Specializing in the South Orange County residential housing market, Anvil Real Estate has taken intentional steps to stay ahead of the housing slowdown.

The results were record-setting months in 2022 for the 2-year-old Laguna Hills-based firm.

The nearly 60 employees are part of a culture that is a “business family,” one that doesn’t just work together but plays together as well, landing Anvil in the Top Workplaces winners’ circle for the first time.

The company leadership says it believes many elements in their trade “can never be replaced by software or an app.” And that shows in the company’s employee survey.

“I feel completely empowered to become the best version of myself so that I may serve others,” wrote one employee in the survey. “The community here is by far the best environment I have ever been in.”

Others in the survey lauded the firm and its leadership.

“The community here is by far the best environment I have ever been in! Everyone wants everyone to win!,” wrote one employee.

“We push each other to do more and be better,” wrote another. “If you’re new, you have great role models to learn and grow from.”

The company also enjoys its connection to the community, sponsoring its first pet adoption event with Promise4Paws, a blood drive with the American Red Cross and a canned food drive with Second Harvest Food Bank.

We spoke with Dan Smith, Anvil’s co-founder and “captain of culture,” about his unique title, how he works to create a supportive work environment and what steps Anvil took to foster that record growth. His answers have been edited for length.

Q: Could you share about your captain of culture title? What does it mean and what does that look like in the day-to-day at Anvil?

A: When we built Anvil, we wanted to have this environment where everybody feels that this is their home. So I spend all my waking hours providing that level of support or trying to build that sense of culture and belonging.

A business family doesn’t just work together. They do all kinds of things outside of work together. So two to five times a week, we do outside-of-work activities. We might walk around Lake Mission Viejo at 6 in the morning as a group. We will do happy hours. There’s a group of people who are going to take a Carnival Cruise together. We’re doing a big company tailgate at one of the Rams games in December. So it’s an ongoing opportunity for everyone to be able to get together.

Q: Some of the feedback from your employees states that they feel empowered. How do you continue to empower them in the midst of social media buzz phrases like “quiet quitting”?

A: I think part of it comes from the leadership role of hiring right. When we’re interviewing agents, or agents are interviewing us to become part of our firm, we really go out of our way to explain who we are, what we are and why we are….that we run as a group. So because of that, those conversations don’t occur nearly as much, because they’ve come into the family understanding what they are becoming a part of. They crave this culture and this sense of belonging.

Q: How are you handling support staff returning to the office after the pandemic? Is there a hybrid option?

A: We were 100% old school prior to the pandemic … but we have gone to a hybrid [model] for our staffers because, in all actuality, they were right. They were able to very effectively point out that there are times when they need to be on-site and times they can work more productively when they’re not on-site. And I believe that’s true.

If you can find the right mix of hybrid, then productivity will actually increase.

Q: With the slowdown occurring in housing sales, how is that affecting your company? How is Anvil dealing with these recent shifting economic factors?

A: We have been taking steps to prepare for it. We have not had to downsize like a lot of companies have. I learned a lot of lessons [from 2008]. One of the things that we’re big on is lead generation.

When we saw the interest rates start to go up, we instantly pivoted some of our business models and advertising campaigns. We’re now at the point where we have nine different lead sources instead of three. But we’re not building those out today. We started building those out in January and February.

Having triple the amount of lead sources has kept the number of leads and business coming in, even though the market has started to dip. There was some risk, but this time it worked.

Q: What do you see looking ahead for the industry? Are you comfortable with your proactive approach?

A: I do think we’re going to start to see a shift. I think we have short memories. I think we adapt quickly. I think people are going to get used to these rates after three or four months, and I think we will bounce back and will be resilient like we traditionally are.

But I could be wrong. So because of that, we have a few more brand new lead sources that will kick off soon. So we’re continuing to grow that, just in case.

No. 4 small company

Anvil Real Estate

Founded: 2020

Industry: Real estate brokerage

Headquarters: Laguna Hills

OC employees: 55

Website: anvilreinc.com

Quote: “A business family doesn’t just work together. They do all kinds of things outside of work together.” — Dan Smith, co-founder and captain of culture at Anvil Real Estate