Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Alex McKinney. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Alex , thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.

When I first started in real estate, I worked full time at a local hospital coordinating transfers of patients through the entire southeastern region of North Carolina. I had just “retired” a 12 year career in EMS just outside of Charlotte, North Carolina. I realized I wanted to do more, I wanted to make more of myself. So one day I put in my notice and left my full-time job, healthcare, good salary, to start a new career in real estate. After I left I immediately had regrets, However I put my back against the wall and kept telling myself do the work and the work will take care of you. In my first year I sold over 1.3 million in volume. Doubling down taking no profit I re-invested everything in to my business and 2 years later we just closed over 10 million in sales volume.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My story is simple Hard work and discipline, When I was younger my step dad started his own home building company, that’s where my love for real estate came from. By 15 years old I was working with his crew building houses and realized I need to do more, so at 16 I joined the local volunteer fire department. I spent the next 12 years working in Fire and EMS, I even attended the police academy at one point. I spent 100% of my time dedicated to serving my community from running 911 calls to working in emergency operations centers during 2 major hurricanes. After I made the decision to change careers and completely uproot my life. I took that same work ethic and put it in to real estate, consistently making calls, connecting with new people, and expanding my network to like minded individuals. Now I have built an amazing team that not only maintains consistent communication with our clients, but also educates them and makes sure that they have an invaluable experience. I think the thing I am most proud of is the fact that this has been built from the ground up. That I spent nights at 3 am studying and learning not only the real estate market but also learning everything about, mortgages, luxury financing, real estate investment, and how to build a client experience that is second to none.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

I would say three things, the first hard work, showing potential clients that you will out work every other person in your field is second to none in building a reputation. The second consistently add value for free, when you commit to this strategy commit, this will pay you dividends in the future. In the digital age you can put valuable content everywhere all the time, if you doit consistently people will begin to notice. The Third is my favorite be authentically yourself. Authenticity is the most important thing in this career, build your brand around who you are as a person if you sell real estate and you love to cook, great host cooking classes at open houses, film cooking videos, do things you like to do and then work doesn’t feel like work as much.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

Public safety can be a very dark career field, I don’t think a lot of people realize what we as first responders do and see everyday. TV does a good job at showing the opposite. So the main thing I had to unlearn was trusting people. When you work a job everyday where you see people at their worst, and you don’t know what to expect when you goto help them its dangerous. Going into sales you have to be trusting of your clients just like they need to trust you. So I had to recreate my view of the world essentially.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.amrenc.com
• Instagram: @wilmingtonluxury
• Youtube: @LivinginWilmingtonNC