finishes, demonstrating their sentence-finishing phenomenon.
The local ladies, Leach and Landreth, from South Pittsburg and Rossville, Ga., respectively, say they are planning a soft opening of their new location in the fall and welcome all to attend.
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