The Real Estate Dream Team

It is not every day you get to work with your mom, your daughters, or your sister. Native Oklahomans, Kim Spencer, and her two daughters, Terra Myers and Kiley Hendley, have been creating memorable real estate experiences through their unique ministry of connecting people with their dream homes.

Before we get into what makes The RED Team unique, let us look back to when it all began. Kim Spencer has been a licensed Realtor and part of the Keller Williams family since 1996. Moreover, Terra and Kiley helped Kim study for her real estate exams. And while Terra and Kiley followed in mom’s footsteps by earning degrees from Oklahoma Christian University, the sisters initially took on different career paths. In fact, Kim did not want her daughters working with or for her due to the long hours the real estate business requires.

Consequently, Terra set her sights on a pharmaceutical career, and Kiley worked with their dad, Terry, who was a developer. It did not take long for Terra to realize that working with Kim was where she belonged, so she pivoted her career and went all in. The two began working together in 2002 and partnered up in 2006, which was the same year Terra earned her real estate license. Within two to three years, they had tripled the business and branded themselves with the tagline “Experience You Can Count On.” Kiley eventually joined Kim and Terra in 2009 as the office manager, earning her real estate license in 2013.

And thus, in 2009, The RED Team was officially formed. So why The RED Team? At first glance, you would guess it is because of Kim’s and Kiley’s red hair. That would be too obvious. The RED Team stands for The Real Estate Dream Team, and after spending some time with the mother-daughters trio, you get the sense of why this is Edmond’s Real Estate Dream Team.

From day one, Kim has run her business based on Keller Williams’ philosophy of God first, family second and career third. She focuses on the human connection in an industry that can be fairly transactional and a one-time transaction, at that. As a matter of fact, Kim believes she is building relationships for life with her connections and looks at them as her “forever friends.”

Kim is very intentional in how she does business and has passed that on to Terra and Kiley. Those three principles form The RED Team’s eight core values, and it shone through with the numerous stories the two shared with me. Over the past nine years, for example, Kim has organized a widows’ dinner on Valentines Day, which includes transportation to and from the dinner venue. This year, Terra hosted the dinner at her house for over 60 widows with lots of friends pitching in to help make the fun event a huge success.

Every day, Kim hand-writes notes of encouragement to five of the more than 1,300 families or referrals in their database. Sometimes, those notes are simply to see how someone is doing. In addition, every other month, the team sends out postcards to their clients with schedules, daylight time change reminders, calendars, etc. The team tried e-mail communication, but found that the ability to receive a piece of mail with the faces of The RED Team was more effective. In fact, one client kept every piece of mail from The RED Team since Terra and Kim formed their partnership 14 years ago.

While The RED Team stays on top of technology and social media regarding changes in buying behaviors and generational preferences, that does not stop them from creating the personalized touches that strengthens their ministry. During this pandemic, for example, the team made “care calls” to check on their clients and referrals to see how they were doing, even if it meant Kim delivering wrapped rolls of toilet paper dressed up as the Easter Bunny. And then there is the story of Terra going to pick up donkey’s milk (yes, donkey’s milk) for a client whose husband was recovering from surgery, or delivering Braum’s chocolate ice cream bars to the client who could not leave their home.

After hearing story after inspiring story, you start to see how The RED Team puts relationships well before metrics of how many homes they will sell or how much gross commissionable income they will earn in a given year. Yet, their results have shown about 85% of The RED Team’s clients are from referrals or repeat customers who have purchased a home from them in the past. But that’s not all. Each year, The RED Team has a goal to see how many families they get to serve and how many family’s dreams they get to help make come true through the purchase or sale of a home. The team continuously strives to improve and takes it to heart when a client is not satisfied.

The success of The RED Team is solidified by Jim Collin’s (author of Good to Great) principle of having the right people in the right seats on the bus. Kim loves to show houses and build relationships through her forever-friend focus. Terra focuses on the clients looking to sell their homes and guides them from listing to SOLD. In addition to loving to show houses, Kiley brings the organizational talents needed to manage the office and ensure that the “i’s” were dotted and “t’s”crossed from contract to close. And when things got really busy several years ago, they welcomed Adrianne Bowers to the team to focus on the marketing of the homes and assist Kiley with the contract-to-close process.

Finally, through Keller Wiliams’ philosophy of putting God first, family second and work third, Kim’s intentionality of creating a ministry is exemplified by their logo of a home with a RED cardinal on top of the chimney. The cardinal symbolizes people who have touched them in the past. In fact, they would like The RED Team to be remembered some day as a team who cared for and encouraged people, from personalized cards to making homeowners’ dreams come true. 

You often hear in the world of business that a great team with an awesome culture and strong core values can do just about anything in any industry in any city. This great team, The RED Team, is doing just that in real estate in Edmond.