Posts filed in:Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Leadership

Thursday Thoughts on Leadership: DISCovering Behaviors

By Gino Blefari

This week my travels found me in Nashville, TN for the Real Living Connection conference. However, I want to travel back a bit farther — not in distance but in time — to twenty four hundred years ago when Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine, first started to contemplate the idea that differences in human behavior follow a recognizable pattern. Ever since this discovery, scientists and researchers alike have studied the concepts of behavior and personality. Notably, in 1928, Harvard-trained psychologist Dr. William Marston wrote “The Emotions of Normal People,” in which he put forth the idea that people are motivated by four intrinsic drives — represented by four letters of the alphabet, D,I,S,C, — that define behavioral patterns. And so, a concept called DISC was born.

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Thursday Thoughts on Leadership: A Time To Give Thanks

By Gino Blefari

Today, I want to talk about Thanksgiving. We as human beings, Americans and yes, members of the HSF Affiliates and HomeServices of America, Inc. families, work very hard and always maintain a strong work ethic. Yet, as busy as we get, there are times when it’s important to step back, reflect and be thankful for all we have and all of the people in our lives we’re blessed to have around us. There are many reasons why Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday (and no, it’s not just the food coma and football) but I want to share one story that is particularly meaningful for me as we approach Thanksgiving Day:

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Thoughts on Leadership: All About Good Neighbors

[Gino Blefari, right, and David Cabot, president and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices California Properties congratulate Susan Stearns, an agent with Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices California Properties in Calabasas, CA, who won the 2015 Good Neighbor Award.]

By Gino Blefari

This week my travels found me in San Diego for the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR) 2015 Conference and Expo. While there, I had the opportunity to spend time backstage with Susan Stearns, agent with Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices California Properties in Calabasas, CA, just moments before she stood in front of a crowd of thousands to accept her 2015 Good Neighbor Award. NAR’s Good Neighbor Awards are given annually to five REALTORS® who, according to REALTOR® Magazine, “have made an extraordinary impact on their community, or on the national or world stage, through volunteer work.”  

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Thoughts On Leadership: Strategies To Connect

By Gino Blefari

This week my travels find me first in Northern California for a visit with the Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Drysdale Properties team and then to San Diego for the 2015 National Association of REALTORS® Conference and Expo. (If you’re planning to attend, stop by and say hello at the HSF Affiliates Booth No. 1615!) As my team prepares to meet and greet hundreds of real estate professionals, sharing our network stories and listening to theirs, it’s essential we remember the very basics of genuine connection in order to create lasting, memorable impressions in the minds of all we meet. Here are some ways to truly connect … whether you’re attending NAR, taking a business meeting with a potential new client or participating in a networking event, these strategies always apply:

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Thoughts on Leadership: Plan To Get Ahead

By Gino Blefari

This week my travels found me in Minneapolis to present my third quarter report and the 2016 budget to the HomeServices of America, Inc. board.  Then I headed west to San Francisco, where the autumn season and my recent forward-looking meetings played unexpectedly on my mind.

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Thoughts on Leadership: Team Up to Win

By Gino Blefari

Last week while my travels found me in Las Vegas, our finance team—led by Brian Peterson, CFO of HSF Affiliates—was in Braselton, GA, at the beautiful Château Élan Winery & Resort for the 2015 CFO Conference.

It was a classic case of divide and conquer: Brian held down the fort on the East Coast while I attended meetings in the West, thousands of miles apart from my Chief Financial Officer but still understanding that our key messages must be perfectly aligned. This conscious alignment is vital not only to our operations here at HSF Affiliates but also to any company with a CEO and CFO working closely together for the betterment of all.

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The National REthink Council: Apply Now!

Are you a top-producing, motivated leader in real estate? Are you interested in helping to create resources and tools that will enhance Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices nationwide? Apply now to join the national REthink Council, a group of recognized, passionate leaders within the Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices network. Visit REsource Center > REthink > National REthink Council and download the application today!

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Thoughts on Leadership: Do The Wright Thing

By Gino Blefari

This week my travels found me in Las Vegas for a meeting with Mark Stark, CEO/owner of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Arizona Properties, Nevada Properties and California Properties. Along with other affiliates on our Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices team, we met to discuss new business models for recruiting, retention and onboarding, new innovations and new technologies that would push our brokerages forward and make us a more efficient network for our agents and the buyers and sellers we serve.

The scheduling of this meeting couldn’t have been better timed; I’ve recently been reading “The Wright Brothers,” a biography of the world’s first aviators written by New York Times bestselling author, David McCullough. In “The Wright Brothers,” McCullough describes Orville and Wilbur Wright not as straight-forward heroes of American folklore who simply built a plane and then flew it in the sky, but as struggling inventors who fought with public perception as much as they did serious headwinds.

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Thoughts on Leadership: Think Small, Achieve Big

By Gino Blefari

Last week, while at the Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Summit Conference, I had the opportunity to hear keynote speaker Josh Linkner deliver a fascinating talk about creative disruption. As Josh explained, creative disruption has a very specific definition in the context of an increasingly stale business world focused on the bottom line instead of innovation and progress.

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Thoughts on Leadership: Peanut Island And A Trip To the Past

By Gino Blefari

This week my travels found me sailing the clear blue waters of the Lake Worth Lagoon in Palm Beach, on a boat with hundreds of top-producing agents from the Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices network. It was an ideal day complete with warm ocean breezes, South Florida sunshine and of course, great company.

The cruise was part of the Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Summit Conference, an annual event (held this year at The Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach) to celebrate the achievements of our award-winning agents. And it was only by coincidence that among conversations about the bright future ahead for these top performers, I was immediately reminded of the past as our boat took a turn and I caught a glimpse of Peanut Island across the way.

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