Christian Fuentes’ Simple Mantra That Can Take You Higher

When Christian Fuentes was just 12 years old, his family left their home in Mexico City to start a new life in the United States. It didn’t take long after arriving in Southern California for Fuentes to realize he would always feel like an outsider if he didn’t learn English. He wanted desperately to communicate and make friends. But he also had another motivation.

“I knew I had to learn the language so I could have a girlfriend,” jokes Fuentes, now 38, who still speaks with a rich accent. Fuentes is a fast talker and a direct communicator who looks people in the eye – because he knows exactly what to say and how to say it.

After all, he hasn’t become a Hall of Fame Team Leader and highly respected brokerage Co-Owner by mincing words. Fuentes is the epitome of a self-made American success story. He worked his way up from the grind of the retail world while studying for his associate’s degree, and now commands multimillion-dollar transactions and coaches dozens of real estate agents to realize their own potential. He’s exactly the type of professional the RE/MAX system was designed for: self-motivated, passionate and driven.

“My father always told me, ‘You can do better,’ and he’s always pushed me,” says Fuentes, who with his wife, Jeannette, co-owns RE/MAX Top Producers in Diamond Bar, Calif. He also leads the Dream Team, a 10-member group that ranked No. 2 among RE/MAX teams in California last year.

Fuentes doesn’t just talk a big game; he practices what he preaches. Sticking to a schedule, he says, is essential; Fuentes is often the first person in the office – and the last one to leave. He takes time to mentor his team members and agents, doing role-play exercises for common buyer and seller objections and using proven coaching strategies he learned from years of following Tom Ferry and Mike Ferry.

As one of the network’s young, top-producing stars, Fuentes has built a reputation worth emulating, a business that commands respect and an unbreakable loyalty among all who work with him. And he did it by working from the bottom up.

Diving right in

Fuentes applied the same eagerness he had for learning English to learning how to sell real estate. He followed his father’s suggestion to take a real estate appraiser class and earn his real estate license. At 21, he dove into the field by working as an assistant for a busy team.

From there, he absorbed every shred of knowledge he could from team members and coaches. Eventually, he worked his way up to becoming a buyer’s agent on a top-producing real estate team.

“Before meeting with potential clients, I’d practice in the mirror, using scripts for responding to common buyer objections,” says Fuentes, who never goes into a client meeting unprepared. “I was closing up to 60 buyer transactions a year and earning good money, but my dad’s voice was always at the back of my head saying, ‘You can do better, Son.'”

Fuentes knew the voice was right, so he started the Dream Team at a local Century 21 brokerage. He soon met Jeannette, who owned a Mexican restaurant next door to his office. A year later, she sold the business and joined Fuentes’ team as a buyer’s agent. He mentored her, and the two quickly became best friends. In no time at all, they fell in love and got married.

From the start, Jeannette Fuentes saw something special in Christian.

“Ever since I met him I saw his passion for real estate and life,” Jeannette says. “For some people it’s all about the money, but not for Christian. He truly loves what he does, and I admire him for that.”

Fuentes channeled his passion for the business into growing his team. He developed the listing side of the business while mentoring buyer’s agents to work with those clients. Fuentes was particular about who joined his team, making sure to choose members based on their drive and passion for the business. It wasn’t long before the Dream Team began putting up impressive numbers.

“I’ve always told my team not to copy anyone,” Fuentes says. “But I want them to take my example as motivation for their own success. I push them to match my schedule and keep up with me because I’m out there producing and working in the trenches.”

Being the natural-born leader he is, Fuentes gravitated even more toward coaching, which became an integral part of the Dream Team’s skyrocketing success. With that success came the realization that Fuentes could take his team further instead of being limited by high commission splits and what he felt to be an outdated brand at Century 21. Drawn by the RE/MAX model and the productivity of its agents, Fuentes moved his team to RE/MAX in 2007. That’s when they became unstoppable.

The mentoring niche

Accountability is a big deal to Fuentes, so he hired a Tom Ferry coach to keep him on track. Within a short time, Fuentes caught Ferry’s attention and was invited to become a coach for the organization.

Then the housing downturn hit and Fuentes had to adjust his own business plan and what he was teaching his agents. He drilled the importance of accountability into his team members and the agents he coached, and encouraged them to focus on building the buyer’s side of their business.

Leslie Wilson was one of the agents who benefited from Fuentes’ expertise and mentorship. Wilson was working at a mom-and-pop shop, closing fewer than 10 deals a year, when he joined Fuentes’ team in 2007. He worked closely with his new mentor to create a manageable schedule and a plan to capture more buyer leads and set more appointments.

In 2012, he closed an astounding 70 transactions as an individual agent. Wilson and Fuentes also have created an investment partnership to buy, fix and sell residential properties in their market. Wilson credits Fuentes with helping him hit his sales stride.

“Christian is a wealth of knowledge, because he’s been doing this a long time and knows how to approach just about any problem from the right angle,” Wilson says. “Thanks to him, I became a multimillionaire before the age of 30. He helped me change my life and get to where I am today.”

Realizing the next dream

As the local market in SoCal began to rebound in 2011, Fuentes and Jeannette began setting new goals. The Dream Team was closing upwards of 150 transactions a year, and the couple wanted to build their own brokerage to mentor and create top producers. They opened their own office, aptly named RE/MAX Top Producers.

Monique Zacarias, who joined The Dream Team in June as a listing and lead coordinator, has known Fuentes since they were fresh out of high school. Even then she admired how he tackled his goals with panache.

“Working for him is so easy,” Zacarias says. “He wants everyone to do their best, and he’s your biggest cheerleader. Christian is in this business to stay.”

All of the hard work and determination Fuentes put in over the past 17 years has paid off in a big way. He continues to sell, earning his way into the Diamond Award Club last year and closing 131 transaction sides so far this year. And he recently ranked No. 10 on the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals’ annual list of the Top 250 Latino Real Estate Agents in America – an honor Jeannette says makes her particularly proud.

Fuentes still leads the Dream Team, in addition to other agents, while Jeannette manages the day-to-day brokerage activities. The pair runs a smooth operation at the office – and at home with their two young children – because they keep their personal and business lives separate.

“We have our own offices, and we each have our own assistants,” Fuentes says. “It’s important to maintain that work-life balance. There’s a fun, positive energy in our office that stems from the environment we’ve created. We do lunches, happy hours, parties and sales contests. We show appreciation for our agents because they’re the reason we’re so successful.”

By all accounts, Fuentes still has many chapters to write in his success story. He’s come a long way in his career, but with plenty of business to go around for him and his agents, Fuentes still hears his father’s mantra in his head: “You can do better.”

“Even when I closed 250 transactions last year, I asked myself, ‘Great, but how do I get to 400 or 500?'” Fuentes says. “It all goes back to accountability and having someone push you to your limits.

“My saying in the office is that success is contagious; I want our success to be viral.”

Tune in to Christian and Jeannette’s next big project, “Fearless Fix” on HGTV. The show follows the real estate duo as they flip various properties throughout Southern California. The series debuts July 29 at 2 p.m. 

MENTOR’S CORNER
Top-producing Team Leader and go-to mentor Christian Fuentes shares his thoughts on …
+ Building a team
“That’s one thing that agents don’t get: You can only grow so much by yourself. You need the right people around you. Once you get to a certain level of steady business, bring in an assistant who can free you up from all the busy work so you can focus on generating even more leads. The next step is hiring a buyer’s agent.”
+ Social Media
“It’s a great marketing tool for your business, and it’s a great way to share wins and success stories. This is still a face-to-face business, though, and social media can never replace in-person interaction.”
+ Scripts
“Learn how to handle every objection. Practice your scripts in front of a mirror, role-play and keep practicing. And when you’re done, practice again.”
+ Working with your spouse
“You have to be good at turning yourself off after work hours. When Jeannette and I leave the office, we have a strict policy on not talking about work. It has to be separate.”
+ Balance
“Don’t let the business burn you out. I keep a well-balanced schedule, working about four-and-a-half days a week. I take weekends off, spend time with my family and get plenty of exercise.”