For the past 9 years I have worked in real estate. Before that I did some dabbling in real estate investment and found one of my passions there. Aside from really enjoying being a landlord, I love selling good houses to good people.
Oversimplified, what’s not to like? Personality wise, I’m an ENFJ according to the Myers-Briggs test. I’m out-going, love to help people whether its getting through problems or making a project come together. Meeting new people gives me an internal charge, but maintaining friendships is also huge.
Before real estate I worked in marketing with a major managed services company, before that I majored in Public Relations at the University of Tennessee.
This brings me to the subject at hand. I have really liked the people wherever I have worked. At my first (and only – before KW) real estate company the people were and are fantastic. It was a family atmosphere, no pressure and you learn/earn at your own pace based upon your own system, developed over time.
That environment is great if you are very established in a community that regularly turns over their homes to buy bigger homes. That was not so much my experience in that community, my client base is mostly made up of friends and acquaintances and I didn’t grow up in South Knoxville.
I was introduced to Keller Williams through a friend, Barbara, who was not satisfied with her real estate sales career and had moved over before me. She didn’t stay there too long, but it was like God used her to help me find my own way. It wasn’t easy for me to leave my little comfortable cubicle with $12 per mo. desk fees and acceptable splits to go join a West Knoxville firm where I had been told the real estate waters were teeming with man-eating sales sharks.
While I have been to the other “marquee” firms, doing closings, dropping off papers, presenting offers or other work, I felt something at Keller Williams in Bearden that was foreign to me elsewhere. Energy. The office was teeming alright, but there were no sharks – it is a beehive of positive and friendly people who are working together toward a goal. Sure we are all independent agents, sure each deal is our own and we are responsible for seeing it through. But the energy and teamwork aspect comes from outside the deal.
Everyone at KW is an expert at something and generally if they are not working with a client they are happy to sit down and spend a few minutes talking about what they know that you need help with. This is huge for me. I know a little about computers and have learned the Keller Williams system for marketing. eEdge is great for lead production, good at vetting and makes each transaction roll smoothly if you know how to use it. But its not why I’m there.
It started with the culture. It’s a culture of success through systems. There are some agents in the office whose own personal systems work for them and they are going gangbusters, however the agents and teams who are growing into movers and shakers in town – making marquee names for themselves and breaking out of the pack without becoming maneaters are adopting the Keller Williams systems.
It’s ready-made, well researched and proven. From the beginning: Your Big Why, to the How’s and Wherefore’s that follow in step-by-step classes and training (at least 3-4 live classes on real estate related subjects) live in the office every week. I started out attending very often, then I taught a few, now I coordinate some of them.
It is also a fun group! Whether you’re 22 or 62, the crowd is very social – have optional get-togethers each week and there is no average age. Everyone who attends has fun…its the rule! This feeds the extrovert in that ENFJ bundle.
The basic systems of Keller Williams are summed up in a book called the Millionaire Real Estate Agent or MREA. Not that everyone aspires to that or is willing to work enough to make it happen. But regardless of the number of transactions you want to close in a given year – having great systems is how you get to that goal. The systems are layed out in that book and synergy of seeing it done correctly by the KW team helps to accomplish that for yourself.
It’s my I’m a KW agent.
