Podcast: Continuing Conversations After WIRC With Camille Jenkins

The 2025 Women in Residential Construction (WIRC) Conference wrapped on Sept. 26, but the work is not over. That’s according to Camille Jenkins, a business owner and longtime WIRC attendee.

On the final day of the conference, attendees heard from Jenkins, who provides coaching and consulting services through her business, Camille's Keys.

Having attended WIRC over the past several years, Jenkins shares with audience members the importance of keeping conversations going and continuing to be inspired by other women even after the conference is over.

Welcome back to Women at WIRC, where our editors from sister media brands—Pro Builder, Pro Remodeler, and Custom Builder—sit down with standout women across home building, remodeling, and design. We share their stories and business insights, and explore how women are reshaping the residential building industry.

Catherine Sweeney: Welcome everyone and thank you so much for tuning into another episode of Women at WIRC. Our Women in Residential Construction Conference took place at the end of September, and while we were there, we heard from so many amazing women in the housing industry. One of those women was Camille Jenkins of Camille’s Keys. Camille provides hands-on coaching and consulting services that were born out of her own leadership and home building experience.

Having attended WIRC herself for many years, Camille shared with other attendees the importance of connecting with other women in the industry and more importantly how to keep the conversations going after the conference.

And that’s what you’re going to hear today. Whether you were at the event and need a refresher or are listening to what Camille has to say for the first time, please enjoy this audio from the conference.

Camille Jenkins: Good morning everybody. How are you doing? Everybody's gotten up and gotten energized. That's a hard act to follow, very hard, act to follow. But what I wanted to kind of talk to you about today is I am a longtime attendee of WIRC. I think it's somewhere around seven or eight years, I'm not sure, but the first few years that I would come, I would sit in the back and I'd leave with this massive notebook of things to do, initiatives that I was going to run with, goals, but I would never leave with a connection.

I would sit there and I would get all that information. I'd say hello to people. And then somewhere around the fourth year, that started to change. I'd collect a few phone numbers and maybe we'd talk once or twice, and then I'd see them next year. And the conversation would always be, ‘Hey, are you attending the conference next year?’ and that's it.

Then as the years progressed, and the faces became a little bit more familiar, we started to connect a little bit more. I don't want you to do what I did. I want you to connect with people, because as women, it's so important that we have someone that we can pick up the phone and say, ‘Hey, I have an issue,’ or ‘Have you run into this before?’

Who do you go to now, if not someone else that understands our industry? And if I'm keeping it real: we're all a little weird. Have you ever been to someone's house and they're telling you all these great things about their house, and all you're doing is looking at all the nail pops.

You can see the structural issues. I've lost friends over this, people. ‘Look at this million dollar house I just bought,’ and I'm like, ‘Yeah, but your foundation is cracking, right?’

So who else are you going to call that would understand that and not take offense, or that you could have a talk with about the job site cleanliness? They want to go shopping, right?

So we have to connect with those that understand us. So, as we close out these three incredible dates together, I wanna remind you of something powerful, what we've learned here, and who we've met here only matters if we take action, if we connect and if we carry it forward.

Knowledge on its own can fade. I've learned so much over the last few days. How about you guys? How about that generational thing? Let me tell you, I took a screenshot of that period that everybody's talked about, right? And I have a family chat that has different generations. My stepdad who's 70 something, my granddaughter who's 17, and then my youngest daughter who is in her thirties, and I have some other kids.

And let me tell you, I said, ‘Is this true? The granddaughter said, ‘Yes. It's very rude.’ My daughter said, ‘No, that's stupid.’ My dad said, ‘That is punctuation.’

So there's a spark that started in my group text with my family. We'll have to get to the bottom of this, but there should also be a spark that started here with every single one of you.

So I want to do something that's probably a little unorthodox, but I want to commemorate this moment with a quick selfie. You guys ready?

Yes. This is my Samsung phone, by the way. Smile.

Awesome.

And I want you guys to do the same. So take out your phones and take a quick selfie with those at the table with you. Cool. Everybody's like, ‘It's the last day, Camille, we were out drinking.’ That's okay. Put on the shades.

You got it. You got your selfies?

Yes, so this room is filled with sparks. This room is filled with sparks and each of you—Okay. Look. Okay. Over achievers. Didn't we just say no, to the overachieving? They got up and did a whole group. I'm surprised you guys didn't wrestle up the photographer. You got your selfies. Selfies are important.

Also, make sure that you go on the app and that you reach out to people on the app. Let them know if they really inspired you. And you know, once our fires are lit, it should be contagious. When you've had an awesome time and you've learned something and you go back and you tell others about it, it should make them interested to say, oh, I've never heard of that conference before.

Where is it? Yeah, I want to join that. So I challenge you when you go back to your respective areas. Where's the West Coast? We're sleepy. Where's the Midwest? Closer to your time, and where's the East Coast? Oh my goodness. So when you guys all go back to your respective areas, you need to tell people about this.

You need to tell women about this. Have you guys heard about the book? The book The House That She Built? Yes. Amazing. I couldn't wait to get my hands on it, and I had the pleasure of presenting with Molly Ekman a couple years ago. I bought those books and I mailed one to every single girl, young girl in my family, and I put a little note in there.

I said, ‘If you wonder what auntie does, this is it.’ I have the pleasure to be in an industry where we build homes for people or remodel homes for people or design homes for people or paint them or weld on them, or whatever we do, where memories are created, where people sit at the table and have Thanksgiving dinner, where Christmas trees go up.

We have the amazing opportunity to be a part of people's journeys. So you should do the same as a spark. You should ignite a flame in yourself and others to learn more about our industry and to be a part of it.

So I want to ask two brave women to please go up to the mics. There's two mics still. Yeah, because I would like two brave women to please share with us what ignited you over the past few days.

Was it something you heard? Was it someone you met? Was it maybe being introduced to a thought or an idea you hadn't had before? And I do not have a problem calling on people. Don't make me do it. I saw you dancing. All right, thank you. All right. We have our ladies. Please give them a round of applause.

Go ahead.

Attendee 1: To be fair, she actually ignited me. She was awesome.

Camille: I'm going to let you empowered women decide. Go ahead.

Attendee 1: What ignited me was the connection. I came last year for the first time and I knew a couple people from home who were from other businesses, but I talked to so many more people this year, and watching my designer be excited about it.

This is the first time she's been to a conference. It was really, that's what was fun for me.

Camille: So I love that she said that she brought someone with her and actually watching that other person's excitement is part of what ignited her feeling. I love that. Thank you for sharing.

Attendee 2: I'm going to cry, so just give me—

Camille: Oh, darn it. Now, me too. And I don't have the waterproof stuff.

Attendee 2: I just love that we're the most introverted, extroverts out there, but what truly ignited me, and there's no way to say thank you. My husband and I started this firm and we're on the great things of achievement, and he passed away, unfortunately, suddenly with Crohn's and colitis and coronary things.

But it doesn't matter. But my point is, all of you have ignited me because. I said to my daughter, we need a Joyce Meyer conference. And we came to Texas for that. And then my internal developer on our team who has 55-plus years experience building all over the U.S. and Canada, by the way, he said, ‘You need to go to this conference.’

I've been in mentorship with him for four years, and you cannot get a degree in development. This is like hands-on learning. So I basically got a master's degree in development through the school of hard knocks. And all of you have motivated me, ignited us. Because we needed this. We did not know what to expect.

We do have a similar conference like this in Canada, but not the same. This is much better, so I just want to say thank you, all of you, your smarts, your intelligence, what you're doing in this world. Please come up to our conference in Canada and motivate us. That would be wonderful. Thank you.

Camille: Oh, somebody needs to give her a big hug.

I just want to say what she shared with you just now is I can completely relate because I'd actually had a two decade career somewhere that I thought I would retire from, and Jill, what she laid out, that burnout. I took a picture of that.

I literally burned out. I walked. I remember getting up and going to work and getting in my car and realizing it was Saturday. I got all dressed up too. I was mad. I said, ‘You know what, I think I'm starting to lose it, you know?’ And it's so important to have a tribe. I use that word, a lot of women that you can lean on and talk to.

So if you wouldn't mind, I'd love to be part of your tribe. We'll connect. So thank you for sharing that.

That's exactly in my opinion, as being a long time attendee, the feeling that I would hope everyone walks away with, that you have now connected with someone that, not just through the conference in our industry, but just woman to woman, shared experiences, being an overachiever, being overwhelmed, being, you know.

I don't know about you, but I got a phone call asking me where the Ziploc bags are. I'm like, ‘I am sure that you could figure that out, and if you can't, I did not choose well.’ Just kidding, but it's like, are you serious? I'm all the way out here. So there's so many things that we deal with. Stay connected.

And one of my favorite things that I've ever read by Ms. Maya Angelo was that 'once a woman's fire is lit, it doesn't just burn, she ignites everyone around her.'

So I would hope that over the last few days, through the stories, that you have similar feelings and that you've been ignited. And I so very much appreciate being able to be here and being able to see all of your beautiful faces.

Hope to see you next year. Thank you.

Thanks for listening to Women at WIRC. This podcast is a spinoff of our annual Women in Residential Construction Conference, which we’ve hosted since 2016. You can learn more about the conference and see when we’ll be in your area by visiting womensconstructionconference.com. Women at Work is a production of Endeavor Business Media, a division of Endeavor B2B. Until next time, keep up the good work.

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