“We’ve implemented an integrated paperless transaction management and digital signature platform company-wide that results in increased service, productivity and risk management,” Chip Gardner explains. “We are selectively choosing strategic business partners who join us in our long-term vision to provide agents with the finest business platform in the region in the most eco-friendly manner.”
Also woven into the family root structure is the concept of “showing some Gardner Love”—a company-wide community outreach and philanthropic program that stems from Gertrude Gardner’s social service work to find homes for the needy during the Great Depression over seven decades ago. The concept is embraced today by the current team under the auspices of the Gertrude Gardner Foundation.
“Through the efforts of our agents and staff, we support more than a dozen local and national non-profit organizations,” says Crystal Gertrude Gardner. “Our GARDNER ‘Sold Dome’ mascot represents our playful side in the community—the side that stuffs backpacks for foster kids, dresses up to raise funds for cancer and Alzheimer’s research, and pounds nails into homes for the Preservation Resource Center. We support the causes that are meaningful to our agents—like the local shelter, so that everyone has a place to call home. It’s as much a part of our company culture as keeping our office doors open and calling everyone by their first names.”
These days, there are more first names being added as recruiting reaches peak levels.
