Everyone has their story, and I am honored to share mine with you.
I bleed blue as I was born in the Commonwealth of Kentucky but raised in Southern Illinois. I grew up in the Village of Elizabethtown, yes you read that right, a village of 350 people. After a semester of college, I decided it wasn’t the right fit for me and relinquished the full scholarship I had received from the speech department. At the age of 19 I left my hometown and moved to Music City to pursue my music career. I was going to be a Star!!!
While plugging away on that I was also employed in the hospitality industry where I worked in sales for 22 years. While a record deal wasn’t in the stars for me, I did build a very successful career in the hospitality world.
Like for many, 2020 hit and after many wonderful years serving in the hospitality industry of this great city, I had to make decision to wait for a job in hospitality or make a career change. I have always had a passion for real estate so much that in 2007 I received my license but with the recession and housing crisis the timing wasn’t right to start my business. After much discussion with my amazing, parents they told me there wasn’t anything to decide I was going to do real estate and I had their full support. In reality I had no other option I had to do it and failure wasn’t an option!
After being in Nashville for 22 years and building an incredible network, I was ready to work my connections and build my real estate business. While working on reactivating my license I had a friend asked me if I was going to do it solo or join a team. Duh, I know everyone I am going to do it on my own but the “team concept” did grab my attention. That friend introduced me to the incomparable Patrick Higgins. Our first phone conversation lasted over two hours talking about being a prisoner in Corporate America and building a real estate business.
I decided to interview other teams as well just to see the difference in how each team functioned and ran their business. In the midst of me trying to decide if I was joining a team or going solo only one team lead stayed in touch with me, Patrick. I was very impressed with his constant communication, his marketing expertise and knowledge of the market. His vested interest in me and how confident he was that I was going to be a RE Rockstar made the decision easy to join the Nashville Home Guru Team and I am so glad I did. I officially joined the team in November 2020 but didn’t start getting leads until Jan 2021. BEST decision I made and can’t imagine how hard it would have been to build my business by myself. The support, tools, resources and leads I received were incredible. I also quickly learned that even though I knew everyone in Nashville, and they knew me didn’t mean they were going to use me as their agent for buying and selling. I had to eat not a piece but the whole dang humble pie! Now, I will tell you my sphere did come around and reach out for my help but that wouldn’t have happened had I not had success early on with team leads. My first year on the team far exceeded my expectations! I ended up closing $8.8 million in sales volume. This year I will double that sales volume number!
Let’s talk about leads, the one thing that is most important to agents. Where will they come from, how do I get them and are they vetted and qualified. We are blessed with an abundance of leads because of the machine that Patrick has created for lead generation. They are vetted, qualified leads looking to buy or sell. The second and third important items to agents are support and tools. The cultural we have created at NHG is family. Many teams will say the same, but we really have done just that, so the support is unlike any other. We all revel in everyone’s successes but also there to answer all questions and lend an ear when a vent session is needed. Our NHG tools and resources paired with Compass’s technology are unmatched while the brand recognition and reputation of Compass is unrivalled.
If you are curious or have thought about starting a career in real estate or already an agent who is looking for something more, please reach out to us! I love talking about my journey and helping others with theirs! I hope we can help you find your place in the world as I know I have found mine! Welcome to Real Estate!
