This interview has been a couple of weeks in the works. I decided to interview Tony Marriott for a few reasons.
- He has the highest point total on Active Rain and I am sure many would like to know his secret
- He is an extremely successful REALTOR®
- He is one of the few Active Rain members I have met in person
- His business model is somewhat unique and interesting to me
- He has more training and more designations than any Realtor I know
- He and his wife are in the business together. (Something my wife and I are afraid to try)
- I enjoy reading his blogs and his responses to other blogs.
I started by sending Tony a few questions in advance that he could respond via e-mail. Here are the questions and Tony's responses.
Questions with Tony's Responses:
1) How did you originally find out about Active Rain? http://activerain.com/blogsview/15220/EcoBroker
2) Since joining Active Rain you climbed to the top of the point totals quite fast, how did you do that? A combination of all the activities AR rewards with points - recruiting over 200 new members, blog posts and comments, building neighborhoods and taking photos for Localism.
3) What impact has blogging had on you and your business? Incredible - opened up a whole new world for me personally in Real Estate networking - and the business results have been tremendous.
4) Now that you are about to be the first to reach 200,000 points on Active Rain. Any thoughts about what you have invested on AR and what have been the benefits? Time has been invested, and so far the ROI has been a closed referral from an out of state agent, 2 additions to my Keller Williams downline (both out of state agents), double digit calls from Sellers wanting to list their properties after finding me on the' rain - one of which who listed 3 for a total of $850K - all of which sold in the last 4 weeks - 1 closed - 2 pending..... and the list goes on.
5) What advice would you give new members to Active Rain to get the most out of Active Rain? Participate in posting - even if you don't think it's good - practice makes for improvement - and AR is a "safe" place (mostly) to learn the art of blogging. Learn about what activities earn points, and participate - the resulting visibility will translate into business benefits. Read all you can - it's a wealth of information - an asynchronous "virtual" mastermind group on just about every real estate topic you can think of!
6) How do you see the Localism.com as an impact? Huge! If I had a farm I would bet it on Localism paying off for those who have helped build it.
7) How long have you been in the real estate industry? Since August of 2002. Suzanne and I are now both Associate Brokers.
8) I see you have a lot of designations, much more than almost anyone I know. I was going to ask how you fit them on your business card. Instead I will ask what you would tell new agents about designations and training in general. I have extra large business cards with embedded micro chips flashing the designations on a rotating basis! But seriously, the only designations on my paper business card are the CRS, CRB and CLHMS. My advice to new agents - if you are serious about real estate as a business - get started immediately on your CRS. You have time available as a new agent that you won't later once your business develops. The information and skills you will learn at CRS classes, plus the networking, will enable you to get your first 25 transactions more quickly.
9) What made you decide on the team selling model at Keller Williams? http://activerain.com/blogsview/50522/Why-Keller-Williams
10) Can you tell us a little about the Marriott Group? How it came to be. By accident. In October of 2004, while at RE/MAX, I was faced with 162 Buyer leads that had not even had an initial response. We hired our first Buyer Agent the following week and added about one a month until we hit 11 team members by the fall of 2005.
11) How many people make up the group? We moved to Keller Williams with a core group of 5, added 1 more to that group, plus another Assistant (Virtual), and are just now beginning a focused recruiting effort to hire 9 more in the next 3 months.
12) Where you are and where you are going? http://activerain.com/blogsview/49321/How-to-get-where & http://activerain.com/blogsview/49363/How-to-get-where That's the plan - time will tell how successful we are.
13) Please add anything you think you would like to share with the readers on Active Rain. Here is a link to a podcast done with Mary McKnight - we can discuss more on the phone. http://www.phoenixarizonahomesearch.com/genre/About+Us scroll down past Ken's picture and click play.....
Tony and I followed these up with a very nice phone conversation Monday evening.
Let me start by giving a little background on Tony.
Tony and his wife Suzanne first met while working for Thomas Cook Travel in 1988. Suzanne trained Tony when he started and over the tenure Tony held several positions, some where Suzanne worked for him. Suzanne specialized in building teams, a skill that has carried over into real estate. One of the big jobs they did together was to build an entire department in a couple of weeks.
After an acquisition by American Express and 7 years of heavy travel for Tony, they both transferred from Dearborn, Michigan to Phoenix in July of 1996. Tony and Suzanne have been together for about 10 years and now run the Marriott Group at Keller Williams Realty Professional Partners together.
I asked Tony to describe what is like to work with his wife. He said they make a great team. They complement each other's strengths. Suzanne runs the back office; transaction manager reports and the technology. She maintains a neat orderly office. Tony runs the front office; dealing with the clients and agents. His office has stuff everywhere. While they have an office at Keller Williams to meet clients; they mainly operate out of their office in their home. He said the only real draw back to being in business together is that they get in the trap of talking shop after hours.
While discussing technology and thoughts of the future he said: "I think it has been absolutely tremendous. Even though I tell people that technology is changing. It REALLY changes." We talked about where technology may take our profession one day. Things like the possibility that one day through virtual reality or a similar technology you will visit homes without getting in a car.
Tony heard about blogging for several years, but never had any interest in it. That all changed when he picked up a flyer from CompuTaught about Eco-Broker's at the Keller Williams Mega-Camp last September. He was interested in learning more and while doing a Google search he found an Active Rain post. The rest is history.
He found Active Rain was a great place to tap into a huge amount of knowledge and validate things through other people who have actually tried them. "There has been a huge impact on our business people finding me on the internet. The more points you have the more visible you become."
This is post is getting a little long, so I would like to wind it up with a few of my personal observations. Since meeting Tony through Active Rain, I have found him to be a great source of knowledge. He is a class act, who is always willing to share with others. I had the great pleasure of meeting Tony and his wife Suzanne at the 2007 CRS Sell-a-bration in Las Vegas and am looking forward to seeing them next January in Waikiki at the 2008 event, where I and a few local Active Rainers will be putting together an event for Active Rain members.
I would extend a Big Mahalo (Thank you in Hawaiian) to Tony personally for taking the time out of his extremely busy schedule to do this interview. Also congratulations in advance on breaking the 200,000 point barrier.
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