Announcing: Lauren Yoder, Chief Excellence Officer

May 06, 2021

We couldn't be happier or more proud to announce our new Chief Excellence Officer, Lauren Yoder!

What is a Chief Excellence Officer?

When I began looking for a CEO, I didn't really know what we needed. I just knew that the brokerage had grown and I wasn't cutting the mustard as the only leader. Like all people, I have plenty of strengths and weaknesses. We've been able to function accepting my weaknesses for years, but I thought it was probably time to change and address them. Lauren is the perfect person for this position, and we're extremely fortunate to get to work with her in this capacity!

We've already built something excellent. I couldn't be prouder of our agents and our support staff. I also couldn't be more proud of the culture that we've built. However, there was nothing being done intentionally to help really push everyone forward. Enter, the Chief Excellence Officer role.

Agents need support. They need structure. I'm personally terrible at both structure and support. A brokerage will never be able to grow and consciously maintain excellence without both.

Likewise, we love our culture, but it's tough to grow that culture unless we foster an environment of real world collaboration. I happen to be terrible at bringing people together in the real world. I'm pretty good at marketing on the internet but pretty bad at interacting IRL.

Our Chief Excellence Officer is tasked with building excellence within the brokerage. No small feat.

Why is Lauren perfect for this role?

Lauren has been an extremely successful agent and she was able to ramp up a business built 100% on referrals in a very short amount of time. More importantly, Lauren practices real estate the right way. She cares about her clients, relies on strong replicable processes, and makes game time decisions that are almost always the right move. She's a phenomenal agent who can teach others how to also be just as successful.

Beyond that, Lauren has management experience. Before getting into real estate at 26, Lauren managed Trader Joe's. During this time, she successfully helped lots of different personalities meet common goals and maintain incredibly high standards. Trader Joe's and Bramlett Residential both share a core value of kaizen, the practice of constantly improving by making small, incremental changes (and keeping those that work while discarding those that don't.) Kaizen has been critical in our development as a brokerage, and in my own development as a person.

Lauren hit the ground running

Lauren began working in this role on April 1, but we waited to announce her position until May 4. During the month of April, Lauren spent considerable time with every agent in the brokerage and considerable time planning. By the time our May 4th meeting rolled around, she had an excellent grasp on what we could do to maintain and foster excellence within our organization.

What can we expect?

Lauren has already built a framework of agent support. We know what our monthly schedules will look like. In the past, we've hosted one meeting per month with a handful of classes & round tables as we could fit them in. Moving forward, we're implementing an alternating schedule of round tables and classes, along with 3 social events per month (all optional). Lauren is implementing monthly check-ins with everyone and is offering coaching.

There's much, much more coming down the road. Lauren and I meet weekly to discuss how things are going, what we can improve, what we can add, and in the spirit of kaizen, what also needs to be rolled back.

I personally couldn't be happier to work alongside Lauren in this next chapter of our brokerage. Our expectations are deservedly high and I'm pretty certain they'll be exceeded!

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Last updated: 05/06/2021

2300+ Client reviews!

Christopher Penaloza

JC was very helpful during the process of buying my first home. He directed me to lenders that truly had my best interest at heart. I almost made a few bad decisions that JC was there to wave off for me. I truly appreciate JC's responsiveness to ALL of my many questions and his willingness to be a sounding board for my frustrations in the process. I still hear from JC from time to time ensuring that I am happy with my home and letting me know of up and coming business in my area that might affect my property value. I will absolutely be using JC to purchase my next home.

LanceLunsford

JC does a great job with attention to detail and ensuring he has answers to your questions as you navigate the process of a home purchase. JC understands the process of the transaction in a home purchase and makes sure the details are covered.

Christopher Dunn

Ruth helped us to view many houses and (over months) to make multiple offers in a really, really tough market for buyers. Our low bids were our own fault! Ruth's guesses are always spot on. We finally had a bid accepted last month, and Ruth helped us re-negotiate after significant problems were discovered. Ruth has gone above and beyond for us, giving us far more time during this long search than we could reasonably have expected. She even helped us look for a rental when we'd basically given up. Her advice has always been immensely valuable and brutally honest. She is the most knowledgeable agent I've met on the Central Austin market. She also handled our stress well, and believe me, buying in Austin right now is stressful!

Jerry Nash

Excellent service and follow through. Very professional!

Steve Sanders

I highly recommend Kristen for all real estate needs.

Danielle Hughes

I had a great experience working with Bramlett Residential Real Estate. Jean Holm was my agent and she & her team made the whole process very simple. She explained everything very well, was knowledgeable, had great advice, and got our home sold. Definitely reccomend!

Jeremy K

I worked with Jeremy Vandermause to buy my first home. Jeremy was so patient throughout the process (which I definitely dragged out as I gathered all the facts). He consistently sent me homes I was interested in and was eager to show them off, and on the odd occasions where I found one he hadn't already seen he always made himself available to walk through with me. He was very helpful in those walkthroughs pointing out home features I would have missed, or providing context on neighborhood. As a native Austinite, he definitely knows the history and cultural fabric of the city and each neighborhood. I started with close to zero knowledge of the home-buying process and Jeremy walked me through every step with clarity and patience. So excited about the home I now own! Plus, he's just a legit cool dude. I always really enjoyed our conversations and could tell from the start he was someone worth knowing in Austin

Jian M.

This review is about Joe Gage, their real estate agent. I'm based in Sam Francisco and was looking for investment property in Austin. I tried out three different agents based on recommendations from different sources, including Yelp. Joe clearly stands out. He's very patient and responsive. I'm not familiar with the area at all thus had a lot of questions. His email reply contains detailed information of the neighborhood, including shops nearby, schools and so on. He regularly screen houses and give recommendations once he sees a good fit for investment house offered at reasonable price. He's very knowledgeable about the area. All his recommendations comes with details around why he thinks it's a good investment and sales/rental data in the neighborhood to justify the price he thinks it's worth as well as the expected rental income. I found him to be very methodical and organized. He's not a typical sales person. Maybe this is because he used to be an accountant. Needless to say he earned our trust and we went with him to make the purchase. I was very impressed through the whole process. He's very calm and never pushy. His recommendation on the bid price was right on and he was very good at following up with various parties to push things through. The process went through very smoothly. If anyone is looking for a good real estate agent in Austin, I'd recommend Joe whole-heartedly. His professionalism and calm personality make him a real pleasure to work with.

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