Twiddy & Company Realtors
How it began
Twiddy & Company Realtors was founded in 1978 on a vision, built amongst friends around an oyster shucking table, to make homeownership a reality for people who loved the Outer Banks but didn’t currently live there. As the Outer Banks became an internationally known destination, it became a great place for families to vacation and, in turn, a great place for homeowners to profitably invest in a home as an operating company. Twiddy & Co. partners with more than one thousand homeowners and welcomes hundreds of thousands of guests annually to the Outer Banks.
As a vacation rental management company, the mission of Twiddy & Co. is to provide superb property management to their homeowners and an exceptional Outer Banks vacation experience to their guests. The satisfaction of both parties is critical to creating fruitful relationships and continued success.
Did you know that the Outer Banks is within a day’s drive for 60% of the United States population? In addition to its proximity to many major metropolitan areas, the Outer Banks natural environment remains one of the most unique on Earth and it is a wonderful place for families. These are a few of the reasons why Twiddy & Co. knew they would have an opportunity for growth in this market.
Almost 45 years since its creation, Twiddy & Co. remains in some ways identical to the day they started – people-focused, long-term driven, and a culture that is built on trust amongst their clients, customers and staff. They strongly believe that taking care of their own people will, in turn, help their team take care of customers. While so much has changed since 1978, their commitment to delivering southern hospitality to every guest and homeowner remains the same.
Competitive marketplace
The real estate industry is a fiercely competitive space. Whether it’s national firms digitally aggregating demand in the form of Airbnb or local firms down the street competing with different philosophies on risks, returns, and time horizons, Twiddy & Co. recognizes the intense competition. Their strategy within the market is to always create value for their customers and remain agile in an ever-changing marketplace.
Another important part of Twiddy’s differentiation from competitors is their focus on quality. In addition to focusing on stunning homes located along the ocean, Twiddy & Co. believes wholeheartedly that when you blend a personal and trusted relationship with clients to a truly quality traveler experience, they will be in the best position to create value across market cycles.
Entrepreneurial DNA
Despite Twiddy & Co’s relatively small size, they remain entrepreneurial at their core. Much of their career pathing and talent thinking is based simply on walking around the offices and listening at an individual level. More broadly, the company is committed to meeting their employees where they are and walking alongside them in their professional journey, however far they choose to go. The team at Twiddy & Co. lives by the idea that they are limited only by their ideas, their agility to meet them and their commitment as a team to meeting those ideas. At a practical level, team members relish the conversations that begin with the question “Where would you like to go and how can we help you get there?”
In terms of recruitment, like all great firms, Twiddy & Co. is always looking for great people. They emphasize recruiting college interns with the hope that the best among them will choose to work for the company full time. The existing reputation as a great place to work is the single best attribute in Twiddy’s recruiting efforts, according to leadership.
The importance of relationships
Twiddy & Co. has learned a great deal on its journey to success in the Middle Market. It’s easy for a company to say that the solution to wanting to grow is simply hiring and retaining great people. However, to actually do that well takes an enormous amount of intentionality over many years. Twiddy & Co. has recognized this and understands that great talent thinking is reflected in the allocation of always finite resources to people first.
The company also embraces a high degree of transparency with customers, particularly around the remarkable amount of uncertainty in the world of real estate. Consistent communication across channels about what is happening at Twiddy & Co., as well as transparency about mistakes, has helped them stay relevant and connected to customers.
Twiddy & Co. has also intentionally broadened their business ecosystem to gain more perspective, build better relationships and link their business to other operating entities as a reflection of the community at large. That way, when these crises occur, Twiddy already has a resilient and trusted network with which to share information, highlight challenges and build situational awareness.
Lastly, it’s always been important for Twiddy & Co. to know their customers as people first. The ability to engage with them directly and with a commitment to learn from them has always been the proverbial “secret sauce”.
What lies ahead
During the pandemic, Twiddy & Co. made it a priority to stay focused on their customers and their team members. This allowed them to remain a trusted source of successful travel experience amongst their customers. As a business that has been rooted in personal interactions for more than 40 years, the intersection of the pandemic and technology has challenged the nature of Twiddy & Co.’s personal interactions. It’s vitally important for the company to be able to maintain relevance and build trust digitally to create value for others. This transition has been and will remain a key area of strategic thinking.
More broadly, the travel and tourism industry has been profoundly impacted by the pandemic. Despite the hardships that ensued, many destination areas have seen stunning demand for travel. Twiddy & Co. went through several cycles where forecasting with any certainty was nearly impossible, and then, once demand did arrive, they had a difficult time meeting it with the level of service they pride themselves on. The team at Twiddy & Co. consistently watches national and global trends in the industry and recognizes that change is the only real constant. Despite the constant change, they also know that the strengths of their team and community will define who they are and who they want to be as a firm.
Continuing to learn from their own team and remarkably vibrant homeowner community is something Twiddy & Co. is excited about moving forward. One of their goals is to become a market leader in the Outer Banks and that means consistently strong experiences for their clients, customers, and staff.
Looking ahead, Twiddy plans to continue to develop digital capacity, learn quickly from mistakes, and make people the absolute priority. Clark Twiddy, President of Twiddy & Co., stated: “I can think of no higher compliment than this – I’d love to be able to say that we create the best weeks of our customers lives for our guests, that we earn the loyalty and trust of our homeowner community and, for our own staff, they feel as though they have traded a day of their life for something worthwhile. I know that is not a notion that we’d typically see as a strategic discussion. At the same time, if those three things are true, we will inevitably grow well beyond what we are today.”