Episode 26: Take The High Road: The View Is Always Better With Courtney Stefaniak
Setting up shop as part of your family business can sometimes turn out to be a pretty hairy or muddy affair, particularly if you don't play your cards right. There are sacrifices and compromises that do have to be made in order to ensure that the ship is still run as tightly as possible so that the business, at the end of the day, continues to make money. Courtney Stefaniak is a third-generation licensed realtor with The Stefaniak Group who specializes in Downtown Milwaukee condominiums. Amy Vetter interviews Courtney, who shares how she has carved out her own path in the family business, and how she developed confidence along the way. If you're working in your family business, it may be good for you to take some tips from someone who's managed to consistently get everything to work out in the end.
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Take The High Road: The View Is Always Better With Courtney Stefaniak
Welcome to this episode where I interview Courtney Stefaniak. She is a third-generation full-time licensed realtor with the Stefaniak Group, a local independent family brokerage in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She serves as a member of the GMAR Professional Standards Committee and the GMAR Board of Directors as Chair-elect. She specializes in real estate sales and works full-time with home buyers. In my interview with Courtney, we talked about her being a third-generation, having her grandfather start the business in 1952. She works with her father, her brother and other relatives in the business. She has shared how she carved out her own path in the family business and developed confidence along the way.
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I'm with Courtney Stefaniak. Courtney, do you want to start off and let us know a little bit about yourself?
First off, thanks for having me. I'm honored and excited to be on your show. I work for a local independent family brokerage called Stefaniak Group. My family started this company, my late grandfather and his brother back in 1952. I'm a third-generation realtor. We've been around the block in the Milwaukee area. Our mission here at Stefaniak has been to provide service and to serve the communities where we're located in. Being more of an independent boutique-style brokerage, it's allowed us to connect on more of a personal and relationship level with our clients.
In this day and age with so much automation and the industry and so forth, I'm sure that’s playing its role.
You lose a little bit of that human interaction. I feel like nowadays everything is online, which is awesome. Technology has been a huge help in our business for sure. It's still important that we have that face-to-face interaction and guide our clients through this home buying and selling process. They're trusting us with the biggest financial decision of their lives. To have that level of customer service and interaction, it is still important.
When you think about the real estate industry and if you're developing those kinds of relationships, you're going to be involved in good parts of it, hard parts in people's relationships and all on the way. That trusting piece is important.
It's huge. We don't just help people buy and sell houses. There are times when you feel like maybe you're a therapist. It's a lot more than that. That's why we say a lot of the times that we don't just help buy and sell houses, we sell service. That's been our main focus here.
I want to start back because this is such an interesting business with three generations of family members doing all the same profession. Why did your grandfather start this in the first place?
He was a professor here at a local college in Milwaukee. He started Stefaniak Group with his brother back in the ‘50s. He had ten children, three followed in the footsteps and are in the business. That would be my dad. Pete Stefaniak, my two aunts Jean Stefaniak and Beth Savas, and then my dad's cousin, Peter Michael Stefaniak. There are four main brokers and then there is my dad's other cousin, Tracy, myself, and my younger brother Ryan. Ryan and I are the third generation, which is crazy to say but we love what we do. I might be your only guest that's had the same career since the start. I got my license in college. I went to Marquette University here in Milwaukee and then graduated in ‘08 and had my real estate license in ‘09.
What was your grandfather’s passion for real estate? Why did he change from being a professor?
The passion came from the teaching side. That was his passion. He was teaching real estate marketing. He wrote a book called Real Estate Marketing. That was his main passion. I remember that being the number one thing. It was education with him. That and then sharing his knowledge with everybody else in the industry.
For your dad and the other siblings that got into this, were they doing it for their love of their father or was this something that was a passion for them as well and why?
It’s probably a little bit of both. I know when my dad first started, he had the sales mindset. He's a great salesman. He was more into the selling side. As far as myself and my brother, we did have an interest in the business and we want to follow in the family's footsteps. That led me here. There's so much more that goes along with it than buying and selling. We do a lot to give back to this industry that's been so good to our family. We volunteer a lot of our time. I serve on a couple of committees locally and at the state level. There are lots of other things that we're involved with the real estate industry.
When you were younger, was your father taking you out with him while working in the office?
I had my fair share of home inspection when I was younger. He wasn't good about that stuff. He was always busy. My mom worked part-time in a hospital. She's not in the real estate industry.
What got your passion going with it?
That’s being able to help people reach their homeownership goals. This is sometimes, if not every time, somebody's biggest financial purchase that they're going to make throughout their lifetime. The trust that they place in us to help guide them through this process was attractive to me. Going into it, I didn't quite realize the hours and commitment. It's great that you get to set your own hours and you have unlimited vacation time, but if you don't work and you don't sell, you’re not making a career out of it.
Walk me through your beginnings. Was there a sale, a learning or a lesson at the beginning that you're like, “This is for me?” Did you have doubt in the beginning?
There were definitely doubts because my first full year of real estate was in 2009. If we talk about the 2009 market compared to the 2020 market, back in ‘09, there were plenty of listings, low consumer confidence and all of that. Going into it, I was 22. I had a lack of self-confidence. I thought a lot of people looked at me like, “She's young. What experience does she have?” All of those played into my mindset in that first year.
How did you overcome that?
Sticking with it because once you close your first deal, you're super excited. You're like, “I’ve got one under my belt, I'm going to start to get the hang of this.” I felt like if I can make it through the lowest point of the real estate market, I should be good moving forward. That's the mindset that I had. This is going to be the best time for me to learn the business was at the lowest point. Having that in the back of my mind helped me.
Did you have a long-term vision, when things were bad that you could tie yourself to?
My dad would explain the highs and lows of the market. He would always be like, “Back in the ‘80s when interest rates were 12% or 13%,” stuff like that. I had never experienced the highs and lows. It was only the lows. I guess I can only go up from here. Having that mindset was helpful to me.
With that, as you started progressing through your career, what were some key lessons that you learned, whether it's relationship lessons or things that you have found that have helped you to be more successful in what you do?
Full disclosure, I'm still working on implementing all these things. Learning how to set boundaries in my business is hard, especially in a fast-paced market like the one that we're in. You have to be ready to go. You are on call 24/7 when a new listing comes up. It’s setting those boundaries and not letting my business control me, I'm in control of my business. Setting time for myself or my husband for self-care, going to the gym, working out and maybe setting those as appointments on my calendar and keeping those appointments with myself. That's helped me to keep those boundaries.
Most entrepreneurs struggle with this. No matter what business you're in, whether it's in sales business or running a business and those boundaries of how do you still show you care when you set the boundaries. What has been effective for you?
I'm still very responsive. With technology and social media, there are ten different ways for someone to get ahold of you at any point in time. I'm very open and responsive in that sense that if I see something, I'm likely not going to ignore you. I'm going to respond. I'm one of those people that if I see an email or see a text, I want to reply right away. That's helpful and letting my clients know like, “I am here for you.” If it's an evening or a weekend, “This is just a part of our business.” That's helped and also sticking to these boundaries in a sense where if you see something urgent that needs to be taken care of right away, I'm going to make exceptions. You don't want to make somebody miss out on a house or something like that. There are times where you would make exceptions, but maybe turning off your phone after a certain time or not checking my email first thing when I wake up because that sets the tone for the rest of your day. Those are the little things that I try to do to make sure that my day at least starts off on a positive note.
Family Business: It's important to have face-to-face interaction in order to guide your clients through the home buying and selling process.
What do you do at the beginning of the day?
Usually, when I wake up and do my little journaling or maybe a couple of gratitude. I usually will go workout first thing in the morning so I can get it done and not put it off. It's nice to have an hour to myself too. After that, maybe come home then look at the email or I look at the text messages.
One of the things, when you're setting boundaries, is being honest about it. When someone emails you, rather than not responding, you're saying, “I want to be honest with you. I put my phone away at certain times of the day, so make sure you reach me before 6:00 or I won't be coming back until 7:00 AM.” Is there a time where you communicate that to your clients so that they at least know you're not ignoring them?
If I'm on vacation or out of town, it’s great here because I know I have a family member that can back me up. If I'm not on my emails, I have somebody that can back me up. That's good that we have that support system here.
Having known you're going to go into this industry, is there anything surprising along the way that you're like, “I thought it would feel like this, but it feels different than that?”
It's a tough business to be in. If you're somebody that's considering getting into the real estate market or even if maybe you do it full-time, I know a lot of people that only sell part-time. They're maybe afraid to make the jump into full-time. It's not easy. You have to track your activities instead of your results. We all track our results. We track how many houses they sold, our volume, where those transactions may have come from. What are we doing to track the activities that produce those results? That's important for people to remember. It’s the sales calls, the mailers, knocking on doors, getting the grind of it and getting face-to-face with as many people as you can. That goes for any business too. If you're thinking maybe you want to make your side hustle your main business, I’ve been seeing a lot of people doing that. That's awesome.
I've talked to a number of people that are part of a family business. I know the nice thing is you all have your individual book of business. There's always that division of how you keep family-family and work-work, or any family dynamics that get triggered in the workplace. How have you been able to handle that you've got siblings and you’ve got parents?
We're lucky. We're all independent contractors here. We do our own thing, have our own business, work for our own business and have our own clients. The overlap doesn't happen so much. Maybe if I'm out of town or somebody’s out of town, we can cover for each other. Luckily, we haven't had much interfamily conflict type of thing because we're not working in that team dynamic. We’re doing our own thing, but at the end of the day, we're all under the same roof.
How do you separate work and family? If you're in family situations with everybody, are you talking about work?
I try not to. It's hard not to talk about it because real estate is a universal language. Everybody's interested in it. Everybody has maybe thought about buying or has owned a house at one point in their life. Everybody knows ten realtors. It's hard not to talk about it but considering, we have other family members that are not in the business and it's nice sometimes to talk about anything else.
Especially trying to get family get together if you're all in this business is probably hard.
As I said, my dad is one of ten siblings. Getting everybody in the same room is a rare occasion.
Are there any expectations from the way that they did it versus the way you might be doing in a new generation?
It's funny that you say that because my dad and I talked about new things, what he's done over the years and what I'm thinking about doing going forward. He always gives me the ideas of what has worked for him for many years, which is awesome and it totally does work, but then I have my new ideas that revolve around technology and social media and the Millennial home buyer dynamics. It's funny that I'll bounce my ideas off of him and he is like, “Why don’t you do this?” I know that works, but at some point, I'm okay with the status quo, but we always got to be ready for the next thing.
How do you work through conversations like that?
I take what he says and I'm still doing half of the work for him because I know they work. That's how I've been in business for years. I'm still going to do that, but it's so important to incorporate the next stage. We're going to have millions of new people online in the next ten years or so. To be able to reach a piece of that market too is important.
How do you go about negotiating that as far as what the office does, markets and so forth?
The cool thing about us is if I want to do that, I can do that. It's important to find my investment, I would love for them to be involved. Everybody has their own online social media presence, but we could step it up a little bit. We'll see what happens. I'm still working through a couple of ideas there.
It is an interesting thing that you're all independent but under one umbrella. Even if you're independent from a marketing perspective, you're still seen as one umbrella. How you go through the transition of generations as the new thought process as leadership and being empowered to doing those things and changing the conversation.
It's going to be interesting. I have a couple of cool new ideas. I'm looking forward to implementing and testing some of those out. I will always have their support no matter what. I'm not trying to go off on my own or anything like that. It's always going to be Courtney Stefaniak and Stefaniak Group.
It’s very important in a lot of family businesses that the next generation feels supported even if it doesn't go as planned. It's important that you have the freedom to try it. I've owned a yoga studio. When my oldest son started working there, he was 15 or 16. We were promoting through Facebook and he's like, “Who would be on Facebook?” I was like, “Our customers.” He's like, “Yeah, but we're all on Snapchat.” I'm like, “You're in charge of Snapchat.” Because I know nothing about it and I don't know how to work that market, it's important to understand the next generation, where they are paying attention.
I think they do Snapchat. It's so many different things. It's hard to keep up with what the next one is.
If you've got the overarching theme of relationship, then what you do is how you create that. What do you picture as an evolution in your own path with this and see into the future of what you're trying to build?
I want to portray myself as somebody willing to help and guide people who are interested maybe as a first time or second-time homeownership, people who are interested in investment property. My two investment properties are under my belt right now. My family are investment property owners. We'd be a good resource for that. A good chunk of my business has been first-time buyers. Being a younger person in the business, I do attract a lot of the Millennial clientele, which is awesome. It's been exciting to see a lot of young people purchase their first home.
Family Business: You have to be able to portray yourself as someone who's willing to help and guide people who are interested in home ownership for the first or second time.
You understand probably different issues for that generation because a lot of them are going to be independent as well.
What we try to express to a lot of them is that maybe you have some student loans, maybe your credit is not perfect or you don't have 20% down, those are all okay. You may still explore homeownership and it's still possible.
This is another important thing of whatever you do as far as your career or your business, where you're honing in on the niche area of this is where your expertise is at least for now, that you can nurture this type of group well. Sometimes when you draw your net too wide, then you can’t help someone as much as where you could grow with these customers.
That’s my thought process too behind it. Maybe they're younger Millennials now, but if I'm staying with them throughout the years, that could build into something a lot bigger.
What do you think has given you the confidence to be in this sales role? Is it from watching your family or is it something internal in you that you feel the confidence to do what you're doing?
It's a little bit of both. I take a lot of what my dad has done and emulate that. Sometimes it's funny, I feel like I'm still an imposter in this business, then you’re like, “You know what you're doing.” That's self-talk. “You've been around for a while. You know what you're doing. People come to you because you're a well-respected name in the industry.” My husband is awesome. He's always building me up and all that stuff. I have a good support system for sure.
That's the hardest thing especially for women is making sure that you have the support, especially in 100% sales role.
In any business where you're on your own or thinking about making your side hustle your main job, you need that support system to push you up the edge, “Go for it. You can do it. You know what you're doing, you're good at it. People are going to want to work with you because of that.”
As far as what kind of impact do you want to have on the profession and industry, I know you do a lot outside of the sales side. What kind of impact are you looking to create and why?
I hope that I can encourage and inspire other realtors or people in business to give back to their industry. I'm on the Professional Standards Committee, which is a great learning experience. We have a code of ethics as realtors and if there are any complaints, we're the panel that decides. You hear a lot of different stories about what to do or what not to do. It's a great learning experience. I'm also the Chair-elect for the Greater Milwaukee Association of REALTORS. Their focus is they're the backbone of our Milwaukee Area Association of Realtors. There’s a lot of government lobbying. We go to Washington, DC every May. We lobby to all of the senators there so people can get involved and know that there's a whole lot more to what we do than just the buying and selling side of it.
There’s an education in the industry around that. I had some bad realtors. They don’t even go to the lockbox. They're like, “Here's the address, you go.”
Those are the type of things on the Professional Standards Committee that we would slap on their wrists. It's a great learning experience. If you're new in the business, that's a great way to learn, get involved, put yourself out there and make a name for yourself.
What would you advise knowing the relationship side of the business practices and also what you've seen with ethics as well? What would be some tips you would give as far as what you would like to see so that the reputation is upheld?
Professionalism has been a big one for us. I know it can be sometimes a casual business, but we lose a little bit of that professionalism in there and we want to be viewed as experts in our industry. Professionalism is a big one. Respectfulness in communication and how we communicate with other agents, lenders, title people, our buyers and sellers. Be willing to do the extra work or go the extra mile if you need to and being kind at the end of the day. You never know what the other person is going through.
That is important because it's every single person, no matter what your profession, leaves a mark on everybody else.
That's something that I constantly have to remind myself like, "This person is not pulling their weight." Who knows what they're dealing with at home or in their personal life or whatever. Remembering to take the high road where the view is always better.
As far as I'm here speaking at your Women's Conference, what was behind that to have a conference for women?
It's empowering. We're going on a couple of years of it and there are over 200 attendees, so that's exciting. There are going to be some safety issues. Safety for realtors as women is important, and then motivational things. Every couple of months, everybody gets tired and drained especially in this type of market. If you can go to the conference and take 1 or 2 ideas and 1 or 2 things away, that's awesome. You learned something new when you come out of it, feeling refreshed and ready to get back in there.
There are other people in it with you. I like to ask some quick-fire questions at the end. Pick a category, family, friends, money, spiritual or health.
I'm going to go with health.
Things or actions that I don't have that I want with my health?
I'm still working towards weight and fitness goals. I’m reminding myself that if I set small goals and achieve those over time, this is a continuous journey that you can always get better. Realizing those smaller goals are easier and more important.
Things or actions that I do have that I want as far as my health?
My physical and mental health and happiness. A gym community that I enjoy going into.
What's your favorite?
I go to Orangetheory Fitness. It's nice. I'd go in for the hour. I don't have to look at my phone. Somebody else tells me what to do.
When you say mental health, what do you mean around that?
Family Business: As a realtor, you must help your clients take the right steps to meet their goals quicker than they can if they were just by themselves.
The physical fitness exercise side of it is great for your mental health.
Things or actions that I don't have that I don't want?
Maybe serious illness or injury that would prevent me from doing these things.
Things or actions that I do have that I don't want?
This is going to be the stress eater in me and I constantly work on it.
What do you eat that’s your go-to stress?
Sweet and salty chips, which is why I don't buy them. If you get off track, the ability to get right back on track versus going off the rails. That was my struggle too. I was like, “I already did this bad thing so I'm going to keep going,” instead of being like, “That's okay, you’re fine.”
It's important that all your answers are about something that doesn't have to do with your job. You don't feel guilty about doing it. That is making you better at the work that you do or better at home because you take that time for yourself. Is there anything you'd like to make sure that people come away from this conversation with any big takeaway or lesson that you think is important for others to know?
If you are a first or maybe even second time home buyer, if you have that student loan that we talked about or bad credit or even no credit, when I started, it wasn't bad credit and I didn't have any, contact your local realtor and reach out to us. We're here to help you. We want to help you start taking the right steps that can lead you to meeting that goal a lot quicker than you can. Setting boundaries and keeping them. Control your business, don't let it control you, is a big one.
I would end with that except I have another question. Along those lines of going to your local realtor, are there questions that you would tell people to interview a realtor to make sure they have a good one?
You want to make sure that you're working with someone that is familiar with the neighborhoods that you're interested in buying in.
How would they know they're familiar with it?
Ask them how many homes have they sold in this city or this certain neighborhood? Experience is a good one but it's not everything. Somebody who is willing to sit down with you and explain the home buying or selling process in detail. Those buyer and seller consultations are important versus just sending the email or whatever. The face-to-face interaction is a big one. If you feel resistance and they're not wanting to spend the time with you or they just want the signature on the contract, that might be a red flag.
Thank you so much for taking the time with me to have this conversation.
Thanks for having me. It's fun.
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It's time for the mindful moments segment of this show, where we step back from the interview and reflect on some of the stories that Courtney shared with us. One of them being, which I find fascinating as a family business that has now gone three generations, which is probably longer than many and the passion is still there with the people that work in this business. A lot of times when you talk to family members that are not the first generation, the passion started with the ones that began the business. Later generations are doing it because that's what they knew. Talking with Courtney was interesting because it seemed like an area that she was always interested in from when she was young.
She found a lot of inspiration by listening to her grandfather and also her father growing up about the real estate business and understanding that there was a bigger purpose in the work that they did. It wasn't just selling real estate. It was about knowledge sharing and how you help people through different cycles in their life. You're there to take them on that journey and be there for them. It's more than the transaction. For many in sales that are successful, we realize that it's more than what we're selling. It is the relationship we're creating and also how we see what we're doing is making an impact.
When she talked about helping first time home buyers through the process, educating them and feeling like you're making an impact in their life in one of the most important decisions that they make, that's when we understand our bigger purpose in the work that we do rather than just doing the work and making it transactional. For all of us, it's important that we step back and understand our personal purpose in the work that we do. When we understand that personal purpose, it helps us align our career and the things that we do and the movement we make in our career so that we make sure that we're feeling a greater sense that our work matters.
If we feel like our work doesn't matter, it's our job to step back from the day-to-day and understand what our personal purpose is, so we can align that work to it. The other thing that she talked about was self-confidence and how starting out in this business, she was in a down market. A lot of times, especially in a sales situation or as an entrepreneur when things aren't going well, that's the time when we might throw in the towel or shift to another type of career. If we believe in the work that we're doing, I loved that she was able to attach to, “If I can do well in a down market, then that means when things are good, I'm going to do even better.” That mindset in the work that we do is important. This can apply in any job that you do.
It's important that we aren't just looking at the work that we do now. We have a long-term vision so that when things aren't going great or when you're not getting along with someone or when you're not getting the sales that you want to get, you're able to look at the long-term vision and be able to shift your mindset so that you don't get into that negative thought process, which can be easy. Some of the things that she talked about with how she makes sure that she's feeling fulfilled by the work that she did and things that she's learned along the way was one with setting boundaries. No matter what work you do, this is an important lesson that we draw into our lives.
We're not always on and with technology, we can be. It's hard work to pull ourselves from technology and focus on home life or our personal life versus work life and set those boundaries. When we set those boundaries, making sure that we allow ourselves to be honest, whether that's with our customers, our staff or people that we work with, that we are turning off so that they don't get personally offended by doing it. They're not sure why you're not responding, but as long as you're setting expectations of when you will respond or what is constituted as an emergency, then we can give ourselves that break from technology and that break from work.
We can take time for ourselves or the people around us. We can refuel our energy to be better for the people around us and not feeling that this is a guilty thing to do that. We need to do that in order to re-energize our self. One of the things that she also talked about with real estate being such a hard business, but any entrepreneur or in any career, there are parts of our jobs that we might not like. In order to be successful, we have to do the parts that we don't like just as much as the parts that we do like or find a way to outsource those parts. I thought it was interesting that rather than focusing on the numbers, she was focusing on the activities that she did, that drive the overall results. She was able to go and identify what are the activities that drive the numbers that you want and rather than focusing on the number, making sure you're keeping up with the activities.
That's the part of the business that a lot of people want to ignore because it's a grind. That part is hard or it's the parts of our jobs we don't enjoy. We put it off until the end or procrastinate with those things. Those are the things that we need to shift focus to so we make sure we're successful. We can't expect business to just come through the door without working at it or our careers to go to a different level without doing the stuff we don't enjoy. Tracking what are those things or activities that we need to do. Maybe those are three things that you've got to make a commitment to. Make a commitment to it every single week so that you know that you're staying on top of that and you're doing the right thing to create the results that you want.
She had some great takeaways that are applicable to whatever you do in your career. That is about professionalism, being respectful of the people around you and being kind. All of these levels up to being generous. If we can't give ourselves to our community, our customers, our family, then we can't expect to get back as well. Part of generosity is not having that expectation that you're going to get something back. It's understanding that because you understand your personal purpose, you enjoy what you do and it aligns with your values, that communicating in a way that's professional and being respectful of the people around you and finding ways to be kind can generate success and the results that you may have never imagined.
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