John Wischmeier
Broker/Owner
Ashton Wischmeier
Director of Operations
Realty ONE Group Dream
Columbus, Ind.
https://dream.myrealtyonegroup.com
Region served: Greater Indianapolis Metropolitan area
Years in real estate: John: 17; Ashton: 8
Number of offices: 2
Number of agents: 32
How does being part of Realty ONE Group help you and your agents do your jobs well?
John Wischmeier: Realty ONE Group is a phenomenal company, because everyone supports us. And then there’s the 100-percent commission model, which truly has the power to change an agent’s life. The training and education we have access to is also invaluable.
You operate as a team of joint owners. How do you feel this allows you to cater to your agents and clients?Â
Ashton Wischmeier: As joint owners, we are available to our agents 24/7 for anything they might need. We truly are a team, and we couldn’t do it without each other’s support. We firmly believe that this environment is why we are able to deliver the best to our agents. Our ownership group consists of me and my father, my brother Zane and our partner Rick Daves. My father spends a great deal of his time on training, while I handle accounting and best practices. My brother is in charge of compliance and Rick acts as a broker/owner. We all have our own areas of expertise, which allows us to provide support from a whole team of experts.
Talk about the culture at Realty ONE Group Dream, and what you do to make sure it remains consistent.   Â
JW: We embrace the “work hard/play hard philosophy.” To be good at real estate, you have to work hard at it. We are all family, and we’re stronger together as one.
AW: We always celebrate success and family. In fact, there are a lot of days where I take off at 4 p.m. to be home with my family, which means that I’m in the office at 6 a.m. Any way you look at it, you need family time, so we make sure we balance that. Additionally, we’re constantly asking ourselves how we can be better tomorrow than we were today.
What is your No. 1 piece of advice for hiring and retaining the best agents?
JW: Our ONE family is growing, and a great deal of that growth is driven by our culture. While the 100-percent commission model allows agents to invest in themselves, I also spend a lot of time with our agents in order to help them learn how to generate their own leads.
What do your agents say is the best thing you do for them?
AW: Support. I get messages all the time thanking us for all the support.
JW: If agents can say we supported them, that is validation of who we truly are.
How has your business model changed during the pandemic?
AW: The main change to our business model has been our increased use of Zoom/video for meetings, open houses, etc. But Realty ONE Group was set up like this so it wasn’t a huge adjustment, because we were already using technology in our day-to-day business. We just ramped it up and made it better. And the silver lining is that it forced us to focus.
For more information, please visit www.realtyonegroup.com.
Lesley Grand is a contributing editor to RISMedia.
