In business, there is always tension between the desire to expand, and the necessity for structure and systems. If a leader is not keenly aware of both of these aspects and fails to navigate the sweet spot in the middle, it can be detrimental to the company's potential.
"No one wants to be the person who caused the problem," says Randy Rempp, CEO of Meridian Title in Indiana and Michigan, reflecting on tension and his experience purchasing a family-operated title company in March 2021. "In fact, most problems could be avoided if the company had the right guardrails and feedback loop to ensure the success of its team; but a lot of companies aren’t thinking of growth and systems"
Implementing guardrails in a business was a concept Randy was familiar with, having previously taken over a financial services company in 2011, doubling its revenue and improving EBITDA by $7M over a six-year period.
However, this was before his entry into the world of title and escrow. Could the same strategy work in an industry that prides itself on having processes, but where most people are constantly putting out fires and dealing with one-off customer issues all day?
That was what Randy was about to find out in March 2021.
INTRODUCTION TO TITLE
Everyone has a unique story of how they entered the title and escrow industry. In most cases, individuals are not even aware of the industry's existence, but through chance or fate, the industry finds them and invites them on an unexpected journey.
Randy grew up in South Dakota and then moved out east for college, only to return to the Midwest to graduate from the University of Minnesota with a law degree. After joining a large insurance company as in-house legal counsel, Randy quickly rose to lead the company. He eventually left to fulfill a dream of owning and operating a company. So, he set his sights on raising a Search Fund to find and acquire an already great operating company, which led to the purchase of Meridian Title in Indiana.
After a multi-year search and a lengthy acquisition process, Randy purchased Meridian Title, which had all the pieces needed to continue building on a great company. The initial phase involved forming a unified leadership team, enabling multiple stakeholders to contribute to the decision-making process within the company.
INTRODUCTION TO GUARDRAILS
Growth was great for everyone in the title industry in 2021, but “market share growth was harder than Expected," remarks Randy, reflecting on those times. "We had built the largest title agency in Indiana based on service, which is great until a key person is out for two weeks, or a process breaks and isn’t communicated to the right people. Then, it all breaks down." But how could a new CEO partner with the leadership team to continue to build the culture and implement scalable systems?
To do so, Randy and the team, including industry veteran, Terri Lawson, Meridian’s COO, instituted 3 key guardrails that can serve as models for other businesses that are looking to grow and scale:
FINANCIAL GUARDRAILS
In terms of finances, they discovered 300 unused software licenses, prompting a more thorough review of expenses and the implementation of a detailed 12-month budget. "We needed our team to understand finances and have tools for reporting, identifying issues and individual accountability," he emphasizes. “It is tough to achieve a goal or hit a metric, if you don’t know what it is.”
CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE GUARDRAILS
It’s easy to go through the motions in business. Failing to talk about what isn’t working can create long term damage to a business’s reputation. Recognizing the lack of a feedback loop between sales and operations, Meridian introduced a simple text survey at the end of every closing, which was well-received and identified areas for improvement. They also implemented EOS, the Entrepreneurial Operation System, that helps facilitate better communication throughout the organization at all levels and helps them identify areas of opportunity.
CUSTOMER SERVICE GUARDRAILS 
Real estate is a hyper local and intensely relationship driven business, and to provide quality and service in a personalized way to real estate agents of all sizes it requires scalable solutions and services that don’t become depersonalized.
Meridian knew this business couldn't operate on a 1-to-1 service model. "We want to work with real estate agents of all sizes that want 'reliability and service all the time'" he asserts. “That meant we had to have teams of people to work with our agents, in order to provide reliability and consistency, regardless of who was in the office that day.”
The move from a 1-to-1 service model was key to growth, but it is an evolution and not a revolution. It requires tweaking and adaptation, because as Randy puts it, “growth requires systems, and systems are not people, but our people are Meridian Title and need to be able to service the client within a system” Building on Meridian’s scalable processes for their people to follow was key to their success.
Ultimately, Randy's experience proves the importance of balancing growth with structure and systems. Laying out guardrails is the key to achieving both. Having an operating system for managing the business, along with ensuring you have the right people in the right seats, is key to growing while maintaining service in an industry that is based on relationships.
The Growth & Scale Report is published by CloseSimple, and explores strategies for growth and tools for scaling your title or escrow company. The report emphasizes the art of balancing growth and scale, with a focus on personal and organizational success stories. It aims to share insights from industry leaders who have navigated these challenges, providing a platform for broader conversations in the business landscape.
