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FEATURE—TOP 1OO SALESPEOPLE
Rankings by sales volume and by transaction sides
BY LESLIE CUMMINGS
Top 300 Ranked By Transaction Sides
Top 300 Ranked By Sales Volume
Methodology
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Like Oscar winners at the dais, the top residential salespeople in the country tout their supporting cast as critical to their sky-scraping sales results. Whether they were mired in business or relaxing in the South Pacific, these stars say they couldn’t have done it without their team.
No one could sell 800 homes a year without a great team,” says William Donahoe, who closed $210 million in sales in 2001, placing him No. 1 in sales volume on our list of the top residential salespeople in the country. His team, Builder Services Group, is affiliated with Coldwell Banker Bain in Bellevue, Wash.
Sure enough, with the exception of a few dynamos who made the grade with little or no help, our two lists of the Top 100 Salespeople—one based on sales volume and the other on transaction sides—really represent the country’s top-producing teams. Those we talked with say, structured properly, a team results in better customer service and a more balanced life.
Not to mention more sales. To make this year’s Top 100 list by sales volume, you needed a minimum of $54 million in sales in 2001. To make the Top 100 by transaction sides list, you needed at least 238 sides.
The top dog in transaction sides (make that dogs—it’s a twosome) had an eye-popping 1,080 sides last year. James “J.D.” DiGirolamo and D. Craig Elliott, with Long & Foster–Mt. Vernon/Baltimore, won a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development contract in late 2000. The contract sent them scrambling to put together a team, which in turn allowed them to close an average of 90 sides a month.
As DiGirolamo and Elliott discovered, delegation is the key to achieving any really ambitious sales goal—whether it’s fulfilling a major HUD contract, becoming your area’s top FSBO converter, or being No. 1 in your market.
William Donahoe GRI
New-Home Master
“I believe you have to have a spiritual balance, a family balance, and a work balance. I work about 60 hours a week, but I play golf and have a wonderful family, too.”
New construction is what William Donahoe, GRI, set out to master shortly after earning his real estate license in 1967 and going to work for his father, Robert Donahoe.
“I said to myself, if I’m going to be successful, I have to find a steady stream of listings,” he says, “because the people who control the listings control the market. I knew builders could provide that steady stream.”
Make that a torrent. Today, Donahoe has a team of 10 core staff, who run the day-to-day business, and 30 associates who work in the field selling new construction on 30 different project sites. “I love new construction,” he says. “It creates incredible value for buyers and helps solve their housing problems without forcing them to buy something they don’t want.”
Donahoe started out in Seattle proper, but as development exploded in the area, he stretched his reach to the entire Puget Sound region. Now Donahoe’s “company within a company” represents 16 builders.
Donahoe gives his builder clients the attention they crave by providing competitive analyses of other builders’ sales and promotions—and by bringing home the buyers. “We try to create relationships with integrity and reliability, so builders will recommend us to other builders,” he says.
Once the Builder Services Group lands a project, the team takes an aggressive approach to following up with customers. All potential buyers fill out registration cards, which are used to populate Donahoe’s vast database. Then the group goes to great lengths to match buyers to a home—new or existing. “That’s created a reputation for us that we don’t do ‘to’ the customer, but ‘for’ the customer,” he says.
When Donahoe’s not working with existing builder clients, he’s networking or researching new construction projects. “When I discover a new site, I contact the builder directly and just ask for the business.”
It’s a request builders obviously can’t refuse: The Builder Services Group sold 799 homes—mostly new construction—in 2001.
And now Donahoe’s looking for a new market to conquer. He’s working on a program to list and sell resort properties. “The ocean is a couple hours’ drive away. With baby boomers retiring and people very interested in recreation, I think there’s a huge market here.”
Numbers
2001 sales volume: $210 million
2001 transaction sides: 799
Ranking
By sales volume: No. 1
By transaction sides: No. 8
Donahoe’s winning team
Licensed - 30 sales specialists: Work in the field at builder sites
- Two area managers: Oversee sales specialists, make sure sales reports are completed properly, and tie up loose ends
- General manager: Fills in for Donahoe managing listings, working with builder clients, and overseeing operations
- Two account managers: Oversee accounts with two or more building sites, analyzing area competitors and reviewing site traffic
- Resort property manager
Unlicensed - Office manager
- Office manager’s assistant
- Bookkeeper
- Part-time marketing person: Manages media work, coordinates graphics, and places ads
Marty Rodriguez
Standard Bearer “I was one of 11 kids living in a two-bedroom, one-bath house. We had to sacrifice and work hard. When people say I work hard now I tell them, ‘This isn’t hard—this comes naturally.’”
If you were to describe Marty Rodriguez’s approach to real estate sales, you might liken it to that of a military training camp. Shape up, or ship out.
“I have standards, from the way we file to the way we do business. I know what I want us to look like, what I want us to be, and what I want people to think about us,” she says.
You can bet every one of her 21 team members falls in line—or else.
With the team marching in time, Rodriguez achieved $116 million in sales volume last year in a market where the average price is $280,000.
Rodriguez is one of those real estate practitioners who’s hard to categorize and who’s bound to be controversial on a list of top salespeople. Like many of those who made our list, she owns her own company—Century 21 Marty Rodriguez in Glendora, Calif.—but she’s still the active salesperson of record on all the company’s sales. In fact, Rodriguez, who founded her company in 1996, was one of the earliest in the growing trend of top-producing salespeople forming small companies built around teams.
To spur success, Rodriguez has created fake money she calls “Marty bucks.” Team members win Marty bucks for good performance—closed sales, for example—but lose the bucks when their work isn’t up to par. At the end of the year, the person with the most Marty bucks wins a trip.
Rodriguez uses a similar tactic with real money. “I won’t pay team members if they turn in an incomplete sales file,” she says. “It goes back to their desk, and they must complete it to get paid.”
Rodriguez uses a computer program in which team members can view the status of all leads in the system. If someone doesn’t stay active on a lead, it’s up for grabs. “It creates competition, so they want to follow up on leads,” she says.
Although Rodriguez takes credit for all company sales, she says personal achievement is far from her only motive for keeping team members on their toes: “I want my team to succeed, and I want them to be better people—and I think they respect me for it.”
Numbers
2001 sales volume: $116 million
2001 transaction sides: 455
Ranking
By sales volume: No. 13
By transaction sides: No. 20
Rodriguez’s winning team
Licensed - Nine buyer specialists: Return calls and follow up on buyer leads
- Broker: Creates budgets, oversees profit margin, and tracks team numbers
- Sales manager: Works on motivation, training, and performance tracking
Unlicensed - Three call coordinators: Answer phones, gather information on leads, and direct leads
- Marketing coordinator: Creates advertising and PR
- Personal executive assistant: Follows up with Rodriguez’s sellers, enters and processes listings, and oversees
closing paperwork - Administrative processor: Contacts listing salespeople to get original contracts and disclosures
- Two transaction coordinators: Set up appraisals, inspections, walkthroughs, and repairs
- Information systems coordinator: Creates computer programs and oversees communication systems
- Accounting coordinator: Tracks revenues, does payroll, and keeps books
Lillian Montalto CCIM, CRS®
Planning Her Destiny “When I started out, I had no money to advertise. I was asking coworkers if I could hold open houses on their listings. They thought I was crazy, but that’s how I got started.”
Lillian Montalto, CCIM, CRS®, is all business. Except when she’s not.
Last year, the über-professional Montalto took more than two months away from her thriving real estate practice to vacation in such exotic spots as Hong Kong, Bali, and Singapore.
“When I’m gone, my staff still sends me e-mails each day,” admits Montalto, whose company, Lillian Montalto Signature Properties, is based in Andover, Mass. “But I know they can run the office backward and forward without me.”
Montalto’s confidence stems not just from the competence of her team, but also from the detailed annual plan she employs. Every September she maps out the coming year—so team members know exactly what’s expected.
The plan includes monthly and daily goals. Montalto says she eyeballs the plan—and does the required prospecting—every day. That level of diligence brought her $159 million in sales volume last year.
Back in 1990, Montalto was a successful commercial practitioner who found her market slowing and decided to make the leap into residential sales. The change, like everything in her life, was planned meticulously. “I felt I was setting my destiny.”
She created a team—now 17 strong—and a computer program to help her run the business and stay in contact with clients and customers.
Today, that contact often comes in the form of broadcast e-mail, with news about interest rates, loan programs, and other real estate–related tidbits. But she relies on more personal forms of contact, too. When past clients celebrate a birthday, she sends cards and small gifts—and she calls. “I like to be the first one to wish them a happy birthday,” she says. No surprise: Montalto calls the telephone her No. 1 business tool.
Despite her commitment to success, Montalto strives for balance in her life—especially since making her latest commitment, of the marital variety. She sees her husband, a successful Michigan practitioner, only on the weekends. “But when I do my business plan,” she says, “we also schedule our vacations. That really inspires me to reach my goals.”
Numbers
2001 sales volume: $159 million
2001 transaction sides: 245
Ranking
By sales volume: No. 5
By transaction sides: No. 90
Montalto’s winning team
Licensed - Managing director: Takes over when Montalto is unavailable
- Six sales team members
Unlicensed - Listing coordinator: Processes paperwork, manages leads, creates virtual tours, and photographs homes
- Client-care manager: Handles transactions from offer to closing
- Assistant to client care manager
- Marketing manager: Creates ads, brochures, personal promotions, and other marketing pieces
- Two concierges: Work four 10-hour days each, on opposite days, greeting people, answering phones, filing, and faxing
- Two part-time interns: Assist the listing and closing department, do Internet work, take pictures, and deliver brochures and lock boxes
Outsourced - Bookkeeper: Works twice a week to do accounting
- Two computer consultants: Work with Montalto’s team to set up programs and systems
Kathy Koehler ABR®
Mentored to the Top
“When my first broker asked me what my sphere of influence was, I told him I’d get FSBOs. He was skeptical. He didn’t know that in my years of selling, I’d learned a ‘no’ is really a ‘maybe.’”
Kathy Koehler, ABR®, has hitched her star to a series of mentors who’ve helped her rocket to a top spot in the business: $95 million in sales volume in 2001.
Each mentor has taught Koehler an important business lesson—from her first boss in a clothing store who told her “the customer is always right” to her current mentor who taught her about accountability and helped her increase her volume by $44 million in one year.
After gigs selling everything from vacuum cleaners to encyclopedias, Koehler landed in real estate in 1986. “I bet the owner that I’d sell $3 million the first year,” she says.
He laughed—but not for long, says Koehler, who’s now with Reece & Nichols, REALTORS®, in Leawood, Kan.
When Koehler reaches a sales plateau, she looks for a mentor who can take her in a new direction. In 1992, a mentor told her to get a cell phone, an assistant, and a pager. Her sales volume jumped from $12 million to $20 million. Her next mentor helped her create a team, and her volume jumped to $38 million.
In 1998, she turned to Bob Bohlen of Brighton, Mich. Bohlen intimidated her with his aggressive style, but she knew he’d help her top her latest plateau. He taught her to set yearly, monthly, and daily goals and to hold her team accountable. He also helped her create a rewards program. Koehler throws a party every month her team meets its goals and takes her three top-producing assistants on a vacation every year.
Her sales grew from $53 million in 1998 to $97 million in 1999. That in a market where the average sales price is $300,000.
In October 2001, Bohlen had Koehler write a glowing note and a large check to a competitor—to be mailed if her team didn’t reach its goals. “There was no way we were going to let that check go out,’” she says. “That was very inspiring.”
Numbers
2001 sales volume: $95 million
2001 transaction sides: 337
Ranking
By sales volume: No. 28
By transaction sides: No. 39
Koehler’s winning team
Licensed - Eight resale specialists: Work in the office, handling buyers and listing houses
- Five new-home specialists: Work on site at subdivisions
- Office manager: Oversees listings from sale to close
- Ad manager: Does all home brochures, advertising, and the Koehler Team Magazine
- Client-care manager: Answers calls from sellers and buyers
- Listing partner: Goes on listing appointments and helps negotiate contracts
Unlicensed - Two part-time couriers: Take pictures and move paperwork, signs, and lock boxes
D. Craig Elliott, James “J.D.” Digirolamo GRI
Success In Numbers
“Getting started in this business was very difficult for me,” recalls Elliott, right. “The business is so competitive. There were times when I didn’t know how I’d make ends meet. But I learned discipline—and my business has evened out considerably since then.”
James “J.D.” DiGirolamo, GRI, and D. Craig Elliott started 2001 with scant idea of what it would take to get through the year.
DiGirolamo and Elliott, a team at Long & Foster–Mt. Vernon/ Baltimore, had been selling some foreclosures and had built a network of investors. So when the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development announced in December 2000 that it was looking to contract out the sale of foreclosed HUD homes in the area, “we thought we’d try it,” DiGirolamo says.
The two, who’d been in real estate sales just four years, were surprised to win the contract. But win it they did. “The HUD representative told us she liked that we had experience in foreclosure and that we’d commit to have someone answer the phone and respond to questions,” says Elliott.
To post HUD’s initial 398 listings into the MLS, the pair hired five temporary workers to enter data at $2.50 per listing. “For fun and inspiration, we held contests to see who could input data the fastest with no mistakes,” Elliott says.
With many parts of Baltimore undergoing revitalization, there was great demand for the foreclosed properties. DiGirolamo and Elliott estimate they worked up to 20 hours a day during that first brutal month, dealing with investors and walking inexperienced buyers and their reps through the bid process. The team set up a system to ensure that HUD listings would be kept up to date in the MLS and that, true to their word, all callers would be connected to a person rather than voice mail.
When their yearlong contract was up, the two had closed 1,080 transaction sides—mostly HUD homes—at an average price of just under $27,000. That’s a small price tag, but the team was far from disappointed by their $29 million sales volume.
“I think more people are likely to consider HUD homes because they had a good experience with us,” says Elliott.
Although they were underbid on the 2002 HUD contract, the two plan to submit another proposal to HUD for 2003. “We’ve got a system,” Elliott says, “so it should be easier—we hope.
Numbers
2001 sales volume: $29 million
2001 transaction sides: 1,080
Ranking
By sales volume: Not ranked
By transaction sides: No. 1
Digirolamo and Elliott’s WINNING Team
Licensed - One buyer specialist: Answers phones when Elliott and DiGirolamo are busy, answers questions about properties, and takes buyers to properties
Unlicensed - Administrative assistant: Does data entry and paperwork and makes phone calls
- To fulfill their HUD contract, in 2001 DiGirolamo and Elliott also hired one temp worker to coordinate signs and lock boxes for six months and five temp workers to do data entry for one month.
Jim Onomiya
The Family Man “Learning this business with all its detail was a huge challenge. The hardest part for me was getting comfortable being the expert when I felt I wasn’t an expert. My family trusted me, though, and I didn’t want to disappoint them.”
When Jim Onomiya left an 18-year career in retail merchandising to sell real estate, his close-knit family simply wouldn’t allow him to get off on the wrong foot.
“I swear my brother bought his townhouse just to help me out,” jokes Onomiya, who’s now been selling real estate for six years. He’s affiliated with Edina Realty in Edina, Minn.
Onomiya’s first four sales involved family members. “They trusted me when I knew nothing,” he says. “That threw me into the business and forced me to learn.”
He was a quick study. After he helped two family members buy new townhouses, the builder asked him to help market the rest of the properties. “I became a townhouse specialist,” he says.
His family helped him build a referral network by recommending him to friends. But Onomiya knew he had to keep those referrals coming back for more. He studied the market—“I learned the entire Minneapolis metropolitan area backward and forward,” he says—and worked on building a good reputation for customer service. He commits to returning all calls within two hours, for example, and attends appraisers’ inspections with comps in hand.
“Also, I had 18 years of communication and negotiation experience in retail management,” he says. “That helped me learn to be a tough but fair negotiator.”
Since his second year in real estate, Onomiya says, he’s had the freedom to support his business on referrals alone—but he doesn’t. He enjoys the challenge of acquiring new clients and customers and still does four to six open houses a weekend throughout the Minneapolis suburbs. “I like meeting new people and being seen,” he says. “I want people to know I’m doing business all over town—not just in one corner. And every time I’m out there, it’s a new experience.”
Numbers
2001 sales volume: $44 million
2001 transaction sides: 251
Ranking
By sales volume: Not ranked
By transaction sides: No. 83
onomiya’s winning team
One licensed assistant: Works with builders and buyers and does paperwork and listing packages Hey, where’s my name? REALTOR® Magazine announced in fall 2001 and again in March 2002 that the search was on for candidates for our 2002 “Top 100 Salespeople” lists. An online application form was posted at www.REALTOR.org/realtormag, and notices were sent to local and state associations, franchises, top brokers across the country, and everyone who applied for last year’s list. About 1,100 individuals and teams submitted forms. We ranked all 1,100 candidates by their 2001 sales volume and, separately, by their 2001 closed transaction sides. Candidates submitted a signed verification—generally from their broker of record—confirming that their reported sales figures were correct. Candidates who were also the broker in their office submitted alternative verification, such as MLS records.
Next year, our lists will be further broken down—by sales teams and solo practitioners (that is, those with one or no assistants). If you believe your name is erroneously missing from this year’s list, or you just want to be contacted when our 2003 form is posted, click here and complete our online form. We'll send you an e-mail when then 2003 application is available.
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