Is Title Insurance Boring—or Mission Critical? Inside TitleEQ with Matthew Einheber

In this episode of the Be The Solution Podcast, host Maria Quattrone sits down with Matthew Einheber, founder and CEO of TitleEQ, for a deep, eye-opening conversation about why title insurance is one of the most misunderstood—but most critical—parts of a real estate transaction.

Most people think title is paperwork. Matt explains why that assumption is dangerous.

From broken chains of title and hidden liens to underwriting judgment calls and last-minute problem solving, this episode reveals what actually happens behind the scenes—and why the difference between a good title company and a bad one can make or break a deal.

This conversation is about:

• Leadership and standards
• People over process
• Value vs. time
• Why regulated pricing doesn’t mean commoditized service
• How experience solves problems money can’t

If you are a homebuyer, investor, real estate agent, or broker, this episode will completely change how you view title insurance. 

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

• Why Title Insurance Is Not “Boring”
• Why Fixed Pricing Creates a False Sense of Equality
• The Role of Leadership in High-Stakes Businesses
• Why Experience Is Priceless
• People Beat Systems Every Time
• Why Title Is a High-Frequency, High-Pressure Business
• Extraordinary as a Word—and a Standard

Best Quotes 

Matthew Einheber:

“If you have great people, they’ll solve problems that no system can.”

Maria Quattrone:

“Title isn’t paperwork. If you can’t provide clear title, the deal doesn’t close.”

Guest Information

Matthew Einheber
Founder & CEO — TitleEQ
National settlement services & title operations

Connect with Maria Quattrone:
Facebook: Maria Quattrone
LinkedIn: Maria Quattrone
YouTube: Maria Quattrone
Instagram: @maria_quattrone
TikTok: mariaquattronerealestate
Website: MQrealesate.com
Office number: 215- 607-3535

Transcript

Leadership Sets The Standard

Maria Quattrone 0:00

Welcome friends. This is the Be the Solution podcast. And I'm Maria Quatronne and I am excited today to talk with Matt Einheber. And I really appreciate you guys coming on and listening. And today's going to be a special story. Um which, you know, it's interesting because people think the title insurance business is just everybody's the same. It's boring. Why do we need title? Well, Matt Matt founded title eq. He's a CEO. And we're gonna dive deep into title today. And actually, some really fascinating stories. So, Matt, I have a quote for you this morning. Uh, I came up with for you, and it is how you do one thing is how you do everything.

Matthew Einheber 0:57

I agree with that a lot. Good morning, Maria, by the way. How are you?

Maria Quattrone 1:01

Welcome to the show.

Matthew Einheber 1:02

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Maria Quattrone 1:03

You're a first-time guest.

Matthew Einheber 1:05

That's right. I'm excited and I appreciate it. Um, and I agree with that too.

Maria Quattrone 1:09

So, yeah, how you do one thing is how you do everything.

Matthew Einheber 1:13

Yeah, yeah.

Maria Quattrone 1:14

And you know, a lot of people don't understand what that means.

Matthew Einheber 1:18

It's how you show up everywhere, right? Um, and it's also, I think about it in terms of leadership, it's how you it's it just resonates to like lead by example, right? And and that's the truth, right? You can't say, and I it's amazing to me how many people don't do that well, but I guess because they're just there's not a genuine thing there. If you're a leader inside of an operation, you gotta be an operator, you know. And if you're not really truly like, you know, in your blood an operator, you probably don't belong, you know, you're not in the right space for you, whatever that is.

Maria Quattrone 1:52

But um, you know, if you want to or you gotta hire an operator, yeah, or you have to hire an operator, which is fine because yeah, some of us are sales and some of us are operations, but you need both to make a business work.

Culture, Accountability, And Firing Jerks

Matthew Einheber 2:05

No, agree. A thousand percent agreed. I mean, you gotta you have to lead by example. If you want people to be honest, you have to be an honest person. You have to do what you say you're gonna do, those things. Um, otherwise you get, you know, you it really is like leadership from the top down. And it's amazing how big organizations, right? If you look at some of them, are how big they can get and still have a culture that's trickled down from one person that sits at the top. If you look at organizations like you know, like like Amazon and Tesla, that's changed now, maybe a little bit, but how large those companies did grow, Google with while there was still a person or maybe two people at the top that were still the culture resonated off of them, and companies were still kind of dependent on them. Small businesses think, oh my god, my business is dependent on my on the leader or the on the founder of the company, and that's dangerous. And it is, but it's amazing how there's a there's something to that. Companies get quite large and they're still can still be very dependent on on their founder or the leadership of one person. So it's kind of interesting.

Maria Quattrone 3:06

Yeah, standards and principles come back to us the standards and principles of the leader, and then you can't run a business on feelings, right? So what's good for one is good for all. We so often, especially in the real estate industry, there's special rules for special people. Right. And then that's really that's bad for a culture, yeah.

When Cities And Companies Lose Their Way

Matthew Einheber 3:34

No, I agree. And there's uh, I mean, if you're familiar with Gary V at all, who's you know, just talks a lot on the internet, and yeah, he he has something where he's like fire the asshole. I don't even say asshole on here, but I will. Um, that you have you thank you. You have to do that if you have an asshole who's performing, no matter how much they're performing, it doesn't matter the destruction that they're causing, right, with other people and what that will cost your organization now and in the future is so costly that even if they're a super high performer, you can't have them if they're a jerk. And um, you know, I think it's very true. And I I was somewhere the other day and I was thinking about cities and cities like I don't mean to call out any city, but like Camden, New Jersey, for example, and how um it's similar there, right? So this is like a human condition where you know, if you get bad or corrupt leadership for all 10 years for one stretch of time, to then try to fix that, you know, and is so hard. It doesn't take 10 years. Like it's once it goes down a road of like that, you have a culture of people who like, oh, this is how it is. We don't care, we can extract money from our citizens, we can take without giving as much. Like it's so difficult to turn a, you know, in that case, a community around. Um, and and and that's why you see a lot of cities and a lot of smaller that have had, you know, those kind of like political troubles or you know, corruption or whatever in our area, Chester, you know, and they're otherwise potentially really they should be thriving areas, they're not because culturally, like they can't turn them around, and it's very, very difficult to get out of that situation once you're in it. It's easy to get in it, it's hard to get out, you know.

Maria Quattrone 5:15

It's not like a marriage, yeah.

Matthew Einheber 5:18

Or like Warren Buffett says, right? Where what do you say says something like, you know, you can it takes 30 years to build a reputation and 10 minutes to destroy it, right?

Maria Quattrone 5:26

It's true, yeah, it's true. And if you think about it, people, you know, I always say if they come for the money, they leave for the money. So, you know, no amount of money will make a relationship work. Let's look at Jeff Bezos, let's look at sure Bill Gates, right? No amount of money will make a relationship work because if it did, there wouldn't be divorces at when you're a billionaire.

Matthew Einheber 5:51

Yeah.

Maria Quattrone 5:52

And you think about that because every person, whether they work in my organization or yours, they could go somewhere and get a better deal.

Matthew Einheber 6:02

Yeah, somebody's always gonna give them another nickel. Like that's always yeah, that compete that way if that's all you got, you know. Yeah.

Maria Quattrone 6:08

No, money, you can throw money at a problem for so long, and then it's a band-aid.

Matthew Einheber 6:15

Yeah, there's gotta be a pack, it's a package, of course, but it's gotta come as a package, right? Where you know, and people have to, I think about this too, and like people have to work somewhere, you know, and so it's either here or it's they're gonna go start their own business, which is what they're supposed to do, but it's either here or somewhere else. So give them the whole package of you know, make it as as make make job, make a company a place where they recognize and the kind of people also that are the type of people that are gonna recognize, you know, that like, hey, this is a great gig, you know, and I've got it good here, and all the pieces are balanced, you know, like every you know, and um it just sense to be here and it, you know, and this is better than anywhere else. That's it, you know.

Money Isn’t Culture

Maria Quattrone 7:00

Yeah, you know, I think about think about myself, you know. When as you know, we I have my Remax office, my own office I own for 12 years, and I basically am in the process of closing it down, or I already moved my license to LPT Realty. Congratulations, yeah. Thanks. And you know why? Why it came down to leadership because at the end of the day, would it have been cheaper for me to just be Maria Quatron Real Estate or whatever? Sure, but you want to be around other like-minded people, you know, it comes and you want to make a decision, you have to think comes in the leadership. Is the person that you're following? Are they doing the work? Right, are they in the trenches? Are they you know supporting what the mission is? In this case, LPT stands for listing power tools. Now, you know, as you know, I'm a listing broker, right? 192 listings last year. Probably a good thing to have listing power tools as part of their focus, you're my solution, right? As a part of it, it's not all of it, right? It's a part of it, yeah, and so you know, it's the same thing in any organization. It's like, what is the leadership?

Matthew Einheber 8:25

Yeah, yeah, agreed a thousand percent. Where's their focus? And you said it'd be in the trenches, you know, and that doesn't mean the same job for everybody because you know, the CEO of a company with you know, a few hundred people or thousands of people, or dozens of people for that matter, shouldn't be necessarily doing the same, you know. They have the things that they should be focusing on every day, you know, and doing that are different than than maybe others in the organization, but um, but the trenches are their trenches, you know what I mean? You're that's right.

Maria Quattrone 8:53

The trenches are the trenches that you're in at that moment in time, yeah, yeah. And it changes, yeah, because you might be in business development as a CEO or and then you might be doing more CEO work, right? You know, you might in the beginning be in sales too, because that's what you need to do to survive and build. Yeah, yeah, doesn't matter. You know, title insurance, everybody's it's a regulated thing in the state of Pennsylvania.

Matthew Einheber 9:20

Every state.

Maria Quattrone 9:21

Okay, good. Well, I always just said the state of Pennsylvania because it was a regulated thing. How do EQ title title EQ, excuse me?

Matthew Einheber 9:32

Yeah.

Maria Quattrone 9:32

Differentiate yourself.

Why Price-Fixed Title Still Varies

How Matt Entered Title

Matthew Einheber 9:34

You know, that's a little bit goes back to makes me think of how I got into this business in the first place because there's pros and cons to being in a business where the price is fixed, right? Because you know, you remember the pyramid, right? You learned about this maybe in college, you can went to business school or took anything, like it's speed and quality, right? And you get to pick two of them, like you can never have all three, right? You get to pick two. That's that's right, the thing, right? So when price is fixed, you know, there's there's to that, it's a business, right? We don't have to discount our price, you know, we don't have to um you know uh compete on the price, right? Everybody's the same price, so it takes one thing out of the equation. So that's there's you know, and and our arms are kind of locked in because we can't you know negotiate that price. So that's a good thing in running a business, uh, but it's also a bad thing. It it kind of further commoditizes you know what we do. And you would think, like logically, that what it would do is make service and quality like way better, right? And be more way more competitive in the business because you can't compete on price. So the only thing you compete on is service and quality. So you would think that that can be really strong. And so it's not surprising to me any more, but it's it's right. If you know, if you're a realtor, if you're in the business and you work with title companies and you've been doing that a while and you've worked with many of them, you probably know that you know there's there's a lot of bad operators out there. There's a lot of bad title companies. It's really good to find a good one and it's easy to find a bad one. And so um, that's that's it sounds like real estate. Yeah, oh 100%. Yeah, it's the same thing. It's probably everything, honestly. Like if you really think about it, it's probably every, you know, go hire an attorney. There's a trillion attorneys in the world, and it's easy to find a mediocre attorney, and you know, to find a really, really good attorney who's you know who's who's not gonna rip you off and you know, and and up a lot of hours and then send you a bill that's a surprise, and who's actually gonna, you know, be focused and have the time to focus on your case, you know, or your situation and not be overbooked and overwhelmed and run the business poorly. Like, find that is not that easy, you know. Like, and when you find it, by the way, like that's a partner that you have in business as a vendor, as a partner, like you know, hold on to that person because that's you know, they're not easy to find. So, I mean, that's how I kind of got in the business in the first place way back in 2000 and well, way back in 2002 and three, I was selling mortgages and I worked for a lender, and um, we had an that company that I worked for had a relationship with a title company, an affiliated business arrangement, and um they they that good. I mean, I was kind of stunned at how at and I'm like, the price is fixed, why it should be in a and they weren't performed that well, and I had you know, I there was money lost, you know, that was kind of on them, um, settlements that didn't happen that were like title, you know, stupid things, you know, like scheduling problems, and you know, that that should have closed. I had enough of those, and I it was a really successful company, and the I got to know the guy who was running who owned the company a little bit, and he was really lucrative for him. So I'm like, it's a good business, and this guy stinks. So if that's what's out there, then I can do better than that. So um that's kind of what got me into this business in the first place. It's been a long, long road, like a lot of the roller coaster up and down of 20 years, um, and a lot of stuff has happened since then, and I kind of found myself in the business. But you know, I don't consider myself to be a title guy, like I know a lot, but um I've spent my 10,000 hours in the operations of the business of title, you know, um, which is different than then the you know, and I know the technical side of the business, but like the technical side of of clearance and curative and escrow, these things are the business a technical business. Title's a technical business, you know. Um, it's a weird one in so many ways. I can go on all day about how this business is very unique, it's different. And I I have searched the world over for an industry that I can do a parallel, right? That I think is similar because I don't want to reinvent the way, let me find out what works for them and you know, how you know, and and copy it or learn from it. And um, I haven't found one, but but I'll give you this nugget, which is interesting, that like it's a very technical business, it takes years to really understand and learn, you know, um, and how to function really well as a title escrow officer or an underwriter or whatever. Many people are attorneys, but you know, just having a law degree isn't you know isn't enough. You really have to dig into the specialty. But there's no way to get into this business, there's no school for it, it's not a major in college, there's no way to study, there is no educational offering, and it's not visible, right? So, like when you grew up, you knew what a realtor was, you know, you knew what a doctor or or a bus driver or a lawyer, like you knew what these things were, and you could decide, you know, you they were visible, and you can say, nurse, that sounds interesting. I want to go be that. Um, and that's how people get interested in stuff, you know, or they meet somebody like, oh, my friends are go intern there and you learn whatever. Title is not, there's no, you know what's what it is, you know, there's no one who knows what a title examiner is. So people end up in this business by accident. Um, and there's uh not enough of a flow of new people coming into the business because of that. And so um, you know, it's there's a lot of interesting dynamics in this industry um that are that are really, really unique. But the there's a thing that I'm reading that says title is boring, or is it, you know, it like I think that that's the convention people that you know people don't know and understand what we do frequently, mostly. Um, and I think that's the sort of you know, I think that's the conventional like title. They don't understand the value of it and really what we're doing.

Maria Quattrone 15:12

Um it's super important because if you can't provide clear title, the deal ain't closing.

Matthew Einheber 15:18

It's it's crux.

Maria Quattrone 15:19

It's not simple.

Title’s Hidden Complexity

Matthew Einheber 15:20

And I it's an interesting business too. Like, what's interesting about this business, I think a lot of people don't realize if you really don't think about it, but it's a very, very paced high frequency kind of you know environment. And you know, you we're we're closing a volume of real estate transactions. These are the most important things and anybody's on the residential side of our business, you know, these are people generally buying their homes mostly. And, you know, they're it's the most important purchase they've ever made, one of the most expensive and complex purchases they've ever made. And on the commercial side of things, you know, we're dealing with large transactions in the tens or in the hundreds of millions of dollars, even and um, or sometimes more. And and um these are also large deal, even for you know for pros, you know, for attorneys that do deals like that all the time, it's still you're doing a hundred million dollar deal, it's a hundred million. So, you know, these are important things and and a lot of urgency, frequency, you know, this is um and it it's well like people that are in the hospitality industry, right? Um, you know, that work in restaurants, I but from a personality and that kind of like a wavelength and and frequency kind of match, it's a really good fit for people like that because there's always action, you know, it's it's action. This is not like boring insurance, you know what I mean? This is uh and the word insurance doesn't really belong in title. I think it's poorly named. Um, you know, I think we should reinvent the name for title insurance, a bad name. I I think that would help. The branding would help if you actually start a campaign to rename the industry.

Maria Quattrone 16:48

It's gotta be first. Yeah, there always has to be someone who puts their flag down.

Matthew Einheber 16:54

Yep, yeah. We gotta figure out how to make people associate it with some I'm gonna I'm gonna think about that. It's gonna inspire me to think about how to do that.

Maria Quattrone 17:01

Put the flag down. Yeah, yeah. So we engage you guys to work with us and pull um, we order title now at the time of not the agreement of sale, but of time of signing a listing contract.

Matthew Einheber 17:14

Yeah.

Maria Quattrone 17:15

And part of that is, you know, in 2025, we had many, unfortunately, transactions, several, I should say, that didn't close because of title. Because not because title could not be cleared.

Matthew Einheber 17:30

Yeah.

Maria Quattrone 17:31

Let me be clear, it could not be cleared, meaning they owe too much money.

Matthew Einheber 17:36

Yeah.

Maria Quattrone 17:37

That on liens and judgments and past bills, or there was a break in title and they couldn't find the person from before who had to sign off on the title in order for the next deal to close. Right. And this is very, very wrong. Um, you know, as a buyer, you want to make sure that you understand that, you know, up front. I would think, like, as a buyer, if I'm buying a home, I want to know like, is this deal gonna happen? And some of these deals in Philadelphia, you know, you're talking about buying something for let's just say it's an investment property and it's like whatever, 150 grand. You pull title and the property they owe between past liens and judgments or whatever, an old odor, a myriad of things.

Matthew Einheber 18:31

Sure.

Fast Pace And High Stakes

Maria Quattrone 18:31

Can't close and they don't have the money, and they just let the property go. And but what about the buyer who made plans or you know, we just had this happen where um they had ordered a soil test, whatever they ordered for this lot, and the buyer ended up spending a couple grand, and the type the seller couldn't provide them clear title. Yeah, like so I look at it and say, let's be proactive, let's know up front if we're dealing, because in fact, we have one right now, Matt, with you guys um on Willington, where we had it on the market, we were renting it and selling it because it's a duplex, and there's a problem with title, like it has to be fixed or it won't be sold, and it could take six months to fix it. And so we pulled it off the market, we put it as TL temporarily with like off because the worst thing is okay, you put it under contract, the buyer does their due diligence, they spend money, we spend time, everybody spends time and money, and then we find out usually a week before closing that there's a big problem and that title has to be delayed six months. Yeah, who wants that? That's not a good Google review, that's a bad Google review. So there's like a lot of little nuances that pop it in title, you know. All of a sudden there's an old mortgage from 1993 that you guys gotta go find the person who was the underwriter. Like, I don't think a lot of people even understand what title is.

Order Title At Listing

Matthew Einheber 20:16

No, there's a lot of problems to solve. You have to be creative. I mean, there's no question about it. There's a creativity in this business and a problem solving, you know, puzzle solving kind of a mind that that's you know that has to go to work in this business. There's different elements, right? There's yeah, we have people that on a team, it's all they do is clear and cure title. And when I find my there's there's like I always say there's two different kinds of I hate to say it break it down, but there's there's a range, and then there's the book ends of that range, there's two different kinds of people in this business, right? Which is you know, people who love solving problems, solving puzzles, riddles, like because that's very much all the things you're saying in the clear and curative side of the business. And we have people that do just that all day long, and then there's you know, people who love the people side, they love to be at the table or talk to people, and like that they they love the human interaction and they're really great at that and the client success and getting back to people and sure everyone knows what's going on and like the you know, and the flow of the deals. Um, and that's a different personality, usually. And so, you know, we break things down and break our teams down in in a way so that people are focused on what they're best at, you know, most of the time. But yeah, there's definitely like you said, it's it's fast paced, and I agree that there's there's a problem-solving business, you know, because there's always problems. I mean, there's all every single deal, there's something, and sometimes it's small and it's easy to solve, and we've seen it a million times we know what to do, and sometimes it's not so small, and sometimes it's maybe it's not so easy, you know, and they're having to you know go to the well and figure out or negotiate with our underwriter or figure out how to reduce and manage our exposure so that we can convince our underwriter or make a business decision about moving forward with the transaction. Um, how do we, you know, how do we keep you on track and not put Postpone the deal while you know, can we hold an escrow for this weird lien that we can't get a payoff for? Or, you know, can we find the you know per the grandmom who you know sold the property, it's breaking the chain. Can we find that person? Maybe sometimes, you know, sometimes we're like private detectives. That happens, right? Where we act as private eyes on a deal so that we can track people down or whatever. So it's it's solution-based. We very much have to come up with solutions that aren't in a playbook. It's not like do this and you know, next step or whatever. We got to be creative, we got to think about how we solve the problems.

Maria Quattrone 22:36

I think it's critical in our industry that people see, they think we're all dime a dozen. Realtors are all the same, yeah, titles all the same. It could be so far from the truth.

Matthew Einheber 22:49

It's amazing that people think that actually, because a commodity, right? They do is gold is a commodity. That is all the same. But that is true, yeah.

Maria Quattrone 22:59

And it's very expensive, right?

Matthew Einheber 23:01

Yeah.

unknown 23:02

Yeah.

Curative Work And Creativity

Matthew Einheber 23:02

Well, yeah, no, that's but it's also true that you're right, people think that what we do, you and I, is is commoditized, which is strange because it's a service delivered by human beings. Human beings are vastly different. Obviously, you're going to get a different version of that depending on the human being that's delivering that. That seems pretty obvious to me. Um, and you know, I on the title side, I think people really don't understand what we do, and they think that it's they're you're damping papers and it's not, you know, a valuable thing. I think laymen think that. I mean, I think you know, or people that really don't know the the you are in the industry, the more experienced you are. Obviously, you need to understand you've had exposure and you know experience with with all of these kinds of cases, and you you get a better feel for how involved a title company is in the transaction, how critical these things are. But um, when it comes to realtors too, I don't you know, yeah, I I think the the advent of of the internet and technology and the MLS probably didn't help the perception from people that like you just post it on a website called the MLS, like anybody can do that, it's all the same there, and then there's people like find it, that's all. And you open a door and show that show it, you know, like how you know, and that feels commoditized, it feels like yeah, it's so funny.

Maria Quattrone 24:12

I've sold houses that I've never opened the door, I never showed it. I had well, I have a showing agent, right? So somebody who is licensed who can go and open doors because it's so not what we do.

Matthew Einheber 24:27

Sure, yeah.

Maria Quattrone 24:28

No, people hire. Why do they hire you? It's like, well, it's a relationship business. Yeah, I know how to get shit done, I know how to solve problems. You can't, there's not a dollar on that. There's not a amount of money that you can place on that. There's not amount of money that can replace my 33 years of sales and marketing experience and relationship building and dealing with people. Yeah, it's pr it's it's priceless.

Matthew Einheber 25:02

It's I have I have a friend who is a he's actually a professional sports agent. And he had a mentor when he was coming into the business who was a well-known, like, you know, kind of big time professional sports agent. And he told him a line that, like, he told me this years and years and years ago, and I like remember it, I just think it's great. That you know, when you start off, and this is true of any business, but when you start off, you're doing a hundred dollars worth of work and you're getting paid a penny. And and 20 years later, or whatever, you know, you're doing a penny's worth of work and you're getting paid a hundred dollars because you know, the the of of your, you know, now that what is a penny's worth of your time, but the value that you have to bring in that is worth really it's worth a hundred dollars, right? And so that's the that's the that's the thing that happens, right, over time with experience with something deep, like what we do.

Maria Quattrone 25:56

It really is. And it's like the story of the guy. This guy he fixes massive boats, ships, whatever. So this ship they're they're looking at it, they can't understand what is wrong with it. And they've been trying to fix this thing for a couple weeks, they can't fix it. They had all the people, and then somebody says, You gotta call this guy, specialist. So the guy comes in with his like toolbox, he goes over there and he goes, bangs things, something's around, hits a thing, da-da-da-da. 20 minutes later, he's like, It's fixed. And he's like, they're like, Well, how much is it? And he's like, It's a hundred thousand dollars. And they're like, What? It only took you 20 minutes, a half an hour. Yes, it took me 30 years to know how to do that in 20 minutes, a half an hour.

Matthew Einheber 26:50

Right. Yeah, hire other people and have they can figure it out so they can be able to figure it out.

Maria Quattrone 26:55

You went for your ship is not deployed, right? You have no people on the ship. Yeah, I figured it out. It doesn't like that's the whole point. Like, yeah, it's value, not time. What we do, you know, it's we because of the experience you have, you can figure things out quickly.

Matthew Einheber 27:13

Yeah.

Maria Quattrone 27:13

We we have to be paid for that.

Service Isn’t A Commodity

Matthew Einheber 27:15

Sure. Well, it's value, not time, and it's not only deserved, but like it's there. Like you'll, you know, sometimes you gotta fight for that's one of the that is I I I think that's one of the luxuries for sure of being in our business and the title business is that we don't have to negotiate over price, you know, and that's where it shows up. It that shows up in positive ways, it also can be negative. Again, that can be a uh a thing. Um, there's there's a lot of cons to that, but it's a nice thing on you know, on the business side. It can be sometimes um where we don't have to fight for price and we don't have to, you know, um well it comes down to two systems and processes.

Maria Quattrone 27:53

Like we have a lot of systems and processes for a reason, right? Sometimes, sometimes they fail because of humans, not because of the process.

Value Over Time, Not Minutes

Matthew Einheber 28:02

That's the thing. Like systems and processes are required, right? It's the baseline and it's important. And over the last 20 years, you know, there's been a ton of business education around like, aha, we need systems and processes, and there's EOS and there's all these, you know, systems to run your business and all these things, and they're all right, you know, and it's all the like, you know, good boy and good girl stuff to do, right? To you know, but at the end of the day, you have to have amazing people to execute these things. And I think that if you have the best systems and processes in the world and you have mediocre people, they'll find a way to screw things up. It's not gonna work. If you have the the if you have incomplete systems and processes that are imperfect and you have amazing people, they will generally figure it out and like you can trust that it's gonna be okay. And that doesn't mean you don't have this, you don't focus on the system process. You do. You have to have consistency and stuff, you have to have good communication, people have to be trained to know what they're doing. And and if they don't, by the way, then good people don't stay, right? You can't retain good people because a players and a organization and they want to work with other a players. So you you know it it will break, you know. If you bring over an A player and you're not an A player in running a company, they're gonna leave. You're not gonna keep A players, you're not gonna retract A players. So the all the things go together. You can't have one without the other. Um, but I've said to you this, I've said this to you before that like if I can choose one skill, one thing to be really, really good at and running the business, which is what I spend my time doing now, is running the business, right? Because we have this has grown and we have a real growing business, and I now it's the business of title, not just title for me personally, it's uh and vetting, finding, attracting the best people out there and and an organization that keeps that, but like having the best people. That's the thing. If I stink at everything else, if I'm too busy for you know, people are like, Oh, I'm so busy, I don't have time for this. I was with somebody recently and they were like talking about hiring someone for their company, and they were like, I just can't hire the right people, I'm just too busy to focus on that. And I thought, what are you busy doing? Like, what else are you doing? You're replying to email, you're getting back to your accountant because they need you to, you know, get 10, 90. Like it gets sales to do that, or if if you have to make choices about your time, to me, this is the thing I choose to spend my time on, and I'll I'll other stuff right for this and the right people and focusing on my people so that they're that they that they become the right people and they stay. Because everything else kind of will fall into place, you know, we'll be everything else be easy, you know. It really will if you have amazing people, they'll come up with the ideas, they'll say you forgot about this, they'll help you develop the systems and processes, they'll bring in new business that you know if you have the right people, like it all kind of everything else without you having to push every engine, you know.

Maria Quattrone 30:54

Always about the people, yeah, always about the people.

Matthew Einheber 30:58

Yeah, exactly.

Maria Quattrone 30:59

If you think about it, most of the day is spent dealing with a bunch of nonsense. Yeah, most of 20% of our effort produces 80%. So 20% output produces 80%. Yeah, I break it down really easy. Like when I'm on the phone talking to people, doing appointments, that's what produces listings. I'm on the phone or meeting with agents, that's what produces outcome. That's it.

Matthew Einheber 31:25

Yep. So and 80% of your time you're spent dealing with nonsense that's not that nonsense, right?

Maria Quattrone 31:32

Nonsense. Or, you know, I love how people you mention it, the accountant wants something, something that one wants. You know what I decided to start doing? Ignoring everybody.

Matthew Einheber 31:42

If you have to, that's exactly sometimes it's the same thing. Like, if I have to I look at it every and I'm like, I just like okay, I I what's I could do the important thing that's gonna move the needle, or I can get back to these 57 emails and spend my whole half a day doing that. Which am I gonna choose right now? And sometimes you have to get back to 57 email because but I'm like uh I find myself more and more like no, I choose this, and I'm the most important thing.

Maria Quattrone 32:07

And I I would say I tell everyone email is not working. You responding to emails most of the time is not actual work. No, no, the email is usually somebody else's problem. Yeah, it's being or want something from you, yeah, yeah. And I look at my emails every day, and most of them are just uh not not there's no like somebody's email me saying once in a while this happens, maybe a couple times a month. Yeah, I want to sell my house, right? I'm gonna join your business, your team, right? That might happen, but sure all the other emails are I I don't work on the deal itself in the trenches of the contract, so I'm business development, so my emails are different, yeah, yeah. But nobody's in there with there's no major fire shit storms that are happening in the email. It's mostly somebody wants you to buy something, right? Uh they want to talk to me about marketing, they want to have a meeting with me about uh title or mortgage or insurance or whatever. I said, You here's the meeting. The meeting's the podcast, right?

Matthew Einheber 33:15

Right.

Maria Quattrone 33:15

I'm gonna do a hundred podcasts this year.

Matthew Einheber 33:17

Yeah, it's great, by the way.

Systems, People, And A-Players

Maria Quattrone 33:19

Well, I and now I'm doing more than two a week because I'm gonna have a bunch in the queue in case I'm away or yeah, whatever. But it's it's at the end of the day, I think it's about your light business is about your personal journey. Yeah, and there is no destination, there is no I've arrived because when you think you have arrived or you have this big goal, and then you get there, and then you're like, what the F. You're looking, you I've done this, like the goal, and I was like, is this it? Like nothing changed, and so I don't make kind of goals like that or commitments like that anymore. Who can who do you have to become to have the life that you want?

Matthew Einheber 34:07

Yeah, that's a better way to look at it. I think I agree with you. There's it when you get for me, like when I started to get that realization that there is no destination ever, like it's not, you know, and you can have the biggest, like, oh my god, you know, we all in terms of like where we're going and and in some place. And if you've done that and you've reached that thing before, and then we get there and you're like, okay, like right, like nothing feels different, like everything's kind of the same, you know. This is great. I I would X dollars in the back, whatever. Now I have it, like now what? And so yeah, I agree. When you get to that realization, and it but you still set the goals because I want to these things to happen, and I want growth, and there are metrics around other things are growing to get here. So there are metrics around that stuff, but and certainly not only money, but there, you know, but but always have in my mind that like just to stop, it's just a benchmark, it's not you know, gonna be you know, I I now I know that like it's you know what it really started to when I was younger. Like, I like nice stuff, you know. People like nice things, you know, nice cars or whatever. I actually stopped caring about stuff. It's not interesting to me anymore. Like, it's not interesting. I have a car, it's fine, like, and my car's fine. And and but car person, I like cool car. I think it's art, you know. I think that cars are cool things. I have zero interest in buying a fancy car and like spending money on something like that or watch or whatever. I'm just disinterested in it anymore. Um, and I don't know why it just like dissolved, it just went away, you know, where that's no longer the goal, that's no longer a thing that that to me going, you know, is to buy crap that you know that that's no real purpose.

Maria Quattrone 35:53

Um it's it's I agree. I haven't I have uh I bought my car in 2004, 13 November. It still looks pretty good because it I have a portion of con. You know, it's a nice little SUV, white cream leather interior.

Matthew Einheber 36:16

Still clean.

Maria Quattrone 36:19

I'm like, I don't care about a car. I have a couple nice watches, that's fine. Like, I have some bunch of nice bags, but I really don't care. I don't care about any of it.

Matthew Einheber 36:28

Yeah, it's really nice.

Focus On High-Impact Work

Maria Quattrone 36:29

It's not you know what I care about, you know. I care about having fun, and I'm not talking about uh going out and drinking fun. That's not fun. I care about travel, I care about helping other people, I care about you know, my commitment to the things that I say because my word, I care about that, I care about showing up every day and just trying to be a little bit better, care about my family, but I really don't care about anything else. I mean, we could move now to like some big fancy schmancy house and this and that. We're still in the same house we've been in for I don't know, since 2011, however long that is. And yeah, it's like there was something happened along the way over the last several decades where you know that whole idea of keeping up with the Joneses. I don't play that game. Yeah, and I don't need, and by the way, you know, luxury isn't status symbols, it's not let me show a Christian Dior bag on Facebook, let me stand here in my Prada. And by the way, I have a bunch of this crap, so but I'm not one who's like you can totally tell this is a Prada bag because it's got Prada written all over it. I'm like subtle, right? Luxury's quiet, luxury, luxury. I can go on vacation for six, three weeks at a time, twice a year. Experience, yeah, because I built a business and life around my life. Yeah, that's luxury, yeah.

Matthew Einheber 38:01

It's experience, you know.

Maria Quattrone 38:02

That I think luxury isn't oh, I live in a five million dollar condo, right? Who cares? Yeah, yeah, mindset.

No Destination, Build For Meaning

Matthew Einheber 38:10

Yeah, for me, it's not I I like very much in building mode, um, and I'm in this, you know, in this place with the business where you know, um like you said before, we were talking about getting out of um the the the day things, like and you know, the things that distract you versus the things that actually you know have meaning and produce, you know, move the needle. And I'm in the place where that's my goal is to get to to spend 80% of my time on the things that actually, you know, that the the 80, you know, you spend 20 of your time in the 80%, it's the flip it and spend 80% of my time on stuff like that, which you need to grow a business to a certain scale and have a certain level of infrastructure of people supporting the things that need support in order to be able to have that luxury to do that. Um, but and and do that when you find that sort of equilibrium, the business will start to really flourish and grow in a way that it could never otherwise because now you've got some I'm I'm I'm much on these macro things that really move the needle. And that's like the I'm not quite there, but I'm getting there and I see it in, you know, it's it's rooks. And I think this year we get to that place and we really start to you know pick up great steam. It's it's that part to me is developing, building the engine, building the team. It's about the people. I love bring finding people, I love a players and great people, and giving them a place where they're like, this is the best place to be and the best place to work, and having be that place, right? There's ego in in like that's that's my place that I created and um and and and develop. I you know, we I have work you know in our company that are that what they do and were very underutilized and underpaid and under everything before, you know, and it's like let's put you in a situation, give you the support and the runway, and like help you teach you to understand like what you could be and like and should and like the perspective that's around you that maybe you didn't have before, you didn't really know, and and and run. And now you you know, you can make three times as much money, or way more than that, perhaps. Um, or you know, have a kind of a career, flourish your career that it didn't before. And um, and change that changes lives, that changes their families, you know, and changes like who they are, and feel amazing about that. And then my thing is like, great, then those the those are players that really get it, they're gonna know like that that happened here, they're gonna be here forever, you know, and we'll get to keep those people forever. And then I can sleep really well at night because I know that I have the best people out there um that never want to leave, and you know, we can perform better than anybody else, and that's how that's the winning to me.

Maria Quattrone 40:46

Well, you know what? It's like whatever you want to focus on and how you want, it's your decision. That's the beauty of it. Yeah, being a business owner. You know, some people love some there's some people that love operations, there's some people that love business development, there's some people that love sales, there's and and can decide whichever one they want, yeah, yeah. Right to to take hold of, and then you fill in the gaps, you gotta always fill in the gaps. So, Matt, it was great having you on today.

Matthew Einheber 41:18

Yeah, it was awesome being on. I really appreciate it.

Maria Quattrone 41:20

What uh what I'm gonna ask your question uh before we wrap it up. Do you have a word of this year? A word for this year.

Matthew Einheber 41:25

Wow, a word for this year. I wasn't prepared. So give me a moment. Let me think. I think my word for this year, I don't want to use something kind of um ordinary that because I would go to like growth, but that that's that's too boring. Let me think here. I think the word of the year for me is um is is uh okay. I like that. You do that, you have a word every year, you're prepped for this.

Maria Quattrone 41:52

Um last year it was focus.

Matthew Einheber 41:54

I'm gonna say mine uh and is I'm my word is extraordinary. That's my word for this year.

Maria Quattrone 42:02

I like it. Yeah, I think you should go for it. Extraordinary. So we've already um you know, my office. I had that like my old sign up in the back wall. So I took it down, that ran down, yeah, and I had Chip paint me a whiteboard, and that whole entire wall is a whiteboard. Yeah, it's like a dream come true for me. So everybody in the name's on the board, and everybody has a word, and it's there in all different colors in the middle of the board, yep. And I say every week, like today's Friday, we have meetings, so I just messaged them earlier. So we have a pizza party today, yeah. In honor of Snow Mageddon. I will go over the word, like, how are you doing with your word? Yeah, you know, are you is the word like you made this word? Is it is it resonating? Is it sticking? Do you feel it? Yeah, are you taking ownership of this word?

Redefining Luxury As Freedom

Matthew Einheber 42:58

Are you are you it's a it's it's a really I really what you do there with the goals actually, it's a really good goals exercise. What I've learned about goals over the years is like a lot of people now, like if you follow like business systems and rebusiness, they have all these worksheets and all there's all like to me way too much. Like, I can't have more than three goals, and they have to be very simple metrics that are like and like in in three, four words each one. That's it. And I put them up and I put them in places that I look at every single day, and I make myself look and stare at them every single day for 10 seconds, you know, a couple times a day or whatever, to constantly think like, is that am I going in this direction? Am I the way I'm spending my time today? Is that gonna make that happen? Am I contributed?

Maria Quattrone 43:42

Is that gonna move the needle in the direction you need to?

Matthew Einheber 43:44

Yeah.

Maria Quattrone 43:45

You know, we actually even went as far as like we don't use the word goal anymore. We use the word commitment. And I started doing that several years ago. So a commitment is something that you're gonna do, come hell or high water, like you you're committed to. Brushing your teeth every day, right? Right. To making your bed. Like I don't leave the house without my bed being made or brushing my teeth. Right. Like, period. The end. Okay. And the commitment to whatever the goal is, is a commitment. So it's like, and it's daily. So in order to do, we'll just use like real estate people as an example. If you want to do X number of transactions, you want to help X number of families. It's a simple math equation. Math is the path to get to that number.

Matthew Einheber 44:33

Right.

Maria Quattrone 44:34

So on a daily basis, let's just say that you need to talk to 20 people a day. If you don't talk to 20 people a day, every week you miss a day. You're already at 80%.

Matthew Einheber 44:45

Right.

unknown 44:46

Right.

Maria Quattrone 44:46

Right? You're not gonna, it's simple. You will never make the number that you decided you want it because you're not doing the daily actions to get there. So it comes to what are we doing today? I break it down three hours, people. Three hours for business development. And if you have zero business, you may be doing it for five hours a day, but what else are you doing?

Matthew Einheber 45:07

Right, right.

Maria Quattrone 45:08

It's like I mean, I'm making it simple simple, but it's really what it's about. Everything you don't know where you were last year, how are you gonna know where you're going this year?

Matthew Einheber 45:16

Yeah, no, everything's really simple.

Maria Quattrone 45:19

Five conversations like I I can can list it.

Matthew Einheber 45:23

Yeah, that's like that's by the way, that's a really it's insane.

Building The Team Engine

Maria Quattrone 45:27

It actually is insane. And Chat GPT said it was like crazy, yeah. But um, you know, where so where am I going based on that? What I did last year, right? You plug in the numbers, you figure it out, yeah. But it really comes down to the actual process, yeah, and not the outcome because we focus on the process. See, I can't control Matt when you want to sell your house, right? I only could do the process, yeah. Going through the process, right? Matt might call me in three months, three weeks, three years. I'll still follow up on Matt. Every four depends on depends person, but it could be four times a year, it could be six times a year, it could be every month, every month. Yep, you still do focus on the process. We can't control the outcome of when people are going to pull the trigger. We just need to do the process and need to be the one that they're gonna do it with.

Matthew Einheber 46:21

Yeah, yeah.

Maria Quattrone 46:22

Well, this is fantastic. Title is boring, or it's not, it's not, it's not. It's great having you today, Matt.

Matthew Einheber 46:30

Thank you so much, Maria. I appreciate it.

Closing Reflections And Next Steps

Maria Quattrone 46:32

My pleasure, and we're gonna check back with you uh towards um the middle to second half of the year and see where you are on track.

Matthew Einheber 46:40

I can't wait. I'm excited. I think a lot of things are gonna happen between now and then.

Maria Quattrone 46:44

So excellent.