Today we’d like to introduce you to Andrea and Kyle Vorachek.
Hi Andrea and Kyle, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
We both actually started out in the printing industry working for a large national printer. We met at a sales training back in 2008 in Chicago. Andrea was living in Omaha and Kyle was living in the Twin Cities. After both working at the same company for about two years, things weren’t looking great for printing after the financial crisis of 2009.
Kyle made the leap to construction as a sales representative first and Andrea followed in the same role a year later. We both have carpenters in our families so it seemed like a natural fit and it really was. We both achieved really well in sales at the company to the point that we both advanced into management roles within a few short years. The company we worked for was a rapidly growing company and we were fortunate to be a big part of the reason for that growth.
Kyle was drawn towards sales management and helping to open additional locations for the company nationally and Andrea trended towards working on managing relationships with the many corporate partners of the company. Our roles took us to Chicago, Indianapolis, and eventually Denver where we helped open a large division for the company. It was this experience that taught us the most about running a successful organization because we had to more or less build one from the ground up. When you do something like this you are faced with challenges in all phases of a business and we definitely experienced some growing pains along the way. One of the biggest things we really took away from this was that leadership has to be earned, not granted as well as how critical emotional intelligence is in today’s workplace.
After spending over a year helping get the Denver location off the ground, we opted to come back to MN. We missed our friends, the city, and the church we had attended for a long time (River Valley Church).
Andrea had a feeling that she wasn’t doing something that she loved and could be her best version of herself in. She had always wanted to do real estate. She even had floated the notion during one of our first dates. She decided to leave the organization we were with and get her realtor’s license. It was a pretty big risk leaving a job with a secure paycheck but very soon after she started it became apparent that real estate was one of her callings in life.
Kyle continued to work for what was now a large construction company for another year and a half. After seeing Andrea’s success venturing out her own it gave him the confidence to do the same so he joined Neighborly Property Group to start up a construction division of the company.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
We are firm believers that everything worth doing is going to be challenging. We like to look at challenges ultimately as opportunities to grow and be better in the future. We have taken that to heart while building this business and have actually been surprised that some of the challenges we have faced aren’t the ones we would have expected.
As is happening with many companies in both the real estate and remodeling industries there is an abundance of work out there right now. We have had to be really intentional about building systems, processes, and procedures, as well as almost immediately hiring and training some amazing employees to help provide a positive customer experience and excellent final outcome. This has actually been a really fun process as I don’t think we realized the number of people we would get to impact positively through our business.
On the real estate side right now the BIG challenge is the lack of inventory. It has made it a very competitive market and difficult for many homeowners to find homes. Thankfully through our experience, intuition, and knowledge of the process our clients have had amazing success finding homes they love in these challenging times.
Personally, one of the bigger things we face is having to work all hours of the day and night while we try and scale our business. Days, nights, weekends, each of us is on-call at all hours to help our customers. This doesn’t leave much margin for quality time together but it has just made us be more intentional about making the time we do spend together more impactful and meaningful .
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Neighborly Property Group?
We started Neighborly Property Group after having a few experiences in real estate and a lot of experience in construction that left us underwhelmed. The customer is just a number and a means to money mentality is pretty rampant in both of our industries and we wanted to change that. We really value customer relationships and wanted a business that focused on that instead of just the bottom line.
We have three separate divisions of our company to help serve our customer’s needs.
The first is Real Estate. We currently have three very talented agents (including Andrea) who help clients with buying and selling their homes. A big differentiator on this side of our business is the professionalism and genuine care and concern we have for helping clients find a home that is going to be a great fit for them and within their budget. Home Staging is another value add that we provide for our clients and have seen dramatic results with the sale price and speed at which our client’s homes sell.
The second is Remodeling. We do all kinds of amazing work with this division and we wanted to have it as a creative outlet so we could really do some exceptional projects for customers. Our remodeling division does kitchens, bathrooms, whole home remodels, additions, etc. If you can dream it, we can build it.
Finally, we have our Restoration division. This division specializes in helping customers affected by hail and wind storms have their homes repaired. We work directly with insurance companies to repair their roofs, siding, windows, and gutters. We have some major partners we work with here including Owens Corning, GAF, Pella, Marvin, and LP Smartside just to name a few.
We are really proud of some of the remodeling & restoration projects we have completed for our customers. With an eye for design, we have been able to transform their homes into something they can be incredibly proud of and take extra joy in whenever they walk through their front door.
What would you say have been one of the most important lessons you’ve learned?
The most important lesson we have learned along our journey is that you have to live life with your hands open. You can’t have a scarcity mindset but a mindset of giving. This is why we started our company with the foundational principle of giving 10% of our profits back to charity every year. We believe firmly that the local and global community needs to share in the successes we achieved as a business.
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected] | [email protected]
- Website: www.neighborlymn.com
- Instagram: @neighborly_mn
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/neighborlymn
Image Credits
Lund Solutions (@LundSolutions)
