In our agents' own words, Mark & Eric describe what it's like to work at Focus Real Estate

Eric:
Mark and I are here to talk today a little bit about why it is that we got into real estate. And what is it we love about Focus Real Estate.

Mark:
I became interested in real estate at a very young age. As a child, I used to bring my mom to open houses, dragged her with me, start showing her around houses and just really acting like I was a real estate agent. So it all kind of snowballed from there. So it's always something that my parents knew I was into. And I was very much into as a child.

Eric:
I don't know that I was into real estate as a child, but I definitely have had a lot of different roles in various industries. And I never really found a passion for what I was looking for. And so it wasn't really until I was able to take sort of all those strengths of operating with discipline and my love of building relationships and interpersonal connection to get into real estate.

Eric:
And it was kind of when I bought my first home, my condo back in 2015, that I really got my toe dipped into real estate. And it was going through that, that really developed a love for real estate. And I think that one of the reasons that I chose to work with Focus is because of that passion for people and properties. It's our tagline. And it's something that we're very passionate about and it's really about building those relationships. We're not a transactional business. And so we really, really strive to build a sense of community and making sure that we're emphasizing relationships and really going the extra mile for our clients.

Mark:
When I met Randal and Eric and the whole team and focus, it really made sense to me that I want to work with some like-minded people that really treat people the same way that I treat them. And I think just taking that one step further, we really tend to attract the people that are attracted to us when it comes to working. So I have met many clients in my days of real estate, where I'd become friends with them and develop much more than just a client/real estate agent relationship with, and I know that's the same for you.

Eric:
Yeah. I think that's the biggest win is being able to see your clients in the space, entertaining friends and family, making it a home really. And so, when we're able to sort of take all of that and help them in that sense, and also take it one step further, like Mark was saying and become friends afterwards, it's really the ultimate reward.

Mark:
Because in the end, it's much more than just a client relationship. I mean, you're helping them find not only a house, but a home. So that feeling that you have when you see your client walk into the house that they know is right for them and you know is right for them, it's a very rewarding experience for both yourself and the client and just to be able to bring them through that process and streamline it for them to make this what could be a daunting experience into just a great experience, there's no better feeling.

Eric:
I think one of the other aspects of Focus that I think just sets it apart from other brokerages is the great team that we have that we work with. Everything from our marketing support, transaction coordinator to all the other team members. We all really just jive together. We really worked so well as a well-oiled machine. And it's really about all those aspects and making sure that we don't leave out any of the details when it comes servicing our clients. And we take that an extra step in terms of just making sure that we're doing everything that we can to ensure that it's as seamless as it possibly can be.

Mark:
Right. And when you're working with one of us, essentially, you are working with all of us. And I think that since we all have similar goals or mindsets and treat people very similarly, it's very easy for one of our clients to pick up and work with another one of us or work with our marketing team or a transaction coordinator, because we know you'll be getting the same service throughout.

Eric:
Yeah. So similar to having the similar mindset in terms of how we work together, we also have different backgrounds. And so we have a lot of different experiences and a lot of different skill sets that we can draw upon.

Mark:
Bounce ideas off of each other.

Eric:
Exactly. So like, I know that myself, I come from an engineering background, so I'm very sort of structured in my approach. And so in terms of being able to work with clients as a project manager, once we get your house under agreement and making sure that we make all those steps, just checking all the boxes and going through that checklist and make sure that we are not dropping anything when it comes to getting you to closing.

Mark:
One thing I would say is that it is a full-time commitment. So make sure that you have a lot of time to commit towards work because that's how we all really started in. But once you get in and you are in this full-time commitment, I would say we have some great resources for you. We have the training. The training from the get go for me, I think was very beneficial. From going to open houses with other more experienced agents, to just speaking to people one-on-one, to all of the online resources that we have. I think that at Focus, we have a very great training program for new agents, whether you're coming from another brokerage or just starting out green like us.

Eric:
Right. And I think just to kind of add on that training piece that Mark was talking about, we also subscribe to the Tom Ferry organization. And so, what we do there is we have a coach that we're assigned and we meet with them every other week to just kind of go over market statistics to talk about what it is that we can do differently. And we do script practice, which it sounds a little structured and rigid, but really what it's about is making sure that you understand the content so that you don't have to think about it when it comes to working with your clients.

Eric:
And so, that's something that we do differently here at Focus is we have a really strong emphasis on training and development. And it's really great, I think, for new agents, especially like us when we were coming in and not really understanding the business and not really knowing what we were getting into. Having the passion to go do it, but not really sure exactly how to do it.

Mark:
Right. I think a lot of those TV shows can portray it as a very easy job, or even me talking about being a child, bringing my mom around the house, there's so much more to it. And when you can really memorize the scripts and really know and understand the background to it all, it can be that much easier moving forward, but there's a lot of work involved.

Mark:
I'll be the first one to admit, I'm not the most organized person. I think my favorite part of this job is just getting in front of people and really helping them in the front end. The back end is really kind of where I struggle. And that's where the technology and the support really comes into play. We have checklists and we have transaction coordinators that are working on the backend to really help us and make sure that we're organized in getting all of our ducks in a row together. And that's one thing I love about Focus as well is just the organization and the technology that is here to support us.

Eric:
Yeah. And the integration of that with our CRM, and so we're able to sort of make sure that we're keeping in contact with our clients and soft touches with people that we're nurturing and just making sure that we're staying on top of the people that we're working with.

Mark:
I think to sum it up, with all the support that we have in the background, we can really focus on the main thing, which is getting in front of clients and really servicing them as well as possible.

Eric:
All those systems, the team, everything that we talked about really frees us up to do what we do best, which is be in front of clients.

Mark:
If you're thinking about working for Focus Real Estate, or just want to know more about what we do, please feel free to reach out to us.

Eric:
Our contact info is below. We'd love to hear from you.