I've spent my whole career in the people business. For nearly 17 years at Starbucks, and in director and VP roles across major companies, I was accountable for results and responsible for the people enabling them: franchisees, internal teams, external partners. The formula was always the same: listen until you truly understand what each person needs, individualize how you lead, and leverage everyone's strengths to create a win-win. When every stakeholder succeeds, everything else follows.
So when a close friend asked if I'd ever considered real estate, it stopped me in my tracks. I'd already bought and sold 19 properties of my own. I knew the process, the numbers, and the emotions on both sides of the table. She told me buyers and sellers deserved an agent like me.
This year, I helped her purchase a home, her first in two decades. The review she wrote me said it better than I ever could, because it proved what I've believed my whole career: when you treat people like family and fight for their best interests, the wins take care of themselves.