We were lucky to catch up with Patty Campbell recently and have shared our conversation below.

Patty , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear about the best advice you’ve ever given to a client?

The best advice I ever received was from Michael Egan, who helped turn Alamo Rent A Car into one of the world’s largest rental car brands. He taught me to have the confidence to speak up at all times. That nothing you can say is stupid, but rather to always believe in yourself and to make sure your thoughts are heard. A great idea is never realized unless it is shared.

My leadership rules are simple. I want to hear my employees’ thoughts and ideas. Never ever throw someone under the bus, but rather treat them with respect and only provide positive criticism. It is important to learn from our mistakes, not be berated for them.

To become more successful in your career… try everything. Get as much experience as you can. The more seasoning you achieve, the more successful you can become. What an experience it was to be a female executive in three leading industries which included travel, fast food, and home construction. This eclectic resume allowed me to be able to tackle any issue and create dynamic ways to impress the customer.

For anyone in a leadership position, work hard to be a strong mentor for your staff. Provide them the best training and tools to succeed. This will result in tremendous growth not only for each individual but your team. And never worry about losing an employee to a promotion, as your reputation for being a true leader will make it easier to keep hiring the best and most talented people.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I was the VP of Revenue Management for Alamo Rent A Car for 14 years. All because I saw an ad in the newspaper. I had started as an engineering major but switched to business to follow my passion and would go on to earn a BA and MBA. While I was always a numbers person, something about this marketing job advertised in the paper intrigued me. Turned out that it was for a newly created department with the rental car giant to work with the airlines. I was so excited to get the job and was determined to be immediately successful. Thanks to my mathematical mind, I was given the freedom to come up with ideas and people seemed to gravitate to me. I was promoted at the age of 26 to manager and a director by 29.

This career growth led me to Burger King where I would become VP of Pricing and oversaw a $400 million dollar ad budget. It was an incredible job working for such an iconic global brand that included many high stress decisions and travel across the country. It was the perfect environment to showcase my math and marketing prowess. I would go on to be part of the team that would eventually sell Burger King.

Then came GL Homes, Florida’s largest private homebuilder. While they initially hired me to be a VP of Sales and Marketing, they quickly asked me to oversee their expansion to the west coast of Florida. Once I visited Naples, Florida… I fell in love with the area and agreed to become Division President. Homebuilding is typically a male-dominated industry, but GL Homes has always been a pioneer in having females in leadership and C-level roles. I’ve spent over two decades in this role and proud to have sold nearly 10 thousands homes on the west coast. My experience has allowed me to be a relationship builder which I think has served us to be able to attain prime locations and create numerous #1 selling communities.

I have loved every second of my career in homebuilding, from the land acquisition to the planning to the sales process. The purchase of a home is such an important moment in life, that I will never once take it for granted and my team will work tirelessly to make sure it goes smoothly for the customer. Plus, I am so proud that so many of the talented people that I’ve trained that have been promoted within and are doing tremendous things at the company. There’s nothing better than that.

How do you keep your team’s morale high?

Be approachable. Be friendly. It’s not a bad thing to create a family atmosphere. The key to all of this is to build a culture of camaraderie. But remember there is no free ride, so lead with a firm hand, make clear expectations, hold your employees accountable, and always be relatable. Help your team with the proper training, the best tools, show them support, be available to them, encourage conversation, be present, and most importantly lead by example.

Alright – let’s talk about marketing or sales – do you have any fun stories about a risk you’ve taken or something else exciting on the sales and marketing side?

When you are one of the most respected builders in Florida, the customers expect and demands a lot, which is wonderful. GL Homes is known for the incredible clubhouses it builds in our communities, and each one needs to be unique and different. In one of our Tampa projects, we were the first GL community to add pickleball, which is now a prerequisite in all of our communities. We have built lavish spas in some of our clubhouses. In fact, we are putting in a “cold plunge” into our new Valencia Sky clubhouse. We were the first to add a dog park in a GL Homes community. We created a boardwalk features into our Riverstone community in Naples. We build trendy restaurants into our communities. Our customers demand that we are on the forefront of all the trends. Simply check out the pool areas in any of our communities and you’ll notice each has a distinct resort feel. We work hard for the integrity and beauty of our communities and that is greatly appreciated by our homeowners.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.glhomes.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/glhomes/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/glhomes
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/glhomes
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/GLHomesofFlorida

Image Credits
Courtesy of GL Homes