GSR: Liz Casselman: Zooming Out

Zooming Out: We Need Title Industry Leaders to See the Big Picture

The big picture. The moment it “clicks.” That look of understanding when your new employee “gets” what your title agency does. As anyone who has ever trained someone in our industry knows, this is the goal. Whether the position is order entry or policy issuance, it is crucial to understand the big picture to be effective within our individual roles. We all have our own methods to get there; my personal favorite is placing the new employee for a few hours or days at every position in the company. By zooming out and seeing the whole puzzle that is our day-to-day operations, we’re able to then zero in on individual positions or problems. That leads to more effective ways to do our jobs as we now know where we fit into the puzzle.

If we all know this, and practice this within our organizations, why aren’t more of our owners, management, and leadership getting the big picture?

I spent the first five years of my career entirely absorbed in the day-to-day operations of my title agencies. I knew there were legislative changes, new forms, and recording laws that were being enacted that would affect my agencies, eventually, and I would adapt them when the time came. But to anticipate change? Impact it? Lobby for it? Who had time for that? Not me. I was zoomed in on my little puzzle piece, only concerned with the edges it touched. 

I had every excuse NOT to be involved and truthfully, the reason I finally showed up to my first local land title association event was because an underwriter told me being involved could give my agencies a competitive advantage and market us to realtors and lenders to get more business. I highly doubt that objective was ever accomplished, but I did learn something at that very first event. 

I was 100% wrong to think that my agencies had nothing to do with the title insurance industry. That changes occurring on a local, state, or national scale would rarely affect the way I do business daily. 

Just like the person opening orders would be 100% wrong to think that their job has nothing to do with the person who eventually issues the policies on those orders. 

This is your reminder to zoom out to see the big picture. It’s bigger than your job position, your organization, or your market share. 

Zooming out can look like:

• Getting involved with your local land title associations. It’s not about networking with your competition or sharing your business secrets or being bombarded by underwriters. It’s about having a finger on the pulse of your local and state issues. Become a member, join a committee, or attend an education event.
• Paying attention to your legislation – what types of laws are being proposed that effect how you do business? Is anyone educating them on how it impacts your industry? Pro tip: your local land title association is often involved with this.
• Attracting newcomers to the title industry. Are you participating in job fairs or involved with high schools, trade schools, community colleges, universities, or law schools to teach title insurance and the various careers it offers? Do you talk to your friends and family about what you do and why it matters?
• Looking into associations and organizations that already exist. You can collaborate with your real estate partners and join lender, attorney, or realtor associations. You can find organizations more tailored to your interests in how you want to impact the industry, like supporting women in title. 
• When you’ve got a good grasp on the local issues affecting your organization, it’s time to zoom out again. Let’s look national. Are you involved with the American Land Title Association? Have you signed up for News You Can Use or other national title and real estate publications? Just a simple email subscription can keep you informed without ever leaving your desk. 
• Taking the most direct approach – go speak with your legislators. Make appointments with your congress members and tell them what matters most to preserving your livelihood. Or you can support the Title Action Network which does this work on your behalf. 

We’re too quiet in our industry. We operate behind the scenes, at a very high level, and just assume our value to the real estate industry is obvious. But it’s not obvious as evidenced by numerous factors like the age of our average employee, the national efforts to waive title insurance requirements on transactions, and general consumer understanding of our role in the real estate industry.

Learn from my mistake – if you think the local, state, or national climate surrounding title insurance doesn’t impact you and your organization, you’re wrong. You can keep your head down like I did, focus only on your company and whatever edges it touches, but if you don’t start zooming out to see the big picture now, we might not have title agencies to run in ten years. 

You don’t have to start from scratch or reinvent the wheel, just add your puzzle piece to the bigger picture. We need all the puzzle pieces to get the most accurate picture of where we’re at, and all the voices to know the best place to go next. The only wrong choice here is to do nothing.