Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
Well, hello and welcome to the Bottom Line Me podcast, where we like to spend a little time on topics and ideas that are relevant to real estate and title professionals. I'm your host, Ann Allard, and today our conversation is about women and their impact on the title and real estate industry.
Women's contributions to our industry are invaluable. More and more, we're driving forces. We foster community and help to share and shape the future for our industry.
Joining me today is Kim Whitlock. Kim has been one of those driving forces in creating a community where women can thrive, share knowledge, and advance their careers in our industry. And she's here today to share more about her mission to help empower women, educate leaders, and advocate for actionable change in our industry. Kim, welcome so much. Thank you for joining me.
[00:01:11] Speaker B: Thank you for having me. I'm excited.
[00:01:13] Speaker A: Well, great. Well, good. Well, before we dive into our topic today, why don't you take a couple of minutes to tell our audience a little bit about yourself and what actually inspired you or motivated you to start this initiative.
[00:01:27] Speaker B: I've been in the industry for 15 years now here in based out of Colorado. I've worked all aspects of the industry, from direct agencies to underwriters. And I started Women in title in 2002, and it was really born out of the need for a community for us women to come together and support each other. Right. So early on in my career, I started working with an underwriter, and I noticed that our agents, who are mostly women like you alluded to in the beginning, felt more comfortable coming to me for those underwriting questions because they were intimidated by our male underwriting counsels. Right. So I formed those relationships and formed those bonds with those women. And I found as. As I moved through my career in different companies, they continued to come to me for those questions and. And advice, which I loved.
And in turn, they gave me great advice.
So there was a point in my career where I left the underwriting side and I went back to agency, and those women were still coming to me asking questions. And one day a woman was like, I'm not sure I could come to you anymore, because now we're competition. Is this okay? And I had never thought about it that way because I just want to support each other. But it was a. It was a like a aha moment, as Oprah said, right? Where I was like, we need this community where we can all build meaningful connections and feel that we can support each other. And that's exactly what happened. So we started with a coffee meetup at the end of 2022, I was very nervous. No one was going to show up. There were seven of us. All the women showed up with their notepads and their pens, ready to share their knowledge with us and to ask questions. And we've been on a roll ever since.
[00:03:18] Speaker A: Wow, what a great story. And you inspire me just listening to that.
You know, I really want to talk a lot about what the benefits are, but before that, you just mentioned that, you know, you do regular meetups. Tell us a little bit about what that is, what happens at these meetups.
Sure.
[00:03:37] Speaker B: Yeah. So there's a lot of aspects that go in, a lot of benefits to our community. But these local coffee meetups are really the lifeblood of our organization and how we started. So I mentioned we started here in Denver, Colorado, and we meet on the third Tuesday of every month at the same coffee shop. Everybody knows when and where, and we show up. We usually spend a few minutes catching up with each other, and then inevitably, someone at the table, Hot topics, you know, and we've all come to the table with something to talk about. And that can be something in our local industry that we're facing and questions and things that are coming up. It can be actual career advice, like, hey, you know, I'm thinking about asking for this promotion. Can you help me work through this conversation that I'll have with my boss? We've even actually, like, dug into actual title files at the table. It was kind of funny. We worked a mining claim file. We had an underwriter from one company and another underwriter, an agent, all talking about this one file and how we're going to determine access. It was a pretty cool moment.
Since then, these local chapters have popped up all over the country. We have about a dozen live now are going live this month. We have maybe two dozen on deck ready to go. But these local meetups over coffee are really where those strong relationships get built. And so that's why I say it's really is the lifeblood of our organization, because those relationships matter.
[00:05:10] Speaker A: Wow. So there isn't a formal agenda.
It's more of a casual or spontaneous conversation. Or do some. Sometimes you have a formal agenda. Do you bring speakers in? Or is it primarily just, okay, let's just sit around, have a coffee and figure out how we can support and help each other. Or is it both?
[00:05:33] Speaker B: So it could be both, really. We like to give each chapter some autonomy to do what works for them. So right now, we do have one. We have one chapter in Utah who likes that kind of structured planning, but right now, that's the only one that's doing that. And I look forward to hearing how that goes for them. But most of the time, it's just spontaneous. Usually women come to the table with topics they want to talk about, and the conversation just flows naturally. There's never a lull. I'll say that.
[00:06:03] Speaker A: That's. That's good to hear. Well, you and I had an opportunity to meet and have a cup of coffee last month. I think it was when we were both at Alt Edge. And yeah, there's no question that there's no shortage of conversation or topics that women want to sit and talk about together. So tell us a little bit about who can join, and once they join, you know, what are the steps to get involved?
[00:06:31] Speaker B: Sure. So we like to say by default, if you're a woman in this industry, you're a member of our community, because you are welcome at any of our events, any of our meetups, any of our online community activities. If you want to get more formally involved, you can either reach out to a local chapter head or reach out to one of our board members or myself either. You know, email on LinkedIn, you can find us on social media.
And if you're looking for a chapter in your area and there isn't one yet, you want to start one, you can reach out to us. And we have a new chapter toolkit. We walk you through it, answer any questions you may have, and then from that point on, you're part of the family. So, wow.
[00:07:14] Speaker A: Yeah, that was actually my next question. What if you're in an area where there isn't a chapter? How do you go about getting started? And so how would somebody reach out? What would they do?
[00:07:26] Speaker B: Sure. So you can find us on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn, or you can send us an email at Women in Title Gmail, and from there we can open up the confirmation, send, set up a call, talk through details. I will say that we are. We do have a lot of requests for an online community as well. We found that especially as we get into the busy months, especially escrow officers, it's harder for them to leave their desk. And, you know, women in rural areas, we may not have a chapter because there may not be a lot of women in that, you know, physical community. So we are going to be starting an online chapter very soon. So just stay tuned, follow us on social media, and we'll be making announcements about that.
[00:08:10] Speaker A: That's very exciting because I think. I think, as you say, you know, if you're in an area where it's not easy to find one or to get to one, or you just happen to have a busy day. If you sit down at your desk with a cup of coffee and have a conversation, that's awesome.
[00:08:25] Speaker B: Great.
[00:08:26] Speaker A: Great.
Now I have to tell you, you know, I've, I've been on your, your LinkedIn page a few times.
Find it very, very inspiring and interesting, but there was something that popped up that I have to ask you about and it's something called is it the Bubble Project or the Bubble Program?
[00:08:46] Speaker B: Tell me about that. Yeah. So the Bubble Project we're really proud of. It's our first national initiative that we've launched under our WIT organization. The Bubble Project is an initiative where we are training our bubble ambassadors to identify, intervene and support women when they experience misconduct in our industry, which we all know is rampant still, unfortunately.
So we have trained our first group of ambassadors right before Edge. They were our beta testers. They gave us a lot of great feedback and now we are opening applications for individuals if they want to be part of the group and be a trained bubble ambassador.
I'm not.
[00:09:32] Speaker A: Wow, that's exciting. Any other projects that you're working on?
[00:09:36] Speaker B: Yeah. So we have a. A monthly webinar series where we are taking feedback from our community on what they want to hear, what they want to talk about. Right. So for example, last month we talked about self advocacy. That's hard for a lot of people, but especially women. Advocating for ourselves in this business, oftentimes we're intimidated or we feel that we need to shrink ourselves to fit in. So a few of our members spent an hour talking about their tips and tricks with some actionable takeaways for women to take away from that.
[00:10:11] Speaker A: Awesome. I have one to catch one of your webinars a couple of months ago. It was, it was terrific. How does somebody find out about the webinars? Do they go on to the social pages as well for that?
[00:10:23] Speaker B: Yep. All what we announce on all of our social media platforms. If you get in contact with me and give me your email address, I can put you on a distribution list. All of our local chapters maintain their own distribution list. And, and these invites, this information goes out on there. I always, as well as I like to put a note in the ALTA forum when we have one. So yeah, just keep your eyes peeled. But we announce every month we have one.
[00:10:50] Speaker A: Excellent. Excellent. What else can you tell us about women in title?
[00:10:54] Speaker B: What can I tell you? I can tell you that the enthusiasm, the feedback that we're Getting from women across the country is. Is amazing. Like I said that first meeting, I was thinking scared people weren't going to show up. And now we just have people knocking down our door that want to get involved, want to support us, want to be part of this community in some way or another. And, you know, we're hearing from women that this really means a lot to them. So the more people we can reach, the more women we can reach. And the more feedback I get from you, the better we can shape this community going forward.
[00:11:34] Speaker A: Excellent. If someone has a suggestion or an idea for an initiative or a project, same thing. Go onto the LinkedIn or the Facebook page and just share things like that. Is that.
[00:11:49] Speaker B: Absolutely, yeah. You can share ideas directly on our social media. You can send any of us an email. I'm personally very active on LinkedIn, so you'll see me. Feel free to send me a personal message or like I said, send an email to that Gmail.
Our board members are very active on LinkedIn, feel free to reach out to any of them, but feedback's very valuable to us.
[00:12:10] Speaker A: Great. How many chapters do you have currently?
[00:12:14] Speaker B: It's hard to say because it changes every day.
[00:12:17] Speaker A: It changes every day. Wow, that's great.
[00:12:21] Speaker B: It's pretty fantastic. I want to say we have about. By the end of the month, we'll have about 12 active chapters that have had a meeting take place already, but we have about another two dozen on deck where we're working through the planning process with them, getting the word out, helping them locate a local coffee shop, things like that.
[00:12:47] Speaker A: Excellent. Great. Well, that's really, really, really exciting.
Do you find that most of your chapters are in one area around the country, or is it spread out more at this point, or is that what your goal is?
[00:13:00] Speaker B: The goal is to be everywhere, that we have a need and a want. Right. But so far, it's been very spread out. Anywhere from California to literally New York and Florida.
[00:13:11] Speaker A: Wow.
Awesome. Well, that's very exciting. And what if I happen to be vacationing in Florida? Could I hook up with the local chapter while I'm there if I needed a shot in the arm?
[00:13:23] Speaker B: Absolutely. We love it. Yes. Actually, one of my board members is traveling to Texas this week for.
For fun, and she's going to stop by the Austin, Texas chapter just because she's going to be there.
[00:13:36] Speaker A: So that's. That's great. Wow. Well, this sounds like a really exciting initiative, and I can only think that as time goes on, it's going to grow and do exactly what it is that Your mission is, is to help to shape the future and support women in our industry.
So, wow. This is. This is really an exciting initiative, and I'm really happy that we happened to meet each other and that you were able to share this with us. So on our podcast, we always like to end with a bottom line. So I think my question to you would be, what would be a message that you would want to leave for our audience about Women in Title?
[00:14:23] Speaker B: That's a. That's a good question. There's so much information I want to leave with everybody. But something that I like to say is if you're a woman in this industry and you feel like you don't have a seat at the table, you deal with us.
I'm not.
[00:14:39] Speaker A: It's a wonderful bottom line. I love it. I love it.
[00:14:42] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:14:43] Speaker A: Thank you, Kim. Thank you so much for sharing this information with us. And I'm sure that there's many women in our audience and even some men that will be intrigued and interested to learn and hear more about what happen during these meetups. And so thanks, and I'm sure we'll look to have you back on again to keep us up to date on what's going on. So thanks very, very much for taking some time to join us today.
[00:15:12] Speaker B: Thank you so much.
I've really enjoyed meeting you and talking with you. And if anyone ever wants to talk about Women Title, feel free to reach out. Stay tuned for new, exciting initiatives we're going to be launching this year. And welcome to the community.
[00:15:26] Speaker A: Great. And to our audience, if you have any trouble locating Kim or Women in Title, feel free to send an email to agencyuniversityoldrepublictitle.com and I will be happy to help you get in contact with the right person at Women in Title. And finally, to our audience, I want to thank you all for taking the time to join us today. Until we meet again, let's all keep learning, growing, and prospering. Thank you.
