I am not going to fake it, opening a new real brand in a brand new area is no joke. Wow what a tough couple of months!
I have been working with Harley Rouda Jr, CEO of Real Living Inc, on this business model for about 14 months now, the first 10 months were endless conference calls with attorneys and business leaders from our industry building a correct model. What we doing has never been done, in an area we have never been!
When I took the assignment to "develop and build the Partners Model and prove its viability" everyone thought I might be nuts.
I own a brokerage in the Midwest, it does really, really well. My life was getting boring. I had built a company that everyone thought would fail. Two weeks after opening I took our local Board of Realtors Exectutive Officer to lunch, she told me in the first five minutes "you will never make it, you are too young and a man."
How is that for encouragement, six years later, I had given the reigns of the number three company in the market to someone else and flew to RDU. I got off the airplane in January of 2007 with a briefcase and hotel reservation and started doing work!
I did pick the market. I looked at every major market in the country and decided to move my family here, I know that is hardly anything new. What a great place to live and do business. I practiced in maybe the worst market in the United States for six years, Wake County looked pretty good. A great market, great agents to recruit, the best agent compensation plan in the business, the best consumer facing website in Real Estate...now all I have to do is implement!
It has been a challenge, but it is all coming together, web traffic is through the roof, closings are strong and pendings are stronger! We have great agents on board and are talking to more. A good plan is coming together. Trust me for a while there it was scary.
Imagine getting dropped in the City of your choice and told to build a very profitable real estate company in 24 months in the worst home recession our country has ever seen; and by the way five of the largest companies in the United States are direct competitors!
Well I did this to see what I was made of, it is truly about the journey and the challenge for me. As Andy Dufrain said "it is time to start Real Living or time to start dying!"
Well something like that.
Stay tuned I will keep you updated!
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