The Alimond Show
Welcome to The Alimond Show --join us as we share our entrepreneurial guests' stories, uncover their secrets to success, and explore the unique paths they've taken to build thriving businesses in our community.
In each episode, our host, Aliyah Dastour, sits down with a diverse group of local business owners, from the corner cafe to the boutique shop, from tech startups to family-run enterprises. We peel back the curtain to reveal the trials, triumphs, and transformational moments that have shaped their entrepreneurial journey.
Discover the passion, perseverance, and innovative thinking that fuels these businesses, as well as the challenges they've overcome along the way. Whether you're a budding entrepreneur seeking inspiration or simply a curious listener interested in the stories behind your favorite local spots, The Alimond Show has something for everyone.
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Join us every week as we celebrate the unsung heroes of our local business community and explore the vibrant tapestry of entrepreneurship in our area. Tune in to The Alimond Show and get ready to be inspired, informed, and motivated to support and nurture the businesses that make our community thrive.
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The Alimond Show
Kara Macdonald - The Favorite Title Lady: From Clerical Tasks to Business Development in Real Estate
Ever wondered what goes on behind the scenes in the real estate world? Join us for an insightful conversation with Kara Macdonald, also known as the "favorite title lady." Kara shares her remarkable journey, starting at just 19 years old, and how she climbed the ranks from performing clerical tasks to becoming a licensed title insurance professional and eventually transitioning into business development. She offers a peek into the crucial role title companies play, from handling money and conducting closings to issuing title insurance, making her an invaluable resource for both realtors and clients.
Discover the power of consumer choice and how shopping around can benefit you, no matter what service you're seeking in real estate. With 27 years of experience and having worked with multiple companies, we delve into the advantages of competition and capitalism. Kara and I discuss the significance of obtaining multiple quotes and how various marketing strategies like educational classes and involvement in realtor associations can keep you connected and add value to your business. Positive feedback and maintaining a cheerful outlook, even during tough times, are also highlighted as essential elements of professional satisfaction.
Authenticity and gratitude are the cornerstones of Kara's approach to business and life. We explore the impact of genuine marketing, the importance of one-on-one interactions, and how showing real value can drive success. Kara's passion for self-improvement and cultivating gratitude shines through as she discusses the transformative power of focusing on what you're thankful for. Learn how striving to be just a bit better each day can not only improve your outlook but also foster personal growth. This episode is brimming with practical advice and uplifting stories that promise to inspire and motivate.
My name is Kara MacDonald. I call myself your favorite title lady. My company is Potomac Title Group and I serve my clients by helping them grow their business. I come from a place of contribution. I do business development primarily, so I try to figure out what my clients need and try to help them figure out how to fill that need and then in turn they come back and use me for closings, which is the ultimate goal. But so basically, realtors are my ideal client and I work towards getting them to use Potomac title for their closings because it's a referral based business, gotcha.
Speaker 2:And how did you get into the title business? Tell me a little bit about your story and kind of what led you to this path.
Speaker 1:That's a long story. So when I was 19 years old, I was pregnant with my second child and my sister, daphne. She's seven years older than me. She was in mortgage and I was waiting tables and she said you need a steady paycheck, with another child on the way, and so she got me a job at a title company in Fairfax city. That was my first like paycheck job. I I've been waiting tables since I got out of school and I started by ordering payoffs and just. I don't know if you know what that is, but there's, it's basically clerical work within the title industry. So all the grunt work I was doing the, the copying loan packages after closings were done and so forth and I stayed there for four years, got my title insurance license after two years. Since then I have worked for six different title companies. I worked in the office until 2012. And that's when I started my business development role.
Speaker 2:Oh wow, that's a great journey.
Speaker 1:Yes, it was a long journey, so I've done everything from closings to managing offices. I processed foreclosures in 2007 when the market crashed, which was super interesting Whole different side of the business and somebody invited me to a B&I group. I don't know if you know what?
Speaker 2:that is.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, but I was in a B&I for a while when I first started business development, so I've really done everything, all the different aspects of it, all the different aspects of it. Yeah, yes, and so I think that makes me a bigger asset to my clients now, because there's a lot of title reps which is technically what I'm called in the business and a lot of them are just have sales experience, but I have the background of working in the office as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and having that experience to give to your clients.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, like people can call me on a Saturday and ask me a question about how to write a contract up or ask me to pull a deed or something from land records and I can do that for them, which is kind of sets me apart, I think.
Speaker 2:For sure For those of us that don't know what is exactly the title business and a little bit about what that means, okay.
Speaker 1:So when you buy a house, most people think of getting financing first or finding a realtor. They don't really understand what a title company is. So that's a great question. So say I'm a first-time home buyer. Say I'm 25 years old and I'm like okay, I'm ready to buy a house, I've saved some money, I think my credit's pretty good. I'm going to talk to a realtor first, which is what normally people do. So they find you know, everybody knows a realtor. So you get your realtor. You know Amy's my realtor. Okay, amy, what next? Well, the next thing to do is get you pre-approved for financing. So you talk to a bank or a lender and once you go through that process and you know, okay, I'm pre-approved to buy a $500,000 home. Next thing is where do I go to find this home? Say you want to live in Leesburg. Great Realtor finds the house for you. You go under contract, which means you put an offer in on the house and the seller accepts your offer. Now you're under contract to buy 123 Main Street in Leesburg.
Speaker 1:That's when the title company comes in. So the title company does three things we handle all the money associated with the transaction, we do the closing and we issue title insurance. Most people don't understand what title insurance is, but we accept your earnest money deposit. We do a title search in the land records which basically shows if there's any problems with the land or the ownership of the house. We do all that work behind the scenes and we come and let you know hey, we're good to go. Title's clear. We can issue title insurance which basically for the whole time you own the property. If anything ever comes up, if Johnny, the brother from the two previous owners, comes and knocks on your door and says, hey, my dad owned this property and I'm actually an heir and I should have gotten $20,000 last time it sold, your title insurance would cover that. So that's essentially if there's tax liens, if there's anything that comes up later, that's essentially if there's tax liens, if there's anything that comes up later.
Speaker 2:That's what I was going to ask you what would make it that a title would not be good or something wrong with? It so after the offer goes through and it's been accepted by the homeowner, and you do all this research on the title. What are the red flags that pop up?
Speaker 1:Some things that pop up are unreleased deeds of trust. So every time you get a loan on a property, same as when you buy a car you can't sell your car until you pay off your car. Note Correct, yeah, same thing with a house. Every time you sell a house, there can't be any current loans, money owed to a bank. There's a document that's recorded at the land records that shows that there is a lien on the title. The problem is most banks not most 20% of banks don't do what they're supposed to do after they're paid off and file the necessary paperwork to release that lien. So when I go do a title search it shows up. Somebody tells me oh, I don't owe anything on this house, but this lien to Bank of America is showing on title. Then I'm like wait a second, we have to get this fixed. So behind the scenes, we know all the steps to do to get that fixed, which could include calling Bank of America. Bank of America might be out of business. What do you do then? You have to know behind the scenes. There's ways. There's a registration site called MERS registration. I don't want to go too deep in the weeds here, but there's ways to research based on the document that's recorded to find who serviced the loan. So I just need to figure out who's allowed to release that lien, which I can do behind the scenes, and then I call that company and I get the document that needs to be released.
Speaker 1:Or every once in a while you can get an exception to insure over something. So that just means that the underwriter like if you go get car insurance from State Farm from the guy that sits next to the giant grocery store, right the little office over there, he's not the one actually insuring it, right, the big state farm is Same with title. Potomac title is not gonna insure your transaction. First American title insurance does so. First American, the big umbrella. We go to those guys and we say, hey, we've got this situation. We think it's paid off. It should have been released 10 years ago. It wasn't. We're working to get it released. Is it okay if we go ahead and close and First American will give us the green light to go forward. So the thing about title is interesting. When you search title, you're doing it. A human being is searching title. Right, I can pull all the documents. It's called a chain of title. I can pull everything for 60 years, which is what every title company does.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Because you have access to those programs and that research I do.
Speaker 1:And I connect all the dots and I'm like we're good to go. However, what if there's a forged deed? Am I, as a human being with these human eyes, going to be able to tell that John Smith didn't sign that deed, that his brother did no? But John Smith, 20 years down the road, might realize that his brother forged a deed and the house has been sold and he was owed 50% of the proceeds from the sale. That's what title insurance covers. Those are the things people don't understand.
Speaker 2:People do research, something I wouldn't have thought about. We are homeowners, but it was new construction, doesn't?
Speaker 1:matter. The land is the land. The land transferred hands At some point. It was subdivided. The builder subdivided it. There could have been problems with that, that's. Another common misconception is that it's new construction. Why would anything be wrong with the title? Well, the land didn't just appear and a house get built on it. There was plenty of chain before your house got built on it, before it was subdivided, so that you could build a house. There was chain. Does it ever hinder a sale?
Speaker 2:Absolutely yeah, where you get really far down the offer and then something's wrong with the title.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. I mean you could get it's, I've, I've. It has not happened often, but I've gotten to the end of the road two days before settlement and we can't close. Wow, and there's nothing that anybody's, nobody's fault. How do you overcome that? You don't close or the people choose to extend. Say, the sellers and the buyers are like it's going to take 30 more days to to fix this. You can also go to court and have title. It's called getting quiet title. You can take the case to court and the court can do a ruling after they look at all the facts and they can say, okay, we're going to go ahead and say this is not a valid lien anymore and they do a court order, then I can ensure title. So it just depends. I mean, once I get to the end of the road, if everybody wants to keep going, they can do an extension to the contract and we can keep going, or you can cancel and everybody just goes their separate ways.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what are some of the biggest challenges that you're seeing these days in the title industry? Oh, goodness.
Speaker 1:I will say I'm a bit biased with the kind of title company that we are. We are what's called an independent title company. There's a lot of title companies out there that are in arrangements called joint ventures or affiliated business arrangements. Essentially, they get into ownership with real estate brokerages and they're encouraged to use that title company for closings Because, remember I said, the realtor is really the person that refers the business to a title company. Technically, even though that's true, the buyer has the right to choose the title company. When there's affiliated business arrangements and joint ventures in play.
Speaker 1:There's a little bit of this dynamic where there's a little bit of pressure from the realtors because their office is saying, hey, can you please use ABC title, it's going to help our company and then so people will direct the business to the title company that they're in business with. That's not really fair. I don't love that. I've been in this for 27 years. I've worked for six companies. None of them have ever had these relationships, because I believe the choice should be primarily and ultimately with the consumer, and you can also save money by shopping title companies like anything. I mean. We figure if Giant has a sale this week, we're going to go get our orange juice from Giant or similar to the car industry that you're mentioning before Everything yeah, we're going to go.
Speaker 2:This car has the same it's capitalism at its best.
Speaker 1:I mean we compete with each other. And when we compete with each other, who wins? The consumer? You need to do your homework. You need to do your research. You need to find the best realtor for you, the best lender for you, the best title company for you, the best home inspector for you. If you need work done on your house, you're going to research the best general contractor. You're going to look at reviews, prices, all that. Don't just take the word of somebody. I mean it's great not saying that the realtors don't know, because they work with title companies and lenders all the time. Of course they're going to know. You know this title company is great, they do a good job. I work with them all the time, absolutely. Then, okay, let me get a quote from that title company. I'm also going to get a quote from this title company over here and I'm going to see. But when you have these relationships, it takes that choice away.
Speaker 2:Sure, how many quotes do you recommend people getting? Three, three, yeah. I always think that's a good rule with them for any contractor anything to do yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I mean, I do it all the time. I'm getting new floors in my house right now and I got a recommendation from two realtor friends and I also looked on Thumbtack. I love some Thumbtack, yes.
Speaker 2:Thumbtack is the best I've gotten my house power washed.
Speaker 1:I've found my landscaper painter. I mean, I love my realtor recommendations, but I also do my own research and everybody should do that with everything, Absolutely.
Speaker 2:What do you find most rewarding about what?
Speaker 1:you do. Oh, one of my favorite things is when agents see my value. So I was just talking to somebody yesterday and I used to do these events called broker opens and they're basically open houses for agents. We hold them on Tuesdays and agents come through and they see a house and they give feedback to the seller and to the listing agent. I used to do them all the time and when COVID hit it was nobody did anything for like a year. Nobody came to anything. So I'm getting back into them and I started promoting them on social media a few days ago and saying you know, really want to get back into this. If anybody has any opportunities, I would love to help. Well, this agent called me and she's like you know, I'm not really an events person. She's like I'm like Lisa, this is going to be great, we're going to do it, we're going to, I'm going to plan it, I'm going to promote it, I'm going to help you pay for it.
Speaker 2:It's going to be great, we're going to get a lot of people.
Speaker 1:We're doing this and she was like Kara, I really appreciate your positive energy. You really bring, like this, this extra layer of positivity and to what you do and it helps me. And she texted me again this morning and said the same thing. She's like I think we're we got a green light from the seller, we're good to go. Thank you again for your energy yesterday and that's what I love. Like I think that what there's there's something about energy right, like what you bring to a situation, is what you get back from. Now I have my bad days and I get up, and this market has been challenging the past year.
Speaker 1:December, january, february. I mean I was like am I going to be able to pay my bills? It was rough right. It was that slow and I've never had that in 11 years of working on commission and I would wake up some days and feel like I don't want to do this, I don't want to do this day, I don't want to do another open house, I don't want to help anybody else. I'm done Like I have nothing left to give.
Speaker 2:I'm exhausted.
Speaker 1:Yes, but then if you change your perspective and you, even if you fake it till you make it right, just try to. Okay, I'm going to get up and I'm going to go to my emails, going to put some positivity in that. I'm going to try to do this. I'm going to try to reach out to some clients. I'm going to try to see if I can help anybody in any way. It turns around. You know, you can turn your, you can start your day over at any time you can turn your day around, at any time, and I just love that.
Speaker 1:I love it's not always easy, but it's possible, and when there's a possibility, anything's possible.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, yeah. What are you doing for marketing and advertising these days to get people in? Well?
Speaker 1:we do a lot of education. We have attorneys that teach classes for us. I like to teach classes. I'm involved in events and associations. There's an association for realtors called the Dulles Area Association of Realtors and I try to stay involved and with in the same circles that agents are in so that I can be of assistance and lend a hand when they're going through something. And I'm privy to it because I've also been involved in the same things, because I've been going to the association meetings and events and so forth.
Speaker 1:So I have always been of the mindset that the more value that you give somebody, the more you're going to be blessed from it. So the way that I have always marketed is I try to be an encourager. If I sit down one-on-one with somebody and they're struggling with something, I try to again bring my positivity to it. Or if their faith comes into it, then maybe I'll say a prayer for them, if that's appropriate, or I can pray for them at another time or things like that. That one-on-one connection is priceless.
Speaker 1:When you leave a meeting with somebody that you think is going to be all about work and it turns into you know how can I help you? How can I help you personally, professionally, whatever. That's super fulfilling for me. So I've built a lot of connections that way. A second way that I build business and market is by teaching my social media classes or they're really marketing classes, they're not really social media. I wouldn't say I'm a social media expert. I would say that I understand how to reach people and connect with people, and social media is just a vehicle to do that.
Speaker 1:So, I teach people how to be. Social media is just a vehicle to do that. So I teach people how to be um just present for people online. If you put your best foot forward and put your authentic self forward, you're going to attract the people that you're supposed to work with. So you can also cater your business. Cater might not be the right word, but you can tailor. Tailor, thank you, you can tailor your business. So, if I decide if I'm a but you can tailor, thank you, you can tailor your business. So if I decide if I'm a realtor and I want to work with first-time homebuyers, where do I start? Well, your branding needs to match that. You need to have a website that attracts first-time homebuyers. You need to have a social media presence that attracts first-time homebuyers. And what do I mean by that? What kind of website and social media attracts first-time homebuyers?
Speaker 1:Well, think like fun or professional or down to earth, or think that you have to research what your ideal client is into and then you're going to post things about that. So a lot of people that are in their late twenties early thirties like to go to the wineries on the weekend. Maybe you're going to have a section on your website about the best wineries in Northern Virginia. Maybe you're going to post something once or twice a month about events happening at wineries. If you know that the people that you're trying to reach are concerned about possibly not having a good enough credit score, then you're going to bring a lender on and do something like this. Where you talk about you know what? That's a myth. Most people think that their credit's not good enough. 90% of the time when lenders run credit, they find out that their people are in the 700s and they're totally fine and they've got money saved.
Speaker 1:We're good to go Like. It's just a matter of trying putting that information out there, right. So I teach, I I teach a class called identify, create and cultivate. That's been, um for a long time, my one of my number one classes and one of my most requested classes and the one I get the most business from, because agents aren't hearing that message from anywhere else. So they come to me and they want my help with their marketing plan, and so I do that.
Speaker 2:What are your some of your top tips? As far as marketing and advertising, you said definitely figuring out your demographic and who you're marketing to. Yes, what else would you say? As far as Again being authentic.
Speaker 1:Um, no, humble bragging. There's a lot of people out there that I oh I did 20 million in business Like it's just, it's too much, it's humble bragging I haven't heard that.
Speaker 2:You haven't heard that.
Speaker 1:No, so it's I'm so blessed to have done $50 million in business this year Like it's just too much. I don't want you to do that. I mean it's okay to say, like maybe once a year if you got an award, that's great, you know post that you got the award, post what you got the award for. But there's too many agents now that are posting too often about how successful they are so and they frame it in a way that they're um, just super grateful, super blessed, super which. You can be all those things, but you can't be all those things every other day.
Speaker 2:Do you think it turns people off Absolutely? They may not need my business if they're doing 50 million Totally.
Speaker 1:Right, it attracts people that are like that. If you want to work with other people that are like that, then that's kind of goes back to my message before about putting a message out there that's going to attract who you want to work with. If that's who you're trying to work with, then great, that's who you're going to get. You're going to get other people just like that. But if you want to work with people that are a little bit more down to earth and a little bit more grateful and humble, then I think that that message doesn't resonate with those people and that's who I want to work with. So I think that's why I kind of don't like the humble bragging, because I want to work with people that appreciate me, that know my value, that don't expect things from me that are really unrealistic. Right, there's in this business, there can be money exchanged and that's not allowed, and there can be the expectation of that paying for business, so to speak. That's not okay. I don't want to work, I don't want to pay for anybody, I want to earn your business. I want to earn your business and keep your business, and that's another way that I market. The best way to market is to do a really good job with the business that you have, so that you get repeat business Right.
Speaker 1:So they come back. They come back, yeah, and they refer their friends. That's what I really love. I'm going to do an event in September where I invite some of my biggest fans, so to speak people that I work with that really love me and love Potomac Title, and I'm going to ask them to invite somebody that might want a relationship with a title company that they have already with a title company. So I'm excited about that because I think it's like everybody has, everybody is. So you surround yourself with five people that are most like you, right? So, with that concept in mind, if I work with Amy and Amy is somebody that I really love working with Amy probably has a couple of friends that I would really love working with too.
Speaker 2:What's that expression?
Speaker 1:that you're only as good as the people you surround yourself with yes, yes, yes, I don't know it, but I know what you're talking about. But how?
Speaker 2:important it is to have um like-minded people that you get along with and that bring you up instead of bringing you down, and that you can work well with. So it sounds like you're getting back into doing more of your teaching and workshops. Where else do you see your title business going?
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, we're always growing. We have. Like I said, this past year was a bit challenging so we didn't hire anybody new that didn't replace somebody that left. So we did have one girl leave and we replaced her and we had another girl go on maternity leave and we had to bring somebody in to cover her. But I see us in the next 18 months to two years growing substantially, 18 months to two years growing substantially. I think that there's opportunity for people to work with us that want to work with an independent title company and want the service that we provide. We have because we're smaller, where there's only seven of us. People tell me all the time that they like that smaller feel and even though that kind of is counterintuitive to growing, you can grow smartly and keep that feel. Yes. So I want really a lot to keep that culture, but grow a little bit Like I'm not out here to be like a multimillionaire, like I want to live comfortably like we all do out here to be like a multimillionaire.
Speaker 1:Like I want to live comfortably, like we all do. I want to have a good base of clients. I want to be able to, you know, pay my bills and and, and it's great to grow, but I see strategic growth happening in the next 18 months to two years where we've we've made some really um great hires and with the two people that we brought on, I'm super excited about these two people. That um them is just fantastic, and the other is she's about a month in and I just told her yesterday. I said I really am impressed with with you and she has never done title before, so it kind of reminds me of me. So she's like the beginning person and sending out the welcome emails and she just caught on really fast and that impresses me. I I it's important that we tell people um and compliment people when we're impressed with them when you're doing a good job, not just when not just when there's a problem, right?
Speaker 1:So I really try to try to do that. And I told her yesterday and it was funny because we had this exchange in in the emails, because three or four different people from the office were on the email and somebody said what about me?
Speaker 2:What about me? And I'm like you're amazing too. You're amazing too. Everybody's amazing. I'm so happy. We're all amazing, yes.
Speaker 1:So I see strategic growth. I do not see explosive growth. We don't want that.
Speaker 2:But there is something to be said about quality over quantity, absolutely, and being at a place that you can give that 100% to your clients instead of that 20%, and that they're just feeling like a number Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I mean, so many people have come to me like it goes to what I said before about the family feel They've come to me and they feel lost at the other title companies. There's a lot of great title companies out there. I don't mean to bash anybody at the other title companies there's. There's, there's a lot of great title companies out there.
Speaker 1:I don't mean to bash anybody, but there's some that are pretty big and when you're when you're big, it's harder to um, really have everybody at the office treat your clients like they know them, like their family, like it's really impressive when an agent walks into the office and the receptionist knows her, knows her first name and she knows oh how was Johnny's birthday last weekend or something like we try to. It feels good. Like this morning I texted um, one of my clients I've worked with for I don't know 12 years now since I started. He was literally one of my first ones and I texted everybody in my office and included him because it's his birthday and I said happy birthday from your favorite title team and I love that. And everybody chimed in and said happy birthday John.
Speaker 1:I'm not going to say his name, but happy birthday and it was like that's what I want, I want I want to feel that camaraderie.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's lovely.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:As we wrap up here, are there any last parting words you'd like to leave us with? Um?
Speaker 1:I just want to say that I'm super grateful to be in the position that I'm in, to be able, you know, I felt called 11 years ago to step away from an office setting and come out and do marketing and business development, because I knew I'd be able to reach more people and affect more people. And it's been the best ride I've ever experienced and I've been able to do so much with my life and with my family as a result of it, and I'm just grateful. I think that it's important, no matter how bad of a day you're having, if you focus on what you're grateful for, you can turn it around.
Speaker 2:And what you can do just a little bit better each day, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Always improving. I'm a big self-help. Yes, self-awareness. Read all the books, have all the things.
Speaker 2:Yes, I love it. It shows You're radiating with joy right now. Thank you, thank you. Thank you for being here today and thank you for sharing your story with us. You're welcome. Thanks for having me Pleasure.