Thoughts On Leadership: Exploding Your Business

By Gino Blefari

This week my travels first took me to Omaha, NE to attend Explosion 2019, a real estate conference hosted by Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Ambassador Real Estate and Vince Leisey, CEO of Ambassador Real Estate and conference founder. After Omaha, I traveled to Nashville to attend Harry Norman, REALTORS^® 2019 Senior Marketing Consultant (SMC) Retreat and also met with the team at Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Woodmont Realty.

But before we talk about Nashville, let’s get back to Nebraska … The Explosion conference featured an action-packed agenda with valuable takeaways from industry leaders and top agents in markets across the country. I participated on a panel with top producers as well as a panel for managers about culture, an important component to what makes Ambassador Real Estate thrive.

Vince has been a longtime champion of culture, and if you ever get a chance to visit his mega-office in Omaha, you’d understand why. There’s an intangible positivity thrumming through the sleek space, which was designed with collaboration and community in mind. The culture Vince has built at Ambassador Real Estate is unique and award-winning; it consistently ranks at the top of Entrepreneur’s Best Company Culture list.

At Ambassador Real Estate, Vince defines culture by breaking down its essential components. Team members must be inspired to achieve more and feel excited about what they do. They must love their work not as a job but as a true passion. Leaders can instill this passion in their team members simply by showing them they care. Vince frequently plans social events to energize his agents and help them interact outside of the office. Team members must also operate with a spirit of support. As Vince would say, nobody gets to the top of his or her game alone, and it takes a supportive atmosphere to foster real and lasting success. The game-changers and door-openers are exactly the type of people Vince coaches his team members to become, guiding them to achieve all their professional goals. He also encourages his agents to help other agents achieve their goals, too.

And speaking of coaching, it undeniably goes hand in hand with culture. Having a coach is one of the very best ways to improve and refine your skills. I’ve written before about the relationship between skills and service; customer service is the frosting but cannot be the whole cake. In order to really win at business, you must have finely honed skills that can be developed through careful coaching, just as Vince implements with his team members.

If culture and coaching were two circles in a Venn diagram, in the overlapping middle you’d have teams, the third critical component to Vince Leisey’s leadership style. “Teams” for Vince means not only the teamwork created by a positive sales environment but also the actual creation of real estate teams, which in many cases allows top performers to grow in ways they wouldn’t be able to do alone.

And in the name of teams, I met with a fantastic one in Nashville this week — the Harry Norman, REALTORS^® team, led by president and CEO Jenni Bonura. The Harry Norman, REALTORS^® SMC Retreat was a deep dive for sales professionals determined to become even better at an all-important skill: marketing. I spoke at the event about creating an unstoppable mindset, and I firmly believe the first step to re-energizing your marketing is to look inward, manifesting positivity within yourself to become unstoppable. Additional topics covered during the retreat included: foreign purchasing trends and the life cycle of a successful social media brand.

 

After visiting with the team at Harry Norman, REALTORS^®, I also had the chance to meet with the fantastic team at Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Woodmont Realty, who won’t have to travel far for the 2020 Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Sales Convention as it’ll take place right in their hometown.

So, what’s the message? To be successful, as Vince and his conference panelists explained, you have to focus on the components for success. You have to break down the specific aspects of a winning culture then work on each one until as a whole, you’ve created the kind of environment people want to be in, stay in and never leave. This means perpetually improving your skills and mindset to create success that’s truly explosive.