Top Originator on how educating realtors honed her competitive edge

Last year, however, Rueth had to move her classroom online.

“COVID certainly tested our resilience, but it also gave our industry an exceptional opportunity to provide additional value for our clients and realtor partners,” Rueth said. “For example, during the second week of March 2020, we held our first consumer investor class in person. The next week, when we held our class for real estate agents, it was on Zoom. It was a very quick about-face.”

Rueth said that the pandemic also taught them to dig deeper and find new ways to deliver value. Before COVID-19, her classes and seminars mainly revolved around topics that would help their referral partners improve how they market themselves and grow business. But Rueth quickly realized that they needed other skills that would enable them to navigate business uncertainty during the pandemic.

“They needed to learn how to use Zoom, video, virtual tours, etc., and they had to become experts on how home appreciation and low-interest rates were transforming the market. So, we quickly shifted from monthly in-person classes to weekly online market trend classes,” she said. “The market was moving so fast, and to wait a whole month for the next class would have made the information either outdated or irrelevant.”

Rueth was able to get past these roadblocks with ease thanks to her fantastic team, which has grown from 10 to 27 in just over a year. Aside from her core team, which focuses on their referral network, Rueth now has a reverse mortgage team and a lead generation team. And while building her dream team didn’t happen overnight, Rueth said that there are several cues that tell her when it’s time to scale.