Terry Edwards thought he was about to start a new job in Georgia, where he would be an executive with a bank. At the time, it seemed like he was about to start a long, profitable career in a stable industry that would help him provide for his wife, Tia.
The couple was moving in their new home, when the whole deal blew up. Terry was informed the job he thought he was about to start was no longer available to him. The “dream job” offer was taken off the table.
That left Terry trying to find any possible way to keep food on the table for his family. He was looking on craigslist and found a job opportunity that led Terry to The Alliance.
In the first 30 days, Terry was able to make $8,000. Tia was still not excited about it. That changed after the couple spent time around Andy and Jane Albright. Tia slowly decided The Alliance was the place to be after coming to a national event. She heard the stories of other women, and realized she had a new “chosen” family.
Terry and Tia have continued to grow consistently. They were able to move back to North Carolina, and now have achieved their goal of opening their own office in Kernersville, N.C. They call their new office “The Dream Factory.”
When Terry and Tia started working with The Alliance in June of 2015, they remember attending the Greensboro HotSpot meeting with a small group of people that was less than 10. By November of that year, the average attendance had jumped to 20. The shift came through an intentional change in the culture of the meeting.
As Terry Edwards says, “we made it fun!”
How did they do it?
Music became part of the meeting. People became more intentional in welcoming people in the room. They started following Andy Albright’s “Green Book,” in terms of how to set up a meeting properly.
“We followed Andy’s model,” Terry said. “Eventually, it took off.”
Even with the growth and culture shift, something was still missing. Edwards said holding the meeting in a hotel room didn’t allow the team the freedom they wanted to set up the room and use the space outside of the meeting.
Edwards, who lives in Kernersville, N.C., set the goal of opening up a satellite office that he and Tia could not only work out of daily, but also host the weekly meeting too. After looking for the right space for about a year, the couple finally found a home in Kernersville. The Alliance’s latest satellite office opened in August, joining the ranks of offices in places like Dallas, Jacksonville and Lakeland, Fla.
The new space is 1,700 square feet, featuring offices for agents and a meeting space that can hold 100 people.
“It’s more ownership for us,” Edwards said. “Basically, to me, it’s planting a flag in the ground. It raises the bar and expectations. I hope it helps set a good example for other agents to copy.”
The meeting averages around 70 people weekly on Tuesday nights. Guests enter an environment where you can play cornhole, sit down for a game of checkers, enjoy music and refreshments and see some of the top leaders from The Alliance on a weekly basis.
The Alliance’s Product Specialist Gina Hawks said watching the growth in the Greensboro/Kernersville meeting has been fun.
“The Kernersville HotSpot has an amazing group of people led by Terry and Tia, who have created one of the most energetic, loving, inviting, encouraging HotSpots in the country,” Hawks said. “Everyone should invite new people to Kernersville. They will be well taken care of.”
Terry said having input from Albright, Andy Riddle (Jacksonville, N.C.) and the corporate office helped aid the process of picking a location and making sure it was in alignment with how the corporate office was set up.
“Seeing what the guys did in the Jacksonville office inspired me to have an office,” Edwards said. “They went crazy down there.”
Edwards said he hopes opening his new office up inspire others to do the same.
“I would make sure you check with your manager to see if it is the right time,” Edwards said. “That’s most important … make sure it is the right time to do it. You want to have support from the team, not just your people but the whole HotSpot needs to want it to happen. When we were driving back and forth to a hotel for our meeting, we didn’t have anything permanent. Now, we have a home. This is home base for all of us. We have a rally point and agents come here from Charlotte and other places just to be around the team.”
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