00:00We are live from the George Bush Presidential Library here in Dallas, Texas, and I'm really
00:07excited to chat with James Wong, the CEO and founder of Maxa Designs. James, we're sitting
00:14down today to talk about the exhibit awards. Tell me a little bit about what those are and why you
00:20started doing them. Yeah, so I actually, this is a labor of love for me, you know, being in the
00:26industry for both real estate and mortgage for the last 13 years. I've gotten the chance
00:30to work with thousands of brands in real estate and mortgage and I see the marketing departments
00:36at these brands. Could be these national brands like Lower or Fairway or I think about Real
00:44and Realty One Group and all these different brands, they work so hard to curate a branded
00:50experience, whether they're nationwide or they're an independent in their local community. And
00:57I wanted to bring a spotlight to the work they're doing and how cohesive their branding is. So
01:04from the development of their brand, so the way it showcases in their communities, their
01:10websites, their digital marketing, and it turned into a competition where we brought in judges
01:16from all over the, of our community to now look at who has the best brand in the four
01:23regions of America. There's actually, this year with Housing Wire, we're doing 13 awards.
01:30We're doing eight awards in real estate and five awards in mortgage and I'm so excited to
01:34break it down with you. Yeah, me too. So you're kind of singing the praises of some of the unsung
01:41heroes of mortgage and real estate. Why did you want to do that? You know, I'm really passionate
01:46about design. I think design is my biggest background. I love design, but I also love
01:50leadership and I love business. And I think all of that comes together inside of one brand.
01:55And it's really unique. You can see how branding affects why an agent or a lender joins a brokerage.
02:04And that brand, you know, there's lots of surveys that have been done and probably the two biggest
02:09reasons why agents or lenders join a company is the relationship they have with leadership
02:15and the connection they feel with that brand in their community. So there hasn't really been
02:23a platform to showcase the branding that's done behind with the marketing departments with these
02:30companies. And so I wanted to put together this award. So we started actually in 2022.
02:35We started in real estate and this year I was like, it's time we bring in mortgage because I've
02:40been in mortgage for so long and I wanted to do it with housing wire. Why did you decide to really
02:46supersize this year? You already have clients in mortgage, but I think these awards were focused
02:51more on real estate in the past. Why did you decide to supersize this year and really bring in that
02:56mortgage component? Honestly, we have a big following. There's about 3000 people on the journey with
03:05us that watch these awards every year. And a lot of them are in mortgage and they kept messaging me
03:10saying, Hey, when are you going to do this for mortgage? We love branding as well. Every year
03:16our clients would say, we want to compete. We want to showcase our brands. And so I said, finally,
03:21it's time. 2025 was going to be the year we do it and we're going to lead it all up to the gathering.
03:27Yeah. Which I'm really excited about. And we'll talk about that in a minute. It sounds to me like
03:32you were pulled into doing this as opposed to pushing yourself. Correct. That's the best way
03:37to expand your business. It seems like to me. So, all right, we're going to do something a little
03:41different this year. This is your fourth year of doing these awards. We're expanding into mortgage
03:46and we're going to work together. So you mentioned the gathering, the gathering is housing wire,
03:51this event that brings together real estate executives with mortgage executives. So it's maybe
03:57the perfect fit for what you're trying to do with exhibit awards this year. Yes. And I want
04:01everyone who's following along to watch because we're going to go through this journey of
04:06all the brands that apply for their award. They're going to submit. We're going to provide them with
04:13a template on what to submit from their, how they tell their story, how they present their visual brand
04:23identity. And everyone's going to be following along from the applications to then getting to the
04:29semi-finalist to the top 20 brands in real estate and mortgage to the top five brands. And then we're
04:35going to pick a winner in each region. There's a West Coast, Midwest, Northeast, and Southeast winner
04:41for both real estate and mortgage. And then we have a competition between national brands. Brands that
04:48are national all across the nation that have offices and locations around the nation. They get to
04:53compete as well, whether they're in real estate or in mortgage. So how do you do the judging for
04:58this? Is this just you selecting the winners or how do you, how do you judge all these great entries?
05:04Yeah. So there's actually going to be a curated, there's probably going to be around 12 judges
05:09that will have a score points guideline where they're going to be scoring based on about eight
05:17different pieces of a brand from their, again, storytelling, their physical pieces, their office
05:24design, all kinds of really cool things we're going to look at, their websites. And so every judge is
05:30going to be giving points on every piece of their brand that we're going to bring them the top five.
05:36Then we're going to tally it all up and literally the winners will probably be winning by a few points.
05:43Hmm. So the better job that these marketing departments submit and present their brand,
05:49it's going to make the biggest difference when they, when we go for the winner.
05:54So are the judges like their peers? Are they marketers themselves? Or how do you,
05:58how do you pick the judges for this? Yeah, it's going to be a mix. It's going to be,
06:03mostly they're going to be influencers in the real estate and mortgage industry. You know,
06:08obviously I'll be a judge. We're going to have an amazing person from Housing Wire as a judge,
06:13but there's also going to be different influencers in real estate and mortgage that have been a part
06:17of the community that loves marketing, that loves design. We might have some CMOs as well
06:23from different brands. Obviously if they are a CMO and they submit, they won't be judging their own
06:29brand. They won't be judging themselves, but it's going to be a fun community effort. So amazing.
06:37That really sounds like a really interesting program that we're going to work on together this year.
06:41How are you thinking about this longterm? This will be your fourth year. Do you want to be doing it 10
06:49years from now? For sure. This is a labor of love where we do this every year because branding is
06:55kind of like music. It changes every year. And I think every company's brand should be alive and they
07:01should be evolving with what's happening in the, in the communities. And so I'm like a part of a lot of
07:09them too. Like I know a few brands this year that are launching their new identity. You know, people
07:14launch a new brand all the time. Think about when, look at Anywhere. And that just happened a year or
07:21two ago. You know, there's a few other brands I'm not going to say right now that are launching new
07:25brands. And so it's, it's pretty fun because all the effort they put in, we're going to put a spotlight on
07:31it. And all of us are going to get to see, we're going to highlight it on stage,
07:37how they came about bringing their brand together. I'm sensing, I mean, obviously there's the onstage
07:42component, but I feel like there's a social and sort of online component to this as well. Are people
07:48going to be able to follow along with the entries and who wins, you know, if, if they're not in the room
07:55at the gathering? Yes, exactly. So we'll be very, very, the most, uh, communication will happen
08:01via our newsletter, our email newsletter through both Maxa and Housing Wire. But then obviously
08:08we'll be creating content on our websites. We'll be writing about case studies about all the brands.
08:13And then we'll be of course posting on social and highlighting all the brands on, of course,
08:18like Instagram and LinkedIn. Well, James, I'm really excited about this partnership. I think
08:23the gathering is the perfect event to bring mortgage and real estate together.
08:28Thank you so much for talking with me today. Yeah, you're welcome.
