Real estate company proves there’s strength in numbers

by Heather B. Hayes
for Virginia Business
May 2006

If a big ego in business is akin to having an elephant in the boardroom, then you would expect a stampede when the owners of six real estate agents decided to merge. But the decision to park all egos at the door was high on the priority list when Coldwell Banker franchisees Dorcas T. Helfant-Browning, John Wilson, Rick West, William Shelton and Tim Gifford got together with Tommy T. Thompson, owner of Harrison and Lear Residential. They formed a region-wide franchise known as Coldwell Banker Professional, Realtors in 2001.

“There were a lot of folks in town betting that we would never make it work,” says Helfant-Browning, the firm’s acting CEO and general manager. “We are all very strong-willed, and, at the time, none of us were younger than 50. But we are also consensus builders, and we very quickly began to function as a board of directors.”

Clearly, the risk paid off. Coldwell Banker Professional, Realtors, which handles residential and commercial real estate, has achieved rapid growth in a short period. Sales rose 2,848 percent from 2001 to 2004, making the real estate firm the service category winner in the Fantastic 50. Sales grew another 53 percent last year.

Leadership is one of the biggest reasons for the real estate company’s growth, says Conway Sheild, a partner with Jones, Blechman, Woltz and Kelly, a law firm that has counseled Coldwell Banker Professional, Realtors since its beginning. “There are no weak sisters at the helm of this company,” he says. “Everybody in the deal already had talent and experience and drive, but then they were able to leverage on each other’s skills to the point that they produced a product that was greater than the sum of the parts.”

The partners at Coldwell Banker Professional, Realtors, plan to continue building on their recent growth. With 10 offices already serving the region from Virginia Beach to Williamsburg, the company is set to open three more sites this year, including one in New Kent County. The company is also in negotiations that could result in two more locations before the end of the year.

In a couple of cases, the owners of competing real estate firms called the partners to invite them to make an offer. “They feel comfortable with how we run our business because we’re ethical and we take good care of our agents, and they know we’ll take good care of theirs,” Helfant-Browning says.

The partners plan to continue to expand through acquisition. “The opportunity to purchase existing companies is limited, so if someone knocks on our door, we will consider it and grab it if the conditions are right,” Helfant-Browning says. “Unlike a lot of large Realtors, we’ll move on a small opportunity, because we have the recruiting ability and the training ability to take a small sales corps and build on it.”

The goal of Coldwell Banker Professional, Realtors, is to double the size of its sales force during the next 24 months. That effort will include recruiting new real estate agents and focusing on retraining and career development for existing agents. In doing this, Helfant-Browning says, the company will be able to sustain strong growth even if the real estate market flattens.