I’m grateful for the mentors who helped shape my career over the past 15-plus years, and I’m equally grateful for the talented people I get to work with and learn from today.
I also want to especially thank our leader, Kris Thorkelson, President and Owner of Thorwin Properties, for trusting us with this project and giving us the room to think, create and push things forward. His vision and forward-thinking continue to challenge us to raise our game, look ahead and keep moving the company into the future, whatever that future may bring.
That kind of trust matters. It gives people the confidence to bring ideas forward, try something new and build on what has already made the company successful. When leadership believes in its people, good ideas have a much better chance of becoming great ones.
Trends change, platforms change, technology changes, and algorithms seem to change about five minutes after you finally figure them out.
But one thing hasn’t changed: Great work comes from great people.
Throughout my career, I’ve been fortunate to learn from some incredibly talented people. Mentors who challenged me, shared what they knew, encouraged me to look at things differently, and every once in a while gave me advice I didn’t necessarily want to hear, but probably needed to.
Those lessons stick with you.
As the years go by, you also realize leadership isn’t about being the smartest person in the room. Far from it.
It’s about surrounding yourself with talented people, listening to them, trusting them to do what they do best, and giving them enough room to bring something to the table you may never have thought of yourself.
I’ve been blessed to work alongside talented individuals in the present and past such as Eduardo Florian Espinosa, Sofiya Shatalin, Syrah Bailey, Irene Tonnu and Serena Tonnu, each bringing their own perspective, creativity, strengths, personality and ideas to the table.
And that’s a pretty great table to be sitting at.
Eduardo Florian Espinosa’s recent post about the launch of the new Thorwin Properties website really brought that home for me.
The decision to rebuild our corporate website wasn’t simply about wanting something newer, shinier or more modern.
The numbers were telling us something pretty clearly: our websites had become one of our strongest sources of leads.
When roughly one out of every two leads is coming through your websites, you pay attention.
So we did.
There were meetings, presentations, ideas, feedback, changes, more ideas, more feedback, and probably a few moments where we thought we were almost finished.
We weren’t.
That’s marketing.
But somewhere between all the conversations, creative thinking, data, adjustments and the occasional “what if we tried this?” moment, everything started coming together.
And what we ended up with is something we’re genuinely proud of.
More importantly, this was never just a marketing project.
A big part of getting it right came from collaboration across the company.
Upper management brought perspective on where we’re going as an organization.
Property managers and our operations teams brought the real-world perspective of what they see and hear every day in our buildings and communities.
Marketing brought the data, strategy, creative thinking and the question that opens the door to new ideas, “What if we did it differently?”
Put all of that together and you start seeing things differently.
That kind of collaboration keeps us grounded in our industry, but it also gives us permission to look beyond it.
Sometimes the best ideas come from stepping outside the usual playbook, looking at what other industries are doing, questioning the way things have always been done, and asking whether there might be a better way.
Not different just for the sake of being different.
Better.
More useful.
More thoughtful.
More connected to the people we’re trying to serve.
That’s what forward-thinking should really be about.
And that’s exactly what you want from talented people.
You don’t hire good people simply to agree with you.
You want them asking questions.
You want them seeing things you may have missed.
You want them challenging an idea because they believe there might be a better one.
And every once in a while, you want someone to say something that makes you sit there and think,
“Well, why didn’t I think of that?”
That’s a good moment.
Because that’s how teams grow.
While technology, digital marketing and new tools continue to move at lightning speed, I still believe in something pretty old school, people matter most.
Tools can make us faster.
Data can make us smarter.
Technology can open doors.
But people bring the experience, curiosity, creativity and heart that help us decide which doors are actually worth opening.
I’m grateful for the mentors who helped shape my career over the past 15-plus years, and I’m equally grateful for the talented people I get to work with and learn from today.
Special thanks as well to the REACH by RentCafe team, Loren Ingram, Octavio Gonzalez and Ling Zhang, for your creative know-how, leadership, collaboration and design skills throughout this project. Your experience, insight and ideas helped bring the vision together, and your contribution played an important role in making the new Thorwin Properties website something we can all be proud of.
Because one of the funny things about experience is that the longer you’re in this business, the more you realize you’re never actually finished learning.
Sometimes you teach.
Sometimes you mentor.
Sometimes you lead.
Sometimes you listen.
And sometimes the people you’re supposed to be mentoring turn around and teach you something.
That’s a pretty good deal.
Congratulations to everyone who helped bring the new Thorwin Properties website to life, and especially to Eduardo for helping lead the charge.
The website is something to be proud of.
But more than anything, I’m proud of the collaboration, the ideas, the different perspectives and the people who made it happen.
Great things happen when good people are given the opportunity to do great work.
