Jana Hageman: Faith, Family, And Investing In People 

Join two WBE visionaries in an empowering conversation about rising above societal stereotypes and expectations in business, marriage, and parenting.

In this episode of Here We Grow, Marcia Barnes talks with Jana Hageman, President of T&H Investment Properties. Jana shares profound insights of how rising above the shame of asking for help has guided her career from successful lawyer to real estate developer.

At the heart of this honest conversation are confessions and callings to ministry, transforming leadership teams, and changing the world one conversation at a time. Jana and Marcia advocate for women to accept help, confront convention, and take on big challenges.

From finding help with household management to reimagining affordable senior living communities, Jana delivers a heartfelt and relentless story of saying “yes” to who she was created to be and offers permission for other women to do the same.

To learn more about the podcast and Marcia Barnes’ book Here We Grow: The Marketing Formula to 10x Your Business and Transform Your Future, visit https://mathbeforemarketing.com/podcast/.

Key Takeaways:

• Women who feel shame around household conventions can find strength and joy in accepting the gift of help.
• From business to marriage, and raising children, deliberate planning is a powerful asset. The proactive seeds you plant today bear fruit in the future.
• Trusting the wisdom and gifts of your coworkers or partners can lead to personal growth and overall advancement.
• A business that asks questions and remains curious can defy norms and redefine conventions.
• Visionaries and purpose-driven organizations can bless multitudes including team members, sub-contractors, politicians, residents, and entire communities. The impact of business goes beyond your walls.
• Focusing on personal and professional development equips leaders with tools to face future challenges.
• Identify where you’re called to serve, lean into it, and go.

Professional Experience

Jana Hageman is the founder and President of T&H Investment Properties and T&H Construction Properties. In 2010, Jana joined the law firm of Bose McKinney and Evans and practiced in their Real Estate Group . In 2011, Jana founded T&H Investment Properties LLC and in 2013 she started Hageman Group with her husband Shane. Jana currently serves as President of T&H Investments, a full-service WBE-certified real estate development company based in Indianapolis, Indiana. T&H specializes in the development, construction, and management of affordable, workforce, and supportive housing. Jana is also a member of the Board of Directors for Hageman Group, a privately owned company headquartered in Indianapolis that manage assets and investments with a focus on agriculture and real estate.

Accreditations/Organizations

Hageman Group, Board Member

Riley Area Development Corporation, Board Member

Hamilton Area Neighborhood Development, Advisory
Board Member

The Hageman Foundation, Director

Certified Tax Credit Compliance Professional

Admitted to the Indiana State Bar

Indiana Real Estate Brokers License

Indiana General Contractor License

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Jump into the conversation:

[02:07] – What T&H really stands for

[09:04] – The pivotal moment in a Wisconsin Parking Lot

[14:01] – What Jana’s soon-to-be-husband suggested they start before getting married

[17:39] – The thought process that surprised the child psychologist

[32:45] – The question that raised every leadership team member’s hand

Marcia Barnes [00:00:00]:

I’ve said before that we live in a broken world with broken people, and the workplace is just a small part of it. Leaders become tone deaf to the damage they’re creating for people when they take from others in order to give to themselves. The long term impact of this is that a business will limit its potential growth and profitability as foundations of trust crumble. To me, it’s just sad and sick that somewhere there’s a tradeoff for people where it’s acceptable to treat folks poorly because you employ them. There are plenty of people out there who’ve created massive wealth and treat people correctly. The two outcomes are not mutually exclusive. I believe that my role as a business owner is to enable and encourage people, for however long they are with me, to prepare them for their next step in life.

Marcia Barnes [00:00:52]:

When you’re sitting inside some big corporate cog and no one is giving you purpose or sharing with you meaningful results from your work, you’re in a soul suck. But when you can go home at the end of the day and tell your loved ones that your work saved 20% of the jobs at a company or solved a problem for a family, you can’t wait to go back and do it again and again.

Here We Grow Narrator [00:01:18]:

The key to running the kind of business that attracts the best talent and achieves the best results is beginning with purpose. In this episode of Here We Grow, Marcia speaks with Jana Hageman, President of T&H Investment Properties, about her transformation from an attorney to a purpose led business owner focused on making affordable housing available to those who need it.

Marcia Barnes [00:01:43]:

Well, today, I have one of my dearest friends with us today for the Here We Grow podcast. Jana Hageman, the CEO of T&H Properties. Welcome, Jana, to the podcast.

Jana Hageman [00:01:53]:

Yeah, thanks, Marcia. Excited to hang out with you.

Marcia Barnes [00:01:55]:

Yeah, you and I always have trouble thinking of things to talk about, so I’m sure this will be a slow roll today, right?

Jana Hageman [00:02:01]:

I know we usually expect to talk a few minutes, and it goes longer than that. I’m excited there.

Marcia Barnes [00:02:07]:

Me too. I am excited about today. T&H Properties. Now, when we have two initials like that, they always stand for something. Tell our audience what T&H stands for and what it means to you folks at your business.

Jana Hageman [00:02:19]:

Well, it’s kind of funny. When people first see it, they think the H stands for Hageman, which is my last name. But actually it stands for thankful and humble, which are two of our values. So you know how when you’re sitting and you’re trying to create a name, I thought, oh, I want thankful and humble, but I didn’t even think about the fact people would think, oh, the H is Hageman, who’s the, like, no. thankful and humble. Like, we want the business to be for our values, not just a name.

Marcia Barnes [00:02:41]:

Right. And it’s not just putting those words on the values, but you actually are in a business where those values come to life. Talk to us about what thankful and humble mean inside the business.

Jana Hageman [00:02:54]:

Well, I always say at T&H, like, our values are the backbone of our company. I was really excited because we did an employee survey, and 86% of our teammates said that they think that we live the values really well, and they live them every day. And I’m like, yes, when you have construction and property management, especially in a time when things are just economically in turmoil, that is really good, right? So I was pretty excited to see that. So our values are, love what you do, do well by doing good family, culture, do the right thing, work hard, work smart. And I always go over our values when we hire somebody, I bring them into the company. I let them get settled for a few days, and then maybe 30 days into it, I just sit down and say, hey, I just want to share what these values mean to me because they’re the backbone. I review on values. I do quarterly conversations on values.

Jana Hageman [00:03:41]:

We hire on them. So it’s really important that people align with them. And I say, love what you do. If you don’t love what you do every day, you’re probably not going to be happy at T&H.

Marcia Barnes [00:03:50]:

Right?

Jana Hageman [00:03:51]:

And one thing that’s funny, I was interviewing a guy for a construction role. He was really, really good, high quality. And we were chatting, and he said, man, you know what I’ve always wanted to do? I’m like, what? Tell me what you love. He’s like, I’ve always wanted to be an airplane pilot. I’m like, oh, interesting. Like, how’d you get into construction? And he said, well, my grandpa’s in construction, my dad’s in construction. I just always grew up around it, and I’m really good at it. And I said, do you love it? He’s like, you know, I don’t know if I love it, but I really want to be a pilot.

Jana Hageman [00:04:21]:

I’m like, you’re 40 something years old. Go be a pilot. Go wake up and do the thing every day that you love. Right, right. I don’t know what happened. Like, I didn’t hire him for the job, but people need to do the thing they love because it just makes a great quality life.

Marcia Barnes [00:04:36]:

Yeah.

Jana Hageman [00:04:37]:

So each one of our values I explain like that to say it has to be the core of who you are or else you’re not going to be happy.

Marcia Barnes [00:04:44]:

Right. That may have been the first time that that gentleman ever was given permission to be a pilot. It would be interesting to see where he takes that. But, yeah, that’s something that’s lacking in the world is folks don’t give us permission to go do the thing we’re designed to do that we’re passionate about. Right.

Jana Hageman [00:05:04]:

And the amazing thing is you can find people who absolutely love the thing you hate. Right. And I’m always amazed when I meet, like, I have my partner. He loves complicated, difficult government negotiations. Like, he gets into that and he loves it and it fires him up. And I look at that and I’m like, that’s not my favorite thing.

Marcia Barnes [00:05:24]:

Right.

Jana Hageman [00:05:24]:

And I can’t believe there’s anybody in the world that loves this. But he loves it. He’s great at it. And I just think that’s key. If everybody in their seat absolutely loves what they do. That doesn’t mean you love it every day, right? It doesn’t mean every day is perfect. But if in general you feel like you’re doing the thing you’re called to do, man, it’s beautiful.

Marcia Barnes [00:05:45]:

I’m reminded of when we first met, one of the things you were struggling with was we all have the home front and the business front, but you’re not real crazy about all the things that need to be done at home. And you were really looking for a solution on that. You didn’t like it for me. I shared with you, I don’t like those things. I’m not good at them. It takes me a lot longer to do them than normal people. And then Maggie came along, right?

Jana Hageman [00:06:08]:

Yes. Man, I tried for a while to do the home stuff. I have some friends who are so amazing at it, and I’m just not. Maggie came along, so she actually was a really good friend’s daughter, really strong Christian and just loves to help, right. And loves to serve. And I met her and I thought, you’re going to be perfect. Because the first thing she said, if you know my husband, he’s really budget conscious. So when we were interviewing her, the first thing she said, he was asking her some questions. And I was asking her some questions and she’s like, well, I’d have to understand how much it cost, recognize if it’s in a budget.

Jana Hageman [00:06:41]:

And then I would make a decision. I’m like, you’re hired. You’re a Christian, you love children, and you think budget, so you’re going to be our girl. But it was funny. Here’s a great example of this. I think as women, we can sometimes feel like if we don’t do it, we feel shame. Right?

Marcia Barnes [00:06:57]:

Yeah. We think we have to do it all.

Jana Hageman [00:06:59]:

I’m not doing the {inadubile}, I’m not picking up the room. If I’m not making dinner, I’m not fulfilling my job as a female. And we feel shame and guilt.

Marcia Barnes [00:07:06]:

Right.

Jana Hageman [00:07:06]:

And I’ve learned that if you can rise above that, man, there’s beauty up there. And an example, we had a chili cook off at the office. I was actually there before. I was here at the chili cook off and Maggie made the chili for Shane and I. Yeah. And so the whole email goes out to the company and everybody’s bringing their chili. And she responded accidentally to the whole company. Great.

Jana Hageman [00:07:27]:

I got Jan and Shane’s and I got emails back like, oh, no. And I thought, no, it’s totally not cheating. Like, Maggie’s making the chili and we’re going to work together.

Marcia Barnes [00:07:39]:

If you don’t want to get a stomach ache, it’s probably best if Maggie makes the chili. Right?

Jana Hageman [00:07:43]:

If I made the chili? Yeah. We’re going to be, I mean, I can make some okay chili, but she makes some good chili. So let’s all go for the good chili. But it was fascinating to see the reactions right. Where people felt like, oh, really? Maggie’s making the does. How do you feel about that? I feel real good about that.

Marcia Barnes [00:07:59]:

Right. Yeah. The part of the story with Maggie that you don’t know is Jack Frisbee, our mutual dear friend. Her father asked me a few years before you met her to meet with her and talk with her about her career and what her aspirations were. I’d forgotten about it until just now.

Jana Hageman [00:08:18]:

Yeah.

Marcia Barnes [00:08:19]:

And she sat down with me and she said, at the end of the day, organizing things makes me very happy, like taking a closet or a kitchen or a drawer or a system or laundry and getting it organized so that it flows better and the work can be done in a better way and more quickly. That really jazzes me. That basically was what she was saying. And in my mind I was going, that sounds miserable. But you could see the joy on her face as she thought about trying to figure out a career where she could do that. Now fast forward. And here she is doing that with you. And that was what she told me years before, was her thing that made her so happy.

Jana Hageman [00:08:54]:

Yes. She loves it and it makes me happy.

Marcia Barnes [00:08:57]:

Right.

Jana Hageman [00:08:57]:

I mean, there was a moment in my marriage with Shane. We both run companies, right? I’ll never forget… 

Marcia Barnes [00:09:02]:

Big companies, Big responsibilities.

Jana Hageman [00:09:04]:

Big responsibilities. We have two amazing boys, Conrad and Christian. We have a lot of family involvement in our life, which is such a blessing, but I’ll never forget this moment. We were up on a family vacation in Wisconsin, and we pulled into the parking lot of Walmart because in Antigo, Wisconsin, that’s the only place you can go. He said, this isn’t working. What we’re doing isn’t working. What are we going to do? And I just sat there and I thought, you know, what if I just work one or two hours more, I can stay up till three or four in the morning.

Jana Hageman [00:09:37]:

I only need two or three hours of sleep, right? I can get it all done. I can do my job. I can be there for you. I can be there for the kids.

Marcia Barnes [00:09:47]:

Look great, be sexy, look great, be charming. All the things.

Jana Hageman [00:09:50]:

I just need two more hours. And I realized as I started crying in the car, some point there’s no more hours. I can’t do it. And I was killing myself trying to do everything to make everybody happy. And he knew, it was really hard on our marriage, it was really hard on the business, hard on our boys. And that’s when I said, I got to hire. I called Maggie. She was working for me part time.

Jana Hageman [00:10:12]:

And I said, what would it take to get you to be full time? She was like, I would be delighted to be full time to work with you. And she started the next week. And it has been life changing for me ever since that moment.

Marcia Barnes [00:10:24]:

Yeah. This wasn’t our intended topic. That would add value to you listeners today, but I think we want to go a little further on this one because I had the same thing happen. To know you feel like you have to be Martha Stewart and the business leader. You have to fill all these roles and doing anything less is failure. And so I, years ago, and this is how I coached you on the journey to Maggie years ago. I found that there were people who could do it better than me, faster than me, and enjoy it more than I could, and that getting somebody to help me. So I have a house manager as well, Ashley.

Marcia Barnes [00:11:04]:

And she makes my life palatable. And everybody else around me benefits from it, know. So just I would encourage the women who are listening to us and some of you fellows who are doing the same thing of seeing your home and your family as chores, find a way to get help, get somebody to help you with that.

Jana Hageman [00:11:22]:

Yeah. And you’re blessing somebody else, too?

Marcia Barnes [00:11:24]:

Goodness, yes.

Jana Hageman [00:11:27]:

So many times I’ve told the story of women, and women get it with cleaning. Sometimes cleaning is a hard job. In high school, I cleaned hotels for two years, and that is a hard job. I always tell my housekeepers that we hire in property management. I get your job like, you’re tired at the end of the day, right? You’re sore. It’s hard. Cleaning is hard. And I think, as women, when we can find someone who’s willing to come in and help take that off of our plates.

Jana Hageman [00:11:53]:

I don’t know about you, but I talk with my friends and they are so grateful. Why did I not do this earlier? Why did I not make this decision earlier? And it’s kind of how I feel about Maggie when I tell my friends who are just trying to do it all, if you bring in somebody else that can help, who loves what they do, it’s a blessing to them, and you’ll find that joy again.

Marcia Barnes [00:12:13]:

Yeah. And Ashley enjoys experiencing the things that happen in the business because she’s part of the math formula, right? She travels on mission trips, she travels with me on speaking engagements. She puts on events here to share the love and servanthood that we aim for in our business as well. And those things give her joy and allowed her to experience things she probably wouldn’t have in her normal, you know.

Jana Hageman [00:12:43]:

Maggie gets to play and I think she makes these beautiful charcuterie boards. She’s an art major, so she’s very gifted. And she’s like, I can’t believe my job is I get to do this. I’m like, I’m so grateful. Your job is, you get to do. Yeah.

Marcia Barnes [00:12:56]:

Well, who knew God had a plan when I landed with Maggie and a few years later, she landed with you. And now here we are, being able to share that abundance and information with other people and encourage them and give them permission to, right?

Jana Hageman [00:13:08]:

Yes.

Marcia Barnes [00:13:09]:

Go out and get some help. Yeah.

Jana Hageman [00:13:10]:

You ever need some encouragement, look me up online. Like, give me a call, right? I got a great job description.

Marcia Barnes [00:13:16]:

We’ll help you get connected. Right. Good. So that’s a little bit about managing the home front. But the other thing in your marriage, I’ve noticed about you over the years, you and Shane are very purposeful on creating a healthy, vibrant marriage to support your family and the other causes that God calls you into. What are some of the key things you guys do? I know you go to a coach every few years. I’ve seen some of the documents that come out of that. I’m not an expert on marriage, but I do know one when I see it.

Marcia Barnes [00:13:52]:

So can you share with our audience some of what you’re doing to allow two executives running major businesses in our city to be able to thrive at home as well?

Jana Hageman [00:14:01]:

First of all, I’m very lucky to be married to a very wise man. Shane was given the gift of wisdom. He’s wise, he discerns, he thinks through things. He is the most loyal person. And I’m more of a visionary. Like, oh, let’s shoot first, ask questions later. Let’s dive in. Let’s try something new.

Jana Hageman [00:14:19]:

Let’s make it happen. I have a lot of tenacity and a lot of execution. So when we first, we fell in love very quickly. And when we got engaged, he said, I think we need to start therapy now. I remember I was kind of hurt. I’m like, what’s wrong? We’re in bliss. We’re in engagement bliss. And he said, you know, I run a closely held family business.

Jana Hageman [00:14:38]:

You’re super ambitious. We were in law school when we got engaged. He’s like, I think if we start now, we’ll be able to build the tool so that maybe five or ten years down the road, when it gets hard, we’ve got this experience and this tool belt to be able to tackle things. And that’s Shane’s mind. He’s wise. And so we did it. And man, is that awesome. Man has that helped us in our marriage.

Jana Hageman [00:15:00]:

And it’s not just that instance, but it’s his wisdom in being able to say, I know you don’t see this now, but if we invest in this today, 5-10 years down the road, there’s going to be a lot of fruit from that. And in the beginning of our marriage, I think I fought him on that a lot. Like, no, that seems like a lot of work. Why would we do that now? And now I’ve grown to just naturally trust that gift God gave him, like that gift of wisdom and discernment. And when he says, I think we need to do this today, because in five years, it’s going to pay off, I’m like, sign me up. I am in because I trust that. So I think in marriage, it’s important to look at each other’s gifts and really trust that person in seeing like, okay, I may not understand this and this may not be how I do it, but I trust you, and I’m all in and knowing when not to. So if Shane says, hey, I’m going to cook dinner tonight, I’m going to try to make it healthy, I’m not going to be trusting that because he’s tried to do that a few times.

Jana Hageman [00:15:56]:

And curry with skim milk is disgusting. So I joke. I’m like, babe, I trust you in your wisdom and discernment. I don’t trust you to cook a healthy meal.

Marcia Barnes [00:16:06]:

Yeah.

Jana Hageman [00:16:07]:

That we can eat. And I think in marriage we’ve formed that kind of understanding together.

Marcia Barnes [00:16:13]:

Yeah. It’s remarkable. And Conrad and Christian, eight and nine years old, we recently went on a mission trip together into Mexico to build a home with Homes of Hope, your family and me. Wow, those boys, they’re something else.

Jana Hageman [00:16:29]:

They are. They are all boy. Oh, they are.

Marcia Barnes [00:16:33]:

They were, they were excited about building a home for someone in Mexico, but they did not want to compromise on the meaningful work that they wanted to do. Like, they didn’t want to just go and play. They wanted to use power tools and hammer nails. And the first day, I remember when they came back, I said, so how did it go, boys? And Conrad said, I pounded 185 nails. And all the other adults on the build were just so impressed with the way the boys were working. So what a great job you’ve done with them. I did notice, too, we talked earlier about Shane and budgets.

Marcia Barnes [00:17:12]:

On the second day when your boys came back, I asked them how it went. And your family had gone on the grocery trip with the Mexican family. And the boys said, Mom blew the budget.

Jana Hageman [00:17:25]:

They collect money and you get to go to Walmart and kind of bless the family. And I blew the budget. And I guess, man, those boys gave me a hard time for that.

Marcia Barnes [00:17:32]:

But they did. I told Shane, you’re the only man I know who has an eight and nine year old who are already budget conscious.

Jana Hageman [00:17:39]:

And, you know, something we did with our boys, I encourage this because what I learned from starting marital therapy. You know my son Conrad’s nine. Oh, you know him. He is a sweet, thoughtful, just a good boy. And he’s such, in such a good place. And I’ve talked with some of my friends who have boys who are 15, 16, 17, and some of the things they’re faced with in their life, the decisions, the kind of environmental impacts are significant, especially around, like, social media, things that other boys say and talk about. And so what Shane and I talked about is we want to give him some tools to figure out how to navigate the world right now at an early age so that he’s set up at 15 or 16. So we actually started working with a child psychologist and hired him and said, hey, Conrad’s in a really, really good place. We want him to start seeing you.

Jana Hageman [00:18:28]:

And he said, well, he met him, Conrad, and had a session with him. He’s like, Conrad’s fine. Why don’t you come see me in a few years if something changes? But I don’t see a need to be paying for this right now. And we said, that’s why we want to pay for it right now. He’s fine. And we want you to teach him about how to handle difficult conversations and how do you handle your emotions and girls and all of these things that maybe he won’t want to come to us. I hope he wants to come to us, but I’d love another adult. He’s a former pastor with Christian values.

Jana Hageman [00:18:57]:

To have a relationship with Conrad where he feels like he can speak into you, you can speak into his life.

Marcia Barnes [00:19:02]:

Right.

Jana Hageman [00:19:03]:

And obviously, we’re going to try to find coaches and teachers, but let’s start this now. It was interesting you said, no parents ever asked me that. That makes a lot of sense.

Marcia Barnes [00:19:10]:

Right? It sounds crazy even to think that he had a hard time processing that, too. Right? Like, this isn’t usually where I see people at. I usually see them in crisis.

Jana Hageman [00:19:22]:

Yeah, we go get help when we’re at rock bottom.

Marcia Barnes [00:19:24]:

Right?

Jana Hageman [00:19:24]:

I’m like, let’s go get help when we’re actually in a really good place so we can, when we hit rock bottom, have the tools we need to get out of it quickly.

Marcia Barnes [00:19:32]:

Right. Well, it’s definitely evident in the way the boys carry themselves and the way they experience the world. So you’re doing great work there. Let’s flip back to business. So we’ve got T&H Properties. Tell me how you started the business.

Jana Hageman [00:19:49]:

So I started off as a real estate attorney. I was working in real estate at Bose, McKinney & Evans, which is a larger firm here in Indianapolis. I was, like, working these deals and closing these deals, and I just saw this risk that developers were taking, and I thought, I think I could do may the way that I kind of move forward and make decisions. I like to talk to a lot of people who are smarter than me get there. You can kind of pick up a pattern of perspective, and then I make a decision based on that perspective. So I just started talking with people in the industry who I really respected and said, I’m an attorney, I’m a female. I love people. I love Jesus, I love risk, and I love complicated things.

Jana Hageman [00:20:30]:

What should I do with my life? Like, what would you do if you were know? I kind of got this. Well, there’s this thing called affordable housing. It’s really community development focused. You do real estate, but you create projects that really can bless people in a significant way. It can be very profitable. Women and minorities usually have an advantage in this space, and it’s really, really hard and complicated, and that’s why people don’t do it. It’s like a big, complicated jigsaw puzzle, and if you have the grit to put that puzzle together, you might really love it. And I thought, that sounds awesome.

Jana Hageman [00:21:06]:

Yeah. And so that’s how I got started. I started T&H and dove in headfirst with no idea what I was doing.

Marcia Barnes [00:21:14]:

So you started in 2013? I believe so.

Jana Hageman [00:21:18]:

I started in 2013, and then I got my first, what we call award. So my first tax credit award in 2016.

Marcia Barnes [00:21:27]:

Didn’t people tell you that should have taken a really long time-to win your first one?

Jana Hageman [00:21:31]:

Yeah, it takes a long time to win your first one. Oftentimes you don’t win your second until you completed your first. I think I did, like, four in two years. Years. Oh, wow. So I went all in. And I think a lot of times we’re afraid to do things because we’re afraid we’re going to fail. Right? I’m not going to do that.

Jana Hageman [00:21:47]:

What if I fail? What if I look stupid? And one thing I’ve learned is, man, I look stupid all the time.

Marcia Barnes [00:21:53]:

You do not.

Jana Hageman [00:21:54]:

But you can usually work your way through it.

Marcia Barnes [00:21:56]:

Right.

Jana Hageman [00:21:56]:

I remember I was sitting in a meeting with our banker, and I was trying to negotiate a loan for my first deal because you have to put construction debt on it. And he said, well, how many basis points are you thinking? And I said, well, how many are you thinking? And usually if you ask a banker a question, they’ll talk for five or ten minutes. So I knew it bought me some time, and I googled what is a basis point on my phone while he was talking to me, and I got. I’m like, okay, I got it. I know what it is now. Right. And then I could have the conversation with him. But how many times I’ve had to do that where I don’t know the answer, but I have to find it and figure it out.

Jana Hageman [00:22:29]:

And I think people are afraid to do things without knowing the answer.

Marcia Barnes [00:22:33]:

Yeah. So today, T&H Properties is, what kind of revenue are you going to do this year? 2023.

Jana Hageman [00:22:44]:

Yeah. So I look at revenue like our company, we look at total contracted costs, right? So if we’re doing a $20 million apartment complex and we’re contracting for that, I consider that like revenue, right? So I think this year, I know right now, I think we have about $180 million under development, and then we intend to close another $120 million in 2024.

Marcia Barnes [00:23:07]:

That’s remarkable. And it’s not just business for you. The business is going along. And we all had Covid upsets, and I walked through a lot of that with you and how you were managing the changes in supply chain and what was going on in the world. But it’s really a remarkable, consistent growth story. But it’s not just business. It’s ministry to you, too. There’s this piece about homelessness and special needs that you’re filling as well.

Marcia Barnes [00:23:36]:

What is it that you find that affordable housing does for you in connecting what God’s calling you to do to reflect his character in the marketplace and what T&H does?

Jana Hageman [00:23:47]:

And I tell my team this, I do a quarterly meeting with them every and kind of go over the company, and I tell them this. I believe that housing is a catalyst for us to be able to get to people, to be able to improve the lives of people in a significant, meaningful way. And you have churches, and churches have ministers and leadership groups, and they reach people. They reach their congregation, they reach people in the community. I don’t think I would be a very good pastor. God didn’t call me to be a pastor of a church. There’s some things about me that probably wouldn’t be so pretty. I think we’ve shared this.

Jana Hageman [00:24:25]:

Sometimes I do swear, and sometimes I like to have a few glasses of wine. So maybe I could be a Catholic. But I can’t be Catholic, can I? So I found that God called me a pastor of a company-When I, instead of ministering to a congregation, I’m ministering to team members, right? And I think at first I thought, oh, this is great. I’m ministering to my employees. And we’ve seen people come to Jesus. We pray together as a team. I host Bible studies at some of our properties.

Jana Hageman [00:24:53]:

But now I’m seeing God didn’t just call me to pastor a company. We’re pastoring the residents, right? We’re pastoring politicians who we’re talking with. We’re pastoring the subcontractors whose daughter now can go to college because her dad got the framing job. And it’s really cool to see that wasn’t what I anticipated. So I tell my team, like, yeah, this is really hard work. It’s really difficult. But we’re impacting people’s lives in a really significant way. It’s so worth it.

Marcia Barnes [00:25:24]:

Yeah. You work in an industry that you’ve told me can sometimes be seen. Developers are sometimes seen as the big bad wolf, right?

Jana Hageman [00:25:31]:

Yes.

Marcia Barnes [00:25:31]:

What are you doing to flip that on its head?

Jana Hageman [00:25:34]:

I’m calling it out. I’ll be talking with a city and sharing what we want to do. And you can just see in their eyes, they’re like, okay, well, this is all we can offer you. And I’ll just say, I know a lot of developers can come in and demand a lot from you. Right? That’s what happens. They come in, this is what I need. Give it to me. Give it to me.

Jana Hageman [00:25:55]:

And I said, we have a different perspective. We have a different way. I feel like I’m here to serve. I’m here to help. That’s our tagline, like T&H: We’re here to help. Chick-fil-A has: My pleasure. It’s, hey, we’re here to help.

Jana Hageman [00:26:06]:

So I tell the community, I’m here to help you. Tell me what you want, tell me what you need, tell me what you can offer, and I’m going to build something around that. I’m not going to come in as a developer and tell you what we’re going to do.

Marcia Barnes [00:26:17]:

Right.

Jana Hageman [00:26:18]:

And so we really treat it as a partnership. I’ve even had times where I go into a community and say, here are four options I see that would really benefit your community. Here’s the different prices. What do you want? And I let them choose. I’ve had neighbors who really have this bad developers say, okay, you want to name the development? Do you want to help pick the brick? Do you want to be a part of the team? We value your opinion. We’re not just going to come in and do what we want the way we want to. We want this to be something that ministers and loves on people and that slows things down. So it can slow down progress.

Jana Hageman [00:26:52]:

Sometimes you get pink when you tell the mayor they can pick the brick. I have one very pink building that I thought, well, I told him he got to pick the color. It’s a pink building. But at the end of the day, I just think there’s beauty in kind of approaching that with a more servant leadership perspective.

Marcia Barnes [00:27:11]:

Yeah. When you invite people into the process. Right. It tends to always make everything come out better. That’s good. You like to use some of the capacity of the housing that you’ve built to help the homeless. That’s something I’ve admired about what you’re doing there. How did that happen?

Jana Hageman [00:27:30]:

It just started with my first project we decided it’s a senior housing project, so it’s affordable senior housing. And we decided to set aside seven of the units for seniors suffering from homelessness. It would be integrated. So it’s 60 units, but seven would be for seniors suffering from homelessness. And everybody told me, it’s not going to work. Nobody does this for seniors. And I thought, oh, let’s try it. Let’s give it a shot.

Jana Hageman [00:27:53]:

And so the amazing thing, when you’re dealing with the homeless population, it is difficult, right? You can’t put a microwave and a stove in their unit. I mean, it’s a different kind of development, which is why people said, you can’t do it integrated. But there are so many people in this city that will wrap around that with us, right? So if we say, hey, we’re going to do this, I have Gallahue Behavioral Health, like I have Family Promise. I have NHP. There are groups that say, yeah, and we’ll come wrap around and we’ll help you. We’ll provide services. They’ll even provide rental assistance. Right? They’ll provide amazing things.

Jana Hageman [00:28:28]:

So I think for me, I have loved integrating homeless housing into our projects because I have great partners that can help. Where you get in trouble is when you integrate it and you have nobody that can help. You can’t just leave somebody with no support.

Marcia Barnes [00:28:43]:

Right?

Jana Hageman [00:28:44]:

So for me, just, it’s very rewarding and fulfilling, although I will say the increase of fentanyl. Right, and OxyContin and all of that has made it very difficult because people are hurting and they’re suffering. And that stuff, it’s been really hard to deal with.

Marcia Barnes [00:29:02]:

Yeah. It’s definitely become blight on our country for, you know, you and I are both from Ripley County originally. Would you have ever thought you’d see the day when it was that big of a deal at home in the rural environments? I certainly wasn’t expecting to see addiction at the levels that it is today.

Jana Hageman [00:29:22]:

No. And sometimes when it comes to addiction, the thing I notice is people get this very judgmental perspective, right? And I’m not a TikToker. I am a millennial. But there is this TikTok I got hooked to. I actually felt God calling at me to it. It’s called, like, Tales from the Streets. And if you go to this, you see this gentleman who’s literally going and talking with people who are addicted to fentanyl and OxyContin and asking them their story, and they share their story, and your heart just bleeds for them. You want to help them, you can just see that they made a bad choice.

Jana Hageman [00:29:57]:

They had some trauma, they made a bad choice, they tried something and they are stuck, right? They’re stuck in this and they can’t get out. And man, it just made me feel so much empathy and figure out how do we battle this as a nation for these people. We have a lot of them living in some of our affordable housing complexes and I don’t know, I feel very called to love and serve that group of people where I think maybe a year or two ago, even before watching that TikTok video, I may have felt more like, I don’t know if judgmental is the word, but, oh, that’s not my group, right? That’s not my people. But now they feel like my people, right?

Marcia Barnes [00:30:35]:

Yeah. It’s pretty close to home for sure. You’re just running this fantastic business with a great culture. And one of the things that I like that you are producing consistently is transformational results. You’re transforming communities with affordable housing, you’re transforming the workspace and you’re transforming the brand of developers. It’s not a big bad wolf. It’s a community partner to help people thrive. Right.

Marcia Barnes [00:31:03]:

I like transformation stories. I like seeing people go from here to there where there’s a noticeable change in substance or form in somebody’s outcome because of a change that has happened in them. When have you seen somebody go through transformation and tell us about how that felt to you and what that looked like?

Jana Hageman [00:31:21]:

I want to hear if I tell one of my transformation stories, will you tell one of yours?

Marcia Barnes [00:31:25]:

Sure. Yeah, I’ll do that.

Jana Hageman [00:31:26]:

I think I’ve shared, man, I can think of a lot. I’ve been very blessed to see a lot of beautiful transformation stories. God continues to transform my own heart. He did it last night when I had to put my ego aside with something. I was arguing with my husband. But I think the transformation experience that’s most impactful to me is to see what God is doing in transforming the lives of the people who are working at T&H. And I know I’ve shared this with you a little bit, but it’s to the point now when someone joins T&H, especially at the leadership team level, I warn them a bit, say God is going to work on you. He is going to work on you.

Jana Hageman [00:32:08]:

If you have things you’ve been struggling with, He’s going to work on that with you here and you’re going to be in a really safe space where people are going to support you through it, but just be ready for it. Be ready for whatever that thing is. I don’t know what it is, but be ready for it. And people are like, oh, okay, Jana, you’re such a nice person. Thank you for saying, but they don’t believe it. And then they join, and this experience happens. It’s happened to every single one of my leaders where God had to work something out of their life to be able to thrive at our company. He had to work something out from their ego to be able to thrive at our company.

Jana Hageman [00:32:45]:

He’s done it with me multiple times as the leader, and now what is beautiful, we just had someone join, and God’s working some things, and I was able to say in this meeting, stop because we knew what’s going on, right. He’s sharing all this stuff he’s, like, dealing with at home and in work. And I said, raise your hand if you’ve felt what this person’s feeling at T&H. Raise your hand if you have your own journey where you’ve been hit with some stuff and you have to work something out that you weren’t anticipating. And every single leader raised their hand, and I said, we got you. We know what you’re going through. I know you haven’t experienced this before at another company. This is part of the T&H journey, and we got your back.

Jana Hageman [00:33:25]:

We’re here for you. And just. That’s powerful, right? That’s powerful.

Marcia Barnes [00:33:30]:

Very, very much so. There’s always so much more potential than what we can see on the surface. Right. And believing in that and calling it out and cultivating it is always something I’ve enjoyed, really, in a big way. Many years ago, probably 20 years ago, in my call center in Ripley county, they were trying to hire a girl from Vevay, which is about, what would you say to Milan? Would be maybe 30-40 minute drive. We had hired several people from Vevay, and I finally made a rule. Don’t hire anybody from Vevay again. It’s too long of a drive.

Marcia Barnes [00:34:07]:

They’ll say they can handle it, and then they’ll quit pretty quickly. And Misty calls in, and she’s from Vevay, and they tell her, really haven’t found that that’s a good idea because of how long it takes to get to work. And she kept calling back and asking for the job, and finally I relented, and we hired her. And we were at the time developing another person to be the next manager on that team. And Misty comes in, starts working there, and she’s, like, answering more calls with better results than anyone else on the team. And I’m not talking like, 20% better. I’m talking four times better.

Jana Hageman [00:34:39]:

That’s awesome.

Marcia Barnes [00:34:40]:

It was unbelievable, the productivity that that young lady could get. And so it came time to put somebody in manager position, and my two existing managers were developing this third person, and they’re hemhawing around in our conversation about putting Rebecca in the job. And I’m like, what is it you guys are not saying? And they said, we really think Misty should be in this. And I said, well, she’s only worked here for six weeks. We haven’t spent that much time developing her. And they go, but Marcia, she accepted the night shift and switched to night shift, and she’s getting four times more production than anyone else. We just think that it would be easy for her to show other people how to do that. So I said, well, let me interview her.

Marcia Barnes [00:35:19]:

And I sat down at the interview and I asked her one question and I said, Rebecca and Shannon, or Courtney and Shannon, tell me that you’re doing four times more production than anyone else on the team. And she said, yeah, that’s what they. Very humbly. Yeah, that’s what they’ve told me, too. And I go, can you teach other people to do that? And she said, yeah, I think so. And I said, all right, you’re hired. And we’re going to spend the rest of our hour making the plan for how you’re going to do that. And sure enough, within six weeks, we had maybe not four times, but three and a half as part of it was.

Marcia Barnes [00:35:55]:

She was just so driven to hit numbers. Right?

Jana Hageman [00:35:58]:

Yeah.

Marcia Barnes [00:35:58]:

And when you start to pass that around many people, then it can be harder to get that complete four. But she got three and a half. And that was just business changing. And she went from that position to running a sales team to training salespeople to running a call center into being our VP of sales. And next thing you know, she’s running a 500 person team in a 400 million dollar business.

Jana Hageman [00:36:24]:

That’s amazing.

Marcia Barnes [00:36:25]:

She’s building homes in Mexico. She found Christ in that journey. That was kind of funny. We had it. Not funny, but her peer on our team, on the way to work one Monday morning, 35 years old, pulls over to the side of the road…shoot…pulls over to the side of the road, dies of a heart attack. So that was rough. It was her best friend.

Jana Hagemna [00:36:54]: 

It was her best friend?

Marcia Barnes [00:36:54]:

Absolutely. Two or three days after we buried Brian, she texted me and said, I need you to help me understand John 3:16. “For God so loved the world, He gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.” She’s asking to accept Jesus. And so I helped her walk through that. And then her second question to me is, because she said, what should I do next? I said, read the Book of John and we’ll start talking about that together. So the first time we get back together, she says, ok, I think I get it, but I’m really confused about what’s the difference between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Marcia Barnes [00:37:37]:

That’s her first question. That’s a big question. And I go, so anyway, we worked through that. But what a blessing it was to walk through her, both in her development, in her faith, her development professionally, her marriage, the way she served other people, the way she served her family. It was just a remarkable experience for me. And I know it was for her, too.

Jana Hageman [00:37:59]:

But I think of the whole point, right? People say, like, why you work so hard? Why do you do what you do? What’s the whole point of life, man? That’s a piece of it, isn’t it?

Marcia Barnes [00:38:08]:

And I didn’t do it. I just got to participate in what God was doing in her. That’s so much fun.

Jana Hageman [00:38:14]:

And if you can just put yourself in that flow where God can use you to do his work, that is a good flow to be in. That’s such a beautiful story. I’m really grateful you shared it. And it reminds me of just how good it is to be in that flow and how blessed we are to get to have those experiences and how.

Marcia Barnes [00:38:33]:

Good it is for us to do that together. I’ve enjoyed our friendship and it has conversations like this one in it all the time. I have really valued getting to know you and being in this life together with you.

Jana Hageman [00:38:45]:

Yeah, I’ve valued getting to know you, too. We’re my best friends, Marcia, but I think you probably have a hundred best friends, though. But I’ll be one of a hundred.

Marcia Barnes [00:38:53]:

You are definitely very important to me, and I’m just very thankful you’ve reached out to me for us to get introduced and get to know one another. So it’s been a total joy. And this conversation has been a total joy today, too. Thanks for coming on and helping our folks figure out what it means to grow inside their businesses, professionally, personally, spiritually. You’ve got a lot going on, girl. And I admire what you and Shane are doing over there. It’s just fantastic.

Jana Hageman [00:39:22]:

Yeah. And a whole team takes a village. So grateful for the family and friends that keep me going.

Marcia Barnes [00:39:29]:

Absolutely. Thanks a lot for your help today.

Jana Hageman [00:39:31]:

Yeah. Thank you. Loved it. Love being with you. Love your team. Team. It was awesome.

Here We Grow Narrator [00:39:38]:

Thank you for joining us for Here We Grow. This show is proudly brought to you by Valve+Meter performance marketing. Be sure to check out the show notes for exclusive content that will help you become a transformational leader. For more, visit mathbeforemarketing.com/podcast.