Editor’s note: RISMedia Storytellers is a new series allowing people to share exceptional lessons, moments, relationships and events in real estate in their own words. Do you know a real estate professional who would make a great Storyteller? Please let us know at editorial@rismedia.com.
You never know who is going to thrive in the business of real estate. The particular set of skills and the type of attitude is hard to define, and is often honed in unusual places. The types of personalities that mesh, that can contribute those wonderful, intangible positives to a business also come from anywhere—the meat room in a supermarket, for instance. In these cases, it requires a leap of faith and trusting your instincts—from both sides—to make a connection like that really work.
Out of the butcher shop and into the brokerage
John Millen (Director of Business Development, Lamacchia Realty): Long story short, I was a meat cutter at a supermarket. I was in the supermarket when I was 14, and I worked right up until I was 43 years old. Nothing to do with real estate at all, period, not even on my radar.
For years, I had seen Anthony Lamacchia on TV, with his ads and stuff, and then we had a mutual friend who started working for him. She said, “Hey, my boss thinks you’re funny,” and I’m like, “The guy from TV? The real estate guy?” And she said, “Yeah, he wants to become Facebook friends with you.” So we became Facebook friends. I just started watching him, asking myself how does this guy have sort of a smaller business, but he’s putting ads on TV and he’s got this great name recognition? This guy’s pretty smart. He’s doing something right. I just followed him. I’m pretty good at forecasting things, so I’ll pat myself on the back a little bit for that.
Anthony Lamacchia (Broker/Owner, Lamacchia Realty): I got to know John through an agent at my company because they were friends on Facebook. I would pay attention to what he would do, what he would say, and how he would act on Facebook. And one of the things I noticed, in addition to a bit of a wild personality, was that he had a tremendous following. This guy could take a picture of a lawn and get 80 comments. And I thought, this guy is interesting. He has a big following. So that kind of got my attention, and then he messaged me one day and says, “Hey, I’m thinking about getting into real estate.” And initially I was thinking, “Well, we only take people full time.”
JM: I inboxed him on Facebook and said, “Listen, I’ve been watching you. You’re gonna do good things; you’re an intelligent guy. I don’t know anything about real estate—and the thought of selling a house makes me sick—but if you need someone to hang up signs, if you need someone to clean your toilets, I dont give a damn what it is, I wanna be a part of this company.”
He kind of brushed it off basically—something like, “Appreciate the kind words.” Probably six months later, my wife said, “Go get your real estate license if you want to be part of the company. So I went on Saturdays and Sundays, got my license and then I messaged him and told him, “Hey, you didn’t want to hire me for something else, so now I’m gonna come sell houses for you.”
He kind of laughed and said, “We don’t really have a training program for newbies. We usually take people that are in the business for a year or more.” And I wasn’t having that. I said, “What day do you want me to come down and interview?”
Men on a mission
AL: John’s probably one of the oddest stories I’ve ever seen. The guy was a meat cutter. He’s got sleeve tattoos down to his wrists on both sides. Again, a bit of a wild personality, but he knows how to clean up well. He can be very professional. He’s a very caring person, and he’s very hardworking.
He has that special magnetic feature that you can’t teach. He just has it. He has those magnetic people skills. And I had a feeling when he came in to interview, but then it snowballed from there.
JM: I sold nothing but a filet before working for Anthony. But I came in and I drove to Waltham—we didn’t have Zooms and all that back then. You had to go into the office for training. I drove every Wednesday while working 60 hours a week. I came in and I just listened to what Anthony did.
Being honest, I had a baby on the way. I was sick to my stomach about selling real estate. But again, I’m saying to myself, “This guy is onto something. This guy is smart.” Just listening to him talking—I want someone with a plan. If you go to work for someone, you wanna know they have a plan for X amount of years—this is our goal. And he is very good at relaying that. Think about it: I sold almost 40 homes in a year and half of sales coming out of a meat room.
Anthony’s very good at telling people the “why” behind things. Where other people will say, “You can’t do it, don’t do it,” Anthony will say, “We’d love for you to do that and that’s a great idea, but here’s the backlash from it, and here’s why it’s not going to work out.”
AL: We had training on Wednesdays. We have agents that live anywhere from five minutes to an hour and a half away. Some people complain, “I don’t wanna go to headquarters, this is too far!” John never even questioned it. He just said, “Oh, this is where training is every week in person? Okay I’ll be here.”
I would show up at the office early—often coming in at five in the morning and working until about seven—and I’d be walking around the parking lot and I’d see him in his car. I didn’t really know the guy at the time, so I would say, “Hey John, what are you doing?” He’d say, “I’m just here early for training.” I’d say, “Well, training is at 10, John.”
He’d say, “Oh I know, I know, I just wanted to beat the traffic. I’m just studying some stuff.” He’d show me his notes, and he’d go get breakfast and come back. And that was when I knew that this guy was serious.
Trusting the skills, knowing the process
AL: The biggest thing I do all day, every day is put people where they will do the best. And that’s something I pay very close attention to. I say, this person—I think they could do well over here. They’re decent at their current job, but their traits are telling me they’d be better at the other job. I don’t have a problem pivoting, because the thing is, you have to have employees doing what they love to do. When employees are happy, they’re good at their job. Because I pay attention to where people should be, I don’t have a problem making a change if I think they should be somewhere else.
I noticed that John was also recruiting a lot of people into the company. We took note of that because this guy was brand new to the business, and all of a sudden, we have REALTORS® joining. At first it was newbies that would follow him saying, “Well if John can do it, I can do it,” but then he started bringing people over from other companies.
JM: After a year and a half, Anthony came to me and said, “Hey, we want to start recruiting people. I want you to do it.”
I don’t think he even told me what the salary was, but I said, “Sure, let’s do it.” Because I was that confident, and he had proven himself—that anything he says, he follows through with. If you’re going into a storm, who do you want for a captain? I’m always asking people this, even now. And that was the guy I wanted. It was for many reasons; it’s almost hard to explain. But just watching him, watching his personality, watching where he’s investing his money, watching where he’s investing his time, watching how he treated people—that’s what I want if I’m going into something. I want to know from day one what the company wants to do and what its endgame is.
He started something with our field services. “We’re just doing it,” he said. “I’ve got to go buy five cars, and I’ve got to pay five salaries, but let’s do it.” And guess what? It’s working out phenomenally. We have some of the top agents in the state saying, “Hey, we need that,” but other companies don’t do it.
AL: John is one of the best soldiers I have ever seen in my life, in my career. He’ll take constructive feedback. Like I said, a little bit of a wilder personality, so every so often I have to be like, “Ah careful here, careful there,” but he listens. He’s a solid dude. There’s no other way to put it.
You can’t put a price on people like that. You can’t pay people like that as much as they are worth. They’re invaluable. John has the 19 other traits that it takes to be at his level. We used to have a recruiting coach, a great guy that was very well-known, and he once told me: “You have the best recruiter who’s not an owner of anybody I’ve worked with. John’s the best non-owner recruiter I’ve ever seen.” Recruiting is very hard, and it’s also the hardest position to hire.
When to take a chance, and when to think outside the box
JM: Do your research. It was a year of me watching Anthony and following what he was doing, seeing him say something and then following up on it. But I mean, life’s a gamble. You only live once. I could be 50 years old cutting meat in a cold locker room if I didn’t do that. Honestly, if you have something to fall back on, it makes it a lot easier. I could stop selling real estate tomorrow and go back to cutting meat if I wanted to. I say go for it, for sure. But again, there’s not a lot of Anthony Lamacchias.
AL: Now the market is on the ride down, so it makes it a little harder. Because of that, we’re more careful about who we bring in. There’s still some good people, but it’s harder to be a newbie today with no connection to real estate and completely take off.
But you have to take some risks. You’re not going to know until you try. We had people we put into those positions that didn’t work out. But I knew John would work out. When you know, you’ve got to make a move. I knew when I met him that he would be good at sales, and after he was here for a while, I realized that he was also going to be good at recruiting. Someone who has that special something who can convince people to come over and join is much more valuable to the company.
