Interview with a true top producer
In the real estate industry, it is not uncommon to hear an agent call themselves a top producer, and the metric is rather fuzzy – some are the top grossing agent in their office, but maybe they sold three mansions in a year, while others claim the label for selling the most units on their team of three, but the other two team members are part time agents.
That is not the case with Joe Davalos of CENTURY 21 United-Davalos in San Antonio, Texas who was recently named as the number one agent for having sold more units than any other CENTURY 21 agent in the world.
Davalos tells AGBeat that he has been in real estate for 30 years and was inspired to become a Realtor to follow in his father’s footsteps. “My father was an agent and I liked the challenge and enjoyed helping people,” Davalos said.
Making it to the top spot has not come without sacrifices. Davalos said, “For a time I was working 14 hours trying to keep up with the booming foreclosure market. I found out it was not healthy physically and spiritually. So I went out hired good support staff.”
Davalos credits his “loyal clients” and his “understanding family” for his international accomplishment, and says that in order to stay ahead, he stays focused and sets high goals and standards, which many in the industry fail to do.
Does a top producer use Twitter?
“I receive over 100 emails a day and I use my Blackberry for keeping track of my emails on the go,” said Davalos who adds that his emails are professional, not personal.
Did Davalos follow the convention guru’s advice this year to be the top producing agent in the world, selling the most units? Did he create a mobile app, or spend a healthy three hours on Twitter every day? Is he on Pinterest, Path, Instagram, and Foursquare?
Davalos has a LinkedIn profile that is active, but a parked Twitter handle that is not in use, and not much presence online outside of a template CENTURY 21 site, and another pixelated website with small font, neither of which are impressive.
So how did he do it? Davalos’ niche market is catering to lending institutions, none of which care about what his Twitter background looks like or how good he is at Pinterest, or that he took a picture from his iPhone of the sunset. None of those activities are wrong, but it is noteworthy that the one person who sold more units than any other CENTURY 21 agent engaged in none of them, pointing out once again that there is more than one way to skin a cat.
Benjamin Ficker
April 17, 2012 at 11:55 am
Well if this wasn’t written to prove Jeff Brown’s stance… 🙂
Jeff Brown
April 17, 2012 at 1:46 pm
Grinning, cuz regardless of Joe’s business source, I’ve maintained the following for years.
Go to any brokerage at random. Find out who’re the top 10% producers. From 0-1 will be doing more than 10% of their business as a result of SM.
Who makes money using SM as it relates to agent production? SM gurus. Duh.