We were lucky to catch up with Robert Morillo recently and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Robert, thanks for joining us today. Before we talk about all of your success, let’s start with a story of failure. Can you open up about a time when you’ve failed?
As humans it’s natural to feel uncomfortable with failure. In fact, the mere thought or fear of failure alone keeps the majority of us from taking an opportunity, starting new businesses, or even booking a trip or experience that may change the course of your life forever. With everything that I’ve been through and all of the challenges I’ve overcome, even I thought that the taste of failure would be far removed from my future and perhaps even for the rest of my life.
As I stand before you today, I lay in the midst of failure, defeat and a whole new set of personal and professional challenges for me to overcome. For the last 2 years of my career, I crushed my personal goals and doubled my year-to-year business numbers. As busy and hectic as things got, I even managed to upgrade my real estate sales associate license and obtain my real estate broker license a whole year ahead of [my planned] schedule.
I ended 2021 on an extremely high note: over $8M in sales volume (including a record sale of $4.6M), given the opportunity to start my own team with my brokerage (which I accepted) and things were looking up for a closing on a development project I had been working on for over 2 years now (still in the works). So of course, 2022 was bound to be a prosperous year and for sure the easiest year yet to come – or so I thought.
I took on 8 agents and 2 referral directors thinking it was going to be a breeze to lead an overly ambitious team of fresh and excited agents ready to take on the reigns of real estate and reach new heights. Now I consider myself to be a fairly confident individual, but I’ve learned the hard way that personal confidence alone does not carry people through the inevitable challenges they have to face when taking on a new endeavor.
Just to keep a long story short, as much as I desired to “make it happen” and see everyone win, it came at the cost of over-investing into others and crashing and burning to the point of faint sights of recovery. The failure I am currently experiencing is facing the fact that I find myself having to start over as a seasoned agent (however rookie broker) and laying a new foundation for the future of my career in real estate.
The only difference between the failures of my past and my present circumstance is that I’m much more excited about the lessons that I’m learning and the shifts I’m implementing to elevate yet again. The years of adversity I had previously faced have not only given me the thick skin I didn’t realized I’d need in the future, but it also prepared me for a harsh reality: your level of ambition will require you to fail – over and over and over again.
In just the short 5 years of my career, I’ve seen many cycles of poverty and wealth. Although this year may be the one to sting the most, it is also the one that I hope to be grateful for when I look back at it 5 to 10 years from now.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers
In the process of serving families over the last 5 years, I’ve sold 58 homes resulting in over $20M worth of real estate. My business thrives from providing solutions to homeowners looking to maximize the value of their homes. Im Robert Kenneth Morillo with Compass Florida and I love what I do because it saved me from my past and has allowed me to create a future for my daughters that nobody else saw coming. Today, I stand before you as a rehabilitated ex convict who recovered through the power of God, positive thought and self belief.
I got into real estate back in 2016 after years of desiring to do something different with my life and my Uncle Danny begging and pleading for me to give it a shot. For at least 2 years prior to signing up for the course, I was under the limited belief that I wouldn’t be approved to get my real estate license due to the fact that I had a criminal history. This belief kept me ignorant to possibilities and and closing doors on potential opportunity. It wasn’t until I got into an Uber ride one day and was having the same ‘ol conversation with Danny about not applying for a license because I didn’t think I would get approved.
I never appreciated eavesdropping more than I did with this Uber driver who went through a similar experience, yet here he was flashing his brand new business cards in front of me. Not only did he let me know that it was possible, he spent the rest of the ride explaining to me how he navigated the process of successfully obtaining his license. And I did just that.
Come to think of it, it was very much in similar fashion to what I do now: educating property owners who aren’t exactly aware of their property’s value to realize how much they can potentially sell it for and teaching buyers how to overcome credit challenges to discover how much purchase power they actually have.
At the end of they day, overcoming my own challenges have led me to become the ultimate problem solver and wealth of information to the benefit of many others. My approach is very goal oriented, solutions based and results driven. I’m super proud of my personal progress, new life purpose in helping others achieve wealth through real estate and love it when a client agrees to share their success stories with others on my YouTube channel.
If you’re looking to change your life with the sale or purchase of property any where in the state of Florida, I’d love to be your resource. Anywhere else in the world? I’d love to connect you with our strategic partners – It all starts with a conversation.
Can you share one of your favorite marketing or sales stories?
One of my favorite marketing stories also happens to be a heartbreaker. I had a townhome listing coming soon to the market around the same time that one of my friends was getting themselves in position to buy with his girlfriend. As we were getting their credit together and applying for the mortgage, the property was being prepared for the market. As soon as I had photos of the listing, I shared it with my friend and he gets back to me stating that his girlfriend got overly excited because that was the exact same unit that she attempted to purchase just 3 years ago (before they even knew each other). Now that they had the opportunity to get the home before anyone else and their pre approval came back just in time, we scheduled a showing and they said yes to submit an offer right away.
However, my sellers still had no place to go and unfortunately had to back out of the home we had under contract due to their inability to buy before selling. So instead of continuing their search on the market, I sent letters to homeowners in the same neighborhood they wanted, targeting homeowners with the same or similar floor plan as the original home. In less than a week’s time, we had a homeowner who was interested in selling and boom – they were under contract.
All 3 families were under contract and satisfied with the strokes of serendipity. It was perfectly aligned with the universe. Are you ready for the heartbreak? Since then, 1/3 couples have separated and another is unofficially separated (still living together). The 3rd couple is living happily ever after.
Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?
The greatest salesman in the world (parts I & II) by Og Mandino.
Both books significantly impacted my entrepreneurial thinking at moments in my life when things were pretty turbulent. Ironically, it felt like each scroll aligned with exactly what I was experiencing internally and virtually helped me get over every made up obstacle and challenge I faced. I happened to discover Part I at a listing client’s library and Part II was ordered via Amazon by accident. Both times, they saved my life from crashing.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.compass.com/agents/robert-morillo/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/repapichampu/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/REPapiChampu/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/repapichampu/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/repapichampu
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHvB2Dagu68m9EzeYzkp2Yw
Image Credits
Christian Morales