We were lucky to catch up with Belinda Santos recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Belinda thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. How did you scale up? What were the strategies, tactics, meaningful moments, twists/turns, obstacles, mistakes along the way? The world needs to hear more realistic, actionable stories about this critical part of the business building journey. Tell us your scaling up story – bring us along so we can understand what it was like making the decisions you had, implementing the strategies/tactics etc.

I was born and raised by a single mother in The Bronx, New York in the 70’s. My mother worked hard and made sure she provided for me. Even though we lived in public housing my mother made sure I went to private school to get the best education possible. She wanted to make sure I would graduate and leave the projects and achieve more out of life. Seeing her work ethic made me also want o work hard to achieve more for my children. My mother eventually retired from work and moved to Kissimmee, FL. I stayed in NY and had my 1st son when I was 18. I made sure to still go to college and work hard to provide for him. I did not want to become another teenage pregnancy statistic. After lots of talks with my mother me and my husband Charlie decided to move to Florida as well. We were determined to give him a better life. I kept going to school for nursing and found a job working part time on the weekends in a real estate office. I had never considered real estate as a career but when I started to process checks for the agents I thought “I can do this”. My bosses also saw the potential and drive in me so they paid for me to go to real estate school and get my license and that was the turning point. Once I was licensed I went all in and quit school for nursing and decided to practice real estate full time. I had a little bit of an advantage since I worked the front desk and would see the way the Realtors who were successful worked and was able to implement what they did and improve what I felt they were lacking on as well. I had my 2nd son in January and started real estate full time in April. From April to December I worked hard and was able to double the salary I had made the year before. This is when I knew I made the right decision and have been a full time real estate agent ever since. About 8 years in I was very successful but knew I needed to grow so I brought my husband on as my partner and we have done great ever since. Once he joined we were able to scale up and grow our business more than I even imagined possible, but there were quite a few bumps along the road. About 1 year after he joined the market crashed so we learned to adapt and became short sale specialist and started helping people get out of their homes without having to come to closing with money. We also fought hard to get a REO/Foreclosure account with a large bank so we could help them sell the homes that were foreclosed on. It took months and months to interview and get the bank to even consider working with us, but we kept fighting for it and it was eventually approved. We made it through the worse and learned a lot in the process. We always make sure to take care of our customers and go above and beyond with service. Being in the business 23 years most of our business is now referrals from past clients. Success did not happen overnight, we had to work on it but it has now paid off. We are now working as Certified Mentors with EXP Realty and helping new agents build their businesses. We also are building our own team of agents in the hopes we can retire one day soon.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

When the market crashed and prices went down over 50% we had to pivot our business and learn how to adapt. We became short sale specialist and helped people get out from under homes that had negative equity. We also fought hard for foreclosure account with a local bank to help them sell their foreclosure homes. Even during these tough times where lots of real estate agents quit we not only did well but did better than we had before. We learned to adapt and still take care of people, which has always been our main focus. Some of the people we helped get out of bad loans have become our most loyal customers and sent us tons of referral business since then.

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

WE always make sure to take care of the customer first and foremost. When you do that the business will keep coming. There have been difficult closings where last-minute issues present themselves. We always make sure to not worry about the problem but help find a solution. There have been times I help clean a home, help paint or fix times that need to be repaired and even help buy appliances that break down right before closing. If there is a way to help we make sure to do it. This builds happy customers who spread the word and make sure to refer their friends and family to you over and over again

Contact Info:

• Website: www.thesantosteam.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/belinda_santos_realtor/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesantoshometeam
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/belinda-santos-01084215/
• Youtube: santosteam1