Anna Jones of EXIT Landmark Realty joined us to share her wisdom and her story of how she built a successful team.
Over the years, we’ve interviewed hundreds of leaders and learned that building a successful team is about more than finding a group of people with the right mix of “skills”. Enjoy this conversation with Anna about the art of building connections and momentum with her team. We highlighted how they communicate, collaborate, and innovate in an atmosphere of mutual trust, respect, and a deep focus on community.
Anna Jones has been a REALTOR® for over 16 years. She’s been the office manager and a Multi-Million dollar top producer… and today is the leader of a successful team at EXIT Landmark Realty.
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Let's get to know Anna a little bit better:
Anna Jones has been a REALTOR® for over 16 years. She’s been the office manager and a Multi-Million dollar top producer… and today is the leader of a successful team at EXIT Landmark Realty. (Working with Bernadette Cole who we met back in January!)
She has earned multiple designations and received recognition for her production and community service over the years.
Anna is a mother of five, grandmother to nine, and formerly a childhood educator for 15 years. By nature, she is a nurturer who loves to take care of others. She has a special place in my heart for teachers and children and always strives to make a difference in her community. (We’ll learn more about how she does this!)
We love this quote on her “About Anna” page: “I want you to know how passionate we are about what we do. We love helping people and our passion drives us to invest our time and energy into being the best there is.”
We heard your bio… Now - let’s dig in… please tell us about the journey to your current leadership role?
It's been over 15 years and many adventures, when I say adventures I mean, learning. Sometimes the hard way. I left working with Children when I needed to make time for my own grandchildren after an exhausting day with children, you want a break and that wasn't fair to my babies. My connection with teachers and Principals kick started my business part time. I got my licence and was selling while still working with the little ones, until I felt it was time. I always let my gut lead, really it is a spiritual feeling I receive.
What made you decide to build a team? OR What made you decide to turn your team into a brokerage?
I built this team when my business started to grow, ironically Just as the market crashed, I had just started building a relationship with a few Investors and it turned out to be a perfect storm. Once this became the right market for Investors I was blessed enough to be working with someone with the smarts to start a coaching program. As we both started to grow I needed help. I then brought on my daughter, who just had a baby and the hours worked for her just as an admin. In the process she worked on getting her license, then another daughter also got her license from there we just kept growing. We built up to 25 coaching students/Investors. We also became certified to do short sales that took care of the market that followed.
What advice do you have for those considering building a team? (3-5 Best Practices)
Make sure that you are like-minded. The women on my team are go getters, I am fortunate enough that they do not need a lot of hand holding. I am here when they need to throw ideas at me or concerns. I love the book series by Og Mandino, The Greatest Salesman. We follow the beliefs of this and things fall into place.
Make sure that you respect one another's ideas, do not feel that you are the leader, only you know the right next move or idea. Be Open minded, Meet together and have a day of Brainstorming, but make it fun and time for some silliness. We love our lunches together or just take them for some drinks and fun. Keep this light our business can get exhausting.
Have a vision. Business, spiritual, personal and community growth focused. We make vision boards at the beginning of the year. It helps us set goals, and gives us focus for the year both in our business and community.
How did you keep your team connected during the pandemic?
We would have Zoom meetings every month and I would also talk with them one on one.
Check in with them what they are working on and share even the difficult stuff you are going through.
Helps them understand that we all have challenges! We kept doing different fundraisers using an online format and service projects with no direct contact. We delivered water to less fortunate families with no indoor plumbing.
What changes in communication or process are you taking with you into the next season?
This is one of those things I was talking about in the first question, I always seem to have a gut feeling when things are turning a page and a new season is about to happen. I feel that Social Media is the way to communicate for sure with our market, however I still feel that the personal touch will never change, people will never forget being taken care of or thinking about them and dropping off something to them just because. What works for us is always giving and taking care of one another. This includes us and our community.
Is there anything else you'd like to share?
If I could speak about one thing that has helped my team and myself grow both for business and personally. We work hard in our business and my team and myself feel that the most important thing is to give back to our community, Giving back to those in need. I am blessed to have residuals for EXIT as an agent for sponsoring, this allows us the money to pour back into our community.
We are at this moment working with 2 different fundraisers, one with Children's National Hospital raising funds for a portable Incubator. We are blessed to have EXIT Corporate to match the funds that we are raising up to $20,000. This is why I Love being with EXIT. This is the culture that we seem to cultivate.
The other Fundraiser is with LIFESTYLES they are a non profit that helps the homeless and those in need in our community. We are giving a check just this week from my Team to help repair and paint the playground for the children in the new shelter. We deliver coats, backpacks, food and whatever their needs might be, we try to raise funds for them. We have been blessed to be invited to their grand opening of the new shelter with the Governor of Maryland's wife and many of our community leaders.
Want to connect with Anna? Here is her contact info:
Anna’s preference:
facebook: Anna Gray Jones Maryland
instagram: thejonesteamsouthernmaryland
https://www.facebook.com/debra11/videos/532255724536714Anna’s Contact Info: https://www.annajonesrealestate.com
240-441-3298
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