Episode 402 - Lauren Toppins - Founder and Broker - Cherrywood Real Estate

We joke around here, and I say that I'm the, you know, I'm the backup dancer to your Beyonce. Like, I am here to, like, advocate for you or, like, for the agent to be their best version of themselves.

And as long as they're willing to try, I'm willing to try twice as hard.

You're listening to the real estate sessions, and I'm your host, Bill Risser. With nearly 25 years in the real estate business, I love to interview industry leaders, up and comers, and really anyone with a story to tell.

It's the stories that led my guests to a career in the real estate world that drives me into my 9th year and nearly 400 episodes of the podcast. And now, I hope you enjoy the next journey. Hi, everybody. Welcome to episode 402 of the Real Estate Sessions podcast.

As always, thank you so much for tuning in. Thank you so much for telling a friend. Today, we are headed to Oklahoma City. Yep. We are going to be talking to Lauren Toppins.

She is the founder and broker for Cherrywood Real Estate. And like many of the guests on this podcast, real estate was not her first job out of college. In fact, she was an attorney.

And we'll talk a little bit about that.

We're going to talk, of course, about her alma mater, the University of Oklahoma, and why culture is so important to Lauren and her management team at Cherrywood. This is going to be a lot of fun, so let's get this thing going. Lauren, welcome to the podcast.

Hi. Thanks for having me.

Yeah, I'm excited. You and I met through Chris Baker. Right, with a Chicago title there in Oklahoma City.

And I love when I randomly kind of meet people based on what's happening at work, or I find somebody with, I think, a really cool story. And that's what I like to do on this podcast, is kind of get your story, and I go way back on your story. I hope you're okay with that.

That's okay.

All right, cool. And so it's going to be a lot of fun. First of all, you live in Oklahoma City.

Now, can I assume you're a native of the area, and if so, is it okay to call you an Okie? If I'm not from Oklahoma, you can call me.

Yes, you can call me an Okie. I'm actually from. I'm from Oklahoma, but I'm from Lawton, and there's the Fort sill military base there.

And so Lawton, Fort Sill, it's southwest Oklahoma. And so born and raised.

All right. Was your dad in the military or mom or was it? Part of it, yeah.

No, actually, no military ties in our family, primarily. My grandpa was from Wilson, Oklahoma, little tiny town, and, like, moved and started a business there. And big entrepreneur.

Had, you know, four or five different businesses. And all, all of us started working there at various times in our lives.

So I'm gonna guess that might have been a little bit of influence on you. Maybe a little like, grandpa doing all that kind of stuff. And look what you're doing now. It's pretty cool.

100%.

Like, he was an amazing man, but also had a big influence of like, hey, you know, you may not have it all figured out, but don't let it hold you back and go figure it out with some hard work.

That's cool. I like, I love that. When I interview somebody from another place, I always like to find out about the area.

So I give you the chance to sell me on Oklahoma, Oklahoma City, whatever, whatever you, whatever works for you. Because really, I'm going to show you really, how bad I am with, with my knowledge of other states. I know about the thunder. I know about the Sooners.

There's the cowboys, if we can talk about those. Devon park, that's where the college World Series for the women is, right?

Yeah.

Yeah. Cool. So I. I got that part down. What am I missing?

Well, most people wouldn't think that Oklahoma actually has a ton of lakes. We have like 200 lakes, so you think of like, dust bowl, everything you learn probably in history class, but that's. We have tons of lakes.

And so my favorite lake is Grand Lake. It's over there in like, the northeast corner of the state, kind of rocky bottom lake.

And so lots of being on boats and, you know, spending the weekend driving up there and, you know, having good time with family and everything. And so that's nice.

And then Oklahoma City itself, how many people there? It's a big city. I think people don't realize it is.

A big city, but I would say, you know, we, our population is not comparable to some, you know, big cities, aka. But like, we are super spread out.

And one thing that is, it's, it's nice that you can still travel and, like, you know, our traffic is, you know, probably, you know, a light to everybody else in the world, but, like, our 05:00 rough shower will still, you know, drive me nuts.

But so on west side of the city, it's like plains, like what you would expect of Oklahoma, you know, like, there's no, there's not a lick a tree unless there's like a red cedar. But then in the middle of the city, it turns to, like, kind of rocky and very wooded.

And so, like, whenever people want to, you can have a lot of different geographies. And, you know, Oklahoma has sand dunes. It has black, it has mesas. We have, you know, down to a broken bow.

Lake is, you know, beautiful and rocky and kind of makes you think you're in Arkansas. And so it's a. It's very pretty.

I love that. Born and raised there. So you're going, you're, let's say you're in your first or second year of high school. You're about 15 years old.

What are you thinking your future looked like at that point?

Well, if I'm being honest, I probably. I wanted to be a US marshal. I wanted to be a Us marshal. I'm only five one and a fourth. Like, I got a fourth in college.

You got to give me credit for that. So. But. And I wanted to be a US marshal and. Or I want to be an attorney.

I watched one too many matlocks I watched the other day, and that matlock is now has a new season out, you know, with a female. So I'm like, I love it, but I was either going to be a lawyer or I was going to be a us marshal, so.

And so you did do one of those. We'll get to that shortly.

Yes.

For those listening.

Yeah. In college, I got to have this internship with the Metro fugitive task force, and they took me out shooting, and I am a horrible shot.

So it was only in everyone's best interest in the public safety for me not to be a us marshal.

All right, good. I know you went to Oklahoma, and so I'm going to assume that the vast majority of people who go to Oklahoma are sooners, through and through.

Did you know that's where you were going early on? Was it a legacy kind of thing or how did you get there?

Yes, it was definitely a legacy thing.

It was, you know, whenever, I think whenever I went to pick out schools later on in life, it was like, you just went from high school to college at OU. And, I mean, my grandpa had season tickets for 45 years, so I remember the exact bench. Like, it didn't even know if the game was going on.

You're just curled up with that metal bench around that, you know, with a blanket, trying to hide from, you know, what small amount of snow we get here just in freeze. But it was, it's something that, you know, falling asleep, listening to the radio, you know, on the way back to Lawton. It's from Norman, Oklahoma.

It's probably about an hour and a half drive, and it was not optional. I'd love my sooners.

I would imagine that getting to Oklahoma Memorial Stadium and seeing the sooner schooner is a bucket list item. Do I have that right? Should that be on my list?

100%. 100%. Yes, it is. So the environment is just. You know, it's one of those things that just touches your heart. It just feels so much like home.

I really do love it there.

That's cool. That's cool. I have to ask you this question. It's going to be tough, especially with the way the years are going for these two schools.

But the Red river rivalry, which is, you know, it's. First of all, it's the hardest thing to say. Really fast. Say it fast three times. It's like impossible.

With the Red river rivalry, both left the big twelve, but they're both going to the SEC. So it sounds like they're both going to be able to continue the Red river rivalry. Is that right?

Yes. I mean, it definitely has a different feel. I mean, we lost our. You know, bedlam was our big.

Other big game against OSU, Oklahoma State University, for other people. But. And. But we got. I got to go a couple weeks ago down there. And, you know, the best part about that? Rivalries. We.

It's not in Normandy and it's not in Austin. And so we go to Dallas and they. And it's at the cotton bowl.

And so people, I was talking to one of the Uber drivers and he was like, you both come from both cities and then you trash our city. But we have a good time. And, you know, it's always a lot more fun.

My freshman year of college, and it was President Bourne at the time, the dean was like, okay, we're just gonna have a snow day on Monday because it's snow and touchdowns. Like, no one has school. And we're like, yes. So.

So the game was on a Saturday, but he gave you Monday off. That's pretty good.

Okay. Yeah. 100%. And what's been nice now? So the benefit of moving to SEC is that the games are always at eleven or 1130, and this year you got at 230.

So it was one of those where you could actually, you know, drive down if you wanted to not go down on Friday night. But environment was still amazing. Like, just the environment of being around the state. The Texas fair, it was awesome.

Yeah. That's great. About how long a drive from Oklahoma City to Dallas?

Well, on a normal time, it was 2 hours and 30 minutes, but it took us four and a half hours.

To get there with traffic headed to the game.

Traffic. And it was not even that bad with construction, but it was, it took forever, so.

Wow. All right, well, let's get on a little bit more now that you end up graduating from Oklahoma. But you weren't done.

You actually went to the school of law there as well, right? Yes, I think with attorneys. And when you go into law, was there a certain. What was your specialty going to be? What were you thinking as you went in?

So I still had, like, that criminal law, like, you know, wanting to work for the DA's office, you know, something like that. That was, you know, whenever wanting to be in law enforcement.

And then the DA's office, since I'm a bad shot, went down and worked for a small county called Grady county, where in Chickasha. And that was where I had, like, was a legal intern, but to, you know, pay the bills.

I was also waiting tables and then got an opportunity to, you know, do work in house for a workers compensation administration company at the time, that was related to express personnel. Yeah.

So, okay. Yeah, that's a lot different, right?

Obviously, it was very night and day, depending on what job I was going.

To, and tell me, tell me where you were right before you got into real estate. This is interesting because you were with, you know, HR was a big part of your life.

100%. Yeah. So whenever I first started, you know, I was in another in house counsel position, but there was a local company.

It was only probably about 200 employees at the time, and they were, it's an HR payroll company.

So I started there to be their first in house counsel and got to work through that, and now it's grown into, we got the company went public and gave me a lot of different opportunities. And Paycom is such a wonderful company that is rapidly growing, and it set the foundation of getting to have that. On.

Watching that entrepreneurial background that I had for my grandpa, I got to watch that in real life with a company that was growing fast paced.

And so one of the elements that I got to handle or being part of is when they'd open up a new sales office, we would, you know, have leases for new spaces, and kind of the strategy of that, and that's kind of where my love for real estate really just hit the ground running of, you know, contracts are exciting and all, but, like, real estate transactions are where that negotiation and, like, rubber meets the road is just. It was where the excitement really started.

So that was all commercial kind of stuff. Right. With those kinds of leases and buildings and stuff. But what. What brought you into the residential side? What was that. That trigger for that?

Yeah. So my husband and I, we met in law school and everything, and I was at Paycom. He was working for a local oil and gas company. We were.

We were going to start a wedding venue, and it didn't work out, but we'd already done all the financing for it. And so we bought our first rental property.

First rental property was for my brothers in Norman because they were in college, and bought that rental property. Then we're like, oh, we can buy another one.

And so we slowly started adding to our rental portfolio, and then I decided to leave Paycom, like, leave, like, the corporate world to really focus on building our investments. And I thought, okay, I'm going to take a little break. We have, you know, we have four daughters. Like, I need to, you know, kind of balance family.

It's like, oh, I can remodel a home and flip. And so then I got in that side of it. But ultimately, what I really missed was, like, being engaged.

Engaged with other professionals on, like, putting together strategies.

And so I got my broker's license, and I would say that's the most fulfilling part of my job, is, like, helping people, like, start their career or be involved in those transactions, one, you know, from a legal perspective, but also, like, helping them strategize on how to grow their business.

So I would imagine if my broker was also an attorney who really knew what was going down and what. And what was the problem, that I would. I would listen intently. I'm sure most of your agents listen intently to you.

Well, thank you. Yeah, I hope so. That's the goal, right?

Yeah, that is the goal. You're the founder and broker for Cherrywood real estate. So you decided, I'm not just going to, you know, be a broker for someone else.

I'm starting my own company. I want to be in charge of what happens in my operation. Right. So how did. How did. First of all, the name Cherrywood's really cool.

How do we come up with that? And how was that starting up a new company? Cause that's always, you know, a challenge no matter what level you're at.

Yes. No. So I wish Cherrywood had, like, some amazing story, but my husband and I were trying to think of. Not for one of our initial ones was Cherrywood.

It's the street we lived on. Like, it was like. It was like, just Cherrywood drive, you know? And so we. It's so very exciting, but two uncreative attorneys picking out a name.

And our goal is to, from the goodwill, from having the rental company that was cherrywood, we turned around and we're like, we can do this. Like, I had firsthand experience watching, like, a leader, like, the paycom CEO, take a little tiny company and make it big.

And all of the things that, you know, the different, different things that were faced, how do I tweak and put my own spin on that? And so one of the things that's super important to me is making sure that we have a culture that is family friendly.

And I know that that's said a lot. But one of the things that is, like, right behind us is we have. We have a kids playroom.

If you ever follow us on social media, it would be not uncommon for there to be, like, stepping over, like, building blocks.

You know, there's a time to be professional and, like, where you have to be very serious, but there's also an opportunity to, like, have that, a better blend.

My mom is a state farm agent for over, like, 30 years, and there was a room in this, and my brothers grew up in those, you know, in there, and, like, they would, you know, were there every day. So I know that you can balance work and have a professional work life, and that was important to me.

So taking all the different experiences that I've had and not being an entrepreneur, but how do I maintain a culture that I'm proud of every day?

So you're six or seven years into it now, right? With the company?

Yes.

And what does it look like now? How many agents do you have? Some commercial. Do you have a commercial division? How does all that look?

Yeah, so, right, so we have 62 agents over two locations. Now. We handle both residential and commercial. We also have a sister property management company and a, like, a remodeling repairs company.

And so if, you know, if somebody is an investor, somebody that wants to purchase a property with our, you know, one of our agents or myself, we can help them purchase it. We can help them think about what that rental. You know, how much that rental income would look like.

If it needs some updates, we can pull in our remodeling team, and then we can have property management right there. So we can, like, do all of the aspects of investing as well as we.

We can sit here and make sure that training is one of our number one objectives with Cherrywood.

And I think that that's kind of, like, how we stand out in our market is that, like, we'll have two trainings that could be how to fill out, you know, new construction paperwork down to like, how do you do a sales strategy and like building your pipeline or, you know, handling taxes?

Because, you know, realtors wear lots of different hats and we want to make sure that we're providing training on all of those fronts, all 360 of all the different craziness that can happen and not treating agents just as like transaction machines like, but as people and trying to be there for them personally.

And I, you know, bringing your kids up here or doing it, we just had a doggie that just left a little bit ago because that was important to their family and making sure that that education and we have boot camps and stuff throughout the year that when your business is kind of feeling like you need to. How do you level up or amplify your business? I think, you know, education is definitely something that makes us stand out that.

Is super powerful because you tend to think of education being with the other big boys, you know, the big franchises that are like the, where everyone trains and then they kind of head off to a boutique or a smaller operation. But you're really, you're taking your city, taking the bull by the horns and saying, no, this is, this is, I shouldn't say that.

That's ut you're grabbing the wagon by the wheel. How's that really making that a key part of that's really a lot. I mean, you have a fairly large staff, I would imagine too.

Then this is not, you don't have like two people in admin. You've got some people behind you.

Yes, yes.

I mean, and I think that that's what I learned was you have to surround yourself by the best because there's going to be a different perspective that's going to challenge me.

But I do view my job every day is to create opportunity for not just the agents but also for the staff and how to grow and like fine tune their skills. And I think that that's our competitive difference and stuff.

Yeah, that's great. You're president elect. You may be president by now because I might have seen this a little bit late, but of the MLS and I. Oklahoma. The MLS, ok.

I think it's what it's called. But you're also the member of many committees at the association, at the board level. You do a lot of volunteering.

You already mentioned you have four daughters. You already mentioned you're running your own company, which has a lot of components to it. You are really doing a lot of stuff.

You're finding ways to make all that work that's amazing.

Do you invite and do you tell your agents this is important, this giving back is something that should be a part of everyone's goals somewhere down the road?

I mean, yes, I try to also demonstrate that it's important by, you know, modeling that behavior from the beginning, you know, and I think that, you know, with having a legal background, I feel like that I can bring a different perspective to the MLS versus, you know, some, you know, maybe other brokers that have been in the industry for a long time. And it really takes all different types of perspectives to improve the industry.

And I think, I think that there was a lot of big changes this year, and being a part of those different organizations allows me to have a hand on the pulse and to know what is going on. But at the same time, I feel like that it's important to give back. We even have a event that we call, it's called winner circle in our group.

And I would say anybody else that ever listens or did, and it's just for agents in the community to come, it is not a recruiting event. The whole goal is like, let's celebrate and get better together. And I really think that that's absolutely where people, their mindset should be.

Because if we come in with the mind of scarcity or like, trying to be territorial, like, it's not good for the industry and it's not giving back and that's where we should be as humans. But at the same time, like, that's what we should be doing to improve the industry.

So I imagine you have relationships with a lot of other brokers and owners in the OKC area, right? It sounds like the people that have the same kind of thoughts you do, right? That abundance is the key word that that's working out really well.

Yeah. I'm very, very thankful and appreciative of the people that have embraced, like, also that same mindset.

It's allowed for me to grow because no one has all the experience.

And there's, I mean, there's some people that have been in this industry so long and they have so much practical knowledge that it would be short sighted just because I have a law degree or just because of x, y, z.

I value that experience, that practical experience so much that I am thankful for the brokers that have that kind of open communication front that have definitely mentored me into continuing to be a better broker in person.

You brought up, it's been a kind of a weird year. And so August was a different month.

For any other month, you'll probably ever experience in real estate with the NAr, the changes that went through because of the lawsuits and all that stuff.

I've heard a lot of different things about it, you know, and the one beat that keeps coming out for me, and I wonder if you agree with this is, hey, we need to move past this. We can do this. There's nothing wrong with this, is we really.

Some people, I've heard some people say we're just doing the same thing we're doing with a little twist. We just need to be able to move forward. Is that how you're handling it with your team?

100%.

I think that while, you know, everyone has different opinions on, know, how it should have been, how it should have happened, or the, you know, or was it fair? Was it this?

Ultimately, it comes down to, like, this is a new slight twist, but it comes down to transparency, and that should be our goal of our industry anyways. And no matter what it is, this is the new day.

And so, you know, we tried to take it approach of making sure that all the training, like trying to educate people so that.

That way, when you hear a lot of different things in the news, like our agents feel empowered with accurate information versus whatever, you know, clip or news bite that they hear.

And I think that that's allowed what some people view as a scary time to be an empowering time, as that our agents are showing value because they're in the know of what it is.

And how do we properly, with everything that we know, like, you know, people make mistakes, but, like, how do we, with the intent of intransparency, continue to help our clients in the best way we can?

One is stay off Facebook.

Yes.

Real estate groups, is that one?

Yeah, I think so. And I'm like, just know that, like, I. You can watch those things, you can read those, but don't you dare post on those things.

We don't want any agents on those sites. I love that. It's a great idea. So what. What's the future look like for you in Cherrywood? Right? What is it? If you had that.

That magic wand, you could wave and you could say, this is what it's going to look like in five or ten years, what does it feel like that's going to be to you?

Well, I mean, if I could, you know, what I would hope could happen is that I would love to continue to grow. I'd love to have more locations and copy and paste the same culture, same environment, and, you know, different locations.

But the number one thing is, like, preserving that culture and you know, that starts with anyone we partner with, making sure that we're having the right partnerships that have the same goals of, like, professionalism and ethics, and making sure that that family environment just continues to stay.

So I would hope that it would be lots and lots of copies and pastes of the current Cherrywood all over the country or even the city or the state or wherever, but ultimately, it would just be. I have big plans and dreams, but I wouldn't do that if it had to sacrifice the culture or the effect on my agents.

I think I've been in the business over 20 years, and there are companies that have accomplished that. It's doable. I think you can do it. Yeah. So I won't name any brands that I think are doing well at Ithoodae.

And maybe when we're off the call, we can chat. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's definitely possible. Well, look, I'm going to bring up the final question of the episode.

It's the same one I've asked every guest since Jay Thompson back in 2015, and the question is, what one piece of advice would you give a new agent? Just getting started in the business?

I would say to be successful, you have to advocate for yourself. I think that advocating for yourself comes from you. You have to be. You have to be your own cheerleader.

You have to, like, put yourself first, put your education as a priority. I think that, you know, you have to ask for business. You know, people that have said, oh, I have all these contacts.

I'm like, but if you don't ask for the business, they can't say yes.

And so promoting yourself, putting it out there on social media, making sure that you're the best that you can possibly be on creating value for not just yourself, but for others. And I think that that is how, like, you get started is, like, just continue to learn and make that a focus.

And then I think business will come because your heart is in the place of making sure that you're creating value. If it's an investor or finding the right property for someone to have a home at, I just think that start with advocating for yourself.

Wow. Counselor, may I ask a follow up?

Yes, of course.

Sometimes that's not the mindset of people that might want to be a realtor. Right? Like, sometimes people struggle with that. Is that true? Or can you get.

Can you take someone that you brought into your operation and go, I know this person can do this? Is that kind of the way you look at it?

Yes.

I mean, I feel like that one of my roles as a broker is to also see where that agent could continue to grow and try to push them outside of their comfort zone or aid them in maybe a place that they could grow a little bit stronger.

Because if it's, you know, you know, asking for a higher commission or if it's, you know, you know, reaching out to a builder that you've been trying to, like, do the dance of, like, talking to for a long time and you've just never asked. I want to be the support system that can push that and hopefully help them. I'm. I've.

You know, we joke around here, and I say that I'm the, you know, I'm the backup dancer to your beyonce. Like, I am here to, like, advocate for you or, like, for the agent to be their best version of themselves.

And as long as they're willing to try, I'm willing to try twice as hard. And I think that that's really where agents can, can have that success. But they have to start with believing that they have.

They're going to create value for other people in order to be successful.

Lauren, if someone wants to reach out to you, what's the best way for them to do that?

Yeah, I mean, I would say my cell phone, which is 405-821-4061 or follow me on Instagram on topthatrealestate and send me a message. I would love to help out however I can.

This has exceeded my expectations. It was more fun than I thought it would be because I thought it was going to be a lot of fun. And so thank you so much for your time today.

I can't wait to. Eventually, I'll be traveling to OKC. We have a couple operations there I'll get to visit. I will definitely be coming down to Cherrywood as well.

So thank you for your time today.

Well, Heidi and I would love to meet you in person. And if you need restaurant recommendations or anything like that, like, we'll tell you all the good ones.

I like that local knowledge. I'm in.

Exactly. So. Well, I appreciate you and thank you for, this is my first podcast to ever record, so thanks for making it so much fun.

Thank you for listening to the real estate sessions.

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