Back in the saddle again

Talk about a long hiatus! I haven’t blogged in a long time. I have been busier than a one armed paper hanger in a paper hanging contest. I stole that line from Dolly Parton in Steel Magnolias. Not that I’ve seen the movie…um, no…that would be girly. Sheesh!

Moving on – so last all of you read, I had hired Rafael Goyco. Rafael, unfortunately didn’t work out. Raf needed something different. Real estate, as you all know, is only for a select few of us. You know, the odd and self-abusive few of us who don’t mind working countless hours for the same pay that I use to get when I was mowing yards for my grandmother at the age of 12.

Lots of work for little money

 So Raf has moved on.

 The day after Rafael told me that he needed to do something different, Holly sat me down and told me that she needed to resign. After I vomited, cried, and banged my head against my desk for a little while, I told Holly that I completely understood and respected her decision. I love Holly. She’s awesome. But transaction management takes a certain kind of personality, and Holly realized that she just wasn’t that kind of personality. But as you can imagine this put me into a scramble.

I started working from about 7:30 in the morning until about 10:00 every night. Craig said “Welcome to business ownership.” At that point I wanted to “accidentally” drop the weights I was holding onto his foot. I refrained. Needless to say that suddenly being the only employee of my own company while doing a little over 100 transactions in one month caused me to begin a hunt for help.

That hunt led me to 2 people – Jason Collins and Virginia McGregor.

Most of you know Jason. Jason has been doing my visual tours since I started. He also teaches the visual tour class at Keller Williams. He’s been with Keller Williams in various capacities for a little over 2 years. His longest role was that of listing manager. Hey wait – I need a listing manager. 🙂

I’ve known Jason for about 10 years. I love the guy. His integrity is unparalleled. His work ethic is strong. His skills are like that of a Jedi warrior. And he kind of looks like Yoda, at least height wise:

So I have a new listing manager. I’m so excited! I’d love for you to stop by and welcome him. He’s excited to be a part of the team and I’m positive that he will be with us long term. Although he may appear to be/sound gruff from time to time, just know that he’s not at all. He’s a softie. Just watch him with his wife and 2 children.

I also hired a transaction manager. I was referred to her by our very own Albert Alvarado. Her name is Virginia McGregor. I stole her away from the horrible land of Cent…um, let’s just call it “the darkside,” in sticking with the Star Wars theme. She was very unhappy there and had heard great things about our company.

Her role at Centu…I mean, the darkside, was transaction coordinator, listing manager, secretary, and all around kind of neglected and unappreciated slave. She has an unbelievable talent. Albert did me a huge favor. I owe him Taco Bell or something. I’m so thankful to have gone through the interview process with her. She is very happy to be with us as well. I think she has a bright future here.

In fact, when I was in my first interview with her, Juan Castillo walked by, saw us in the conference room, jumped through the door, and excitedly asked “Are you hiring her?” He gave her some extremely high compliments. Juan is an incredible agent. So for him to say the things he did about her said quite a bit. She’s like the Princess Leia of our group.

The Princess

Eventually Virginia will have the rule of this roost, if all works out. She’s completely capable of running this office while I take you guys to lunch, work on new and exciting ways to service the clients, and so forth. Yes, she’s licensed. Yes, she’s got years of experience. Yes, she has the disposition to deal with all of us high D’s and I’s. So stop by and say hi to her too.

That’s pretty much it for now. I will be able to blog again though. That excites me. There are so many new things that we have started doing. I told you all about the listing maintenance – where we take an existing listing and spruce it up, add it to more websites, and cater to the client through the remainder of the listing until contract stage – and all for a very reduced fee! But we’ve begun to do more. I will blog about these things. So keep your eyes open.

Make it a great day,

Dustin…