Informal Presentation - Jessica Jennings

This presentation was created in the Business Management course last year in 2023.

1. Informational Interview with 

Sonja

Stephenson
Presented By:
Jessica Jennings Ford

2. SONJA STEPHEBSON’S
BACKGROUND
•Law school
•Bachelor’s Degree in Sociology
•Case manager for DHS 2003
•Realty owner and manager started in `1997

3. Stephenson Realty (SRC)
Interviewee’s company background. (Obtained from your research)
SRC was founded in the year of 1997. The focus of this Stephenson Realty is to ensure that
every family is treated with importance and make sure that they are educated and are receiving
the guidance that is needed in order to purchase real estate for their future.

4. Questions About the
Manager’s Background
Q: What was your career path to this position as a manager?
A: Well at first I started off by going to college for a scholarship in law, but then changed my mind because I realized that studying law was
just not what I saw myself doing for the rest of my life. So I changed my major to Sociology and received a bachelor’s degree. That’s how I
became a case manager and worked for the DHS in Georgia for about 5-7 years, but then relocated to Tennessee and started working for a
realty company. I came up with a plan and wanted to do more for myself and the people around me after working for someone else’s realty
company for a couple of years and decided to have something that I could call my own. This is when I founded SRC also known as
Stephensons Realty.
Q: What training did you have to complete to have this position?
A: Your always something new going on in the business world, so learning never stopped, but I had to take a real estate course for a certain
amount of hours and pass the the exam at the end. Then had to take the Tennesse State exam in order to obtain my license and omission
insurance. I had experience working as an associate with a realty company before, it wasn’t a difficult process for me at all because I also
had experience with management, sales, and finance.
Q: What are your responsibilities as a manager for your assistant?
A: My responsibility is to be a leader and to continue to train her and keep her up-to-date with everything that is going on. I provide her with
information that is needed to complete day-to-day tasks and make sure that she has everything that is needed to perform her duties.

5. What are the most critical skills
needed as a manager to be able to
lead your team?
Leadership, communication, and listening
skills. You have to also be able to show
empathy and be willing to learn new things
from others as well as they learn from you.

6. How do you motivate your
employee and encourage her to
bring value to the table?
I motivate her by being a leading example, showing
her how everything is supposed to be done. I also let
her know that no one is perfect and that it takes
practice to be better than you were before at
whatever you do.

7. When evaluating an employee of
team member’s performance, what
factors are most important to you?
Punctuality and Deliverance

8. What part of managing employees
do you
fi
find the most satisfying and
the most challenging?
The most challenging part of managing my employees would
be my busy schedule trying to find the time to manage those
employees. The most satisfying thing is that I enjoy being a
leader to guide my employees in the right direction so that
one day they can own their own company and become a
business partner.

9. How do you provide e
ff
ffective
feedback to your assistant?
I praise my assistant for all that she does right because the
Lord knows that I am very thankful for her, but if something
needs to be addressed, I pull her to the side to talk about it
and ask that the problem be corrected. I have also made sure
that she knows that I am there anytime she needs help with
anything.

10. What is one of your goals for
managing your employees?
My goal is to create a safe work environment
for my employees to grow personally so that
they may have the chance to succeed in
their careers.

11. Lessons you learned about people
management from the interviewee
1. Lead by example
2. Practice time management and organizational skills
3. Have patience and be empathetic when dealing with others
4. Always be prepared for change for adaptation
5. It takes time and practice to be better than you were before so don’t give up

12. Lessons Learned About My Ability
to Perform in a Managerial Position
I have learned that I would need to work on a lot of different things in order to be able to be a
realty manager which includes continuing to work on my Bachelor’s degree in business. I will
also need to continue to work on my communication, and being able to deal with
fi
finances. I
love to help people, but I de
fi
finitely need to work on being patient with others and having
empathy. I need to work on adapting to new environments and this is why I have dif
fi
ficulty with
networking. This is where I realized that I am not quite ready to be a manager and own a
business just yet because it comes with a lot of personal growth and I am still trying to work
on myself. Besides, Ms. Stephenson helped me
fi
figure out what I wanted to do after
Graduating next year and that is to help troubled teenagers providing them with a safe place
to come to when they have nowhere to go and people to talk to when they need advice or just
for someone to listen to them. I realized that the community is way more different than what it
used to be when I was growing up and that the kids are raised differently and are being led
astray from what should have been in order to make their futures brighter than what they are
today and this is because of my generation. I feel that matter needs to be corrected and it
should include me.

13. References
Realty, S. (2017, January 1). About: Src realty. website-2. https://www.srcrealty.org/