We were lucky to catch up with Kimberly Dotseth recently and have shared our conversation below.
Kimberly, appreciate you joining us today. Can you share a story that illustrates an important or relevant lesson you learned in school
One of the greatest tools I have in my business is something that needs to be taught: good writing, punctuation and grammar. I can’t tell you how getting an in=-depth education in writing changed my life. The best English classes I took in college were at the community college level: Mesa College in San Diego! Absolutely top-notch English professors that let you get away with nothing. Grinding, grinding, grinding with their red pens. But I learned so much while tackling the depths of English lit, creative writing or story telling. That, plus 10th grade typing really make me a better business owner. I can always be the one counted on to edit anything, write anything, clean up anything, and make the written word better or easier or punchier. We are surrounded with much dumbing-down of the English language and how we present it. If you want to stand out from the crowd, make sure you can really compose a sentence, full email with signature block and full punctuation. It’s a long lost art — find it again. I highly recommend a night class at Mesa College if days are full with working. Go for it!
Kimberly, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
Since 2007, I have been the broker and owner of my own independent boutique real estate company in San Diego. We focus mostly on sellers and listings. Our work is highly fine-tuned and I think unmatched. A lot of people copy what we do, but that’s ok! I think it’s a compliment! I am now a certified probate specialist in the State of California, and we will be taking a soft turn into (hopefully) a majority of our work being probate listings that fill up our time. We have just hired a Los Angeles new web designer to help make this brand update successful.
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, I was a Corporate America worker, eventually working my way up to a county manager position at Grubb & Ellis Commercial Real Estate. I managed two offices, a staff of 30, and 80 real estate agents and brokers. It was nearly 24/7. One Friday night every quarter I would go home, make dinner, take a shower and go back to work all night and into Saturday to just get caught up. That’s insane, by the way but it was a big job. I actually loved it. But it was at Grubb & Ellis that I decided I want to try selling houses. Everyone laughed. These were commercial guys and they thought selling houses was a joke.
Fast forward — I quit the corporate life in 1998 with no plan and have been selling houses ever since then. In 2012, I was named the Broker of the Year for the San Diego Association of Realtors. It was out of 12,500 members, so it was a good win. After that win though, I sort of backed away from the Realtor committee life and focused on enjoying my work and life.
If you follow my business account on Instagram, I almost never show our listings or work or property addresses. I consider our work mostly confidential and am highly protective of our clients. So, you see a lot of my life with my husband Kerry Garnett (a broker associate at my firm), my cats and what I make for dinner. What I have learned about not being all about “just listed” or “just sold” on social media is that I can keep my work in my private life and bring my private life more center forward and feel really, really good about it.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
The most recent story of building resilience is, unfortunately, firing some key clients. I won’t get into names and details, but a lot of my work is from long-term relationships with repeat clients. In the last year, I have fired three on my own initiative. It’s a break up, for sure, but in these cases I felt nothing. No sadness. no “loss of income, boo hoo” or any emotion at all. I think when you get this far along in a career, you know instinctively what and who is wrong for you. A comment here, a snark there, a drag there, a blast here. And then you’re done.
In addition, and again this is about knowing what’s right for you, I ended a forty-year friendship with who I thought was my best friend. It was a lot like the firing of clients — no emotion at all. You start to feel a certain way about how you’re being treated and when you’re done, you’re done.
I say all this because it’s highly personal, but I want people to know that you can end relationships and do so quickly if you’re done. It’s ok. You have the right to move on and build anew. Instead of thinking how life is so short, start thinking that life is long and you should have a happy path with only people who make you feel good about yourself.
Can you talk to us about how your side-hustle turned into something more.
My side hustle is writing and in April 2023, I self-published my new book. It’s about the real estate of Betty Broderick. Dan Broderick and Linda Kolkena. To me, there had to be a different reason that Betty killed Dan and Linda other than Betty being mad that Linda was the other woman and Dan’s new wife. I did a deep dive into the public real estate records of the three, and put everything into a timeline and explain why I think Betty really killed them. I consider the book a huge and tragic accomplishment. I spent three years on it and absolutely love the detail of the work. I am proud of it. I plan to turn the book into either a podcast or a speaking circuit to educate younger women on what not to do in real estate. All publishers turned me down. They all said it was “too niche-y” but all wanted to read it. So, I published it myself. I also published a children’s book about ten years ago through the Amazon platform so knew how to do it. I would encourage all readers to write stories or books and get something written down that makes you happy. The future is self-publishing, teaching what you know, courses, and so forth. Pick a side hustle, keep it small and reasonable and have fun. My book is called “She Gave Her Pearls” and it’s on Amazon. It’s been passionately received.
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Kimberly Dotseth, Blend Luxury Real Estate.