July 12, 2010: EXECUTIVE HIGHLIGHT
Mr. Gutierrez (CG), the first question is regarding your daily job requirements and change. So please, tell me a little bit about what a regular day is like in your work setting.
CG: The first part of the day is usually catching up on paperwork, e-mails, technical parts of the job, before Realtors, clients, or anybody comes in. The next portion of the day includes handling ongoing files, any issues, putting out any fires and preparing for tomorrows business.
Considering where you are located, on North Miami Beach in the South Florida setting, relevant to organizational culture and requirements, what would you say is most challenging for you?
CG: So far the biggest obstacle has been relying on other people to complete a job, it could be the other lenders, underwriting, waiting for them to properly underwrite their conditions for a loan that other Realtors count on for paperwork, holding their clients accountable. To sum it up, the biggest challenge is counting on other people to be competent and do their job so that I look productive in the eyes of my clients.
How have you managed to remain successful in light of changes in the financial and real estate markets that have forced so many others to close their doors?
CG: Well…adaptation. I’ve been able to adapt and change quickly or faster than my competition. I read in a Harvard Business Review a quote from a professor that indicated that there are two types of people in business, the quick and the dead. So if you wait to see what’s going to happen, if you’re skeptical about making a change, you may be left behind. I’ll give you an example, the foundation of my business in the beginning was always lending. It started as a mortgage business and I had always been in real-estate. Once the lending business really tightened up, I was lucky because I have 65 Realtors underneath me, a good referral base, and a lot of credibility in the community. I was able to do more real-state listing; working with both buyers and renters…to basically make up what I was lacking in the mortgage side since the lending tightened up.
“There are two types of people in business,
the quick and the dead…”
Okay, so a little bit of foresight and flexibility as well?
CG: Yes, and change.
As a manager, how do you manage the impact of these changing circumstances on your employees?
CG: The way our business is structured is not the way the common real-estate business or really the common business is, it’s a little bit different. The employees are expected to be more self-sufficient. So I can’t do as much coaching or hand-holding, or pulling them through, so to speak. What I have done is I’ve made myself available so they call me, they’ll come into the office, or communicate via e-mail and ask me what’s going on in the market, what do I see, do I see things getting worst, getting better? And I’ll be realistic, but at the same time I’ll put my spin on optimism on where we are headed and keep their heads in the business and keep them, I guess, basically motivated to keep in the business and not throw in the towel and not get a “day job.”
Taking a step back, considering a broader scope, what is most challenging for you in your particular work setting?
CG: Typically, its people not meeting expectations. People say they are going to do something, or they meet me half way, or they accomplish things as quickly and as sloppy as possible just to get it in. I need people to be more accountable for what quality is, and really take responsibility. If they are not producing its not because I’m not making them produce, its because they are not producing.
Okay, so moving on to the Human Capital components of business, setting aside the commonly desired traits employers might typically look for when hiring employees, such as being professionally dressed and behaving appropriately, and things like that, what could you identify as the top two most important qualities in a job applicant?
CG: Well, when I’m interviewing somebody to potentially take on to the company a large deciding factor is experience in productivity. I consider how long they have they been in the business, how regularly they are able to produce. Our format is to bring on self-sufficient agents. If I have to coach them or hand-hold them too much it becomes too expensive for me because we pay them so well. We don’t gain anything from having to coach or hand-hold one-on-one. So basically, if they are self-sufficient, productive, if they will produce without my help, and they will be responsive to what I need as a manager, which will be paperwork, accountability, and occasional reporting, then they are a good fit.
So, what have you discovered to be the most misleading, pseudo-ideal, or most exaggerated components that you’ve discovered after working with a new hire?
CG: The same factor that would draw them to me, it’s their productivity. Let’s say they tell me they close five homes or five loans a month, but in reality, sometimes it will be one every other month. Now at this point, they are costing me more than they are making and its just not good from a business standpoint; its just a let down.
Moving on to Leadership, how would you describe yourself as a leader and what traits do you believe a leader must possess?
CG: Well, first and foremost is leading by example. If my Realtors saw that I couldn’t keep my own pipeline in order, that I couldn’t produce myself, and I didn’t have credibility with my referral partners and my clients, they would probably follow suit, lose some business, and basically it would be just a resource strain on the company and not necessarily profitable.
What has been your most challenging leadership decision, let’s say in the past year?
CG: It’s really been ongoing, not just one main decision. It has to do with deciding to keep investing money into a business that may be doing well in the future or that may have a bad month. There’s been such volatility that really its been a month to month decision on whether or not to inject more cash into the business. Do I cut my losses and cut back spending? Do I invest in marketing? Basically, its been a non-stop roller coaster of volatility and decision making.
“…it’s been a non-stop roller coaster of volatility and decision making.”
Who has been your biggest influence, with regards to leadership? Why?
CG: My biggest personal role-model has been my sister, my sister who is no longer with us, but she taught me a lot about making something from nothing. A lot of people in this world have been handed things, been set up in an environment where they’ve got so much going for them, so many advantages that it would almost be difficult to fail. Whereas we, we were the other way around. Our family had to kind of build from nothing. That way when you have a bit of success, be it small or great, just a tangible success in life, you learn to appreciate it. You learn to use it as a catapult to motivate you for the next success. And she taught me that.
“…success in life, you learn to appreciate it…You learn to use it as a catapult to motivate you for the next success.”
You mentioned productivity earlier, do you hold yourself to a certain productivity requirement? If so, can you describe the nature of what that productivity is?
CG: There’s too much volatility to say if we don’t have X amount of closings that month. This isn’t the type of business where we have a built-in clientele and if we’re not servicing then there is something wrong with the company. It’s really volatile. Whereas, if we generate enough business we should be able to close a high portion of that business. So really, as long as the business is generated, if we are not closing a large portion of what is generated, than that is a poor productivity. If we are closing a high percentage of what is generated for business, then we are productive.
Do you expect your employees to produce or meet a benchmark on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis?
CG: No, because of the structure. As long as they’re not using so much of the company’s resources that they are draining supplies, time, and energy then I don’t have to let go of them. If somebody is using my time, my office, my facilities, then I expect some return, at least on par of what they’ve cost. But on the whole, you would like for them to be more productive, but I don’t know if I hold them to a number or a quantity of production.
What is your approach to ensuring quality services?
CG: Quality, it’s the number one factor that I do hold all of the employees to. Whether it’s on the mortgage side or the real-state side, it is quality in terms of compliance. We have zero tolerance for fraud, for fudging paperwork, for cutting corners, everything has to be by the book or it doesn’t work; that is actually how I got to where I am. When I first started, I was an individual loan officer and an individual Realtor and I took on the…I guess the business model of generating a team of referral partners. I would give them, in exchange for their business, training on a product that I understood; For example, on a mortgage product that I understood that they didn’t. I would teach them, basically, how to explain something to their clients that otherwise, they wouldn’t know if I didn’t teach them. And when the headquarters of our company recognized that I had the ability to recruit a team, I was bilingual and I showed examples of leadership, they asked me if I wanted to open my own office and grow a bigger team. The fact that I had no fraud and no compliance issues and that I was clean is the reason they picked me out of a thousand brokers to open an office. So that is the biggest benchmark of quality.
“Quality, it’s the number one factor that I do hold all of the employees to.”
How would you say you influence your employees to keep those quality benchmarks?
CG: In terms of compliance, I just remind them what can happen if there is a failure in terms of quality and fraud issues. They know there are consequences. I don’t need to motivate them to do that; but basically in terms of keeping them upbeat and productive, I just keep general contact with them via e-mail or phone and they know that I’m in the trenches. They know that I’m in the front lines with the Realtors, not just managing them telling them what to do and that I’m actually out there doing it. So they trust me for a view of what’s happening on the market.
What leadership strategies have you found are not successful in your line of work and why?
CG: In our particular business model its been very ineffective to push Realtors to produce or to state quota deadlines. I’ve seen other companies use what can be considered “shame” tactics, where they publish the production numbers to the whole company. So if you’re at the bottom with zero closings, now some managers would take that as a management style of embarrassing you into performing better next month; but really, it just knocks down morale. So I try not to push the agents into saying why they haven’t performed, I just kind of show empathy as to, you know, there are things that just don’t happen in your favor sometimes, some bad luck, some bad things in the market. There is always an upside: try this, have you tried that, contact old clients, and I just give them ideas of what’s working with other agents, what’s working with me, and I will just put them back on track if I can.
If there is one solid piece of advice you would offer other leaders in your community, what would it be?
CG: I can explain it in two parts. In terms of community leadership, I would say that an important part of business is to have balance in your life. I mean, even Donald Trump is not working 24 hours a day. You have to have a balance of your life, your family, spirituality, whether it’s religious or otherwise, and your health. If you are not healthy enough to enjoy your success then you won’t be well enough down the line to enjoy the success you’ve had. And giving back, it’s a big thing in community leadership. I try to volunteer as much as I can, I volunteer at the high school. With my business partners I give…with the anticipation that maybe it will come back to me. That fact that I gave will at some point help to gain credibility, generate referrals…its just worked for me in the past to do it that way.
“An important part of business is to have balance in your life.”
In terms of the business advice, I would say adaptation is the big key. Reacting quickly to the market and having foresight as to where the market might be going is very important. Another big thing some companies are afraid to do is niche themselves. In the beginning for me as far as real-estate, I tried to sell myself as just a Realtor in a real-estate business taking care of those needs. So what I did was list some listings, made some sales, some rentals, but as the market shifted, I became an expert on short sales. So now, I’m not just a “send me all your real-estate type business person” resulting in getting the few, a little bit of everything, and yet not nearly enough. Now people know that if a short sale or pre-foreclosure or something like that comes up, I’m the go-to-guy and I can generate a lot of that specific type of business.
The last thing is to plant seeds for the future. Not everything will have a return immediately. When you are first starting out you do need a fairly short-term return on your investment because there is nothing but outlay at the beginning of the business. But once you’ve established both the short-term brand, like I’m the short-sale expert, and the long-term brand, which would be United Realty Group, it is safer to think long-term return. Start planting seeds for the future in the form of building relationships and heading into long-term credible marketing strategies. I also use a lot of on-line networking. I give a lot for free to get back. For example, I’m now just developing a free home value tracker where homeowners can go on the website and it will give them a free monthly update as to what is happening in their neighborhood, and what events have increased or decreased their home values. That may not produce a return today, but when one of those people is ready to sell, in six months or eight months, they’ve seen my face every month. They know I’m providing something of value. And that’s a seed I’ve planted. Just like the bridal registry I’ve created, it was something for me that was a very low cost, it won’t produce a return right now, but when it does I’ll have a home buyer from the very beginning and I’ll be the only name they’ll know in terms of total real-estate needs.
“Plant seeds for the future”
Basically, I focus on balance, nobody is a machine and everybody makes mistakes. So take the losses with stride and learn from them and take the victories and celebrate them and take time for yourself when you need it.
“Take the losses with stride and learn from them…take the victories and celebrate them and take time for yourself when you need it.”
Thank you, Mr. Carlos Gutierrez, for your Executive Insight!