When you walk into Latitude Commercial’s Crown Point office, the first person you see is Kayla Patrick, the office manager. She is the jack-of-all-trades that helps keep the office and team publicized, organized, and running smoothly.
“It’s a pretty broad role,” she said. “But it comes down to keeping the office and business running, and the other side of it is handling marketing.”
Patrick joined the team at Latitude in January of this year, bringing with her a background of experience with front desk work, client relations, and administrative tasks. Originally from Illinois, she moved to the Region along with her family and quickly settled into her role at Latitude.
“Ever since my interview until now, it’s just been great,” she said. “I’ve really felt welcomed.”
She worked in a variety of industries prior to joining Latitude, but Latitude’s work in commercial real estate was entirely new to her.
“It’s been a really cool learning experience, I didn’t have any real estate background before this,” she said. “Learning about all the different properties and the different lingo has definitely been a unique experience all on its own. They’ve been really good mentors here; I can go to anyone for anything, and they’ll be helpful.”
One of the unique things Patrick appreciates about Latitude is how much room they allow for personal growth – something she experienced before she was even officially hired.
“During my interview, Aaron McDermott, the co-founder and president, told me that there’s plenty of possibility here,” she said. “He told me I could be anything I wanted to be, except (his job) the president. When you take someone from within and build them up, it really helps the company grow.”
Aside from the regular administrative work, Patrick is also responsible for coordinating Latitude’s marketing. She had some experience with it in the past, such as creating flyers and promos, but has needed to learn a lot on the fly. Organizing events, working with graphic designers, managing digital marketing and web analytics, assembling newsletters and plotting their layouts - all of that falls on her shoulders.
“Digital marketing and web analytics are something that I’ve had to completely learn, I didn’t know anything about it when I started,” she said. “But learning it has been a great experience. I’m already taking concepts, applying them to the company, and giving suggestions on how to better reach our clients.”
Even after all the learning, marketing proved to be Patrick’s favorite part of the job.
“I love putting together the marketing projects,” she said. “I’m a creative person in general, so it gives me the chance to deal with things like art.”
Outside of her work at Latitude, Patrick flexes her creativity through music.
“I play my guitar and sing,” she said. “Everyone in my family does music, and I’ve been singing since I was a kid. I’ve always had the guitar but didn’t really take the time to learn it until a couple of years ago.”
To learn more about Latitude Commercial, visit latitudeco.com.
