What if the biggest obstacle to growth isn’t the market, the competition, or the technology? What if it’s actually the script we’ve all been handed… the one that says success is just about market share, closing more files, and hiring the right people?

Welcome to the Fall | Winter 2025 Issue of the Growth & Scale Report, where we’re spotlighting the leaders who are tearing up that script. This issue is a deep dive into the philosophies that drive true innovation. We’re moving beyond the what and the how to focus on the far more powerful question: Why?

That question is the spark for innovation. It’s the weapon of choice in a war against the real enemy.

The real enemy isn’t the market or the regulators. It’s the sedative of “sameness,” the invisible force that rewards complacency. It’s living under the tyranny of the urgent that keeps you putting out fires instead of fireproofing the building. It's the seven most dangerous words in business: “That is how we’ve always done it.”

The 18 leaders in this issue of the Growth & Scale Report are the strategists fighting against complacency. You’ll see this fight waged on multiple fronts: inside builder-affiliated title companies, where the battle is to deliver a five-star, customer-obsessed experience to a captive audience; from the desk of the ALTA President, who is pushing an industry to redefine its entire identity; and even from a claims executive whose leadership manifesto was forged not in a boardroom, but in a Santa Claus suit.

These aren’t just strategies. They’re stories, personal, imperfect, and deeply human, that show how real growth and scale happen when leaders connect vision to values, and performance to people. That’s the power inside these pages: proof that the future of this industry won’t be built by those who blindly follow the script, but by those with the courage to rewrite it, together.

– Paul Stine, CloseSimple CEO & Co-Founder
& Bill Svoboda, CloseSimple Co-Founder

When David Townsend walks into a room, you notice. He shakes every hand, remembers every name, and he commands a stage with ease. His personality is larger than life, one of the most recognizable in the title industry. Yet talk to him for more than a few minutes, and you realize his real edge isn’t volume or charisma. It’s discipline. He wins by doing the small things, day after day, in ways most people overlook

That paradox, big presence, and quiet consistency is what carried him from a private law practice in Columbia, Missouri, to the presidency of the American Land Title Association. It’s also what he believes can carry the entire industry into a new era.

Townsend had the pedigree for a predictable career. A law degree, experience in private practice, and experience in title insurance. But at 30, he decided it was time to take a chance. He bet on himself. Along with his partner, David Atkins, he launched Farmers National, later Agents National, a regional, agent-focused underwriter. The gamble was enormous. Within six months, they had their first policy issued, and in the process, they upended a system that had hardly changed in decades.

Before Townsend, Atkins, and their team, agents used paper policy jackets and mailed handwritten ledgers to underwriters, who re-keyed the data, dragging receivable cycles out for up to a year. They built an online policy system that cut that cycle to 30 days, integrating accounting into the process and pushing the industry toward paperless operations years before it was common. It was less a company launch than a shock to the system.

Those years taught him lessons the boardroom never could. The exhaustion of being an entrepreneur. The risk of every decision. The line between a good agent and a shady one. He carried that knowledge into his current role at Fidelity National Financial, where he leads with both empathy and pragmatism. He knows what it costs to build a business because he’s lived it.

That perspective now shapes his vision as ALTA president. Townsend often compares title professionals to umpires in baseball: essential to the game, but invisible unless something goes wrong. “No one buys a ticket to watch the umpire,” he says, “but you can’t have a game without one.” The comparison is meant to provoke, because he believes the industry can’t keep playing that role quietly. Regulators depend on the title industry for expertise while questioning its fees. Consumers see the costs but rarely the protection provided. Townsend’s answer is blunt: “the industry is either integral, or it isn’t.” You can’t have it both ways.

To change that perception, he’s pushing for a new identity. “Title and settlement” sounds niche, but it's too small for the weight the industry carries. He prefers something bolder: the Real Estate Data and Finance industry. The words are meant to do more than rebrand. They’re a rallying cry, a way to attract new talent, instill pride in industry veterans, and remind everyone that this industry doesn’t just process paperwork. It secures the backbone of every real estate transaction.

For all the big goals, Townsend remains grounded. During the pandemic, when conferences disappeared, he co-hosted That Floats, a podcast with Craig Haskins that gave the industry a place to swap stories and laugh together. At home in Columbia, his life revolves around his wife, Kerry, and their two kids, Blair and Charlie. He credits mentors like Jim Barrett for teaching him empathy, and Atkins for reminding him to lead with an open hand, not a closed fist. His father, a traveling salesman, never missed a school play or ballgame, and Townsend holds himself to the same standard.

Ask him what drives him, and he’ll remind you that no one is dying in this business. It’s not brain surgery. “We can have a little fun along the way,” he says. That mix of perspective and ambition, joy without complacency, may be why he’s become both the industry’s biggest presence and its most relatable advocate.

David Townsend’s story is full of bold bets, to launching an underwriter to stepping onto the national stage. But what makes him matter isn’t just the leaps. It’s the small things done well, over and over, until they add up to trust. That is how he built his career. It’s how he intends to lead ALTA. And it’s why, at this moment, in an industry often overlooked, he feels like the right voice for a new era.

Amy Riggsbee leads one of the most complex networks in American real estate: 16 title companies across 26 states, all under the HomeServices of America banner. As President of National Settlement Services, she manages a scale most executives can only imagine. But ask her what makes her proud, and she won’t point to her title, her systems, or her foresight. She’ll point to her people. For Riggsbee, the story has never been about her alone; it’s about the teams who make scale possible, day after day, by turning change into progress.

Her path to that role began like many of her generation’s: with a typewriter. She typed out forms line by line, knowing the smallest slip meant starting over. Then technology began to shift. First DOS, then Windows. While others groaned at the disruption, Riggsbee saw possibility. She hacked outdated systems, creating custom fields that mimicked the automation she believed was coming. It was part foresight, part ingenuity, and entirely practical; she wasn’t waiting for better tools, she was building workarounds in real time. That early instinct (to refuse inefficiency and search for smarter ways) became the hallmark of her leadership.

Years later, when she was tasked with uniting operations across multiple states, she drew on that same impulse. But she also recognized a deeper truth: change is never just about systems. It’s about people. Where others use the phrase “change management,” Riggsbee reframed it as “compromise management.” To her, change imposed from above rarely sticks. Compromise, on the other hand, creates buy-in. “You can’t just drop a new system on people and expect them to embrace it,” she explains. “You’re asking them to give up a comfortable way of working, and that takes compromise.”

So she starts with listening. She sits with her teams to hear what slows them down, like redundant keystrokes, endless file searches, and the rework no one admits but everyone hates.

Then, and only then, does she show them how new processes and technology will remove those roadblocks. The moment when someone realizes they’ve saved hours of work isn’t just a win for the company; it’s a win for the person who trusted her enough to take the leap. Riggsbee makes sure those wins are celebrated. “Adoption is one thing,” she says. “Belief is something else.”

Belief has been her north star. She even has a formula for it: relationships × time = trust. Trust, she insists, is the invisible infrastructure of HomeServices’ title and escrow operations. It’s what makes 16 different companies feel like one unified enterprise. Without it, processes fall apart. With it, teams embrace uncomfortable changes and turn them into lasting improvements.

Her metaphors for leadership are drawn from life. In the 1990s, she earned her pilot’s license, a hobby her husband still hates. But for Riggsbee, flying was more than adrenaline. It trained her to rise above the turbulence, to see the messy exchange of data between lenders, agents, and title companies not as disjointed chaos but as one connected flight path. That high-altitude view allows her to design systems that feel cohesive, even when the details are anything but.

In college, when calculus threatened to derail her, a professor named Dr. Ritchie refused to give up on her. He sat with her for hours, helping her break down the problems until she saw they weren’t just about numbers. They were about service: asking the right questions to guide someone toward the answer. That lesson became central to her management style. Today, she asks her teams to try their best, with the promise that she’ll be there beside them until they figure it out.

The results speak for themselves. Under Riggsbee’s leadership, HomeServices has achieved consistency and cohesion across 26 states. But the systems and scale aren’t what she points to first. She points to the people who embraced compromise, celebrated their wins, and built trust together. Those teams, she insists, are her greatest pride.

Amy Riggsbee’s career proves that the most powerful solutions in real estate aren’t designed in a vacuum. They’re built on trust, sustained by compromise, and lived out by teams who carry the change forward. At HomeServices of America, she has become the architect of that model, guiding one of the country’s largest settlement services networks not with force, but with trust multiplied over time.

Lisa Steele leads with equal parts strength and grace. As CEO of Motherlode Holding Company, she’s responsible for ten brands and over a thousand employees, but she’s also a vintner, a horsewoman, a Noni, and a mother. Her story isn’t one of either/or: corporate or personal, tradition or innovation. Instead, it’s a story of weaving them together. From the boardroom to her ranch in Lodi, Steele has built her life and her company on the same foundation: technology can enable, but people are always the point.

The Power of Just Asking

Steele’s entry into the title world was almost accidental. Her father, a land broker, suggested a summer internship at a title company. She did it, then headed off to college as an agriculture major, leaving the industry in her rearview mirror. But the business wasn’t done with her. After graduating, she got a call to become a salesperson for Chicago Title. Young and eager, she accepted.

"I thought, Wow, this is going to be a great, easy job," Steele recalls with a laugh. That optimism was quickly validated by a pivotal encounter. Tasked with winning over the area’s top-producing real estate agent, Steele, nervous but determined, picked up the phone and asked for a meeting. The agent agreed.

Sitting in the office, she cut to the chase: “I’m new, but your name has come up frequently, and you don’t seem to use our services. Is there a reason for that?”

The agent’s reply was stunning in its simplicity: “Nobody’s ever asked.”

Before Steele even made it back to her office, the agent’s assistant had called in three new orders. The lesson stuck: success isn’t about slick strategies, it’s about genuine human connection, and sometimes the courage to simply ask.

From the Ground Up

That first win was the beginning of a career built on listening and learning. Steele didn’t just stay in sales; she dove into escrow with only two weeks of “boot camp” training. She ran commercial operations, direct and national operations. She worked for both large underwriters and independent agents. Each step gave her a new vantage point and a deeper appreciation for the people behind every file.

She saw firsthand what worked and what didn’t, not from a distant executive chair but from the front lines where deals get done. That 360-degree perspective, earned one role at a time, became the foundation of her leadership philosophy at Motherlode.

The Crossroads of Tradition and Innovation

Today, as CEO, Steele guides her company with a simple motto: “We need to be at the crossroads where tradition and innovation meet.” She champions a “high touch and high tech” approach, recognizing that while the industry must evolve, it can’t afford to lose its soul.

“This will always be a people industry,” Steele insists. “The personal interaction will always be part of any successful company’s blueprint. But we also cannot rely only on that.”

At Motherlode, her ten distinct brands operate with a high degree of autonomy. Steele empowers her managers to make decisions for their markets, trusting them to know their communities best. It’s not a top-down empire; it’s a culture of trust and support. Leo French, founder of Mother Lode Holding Company stood by his philosophy to “hire great people and get the hell out of their way.” Steele, her MLHC President, Darrick Blatnick and their leadership team continue this approach with MLHC 52 years later.

She applies the same philosophy to technology. Steele has little patience for what she calls “shiny object syndrome.” Her test for every new tool is disarmingly simple: Will this change the client or employee’s life? If the answer is no, she’s not interested. For her, innovation only matters when it enhances human experience.

A Culture of Celebration and Service

Steele’s focus on people starts with her own teams. “Happy people create happy customers,” she says. She encourages employees to find their niche, whether luxury homes or first-time buyers, and reminds them that true service isn’t about buying lunch, it’s about being there when the client needs you most.

Nowhere is her people-first philosophy clearer than Motherlode’s annual all-company kickoff. What started in a living room with five employees has grown into an event that draws over 600 people from 89 branches on a Saturday morning in downtown Sacramento. It isn’t a corporate meeting; it’s a celebration, a pep rally. Steele and her executives perform skits, spoof pop culture, and poke fun at themselves. One year, she staged a parody of The Bachelorette set in the title industry. It’s fun, it’s a little irreverent, and it reflects her belief that connection and joy are more critical to culture than metrics.

Amid the laughter, she challenges everyone with a deceptively simple exercise: Think of the three best experiences you’ve had with businesses… now mirror those. In Steele’s view, extraordinary service isn’t complicated. It’s about seeing people, remembering how you want to be treated, and treat your clients in that very same way.

The Vintner and Faith of 44

When she’s not leading one of the largest title agencies in the country, Steele is at her ranch in Lodi. She grows 30 acres of Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah grapes. She shares her life there with her significant other, Giovanni Principi, a professional equestrian, along with their horses and a mini donkey named Louie. It’s a place of rest, renewal, and perspective. A place where her children and grandchildren enjoy gathering and enjoying family experiences.

A place of profound personal meaning. The ranch is named Faith of 44, a tribute to her late daughter Taylor, a gifted soccer player who wore the number 44 and passed away from ovarian cancer at just 17. The number marks the gates and the barn doors, a reminder that resilience and faith live at the center of Steele’s life and leadership.

“I always hope that I can carry on the same faith that she had in people and in life,” Steele says. It’s a quiet statement, but one that reveals her heart: at every level, it comes back to people — believing in them, lifting them up, and carrying that faith forward.

For Steele, leadership has never just been about strategy or scale. It’s about carrying forward the faith her daughter embodied, cultivating the resilience of her people, and remembering that every success begins and ends with love — for the work, for the customer, and for each other. From wine country with love, that’s the heart of Lisa Steele’s empire.

For more than three decades, Ken Kirkner has been a quiet force for change in the title and escrow industry. He doesn’t chase the spotlight or rely on showmanship. His approach is simple: pursue efficiency and design processes so seamless they almost disappear. Ken is the problem-solver who looks at a cluttered workflow and imagines a friction-free system instead.

The Spark of “Why”

Ken’s career began in 1985, not with a blueprint for disruption, but with curiosity. A conversation with his real estate broker father led him to an opening at a title company. He quickly picked up the technical skill, including preparing settlement sheets, ordering payoffs, and closing transactions.

But something was missing. He knew how to complete each task, but not why it had to be done that way. Why those tax adjustments? Why that document sequence? The questions piled up. And what he saw in himself, he saw across the industry: talented professionals working by rote without ever seeing the bigger picture. That realization became his mission, to help others understand not just the how, but the why.

From Technician to Innovator

Ken’s reputation for getting things done soon took him to Trident Land Transfer Company, where his gift for project management met its first big test. At a time when the industry was still buried in paper, Trident asked him to lead a bold transformation: go completely paperless. He figured out a way to make it happen.

Not every experiment went as planned. Around 2008, he spearheaded an early transaction management platform, a proto-closing portal that promised transparency for buyers, sellers, agents, and lenders. Leadership was excited, but after launch, adoption was dismal. Staff struggled to see the value, and agents resisted change. The vision was right, but the timing and trust weren’t there.

The lesson stuck. Innovation wasn’t just about software. It was about change management, timing, and building allies. Ken began identifying “power users,” respected peers who could champion new systems, and he carried that philosophy into his long-standing involvement with the SoftPro User Group, where his practical feedback has helped shape the platform’s evolution.

The Efficiency Mandate

Today, at Truly Title, Ken wears three hats: Head of Product, SoftPro Administrator, and architect of the company’s Power BI reports. In every role, one principle guides him: efficiency.

At conferences, he’s known for asking a single question of vendors: “Are you integrated with SoftPro 360?” If the answer is no, the conversation ends politely but firmly. To Ken, a lack of integration means another handoff, another chance for error. Efficiency isn’t optional; it’s the mandate.

And he sees the next leap coming fast. “Why can’t AI…?” he predicts, will soon be as common in title and escrow as “Google it” is in everyday life. He envisions AI reading closing instructions, populating data fields, ordering payoffs, even assisting with title searches. For him, AI is not a threat, but the next frontier of efficiency.

Breaking the Paper Habit

Yet one industry quirk continues to frustrate him. “We get the lender’s package electronically, print it for signing, then scan it back to send it electronically,” he says with a laugh. This print-scan cycle is, to him, a stubborn addiction to paper that technology must finally break.

Ken dreams of a fully integrated system where every party (lender, realtor, title professional, consumer) works from one portal, one source of truth. He admits it’s a “chicken-and-egg” dilemma. “Who takes the first step?” he wonders. Still, he believes that’s where the industry is headed.

A Smarter Industry

For Ken, the purpose of his work distills into a simple phrase: reduce the handoffs, reduce the friction, reduce the potential for issues. His career proves the power of a unifying vision and relentless commitment to making a complex industry just a little more elegant.

And his story isn’t just about what he’s built, it’s also a guide for how others can think about technology and process. When evaluating software, workflows, or new partnerships, leaders can hold up each option to three questions:

• Does it reduce handoffs? Every extra handoff is an opening for error. The best solutions keep information flowing seamlessly.
• Does it reduce friction? Efficiency means ease. If a tool makes life harder for staff, customers, or partners, it isn’t solving the problem.
• Does it reduce the potential for issues? The ultimate test: does this choice lower risk (fewer mistakes, fewer bottlenecks, fewer surprises)?

For Ken, these principles all trace back to the same starting point: the why. Understanding why each step matters has fueled his curiosity, shaped his problem-solving, and guided his push for smarter systems. It’s that mindset, asking why before chasing how, that turns efficiency into more than a buzzword. It makes it a strategy for building not just better businesses, but a better industry.

Jeff Bates wasn’t supposed to be here. He thought he was going to be an accountant, just like his dad. He even gave it a shot after college. But pretty quickly, he realized the work wasn’t for him. “It was just problems and mess all day long,” he remembers. Dry spreadsheets, endless reconciliations, there was no spark. He wanted something more creative, something that actually felt like building.

The way out came from an unlikely source, one of his dad’s clients, a man named Doug Bello. Doug had started his own title outsourcing business in the late ’80s after running the largest title plant in the country in Los Angeles County, California. He had this rare mix of business instincts and people smarts, and he saw something in Jeff. Without saying a word to Jeff, he picked up the phone, called Jeff’s dad, and asked if he could steal him away. A few weeks later, Jeff was sitting across from Doug in a job interview. Jeff ended their interview with a line that still follows him today, “But… what is title insurance?” Somehow, he got the job anyway.

If you’ve spent any time in this industry, you probably get it. Nobody really sets out to end up in title. You trip into it, and then one day you realize you’ve built a career in it. Jeff was no different. The only difference was that he had Doug to show him the ropes, and to show him that business could be about more than transactions. It could be about people.

Andrew Acker’s entry point was just as unconventional. He was in consulting, restless and looking for a bigger challenge, when he crossed paths with Jeff at his sister’s wedding in Guatemala. A few conversations later, Jeff told him about D. Bello. Before Andrew could overthink it, he was boarding a plane to Colorado Springs for ALTA One 2012, his first day on the job. “Trial by fire” doesn’t quite capture it. Imagine walking into a ballroom packed with industry lifers when you barely know the vocabulary. Overwhelming? Sure. But also exhilarating. And if you’ve ever been thrown into the deep end on day one, you can relate.

That’s how it started: one guy who asked the wrong question in an interview, and another who stumbled into his first conference wide-eyed and underprepared. Somehow, it worked. They balanced each other out, Jeff steady, process-driven, always focused on execution; Andrew curious, creative, constantly pushing them to stand out. Together, they stepped into leadership when Doug began to step back.

The easy version of the story is that they run an outsourcing company. The truer version is that they run a people company that happens to do outsourcing. That distinction matters. Outsourcing has a reputation problem; in most industries, it’s shorthand for cutting jobs or cutting corners. But what Jeff and Andrew built is almost the opposite. Their model is simple: take the 80 percent of the resource-heavy, tedious work that burns people out, do it well, and give their clients back the freedom to focus on the things that drive value and help them scale. Or as Jeff puts it — which was adopted as the company’s tagline — “We do the work, you take the credit.”

That ethos bleeds into everything they do. Take their marketing. They made a deal with each other early on: if it wasn’t creative, memorable, or a little risky, they wouldn’t do it. So instead of cheap swag, they handed out $45 customized Yeti mugs. Instead of polished corporate explainers, they filmed their kids breaking down title concepts “like I’m five.” Their most popular video? What is Title Insurance? (Explained Like You’re 5!). It spread not because it was perfect, but because it was human.

The same goes for their operations abroad. They don’t talk about headcounts or cost savings; they talk about communities. Jobs that provide stability in places where stability is rare. Families who now have opportunities they didn’t before. For Jeff and Andrew, those teams aren’t invisible contractors, they’re an integral part of the story. And the benefit goes both ways. The expertise and execution of their teams pave the way to professional freedom for their domestic clients — leaving early to watch their child’s soccer game, enjoying a family vacation during peak season, or simply leaving at 5pm each day. It’s all about people.

Of course, they’re not blind to the future. AI is everywhere, and

they know it’s coming for title too. But they temper the hype. Jeff and Andrew see technology as a tool, not a complete answer. “AI is making impressive strides, but many tools still don’t integrate well, leading to frustration and fragmented workflows. They often push quality control and decisions downstream rather than fixing core issues. The real priority needs to be refining processes, developing expertise, and then applying the right technology as a catalyst for people.” Andrew says.

That’s the through-line: people first. It started with Doug Bello, who saw something in Jeff when he barely knew what title insurance was. It carried through Andrew’s first chaotic conference, when he realized that sometimes the only way forward is to dive in. And it shows up today in the way they run D. Bello, not as an outsourcing shop, but as a company built on curiosity, creativity, and community.

Because in an industry that is always on the brink of new challenges, regulatory pressure, and other risks, Jeff and Andrew keep circling back to the same truth: it’s properly equipping and supporting people that will make the difference.

The title industry has a playbook. It’s dog-eared, dusty, and nearly everyone follows it. The plan is simple, preached from every sales meeting to every boardroom: Grow revenue. Increase market share. How? Just get the right people. It’s a comfortable ritual, a safe script that ensures the machine keeps humming along.

But Iain Bryant didn’t come here to just sing along. He came to compose a new playbook for today’s title industry.

As the Group President of Agency Services at Stewart, Bryant is waging a quiet war against the sedative of sameness. He’s identified the industry’s true enemy, and it isn’t the competition. It’s the invisible, suffocating force that dissuades innovation and rewards complacency: The Assumption Trap. It’s the warm blanket of mediocrity woven from unchallenged beliefs, outdated rituals, and the seven most dangerous words in business: “That’s how we’ve always done it.”

The Outsider's Edge

Iain Bryant isn't an industry insider. His real training happened in tech consulting at Gartner, a place that teaches you to think differently. While everyone else was learning their industry's song, he was learning how to take it apart, note by note. He didn't have years of title experience; instead he had a consultant's scalpel. 

He first tested that blade at his family’s company, A.S.K. Services. His first move wasn't a flashy sales campaign. It was simpler, and more radical: he gave everyone a seat at the table. The A.S.K. Services leadership team, consisting of his father, brother, and Iain, instituted an annual SWOT analysis that reached "all the way to the admin," giving a voice to the people in the trenches, not just the generals in the war room. It was a simple, revolutionary idea: the people pulling the levers might actually know something about how the machine works. It paid off, leading to the company's sale to Stewart and setting the stage for a bigger fight.

The Gospel of 'Why?'

Every rebellion needs a rally cry. Bryant’s is a single, powerful word: Why? It’s his version of Simon Sinek’s iconic philosophy; a crowbar to pry open the closed loops of corporate dogma. While the industry obsesses over the what (the files, the closings, the tech), Bryant preaches the gospel of why.

• Why are you following that workflow? Is it a brilliant design or a fossil you’ve been polishing for a decade?
• Why do you think your clients care about that? Is that a fact, or a story you tell yourselves?
• Why are you managing your people that way? Is it building an army or just filling seats?

"There's a lot of assumptions in this industry," Bryant says, with the calm intensity of someone who has seen the enemy up close. "Those long-held beliefs that are just simply not true... Those assumptions hurt us."

The Tyranny of the Urgent

The Assumption Trap has a gatekeeper, a force that stops innovation in its infancy. It's the tyranny of the urgent. It’s also the siren song of the status quo that whispers, "You're too busy to think. Just do."

It’s the reason you hire the candidate with a great resume and a toxic attitude instead of investing in the hungry rookie. It's the reason you spend your days putting out fires instead of fireproofing the building. "The tyranny of the urgent keeps us from doing frankly what we all know to be right," Bryant states. It’s the addiction to being busy, and it's the biggest obstacle to being brilliant.

The Rebel's Toolkit: 4 Ways to Start a Revolution in Your Office

This isn't just theory. It's a call to action. Escaping the trap requires discipline and a bit of defiance. You can start the revolution in your own office with these four moves:

• Pull the 'Why' Thread. Don't just ask "Why?" once. Ask it five times. Dig until you hit bedrock. By the fifth answer, the excuses have burned away and you’re staring at either a core truth or a core assumption. That’s where the fight begins.
• Listen to the Front Lines. The truth of your company isn't just in the boardroom; it's in the trenches. The processors, the receptionists, the sales coordinators—they see the cracks nobody else does. Go to them. Listen to them. They'll give you all the ammunition you need.
• Flip the Script. Take your most sacred belief and argue its opposite. "We have to be at every industry event." False. What if you skipped them all and did something unforgettable for your five best clients instead? Forcing your brain to fight for the other side is how you break its programming.
• Declare War on 'Busy'. Block out time on your calendar and label it "WAR." This is your non-negotiable time to think, to question, to plan the attack. The urgent will scream for your attention. Let it scream. Nothing is more important than sharpening the sword.

The Payoff: It's Always Been About the People

Here’s the twist. The ultimate prize for winning this war isn't a fatter bottom line or a bigger market share. It's people. When you demolish assumptions, you demolish the artificial ceilings you've placed on your team. You see the future leader in the rookie, and the innovator in the quiet guy in the corner.

This is the soul of Bryant's mission. "I am just very, very grateful for so many people that gave me a chance," he says, the edge in his voice softening for a moment. "I wouldn't be anywhere if people hadn't given me a chance... and so I hope that I can be a person that gives people a chance."

The payoff for busting the Assumption Trap isn’t a slide deck. It’s a team that thinks. Pull the why-thread until you reach bedrock. Give microphones to the people who push files, not just the people who push strategy. Schedule war-time for thinking and defend it. When you do, the urgent gets quieter, the work gets smarter, and the talent you already have gets bigger.

Bryant’s rebellion isn’t against the process. It’s against forgetting who the process is for. He was lifted by leaders who took a chance early; now he’s building a culture that does the same. Protect the time, protect the why, protect the person; and the numbers will follow.

When Bill Svoboda asked me to write an article, the first thing that came to mind was that the title industry is at a crossroads. We need to speak up and tell our stories. Programs like the title waiver/title acceptance program, new multifamily guidelines from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and expanded FinCEN reporting requirements are all reshaping the way real estate transactions are conducted and impactful to the role of the title agent.

For too long, many agents have kept their heads down, focused on serving their local clients and closing deals. Arguably that approach has worked in the past but in today’s environment it does not. If agents don’t tell their stories, the future of the industry will be decided without them, leaving small and mid-sized agencies increasingly dependent on underwriters and less able to chart their own course. Advocacy is no longer optional; it is essential.

Why is it so hard for us to promote our value?

This summer we had to refinish a deck. It was not a fun project, but it needed to be done. I learned that to properly sand and stain our existing deck we were looking at a price tag of over $2500. I thought the expense was a lot for maintenance, but I also understood the value of protecting the larger investment—the cabin that goes with the deck. We begrudgingly shelled out the money and I wondered how many years until we’ll be repeating the process.

This situation combined with other expensive home improvement/maintenance projects caused me to reflect on the value of title insurance when protecting the very same investment.

Title insurance is a one-time expense that in many cases cost less than the price of refinishing a deck. That makes me question…why is it so hard for us to convey the importance of what we do to protect the homeowner’s largest investment? Shouldn’t we be telling our story and promoting the exceptional value of our insurance after all it is a one-time fee (no regular maintenance) and we protect the property for as long as the owner is in title and the lender for the life of the loan?

That seems like a good deal to me when you compare it to all the other expenses a homeowner incurs regularly to protect their investment.

The Title Waiver/Acceptance Program — Our Value in Refinance Transactions

With the title waiver/acceptance pilot program, the value of title insurance for refinance transaction is being challenged. Is the story that much different?

When refinancing, to ensure that the new loan is in first lien position, there is a title search performed, and a policy issued to insure the new lender. Once again, I am equating this to home improvement and ongoing maintenance. If a homeowner decides to remodel, permits are pulled, inspections are done (sometimes requiring systems from the past to be brought up to code), work is performed and there is a price tag associated for every service. In a refinance situation, the loan that was in place is essentially “renovated” for whatever reason (rate reduction, cash out, home improvement) and the title company performs the work to provide insurance protection for the new loan.

Ideally the refinance benefits the borrower and we protect the investment. I see a lot of value here. Maybe we just need to talk about it in terms that resonate.

Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac: Shifting the Ground Beneath Title Agents

While the title waiver program affects the title side of single-family transactions, changes from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are redefining the rules in multifamily deals. Recent changes to multifamily lending guidelines have quietly but significantly limited the role of title agents in certain transactions. Under the new rules, title agents are no longer allowed to fund (essentially close) multifamily transactions backed by Fannie and Freddie. Instead, the responsibility has shifted to underwriters or to title agencies owned by an underwriter.

To some, this may not seem like a big deal as underwriters control most of this business anyway. But for independent title agents, it has greater potential consequences. By cutting agents out of the funding (closing) process, these guidelines limit the scope of services agencies can provide, reduce revenue and market share opportunities, and increase the reliance on underwriter partners. Over time, these changes may weaken the independence of title agents by placing control into the hands of only a few larger players.

Another concern with the new guidelines is the impact to the consumer as title agents bring local expertise and community-based knowledge to multifamily transactions. When agents are sidelined, decisions about closings and risk management are made farther away from the communities they affect and often these transactions include added costs to the consumer.

This is why advocacy matters—we need to speak up. Title agents must help regulators, and the GSEs understand that policies like these don’t just streamline processes…they reshape the competitive landscape and limit consumer choice.

FinCEN Requirements: Another Reason to Be Vocal

Expanded FinCEN requirements place title agents under heavier compliance obligations than ever before. While the intent is good…fighting money laundering and criminal activity, the practical impact is significant. Agents must now devote more time, staff, and resources to reporting, diverting attention away from clients and closings.

For large agencies, this may be manageable. But for small and mid-sized agencies, the costs to administer the new reporting requirements could become overwhelming. Without agent input to help shape how these rules are implemented, regulators risk creating a system that inadvertently favors the largest players.

Speaking Up to Protect the Future of the Title Profession

Taken together, these issues make one thing clear: the future of the title industry will be shaped by the voices that speak up.

The challenges facing the title industry are real, and the stakes are high. From regulatory requirements to structural changes in how transactions are funded and insured, these shifts threaten to erode the independence and value of title agents. But there is good news: the most powerful tool agents have is their voice- so let’s use it.

Advocacy means more than protecting business interests, it means ensuring consumers are safeguarded, communities are served, and the integrity of real estate transactions is preserved. The future of the industry depends on agents stepping up, telling their stories, and making sure decision-makers understand what’s at risk.

The big picture. The moment it “clicks.” That look of understanding when your new employee “gets” what your title agency does. As anyone who has ever trained someone in our industry knows, this is the goal. Whether the position is order entry or policy issuance, it is crucial to understand the big picture to be effective within our individual roles. We all have our own methods to get there; my personal favorite is placing the new employee for a few hours or days at every position in the company. By zooming out and seeing the whole puzzle that is our day-to-day operations, we’re able to then zero in on individual positions or problems. That leads to more effective ways to do our jobs as we now know where we fit into the puzzle.

If we all know this, and practice this within our organizations, why aren’t more of our owners, management, and leadership getting the big picture?

I spent the first five years of my career entirely absorbed in the day-to-day operations of my title agencies. I knew there were legislative changes, new forms, and recording laws that were being enacted that would affect my agencies, eventually, and I would adapt them when the time came. But to anticipate change? Impact it? Lobby for it? Who had time for that? Not me. I was zoomed in on my little puzzle piece, only concerned with the edges it touched.

I had every excuse NOT to be involved and truthfully, the reason I finally showed up to my first local land title association event was because an underwriter told me being involved could give my agencies a competitive advantage and market us to realtors and lenders to get more business. I highly doubt that objective was ever accomplished, but I did learn something at that very first event.

I was 100% wrong to think that my agencies had nothing to do with the title insurance industry. That changes occurring on a local, state, or national scale would rarely affect the way I do business daily.

Just like the person opening orders would be 100% wrong to think that their job has nothing to do with the person who eventually issues the policies on those orders.

This is your reminder to zoom out to see the big picture. It’s bigger than your job position, your organization, or your market share.

Zooming out can look like:

• Getting involved with your local land title associations. It’s not about networking with your competition or sharing your business secrets or being bombarded by underwriters. It’s about having a finger on the pulse of your local and state issues. Become a member, join a committee, or attend an education event.
• Paying attention to your legislation – what types of laws are being proposed that effect how you do business? Is anyone educating them on how it impacts your industry? Pro tip: your local land title association is often involved with this.
• Attracting newcomers to the title industry. Are you participating in job fairs or involved with high schools, trade schools, community colleges, universities, or law schools to teach title insurance and the various careers it offers? Do you talk to your friends and family about what you do and why it matters?
• Looking into associations and organizations that already exist. You can collaborate with your real estate partners and join lender, attorney, or realtor associations. You can find organizations more tailored to your interests in how you want to impact the industry, like supporting women in title.
• When you’ve got a good grasp on the local issues affecting your organization, it’s time to zoom out again. Let’s look national. Are you involved with the American Land Title Association? Have you signed up for News You Can Use or other national title and real estate publications? Just a simple email subscription can keep you informed without ever leaving your desk.
• Taking the most direct approach – go speak with your legislators. Make appointments with your congress members and tell them what matters most to preserving your livelihood. Or you can support the Title Action Network which does this work on your behalf.

We’re too quiet in our industry. We operate behind the scenes, at a very high level, and just assume our value to the real estate industry is obvious. But it’s not obvious as evidenced by numerous factors like the age of our average employee, the national efforts to waive title insurance requirements on transactions, and general consumer understanding of our role in the real estate industry.

Learn from my mistake – if you think the local, state, or national climate surrounding title insurance doesn’t impact you and your organization, you’re wrong. You can keep your head down like I did, focus only on your company and whatever edges it touches, but if you don’t start zooming out to see the big picture now, we might not have title agencies to run in ten years.

You don’t have to start from scratch or reinvent the wheel, just add your puzzle piece to the bigger picture. We need all the puzzle pieces to get the most accurate picture of where we’re at, and all the voices to know the best place to go next. The only wrong choice here is to do nothing.

_{About Francis Liz Casselman:  Liz is an attorney, title agency owner, 1031 exchange specialist, and author. She loves talking title journeys with industry professionals and uses transparency and collaboration to cultivate a community focused on shared experiences and goals.}

_{And be sure to subscribe to the “Not Just a Title” newsletter on LinkedIn, where Liz shares her random musings and experiences in the title insurance industry, guaranteed to put a smile on your face and provide a few-minute retreat from the busyness of title and escrow.}

It didn’t take long for me to learn that I was going to have to focus on growing referral relationships if I wanted to grow a title insurance agency. It took me a little while longer to figure out that I needed to risk losing money by hiring more employees if I wanted to compete in the marketplace and grow our market share. And it's taken me two decades to understand the interplay of factors between growing a title agency compared to other lines of business.

“Accelerate Your Business Growth!” they advertise. “Scale Up By Niching Down!” they tell you. Advice on how to grow a business is everywhere. Especially on social media, most often from expert talkers, not expert doers. Their advice is often like nails on a chalkboard to me. The simplified, memorable expressions of how to scale up just don’t match my experiences in growing a title insurance agency, nor a law firm. Perhaps they apply to online businesses, or perhaps they apply to companies that sell tangible products. It’s clear to me that the ‘entrepreneur business bros’ have never worked in the unique world of title insurance though.

The title industry is unique, and it’s also not one-size-fits-all. It’s most often a B-to-B-to-C type of business, with referral partners like realtors or loan officers. But it can also be homebuilders, or commercial developers, or attorneys, or it can be a B-to-C business. You could be doing refinances, or HELOC’s, or purchases. You could be selling title insurance, or maybe judicial reports, or just title search reports. Or you could be replaced by attorney opinions that can only be issued by, and paid to, law firms. You might be physically located on Main Street near the Courthouse, and have a consumer walk-in and ask your receptionist for title work for a split of their family’s land. Or you might be remotely providing title services, receiving digital orders from a national mortgage lender, where you never actually see the consumer, nor the loan officer, nor physically signed documents.

So if we're going to analyze scaling a title agency, the first step to that analysis is to identify what type of title agency are you trying to scale? If it's a local, brick-and-mortar title agency, where relationships with the referral sources are expected, then a conversation about scaling is going to center around acquisitions. Why? Because if the assumption is expansion to new markets, which in turn leads to opening new office locations, hiring local people, training and managing said people, and building new local relationships in those new communities, then plan to use a lot of time and effort. You have to gain the local community’s trust and win over their belief that they want you as a referral partner. While I have proven firsthand that it can be done that way with 20 offices established by that type of effort over a timeline of 15 years or so, it was accomplished through sacrifice and hard work beyond what most people are willing to do.

As a result, I have learned through recent acquisitions, that despite there being challenges to merging two different cultures and workflows together, that it is easier to accomplish top-line growth that way.

Now if you’re trying to scale a title agency that isn’t tied to a local, lawyerly style of problem-solving and relationship building in the community, then focusing on multi-state relationships with large lenders is the best bet to grow quickly.

Are there still opportunities for that these days? I can’t say with any certainty, but I can tell you that going the route of a joint venture is likely the fastest way to try and scale from my experience.

Providing title, escrow, and closing services is challenging enough across multiple jurisdictions, so you want to simplify the types of transactions you take on, and minimize the time, cost, and effort needed for sales and marketing. In larger joint ventures, ideally there is a lot less need for all of the infrastructure and costs associated with maintaining hundreds or thousands of relationships with referral partners (who could leave you at any time), and simplify to focus on one large referral partner.

In other words, if your title agency predominantly handles residential purchase transactions, then you should focus on a purchase (acquisition) strategy. On the other hand, if you’re looking to scale up a title agency fast, then you should be looking for ways to do business with high-volume mortgage lending institutions that are in need of low-touch services like refinances, judicial title reports for foreclosures/REO, or title reports for HELOC transactions.

I envision that those reading this article are nodding their head in agreement and don’t need the detailed explanation, but for the sake of a good list, I’ll share with you some of the reasons these general principles hold true:

• Real property laws are State by State, and in conveyance transactions, rules can be County by County, and a title agent’s duties, processes, and referral partner expectations are market by market.
• Transactions involving conveyances require more lawyers to advise, more knowledgeable underwriting and processing skills, and more sophisticated communication expectations, because of the likelihood of more complex requests from referral partners, like manufactured home conversions, lot splits, agricultural land, and commercial development, to name a few.
• Scaling businesses require automated processes, and perhaps even most importantly, uniform processes. With purchase-oriented title agencies operating across multiple marketplaces, the nature of centralizing processes/support will cause you to have to build alternative processes, with varying workflows and orders of operation.
• Purchase transactions inherently involve real estate agents. Agents see us as their vendor, someone there to serve their interests and needs. Therefore, you have to earn their trust and spend time showing them how important they are, no different than a maître d’ at a high-end restaurant showing deference to VIP’s.
• The concept of title insurance by itself is complicated to learn as a starting point, but further than that, real estate conveyance transactions are like 100x more complex, and risky, than refinance transactions. The amount of time and effort it takes to train, support, and guide employees through the learning process to get to the point of being able to understand and communicate effectively with referral partners and consumers is often underestimated.
• Geographic distance creates obstacles to quality and connectedness. It’s hard to hire people, train and develop trust with people, or support them when needed, if you are not within a reasonable driving distance.

All that being said, there is a silver lining to the hard work that goes into learning all the ways in which growth is challenging. It’s that growth begets growth. As we added more offices, our sales conversations with larger prospects got a little bit easier. As we added more expertise and centralized services in our parent title agency, it was a little bit easier to come to terms with title agencies looking to be acquired so they could plug into those services and knowledge. And as we grew our revenue, whether organically through sales efforts, or through acquisition, our reputation and culture was enhanced, which helped with talent recruiting and employee retention.

Title is an industry that has all different types of businesses within it. From national underwriters’ direct operations, to a 1-employee title agency, they all find a way to capture some real estate transactions due to relationships. There are multiple ways to build a nice business, so don’t let my thoughts here distract from that. Scaling is different than building a career or a local small business that is healthy and sustainable. Scaling is hard and not meant for all businesses in this industry. And that’s okay, because sometimes the smallest of businesses can address the consumers’ needs in a way that the largest do not.

Scale and growth always sounds great, but committing to it with eyes wide open is key. Set realistic expectations and sights on what’s possible with your type of title agency. Best of luck to you navigating your journey to success!

_{About Jonathan Holfinger: Jonathan is the principal owner of Northwest Title Family of Companies and Northwest Law, headquartered in Columbus, Ohio. Northwest handles all types of commercial and residential real estate transactions through its 20 locations in Ohio and Northern Kentucky, and performs traditional local title services in counties with offices across the street from the Courthouse, as well as through regional joint ventures with lenders and realty brokerages. Jonathan is a Past-President of the Ohio Land Title Association, and is one of two individuals who have been awarded both the Ohio Land Title Professional and ALTA's National Title Professional designation.}