Describe your transition from college student to CEO.

I graduated from UNI on a Saturday and started working for Peoples Co. on a Monday. I knew I wanted to work for a small real estate brokerage and build it before I graduated. I was fortunate to have this opportunity with Peoples Co. and partners who let me take the company and run with it. … I still rely on several of the more experienced agents in our company to give me advice. I am fortunate that we haven’t lost the original group that was there when we bought the company.

How did your college experience prepare you for that role?

I find myself relying on acquaintances from college every day. Whether it be Dr. Art Cox, the director of the UNI real estate program, someone I went to class with, or one of the employers that recruited me while I was in school, I find myself turning to these folks on a daily basis for advice.



In five years you’ve watched your company grow from four agents and four listings to approximately 400 listings, 36 agents and five employees. What is your recipe for growth?

We’ve spent a lot of time working on building our infrastructure. We realized right away that we wanted to create a brand that had a competitive sustainable advantage. We didn’t want to be just another real estate broker; we wanted to carve out a niche that wasn’t easy for others to replicate. We have put a lot of energy into building our systems, culture and recruiting the right people to work within that culture. Once we defined exactly what it was that set us apart from our competitors, it has been easy to recruit people that fit into our systems, which has led to this growth.



What are you doing to attract and retain young talent in the state?

We opened an office in Cedar Falls specifically to recruit students from the UNI real estate program. We currently have six former UNI students working for Peoples Co. We have worked hard to have our younger agents partner with some of the more experienced agents in the office to learn the business. We have also made stock available to all of our agents to keep them tied to the company. We are in the process of developing incentive compensation plans for our top-performing agents as well.



Diversification is important to Peoples Co. Why is it necessary for real estate brokerage firms to diversify?

Building a brokerage model with three different divisions seems a bit overwhelming, but it has proved to be a blessing now that there is so much turmoil in the real estate market. Like any asset class, there are good times and bad times. We didn’t want to be exposed to one particular asset class when bad times came. … By diversifying, we hope to avoid the exposure to the bad times in the future. We are fortunate our land business is doing so well right now, but we didn’t want to count on that growth each and every year. … The land business is our core, but our agents find themselves sharing information and working together on a variety of interesting projects that wouldn’t be successful if we couldn’t pull all of our resources together.

Whom do you look up to?

I look up to other business owners. It takes a great amount of personal sacrifice to run your own business. Iowa has some great entrepreneurs that have changed the face of our state, and I admire the legacy they have left for future generations to enjoy.



How has your focus on service and building relationships helped your business during these tough economic times?



We chose to build our business based on getting people to know, like and trust us. We feel that if we do that, the business will come. … By focusing on relationships versus transactions, we have been able to generate a lot of business that we don’t advertise for. Now that the market has slowed, our relationship-driven business model continues to produce deals, while several of our competitors are cutting advertising budgets that generated their leads.

Tell me about an obstacle you’re facing right now in your business. How will you overcome it?

The biggest challenge we face is determining how quick to grow. There are only so many hours in the day and only so many resources. Every day I run into new opportunities that are profitable. The challenge is to determine which opportunities to put our limited capital and management ability into. I like the saying “The man that chases two rabbits doesn’t catch either one.” It’s hard to walk away from some of these opportunities.

Tell me about your family.



My wife, Nikki, works for Wells Fargo Financial, and we recently added our first child to the mix. We had a baby boy named Blake. I’m lucky to have an understanding wife who lets me work too hard. Now that we have a child, I am trying to spend more time at home and less time at work.



What do you do to unwind or have fun?



My wife and I like to travel. If I’m around home, I can’t help but answer the phone and respond to e-mails. When we are in the Caribbean without phone reception, it’s pretty easy to forget about work. We try to take several trips each year to get away.



How do you define leadership?

One of my mentors told me that there were two kinds of people: those who do the work and those who take the credit. He told me to try to be in the first group. There is much less competition.



What’s in store for the next five years?



I plan to continue to build our brokerage and recruit agents who share my passion for the real estate business. A lot of the hard work has been done building our brand, culture and systems. Now we just need to work on recruiting like-minded individuals that can help grow our organization. … We believe in the saying that everything starts with the land. Hopefully five years from now that saying holds true for Peoples Co., and we will be able to capitalize on the relationships we are building in the land business.