How Bill Shaddock Built Capital Title Into a National Leader | Title Agents Podcast Ep71

In a world where change is the only constant, Mo Shamil stands at the forefront, guiding title professionals to not just grow their businesses, but to master the art of innovation. With every episode, you're handed the keys to unlock unparalleled growth and stay ahead of the curve. Get ready for a transformative journey. Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Talent Agents Podcast, where we dive deep into success stories and strategies in the title industry. Today I'm really thrilled to have Bill Shattuck, founder of Capital Title, a true salient entrepreneur.

Bill's journey from the ground up to building one of Texas' largest title companies, and I think one of the largest in the country, is packed with lessons on growth, resilience, and innovation. If you're looking for insights on leadership, scaling, and navigating industry shifts, this episode is for you. Welcome, Bill. Thank you. Welcome.

How are you? Happy Thanksgiving. We're recording this podcast right after Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving. Thank you.

I'm looking. It's a great day. Beautiful day. That's awesome. Well, let's dive in.

Can you share a little bit about your journey in the title industry, and what first inspired you to venture into this field? Well, it's connected. I came to Dallas as an attorney. I did real estate and trial-related work. I left there to join my brother after about four years in the real estate field.

He was building houses, and I was going to develop subdivisions, and I noticed that certain of my friends were forming the attorney offices, and I'm very entrepreneurial, so I said, let's go. I got Billy Vaughn, and Billy said he'd back me, and I said, I mean, back me because he was an underwriter, so I said, crank it up. Let's go. I think I had the three things, I call it the entrepreneurial trifecta. I didn't have any money, I didn't know what I was doing, and I didn't have any customers besides my brother.

Perfect formula. What can go wrong? A very low cost of operating the business, it was just me. Main reason is I didn't have any money to hire a person to do it, so I did it all myself. I remember I was a fee attorney for Dallas Title.

People would call, and they'd say, may I speak to Bill Shattuck, I would answer the phone, and say, this is he. Let's go. So it all started there, 1987. 1987, that's awesome. So we have a national audience for those who may not be familiar with a fee attorney office.

What is that? What is a fee attorney for the East Coast and Midwest that don't have that term? Fees, in a sense, have offices which are called directs, and they can include fee attorneys, which are attorneys which they license to operate at one of their offices, and they share premiums with the, and perform certain duties and functions for the attorney. So you told the audience you had the perfect trifecta, the perfect formula to start a company, and have a similar background as you, like started not knowing anything about title, except my abstracting background. So what were some of the biggest challenges you faced when you started Capital Title, and how did you overcome them?

Well it was just me. It was just a long climb. I've always been good at getting business. So I am by nature less of a title person, and more of a sales-related person. So I'm really in two businesses today.

I'm in the people business, and I'm in the relationship business. That's what I do for a living, and that's what I did when I was back then. So I would make threads, get people to use the title company, and just the struggle is you don't have money to do anything, and you don't have a good client base, and there were immense struggles, but I'm a pretty confident guy, pretty good with people and relationships. I get the ship to shore. That's awesome, Bill.

You are in a people business and relationship business. That's a lot of times, not only in title, but most businesses, people don't understand what business they're in. They think they're in title, where you're truly in communication, relationship, and people business at the end of the day, because anybody can provide title. I'm in the take business, and I'm in the people do business with people they know, trust, and like. Amen.

And take business with you, it's because they know, trust, and like someone more than they do you. So you've got to get into a position of relationship with them, whereby they will know, trust, and like you, and send you their business. One of the misconceptions of the business... This podcast is brought to you by Struggling to set appointments and generate leads? What if you had a team working behind the scenes to help you book more meetings and close more deals?

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They actually don't do business with title companies. I don't ever ask people to send business to Capital Title, for example. I tell people to send business to me. To Bill. There's not one deal that's written from Compass Real Estate to Capital Title.

It's always a person at Compass who sends a deal to a person, a closer at Capital Title. It's personal. It's not company. Yeah. Bill, you literally just confirmed something I've been saying for years to my sales team.

People do business with people. It doesn't matter to a point. You have to have a good reputation, obviously, that really people do business with people. And I'm going to use this to seal the deal with my team. Bill said it and it is the truth.

So you've grown Capital Title from humble beginnings to not know what you're doing, limited resources to literally the top title company, independent title company in Texas, which is a huge piece. Congratulations, Bill. It's been a long time in the States. What key strategies were instrumental with scaling the business besides the relationships? Well, key strategies are the values and ideals which underpin how we do business.

We're a family business and a business family. Our key strength is culture. That's how we attract and maintain great talent is people are seeking great culture. Peter Drucker, who wrote the books in business that I studied, said that culture eats business strategy for breakfast. It's all about creating a great home team that likes one another, fights as a unit.

It's all about building a culture where you strive for excellence. It's all about building a culture that values people more than corporate profits. It's all about building a culture which stands for something more than a quarterly, quarterly income statement. I love our people and our people, I think, love me and our and our and our company culture. It's the thing that you would feel first if you happen to leave here.

As a matter of fact, over 90% of the people who have ever left our company have either tried to come back or have come back because large companies which value profit over people don't deliver. love our people and our people I think love me and our company culture. It's the thing that you would feel first if you happen to leave here. As a matter of fact, over 90% of the people who have ever left our company have either tried to come back or have come back because large companies which value profit over people don't deliver what people are really seeking. I truly love the values of the culture and values you said was part of instrumental new growth.

Were the cultures intentional? Because a lot of times entrepreneurs fall for the trap and not focus on culture and then the team builds that culture or it's all over the place. It's not intentional. It's not cohesive and then a lot of times stumble the growth of a company. So were you very intentional from the beginning?

Was something you learned like from Drucker Miller and you built Silicon Walls, you lived it. How did you go about implementing it? I wanted to be free. I try to empower people. I try to encourage people.

The leadership here, you could tell I'm not big on titles. I'm not big on management. I'm not big on senior sages that talk about the way it used to be done. Nostalgia. I'm looking for entrepreneurial people who want an opportunity to grow and be all they can be.

That want authority and one time my son said, I told him that I kind of dislike big business. And he said, yeah, well, dad, you're becoming kind of big yourself. And I said, well, I said, we may be but we'll ultimately always ultimately be a collection of smaller companies versus a big company. We are not top down or bottoms up. Our leadership works for our team.

They encourage our team. Our team runs this company. It's just not top down. As I always would tell somebody, if you like to get told what to do, you would hate our company. This podcast is made possible by our sponsor.

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That's awesome. I see a lot of stuff we're doing, a lot of stuff I believe and I've seen you. That's why I was very excited about having you on the podcast. It's an honor, Bill. Not everybody wants it.

It's not about egos. They want the success. They might say they are, but normally you have to compete and win to get the prize. That's not just showing up or following company policy manuals. I don't know.

My main competitors are Fortune 500 companies. They have a wealth of resources. They have big speakers, I'm sure. We compete very well with those people because we present a culture that their people want and long form. We deliver excellence to our customers when we do that.

Their customers want to come here and their people want to come here and they do. That's awesome. You know how competitive the title industry is and especially in a down market the last couple of years. How do you position Capital Title to stand out and stay competitive especially amongst the Goliaths? That doesn't bother me at all.

We have plenty of money. I mean, it doesn't take a billion dollars to run this business. We've always been blessed with resources to be able to operate and grow the company. I mean, that's all you need. It's kind of like going to college and you think, well, I'd like to get 10 grand a month.

Well, is that what you need? No, but it would be fine, but we don't need that. But our customers have honored us with their loyalty in their business and they provide all the money we need. We have no debt. We've never had debt.

We don't go in debt. We don't have shareholders that are manning their money or wondering what happened and I don't give explanations. We did the best we could and there we go. It's about that. When building your leadership team, you've built it throughout the years, are there any traits you consider non-negotiable that can lead leadership?

Passion? You're not going to get there if you don't. It's too hard without having passion. If you're not passionate about what you're trying to do, you will not win. You will not compete.

Again, it's competition, right? You've got to win the prize more than the other people who choose to compete with you. And I try to set the leadership example by paying the price for the team. But no one in a company will rise higher than the price being paid by the leader. So if you think you can hire people to do the work and not pay the price yourself personally, I would disagree.

No one's rising above you. You play golf during the week, other people are going to play golf during the week. People know. And they just have a good feeling that the person that's involved or running the outfit is as committed, cares enough about them to be committed to their future success as they care about their future success. You know our industry, typically more markets than other markets have a high turnover.

The turnover can be high. And also in Asian industry, a lot of the highly experienced talent pool is getting up there almost retirement age. So how do you approach employer retention and create a workplace? People are excited to be part of the capital title and we have a great culture. We're a very entrepreneurial company.

We're comprised of entrepreneurial people. That's what I'm looking for. Somebody wants to go and grow. They want the football. They want the rock.

They have big ideas. They have big hopes. They're willing to express their willingness to pay the price to accomplish the dreams that they have for their life. And they're talented obviously but you know they're great performers. You just hire them like we've probably hired since the first of last year over 150 escrow officers.

But it's a bad market but we're investing in the future of this company. They're not performing at A-plus levels even today but they will. And we're just working with them now but we will come out of this fog a much stronger and larger company. Just keep getting that market share in the down markets. That's huge.

Get the right people. Absolutely. How are you with technology? I know it keeps changing rapidly. I don't know anything about technology.

We have 35 people in our IT department. We spend in excess of $10 million a year on IT and I couldn't tell you any more than that. Well said. I don't do technology. I'm not a title nerd.

I don't do technology for a living. I'm into people and relationship business. So you're a serial entrepreneur. You sustain success across different ventures. What do you believe are the keys to building a business that stands in the test of time especially in our crazy cyclical markets?

Well you have to remember that it's not about me. It's about the people and you have to be a good servant leader. Servant leadership is an important concept in our cultural segment so that I'm here to serve the people. I try to make sure that we have the resources at any given time that allow us to grow and project strength in the market into our team. We invest in bad times.

The hardest time to invest. you have to remember that it's not about me, it's about the people, and you have to be a good servant leader. Servant leadership is an important concept in our cultural segment, so that I'm here to serve the people. I try to make sure that we have the resources at any given time that allow us to grow and project strength in the market and to our team. We invest in bad times.

The hardest time, I think that's, but we're gambling on our future. But it's all about hard work and paying the price and being confident and relationship oriented and entrepreneurial. All of those come together with the right people to create success for the team and the individuals from my day. What legacy do you hope to leave in the talent industry and how are you preparing future leaders within your company? I don't have a specific job here, if that tells you anything.

So from an operation standpoint, it flies whether I'm in the plane or not. The legacy is it's all about the people and people make it. Loving your people, loving your client, creating excellence, but we're so much more than a business. I think business would be boring for me. I'm not really, if it became too much of a business, I wouldn't like it.

It's all about the people. It isn't about the profits. It is, I mean, it is about the profits sometimes, but it's all about the people. I heard a speaker once saying that making money, you don't go with anything to make money. It's like a concert for someone who is a singer or performs a musical instrument.

The money is like the applause. You don't do it for the applause, you do it because you love what you're doing and you've perfected an art or a skill. And the money just comes when you do good things. You take care of people, you're entrepreneurial and you work hard. I mean, there's not many people in unemployment lines like that.

And you still quit, just keep coming. We haven't always been, I consider ourselves always been a great company. That's because I think our values and ideals are great. And I think our purposes are true. I think we've had all the right ideas.

In our own way, we've been a very, very small, great company for many, many years. We just happen to be now a huge, great company. But if we went down to five people, we would still have a distinctive and great title company, I assure you. You and I were having a conversation last week. We talked about the markets and 2025.

Would you mind sharing with our audience what's your humble forecast of 2025? What do you see based on your experience and talk us through your fear? I think it's gonna get better, but marginally so. I think we're here. We're not waiting on rates to get, I don't see rates really precipitously dropping.

It's really not bad. Mortgage rates are six and a half. By historical standards, that's pretty good. Well, what about refinance? Well, I don't know.

I just don't see, I don't see rates as maturely dropping. Someone said, my gut feeling is that where's the anomaly in our market? Is we're waiting for 21, 22 to come back? I don't think it is. I think we're basically, I think the anomaly was 21, maybe 20, somewhat 22.

That's the anomaly. It's going back to the way it was before yet. That's what I see. So you better learn to do business and win with the current market with some improvement or you're not gonna make it. I personally see the same thing.

I don't see rates going down anytime soon. And it just, it is what it is. We have no control over the market just the way we do. So it's a good thing for, as I said, the cream rises to the top when things get tougher for longer. How about we switch to NAR?

That's actually a lawsuit and impact and the talent industry, especially like the more and more captive business. I think it's a huge issue. What's going on today is a consolidation of our industry. And I don't know who your viewing audience is, but it's every day, market share to producer-owned title companies is taking available business away from true independent title companies. These behemoths have teams that are assigned.

We continue, I'm an independent agent to write and use these companies, but they're out there every day putting our customer in the title business. So good luck. And they're buying competitors. It's very difficult. I look every day at every order that's open, every house that sells in our North Texas market.

I can assure you the market available for the independent agents is extremely skinny, that it's 10% or less. And that's not always been the way it is. So I feel like independent agents have a tough road ahead, unless they're in niche markets away from busy commercial areas. A lot of, you know how the East Coast is even more fragmented than Texas or other states. A lot of times, I have a lot of competitor friends I talk to, and when they mention the word my competitor, I'm like, you really have no idea who your competitor is.

As the independent agents were competing, as I said last week, we're competing for the crumbs of the cookie. Like that. The ponds are getting drained primarily by the well-financed large industry, people that we all know, trust and like, frankly, but unfortunately, they're trying to grow their company. This podcast is proudly sponsored by Need extra hands without extra overhead? Meet Safi Virtual.

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Safi Virtual, expert support, tailored for title professionals. They're trying to grow their company as well, and which I would be were I to be there, but some of these, there's big moves. You've got Compass Real Estate, TRG bought 20% of them, Big Home Builder. You know, I mean, it's big. If this is becoming a big money business, big money's starting to push people around.

You agree with that? You see that? Absolutely, especially like public company. I mean, the big four, they're all public. Like talking about Compass, talking about TRG, they all have access to public funds.

And now you get private equity, it was very active like two or three years ago. Now it kind of quieted a little bit, but it just let a lot of money come in, doing a lot of roll-ups and a lot of consolidations. It's very expensive and very competitive, and those crumbs I was talking about getting smaller and smaller and smaller to compete for. Yeah, and we better think about that, because that's not an existential threat, that is a direct threat, because the pond's getting drained by the consolidation occurring in the industry. The pond we have deficient as independent agents and underwriters.

So what, any words of wisdom, or just kind of play the game, or join forces, or more kind of, how do you compete against these forces, I guess? I tell people, we have an underwriter, First National, do business with them, they're a good company. I don't think we're not, that company is not involved in draining the pond. But take a look around and find out who is. And understand that's not an existential threat, that's a direct threat to the future of the industry generally.

And if you're in it, it's going to affect you. What was your question, other than that? Just, Mike, okay, we all know this eminent. do business with them, they're a good company. I don't think we're not, that company is not involved in draining the pond but take a look around and find out who is and understand there that's not an existential threat, that's a direct threat to the future of the industry generally and if you're in it, it's going to affect you.

What was your question other than that? Just Mike, okay we all know this eminent threat that's direct and it's real and it's here, what advice do you have for title, independent title agents, like that you can play the game, consolidate or do you, like it's not looking, it's not rosy, I mean how do you, how do you outmaneuver like that? Don't sell out, so don't sell out unless you have to. You know, one place you can beat anybody is to, if you're in the people in relationship business, get out there and make an, create excellence in your service, your delivery and in your customer base. Make a friend, be friends with the people, they will be less inclined to leave you, so pay the price for your success and I think a casual effort is going to produce a really, it's going to be difficult for you, you've got to go out there every day and be in front of your customers selling your product.

For eating lunch, I tell people here, you're eating lunch with people who work here, don't write it off the business, that's a personal experience. You don't have a customer there, that's not considered a business lunch and so it does say, it used to say in a book, don't eat lunch alone, well, don't have personal lunches. Find out, try to get an alignment with people like you. Alignment's a big deal. Are the people with whom you're sending the business, are they rewarding you with their business or is that, is that, is it just fee for service?

So we're pretty demanding of people who we help becoming, we demand that they become more than fee for service type people. They need to be bringing something. In a crass way, it's kind of like friends with benefits, we need the benefits. Can't bring the benefits, you're probably gonna, you know, we're not going to be able to, you're not in alignment with us, you're just taken. That's not healthy, you gotta have a give-and-take, you can't just take any relationship.

The people that are taken from you, giving to you. If not, I would confront the people and I call it having, making, I put them over what I call into the beer drinking friends. Now, I don't go out drinking, I'm a married man, I've been married 42 years but I put them in the beer drinking friends. In other words, I like I used to fraternity and stuff and drink beer, I'll make sure and give them a call. But between the hours of 8 and 5, I discipline myself to make every, every call a business call, which I'm attempting to get business.

And before you know it, you'll end up managing a title company without the resources. Well, what's, where are the resources? What happened to them? They're all the people you didn't go get. Run your company, go out there and get some business.

Are you still out there getting business? I mean, with realtors or? Today's episode is sponsored by Hey, you title agents, stop wasting time digging for answers or waiting on an email or call back from your underwriter. With title gpt.ai you get instant reliable answers to your title questions fast. No more delays, work smarter, close faster and keep deals moving.

Try www.title gpt.ai today. But I might go with a marketing person or a closer with, you know, to help support them. Yes, that's the essence of the business mode. You're, uh, you go out on these calls and you're passing them on to the escrow officer or to the sales rep to manage moving forward after you land a client. Yeah, because I'm busy.

So, so I'm going to go out, get you known and liked and try to push the relationship off there. But who's going to go get, who's going to go get the larger clients from the 22 year old kids that just graduated from college or me that have been in the business for 30 some years? Well, I'm going to have a lot better. So I'm not going to do it. I'm going to give it to somebody that doesn't, doesn't.

I don't think that's a successful strategy. And what, uh, what goals do you still have for capital title and any other ventures you're still involved with? Well, I guess that we actually do business and set in 12 states with seven title companies. So the capital was just a starting company, but become a national company. But I think we will over time.

I just continue, we don't really have specific goals like we want to be this by then, but we want to continue to grow and expand wherever opportunity presents itself. That's awesome. Do you have a favorite quote? Yes. You're, it's a, it's my quote.

Your ultimate success will be determined by your ability to build and maintain relationships. That's awesome. I took a lot of notes, Bill. I'm looking down, I'm writing notes. If you're not building relationships, you're not building a business.

That's, that's awesome. You're not building. Uh, something else I do is try to take customers and make them into advocates. That's powerful. Uh, so I try to get the customers that are good to go out and sell the company, then sell our company themselves.

So making customers advocates is very important. So it's not just me. I literally think we have thousands of advocates across 12 states that are, that are ever, that are advocating for our companies and our people every day. That's something we tried to do. That's awesome.

How about a favorite book or a favorite book you read recently? Uh, well, probably not, maybe not recently, but How to Win Friends and Influence People is a very good book from a long time. Is that Carnegie, I think? No. Yeah.

The L. Carnegie. Uh, it's not, uh, and, and, uh, Bob Bodine has a book called The Power of Who. It's more or less, uh, it's a Christian, Christian concept. So he would say, if you have, you have one friend you're liking, uh, if you have five friends, you're, uh, you're, uh, you're really blessed.

If you have 12 friends, you can change the world. Wow. So the power of using people, you know, to build and connect you with the relationships you need to create your future success. It's all about making the apps. You've got to ask me, uh, uh, you can't, it just doesn't come.

You, you deal with people and you think, well, they're not in the title business. Obviously they would send me business. They'll send it to me originally. No, have a, uh, get comfortable having uncomfortable moments with people. That's all.

Absolutely. Uh, it's typically when you say, Hey, uh, I want you to commit to me and you're going to send me that deal, uh, somewhere or your business, but I always make the ask. When a business coach, one of my favorite sales coach, uh, one of my favorite sales coach is about a long time ago. And I said that the number one lesson in sales, ask questions, ask questions, ask for the business, ask, always ask just along with the concepts you just talked about asking. Yeah.

You'll find that a lot of people think they're in the business of supplying data or graphics or being, uh, running committees. Uh, but they're really not. And nobody rewards somebody for putting a successful charitable event on by sending their business. This is the set word people asking for the business. That's busy work.

Focus, focus on relationships, focusing on asking for the business. And I made pretty quickly too. or being running committees, but they're really not, and nobody rewards somebody for putting a successful charitable event on by sending their business. This is the set where people asking for the business. That's busy work.

Focus on relationships, focusing on asking for the business, and I mean pretty quickly too. That's awesome. Any last words of wisdom to our audience of talent agents? You can do it. You can be willing to pay the price you're willing to achieve.

You're not going to get an award for something that you don't pay the price for, but over time you'll be rewarded for the price that you've paid to achieve the level of success that you paid the price to get. Thank you so much, Bill. Well, Bill's story is a true testament to perseverance, vision, and the power of a strong team. Thank you for joining us.