January 2, 2026Brooke sits down with Tracy Hernly, a powerhouse realtor, team leader, broker owner, title company owner, and race car driver who leads the #1 team by units sold in the Greater Lansing area. Tracy shares her incredible journey from mortgage processing to opening her own brokerage during COVID, revealing the hard-won lessons about leadership, team building, and maintaining work-life balance while scaling multiple businesses. She opens up about her early leadership struggles, including high turnover rates and a “rough” bedside manner that she had to transform to build a thriving culture. Tracy discusses how she leveraged her racing background to carve out a unique niche in rural real estate, why clarity is kindness in leadership, and how implementing core values and mission statements changed everything for her team. She also shares practical advice on community involvement, client events, organic team growth, and why she’s focusing on recruiting and refining systems in 2026. This episode is packed with real talk about the messy middle of business growth, the importance of knowing your “why,” and how to build a sustainable business that doesn’t sacrifice your family or personal passions.
Chapters:
- (00:00:00) – Opening: Tracy’s Journey from Mortgage Processing to Real Estate Success
- (00:02:00) – Making the Leap: Leaving a Steady Paycheck for Real Estate
- (00:04:00) – Building the #1 Team by Units Sold in Greater Lansing
- (00:06:00) – The First Hire: Why Tracy Needed an Assistant to Scale
- (00:09:00) – Leadership Growing Pains: Learning to Manage People and Expectations
- (00:13:00) – Clarity is Kindness: Transforming Leadership Through Accountability
- (00:17:00) – Building Culture Through Core Values and Mission Statements
- (00:20:00) – Community Involvement: Racing Events, Cookies with Santa, and Local Leadership
- (00:25:00) – The Racing Realtor: How Tracy Found Her Niche in Rural Real Estate
- (00:30:00) – Looking Ahead: 2026 Goals, Recruiting Focus, and Work-Life Balance
Links and Resources:
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Episode breakdown: leading staff, agents and a culture by the same standard
Tracey Hernly got her real estate license in 2013 after years in mortgage processing, as an assistant to a real estate attorney, and running a title company. She now leads a team that sits number one in units sold in the Greater Lansing area, runs her own brokerage, and owns a title company. In this conversation she explains how she went from solo agent to leader, what she had to change about how she manages people, and how she keeps one set of standards across all three businesses.
Make the first hire the one that keeps you selling
Tracey’s first hire as a solo agent was an assistant. The paperwork and the details weren’t where her time was best spent, and she knew it. Her shorthand for where it should go is STP: see the people. The assistant took the back office so she could stay in front of clients.
She didn’t set out to build a team. Three or four years into the business she was working around the clock and couldn’t keep up. A new agent named Sarah, who had moved from Texas, kept showing up at her open houses and asking whether Tracey needed help and wanted to start a team. After several no’s, Tracey said yes. Sarah became her first teammate in 2016 and is still with her today. In 2019, after the brokerage she started at was acquired and the culture shifted, Tracey opened her own.
Lead salaried staff differently from agents
The surprise in leadership wasn’t the agents. As 1099 contractors, agents get recommendations, not required office hours. Staff on payroll were different, and Tracey held them to stringent expectations. She calls her early bedside manner rough. She held herself to a very high standard, expected the same from employees, and delivered feedback bluntly. Not everyone could take it, and turnover followed.
She kept the standard and changed the delivery. Her coach at the time, Matt Smith, pushed her to see that her leadership had to grow, including how she held people accountable and how clearly she explained what she expected. His phrase “clarity is kindness” stuck. She also points to the RISE class with Mia and its focus on exactly what to say and how to deliver it, which she now recommends to her agents.
Coach to the mission statement, not to your mood
When a staff member or agent isn’t meeting expectations, Tracey doesn’t make it about herself. Her companies share one mission statement and one set of core values, posted in every office, including the title company. Everyone is held to the same standard, so everyone can see when someone isn’t toeing the line.
So I coach them to our mission statement and our core values. And that has made that clarity very simple for me as a leader.
Tracey Hernly
The conversation becomes simple. This is the mission, these are the values, we didn’t line up with them this time, and we can do better. Tracey says that framing removes her personally from the equation, along with the feelings that make accountability hard. Suneet explores the same idea in his piece on how team culture is defined by what you tolerate.
And then it takes me outta the equation. And it also takes any feelings outta the equation.
Tracey Hernly
Open every sales meeting with core-value shoutouts
Over the past year Tracey borrowed a practice from Michael Perna’s team meetings. The first thing on the agenda at her sales meetings is positive shoutouts, and each one has to tie to a core value. She hands out Starbucks cards for them. The routine rewards the behavior she wants and keeps the values in front of everyone every week.
Culture shows up in retention too. Tracey says she has little agent turnover, which she credits to strong direct relationships with the people who work with her. The cost is that direct access spreads her thin while she still lists and sells. Growth has been organic and slower than she wants, so her focus for 2026 is recruiting more consistently.
Build your niche and your community work around who you already are
Tracey races cars, and for years she kept that separate from real estate. At her first Inman conference she heard Boston Reed, a luxury agent in North Carolina who had worked as a NASCAR crew chief, talk about building a business on a world he already knew. She decided to become the racing realtor. She understands why those buyers need garage space and certain power supplies, and she specializes in rural property with big pole barns, including what they’re worth and what they cost to build or replace.
Her community work follows the same rule. She sits on her township’s planning and zoning commission, is a past president of the Greater Lansing Association of Realtors, and coaches basketball. The team aims for two client events a year: one at the local racetrack, where she usually races, and Cookies with Santa, a themed event with gift baskets and professional photos that works for kids and adults alike.
If you know who your people are and who you relate to, what you’re gonna enjoy, then your job is gonna be a lot more naturally enjoyable and easier to build off of.
Tracey Hernly
Key takeaways for team leaders
- Make your first hire the person who takes the paperwork, so your own time goes to seeing the people.
- Hold the line on standards but change the delivery. Clear expectations, explained well, keep staff from walking out.
- Write down a mission statement and core values, post them where everyone works, and coach to them instead of to your opinion.
- Start sales meetings with shoutouts tied to a core value, and reward them so the habit sticks.
- Build your niche, your client events and your community roles around what you already know and enjoy.
- Expect to make mistakes early. Learn from them, don’t lose much time on them, and move on.
