Want More Sales? A Balanced Life? Here’s One Star’s Blueprint

Not long after Patrick Stracuzzi joined RE/MAX as a young agent more than 20 years ago, he attended his first RE/MAX Convention in Orlando.

At the convention, beloved real estate coach and motivational speaker Howard Brinton spoke about the secrets to his success. He also shared tips he had gleaned from top agents who shared their own secrets through RE/MAX seminars and through Star Power, Brinton’s coaching company. Stracuzzi recalls being blown away by the fact that pros at the top of their game would reveal the tricks of their trade.

“I ended up going to Howard’s class three times,” says Stracuzzi, now 49, leader of the Patrick Stracuzzi Real Estate Team at RE/MAX of Stuart, in Stuart, Fla. “I couldn’t leave. That seminar changed my life.”

Two decades later, Stracuzzi is a Circle of Legends member and a perennial Diamond Award Club member. In 2012, his team ranked No. 1 in the RE/MAX Florida region, No. 28 in the U.S. and No. 50 worldwide.

And now he’s opening up about how he got there.

KEEP LEARNING
Stracuzzi started his real estate career 24 years ago working at a smaller company. Within his first year, he sold 52 properties without help – mostly double- and single-wide mobile homes.

When he made the switch to RE/MAX a few years later, he found that he not only had a chance to sell higher-profile properties, but that he also had access to a wide variety of continuing-education resources, such as RE/MAX conventions and the RE/MAX Satellite Network, the groundbreaking precursor to RE/MAX University.

“RE/MAX has a lot of educational opportunities, so if you need or want additional training, there’s no excuse not to get it,” Stracuzzi says.

He also took advantage of the RE/MAX global network by shadowing top agents in Chicago, Atlanta and Canada to find out how they managed their teams and spent their time.

“I learned by surrounding myself with successful people, who I found to be more than willing to share and teach,” Stracuzzi says.

From Susan Coveny, a RE/MAX Luminary of Distinction member and Broker/Owner of RE/MAX Prestige in Long Grove, Ill., Stracuzzi learned how to delegate effectively to buyer agents.

From Circle of Legends member Bill Renaud of RE/MAX Metro-City Realty in Ottawa, Ontario, Stracuzzi learned to carry two things in his briefcase: dog biscuits and coloring books. Both items are emblazoned with the message, “Every member of the family is important to the Patrick Stracuzzi Real Estate Team.”

“It sounds simple, but if you make friends with the dogs and the kids, you’re in,” Stracuzzi says.

Stracuzzi learned from sources outside RE/MAX as well. From Brinton, whom Stracuzzi describes as his mentor, he learned how to communicate with clients, team members and others in his life.

Jennifer Atkisson-Lovett, Co-Broker/Owner of RE/MAX of Stuart, says even after decades in the business, Stracuzzi still shadows other top agents to keep his business practices fresh.

“For someone whose gross income is more than $1 million per year, that’s really commendable,” she says.

INNOVATE AND CREATE
Stracuzzi first got into real estate after a serious car accident almost 30 years ago left him physically unable to continue doing construction work.

Ever since then, he has prided himself on his willingness to take risks and make wholesale changes to his life and business when necessary.

“We all go to the conventions and get great ideas, but he’ll actually come back and implement all the ideas he’s excited about,” Atkisson-Lovett says. “His team knows that when he comes back from a RE/MAX convention, hold onto your britches, because everything’s changing.”

For example, Atkisson-Lovett says Stracuzzi was the first agent in the Stuart market to employ buyer agents, and she says he introduced that business model with great success.

Cindy Simpson, Marketing Manager for the Patrick Stracuzzi Real Estate Team, says she’s become accustomed to getting text messages from Stracuzzi at 3 a.m. saying, “I have an idea. Can’t wait to talk to you about it tomorrow.”

In one recent example, she says, a 3 a.m. brainstorming session led him to suggest producing an in-house magazine to market the team’s listings.

“He came in the next day and said, ‘We can do this, can’t we?'” Simpson recalls. “He made the decision to do it overnight, we put it together in a few weeks, and we sent out the first issue via direct mail a few weeks later. People love it.”

Atkisson-Lovett says it’s nearly impossible to tell Stracuzzi no when he’s excited about a new idea.

“He dreams on a big scale, and he’s willing to do what it takes to achieve those dreams,” she says.

DELEGATE WISELY TO AGENTS WHO CARE
As a dedicated team leader, Stracuzzi takes care to focus on developing each team member’s skills and talents, and tailoring their continuing education to suit their knowledge and experience levels. Newer agents shadow him. Agents who’ve been with the team for a while go to seminars off-site, presented by companies such as Star Power. All agents are tasked with making “dream boards,” and meeting one-on-one with Stracuzzi to develop plans for achieving those dreams.

Michael Ponte, an agent who has been part of Stracuzzi’s team for four years, says Stracuzzi leads by example, in terms of his positive attitude, his goal-oriented work ethic and his willingness to continue to develop his own skills as an agent.

“He keeps us motivated by constantly improving himself, and by sharing what he’s tried, what’s working and what isn’t working,” Ponte says.

Stracuzzi built his business by carefully deciding which tasks were important for him to do himself and where his time is best spent.

“My genius is in negotiating and in meeting with people,” Stracuzzi says. “So early on, I made face-to-face meetings with buyers and sellers my primary goal, and delegated almost everything else.”

His team members take care of preparing market reports, computing and paying taxes, and handling closings – as many as 30 or more a month.

WHAT MATTERS
Stracuzzi says the hard times he’s experienced in his life – the car accident left him and his wife, Susan, almost broke, and led to a host of serious medical problems – not only resulted in a career change, but also guided his beliefs about what it takes to build and manage a successful team.

“I hire people for their heart,” Stracuzzi says. “If someone comes in for an interview and says, ‘I want to work on your team; these are my numbers,’ that’s not enough for me. I have to find out what drives a person to know if they’ll be a good fit.”

Stracuzzi says he strives to find agents who possess a sense of sympathy and empathy, and who will dig deep to find out what’s motivating their clients.

“Howard Brinton used to say to go ‘three deep,’ meaning that you need to probe deeper and deeper to get to the heart of a question,” Stracuzzi says. “That’s when you really start to understand which of your clients wants a home with a cul-de-sac and a strong Parent Teacher Association, and which of your clients is interested in the golf course, the status or the social aspects of a neighborhood.

“Only then can you help them find just the right property.” Stracuzzi says an agent’s emotional intelligence and sense of compassion are especially important in Florida, where many homeowners continue to suffer in the wake of the housing market crash.

“There are a lot of reasons you might be selling your home,” Stracuzzi says. “In some cases, a Realtor has to be more than a Realtor, and has to be able to cry with someone over a loss, or has to be able to explain to someone, ‘It’s going to be OK. The only things that are really important in this house are the family photos on the refrigerator.'”

RE/MAX of Stuart Office Manager Betty Cipra says Stracuzzi demonstrates the same compassion himself, whether it’s through one of his many community service projects or simply giving a client his full attention.

“He’s the most caring person I’ve ever met,” says Cipra, who has known Stracuzzi for 25 years. “He becomes personally involved with every client he works with. He’s the same way with our team; he makes it a really pleasant place to come to work every day.”

In one of many examples of Stracuzzi’s generosity, he organized a benefit seminar in 2010 for former RE/MAX agent Rob Gangi, who suffered a traumatic brain injury in December 2009. Atkisson-Lovett says Stracuzzi surprised her by booking nationally known speakers and raising more than $30,000 for Gangi’s family.

“I was thinking he’d get some people from South Florida, but he convinced some high-profile speakers from across the country to come to the benefit,” she says. “He gets pumped up about paying it forward.”

Stracuzzi’s oldest son, Patrick Sean, 27, and his oldest daughter, Lauren, 25, both work with him. Stracuzzi says he prioritizes time spent with the rest of his family – he and Susan have four kids – by scheduling time with them in the same way that he’d schedule an appointment with an important client.

“I coach my 10-year-old son’s Little League games, and his games are written into my schedule,” Stracuzzi says. “When conflicts come up, I just tell people that I have an appointment and can meet with them at another time.”

THE FUNDAMENTALS
For all of Stracuzzi’s risk-taking and innovation, he says he still generates most of his leads the old-fashioned way: by going door-to-door handing out fliers and making introductions.

“In these days of technology and emails, and Facebook and LinkedIn, you’re still never going to do any business unless you get face-to-face with potential clients,” Stracuzzi says. “When I think back, I can trace hundreds of thousands of dollars to a single day of knocking on doors, or to one time when I gave my card to some people I overheard talking about real estate in a restaurant. It’s important to think about not only selling one person’s home, but also about building lifelong relationships with people who will refer you to their friends and family.”

He applies the same principle to his colleagues, and takes care to spend time with new agents, allowing them to shadow him the way he once shadowed others.

“You would think that for an agent doing the volume he’s doing, he would be too busy for office meetings and functions,” Atkisson-Lovett says. “But he comes to weekly sales meetings and to weekly Board of Realtors meetings. He attends company social events. He’s willing to support and help others, and he truly believes there’s enough business for everyone.”

Soon, Stracuzzi hopes to share his sales secrets and perspectives on a larger scale by publishing a book he’s written about overcoming the trials and tribulations he experienced at the start of his career.

“I can look back now and see how many times, when I felt like I was ready to quit, I was really just one knock away from someone saying ‘yes.'”

SOURCES OF INSPIRATION
Identifying the things in life that nurture and motivate our desire is an important exercise. Here’s what keeps Patrick Stracuzzi going:

“Attending the RE/MAX Convention changed my life,” Stracuzzi says. “That’s where I first met Howard Brinton.”

Mentors like Brinton, a real estate sales motivational speaker who passed away in December 2012, can inspire and motivate with critical feedback and creative solutions to help you reach your goals.

Books are another source of endless inspiration. Some of Stracuzzi’s recently read favorites: The Magic by Rhonda Byrne and The Ultimate Gift by Jim Stovall. Download audiobooks for listening on the go.

Stracuzzi has a passion for coaching his son’s Little League team and advises that all coaches – sports, business or otherwise – read The Twelfth Angel by Og Mandino.