September 3, 2025 • 25 mins
The secret to lasting success in real estate isn't found in flashy marketing campaigns or viral social media strategies—it's built one meaningful relationship at a time. Broker Gina Romano reveals how this philosophy has fueled her 21-year career during a candid conversation with Maria Quattrone on the Be the Solution podcast.
"In relationships, the little things are the big things," quotes Gina, sharing how she's cultivated a business so rooted in authentic connections that she "would never have to take an online lead again" to maintain her success. Before becoming a powerhouse broker with two thriving offices in New Jersey, Gina honed her relationship skills selling Longaberger baskets as a direct sales representative. This experience taught her the value of handwritten notes, meaningful conversations, and genuine interest in clients' lives—skills she transferred directly to real estate.
What makes Gina's approach particularly refreshing is her willingness to blend traditional relationship-building techniques with modern strategies. While her brokerage attracts primarily young agents under 30, she teaches them "old school" fundamentals like neighborhood farming, personal calls, and face-to-face meetings alongside cutting-edge digital marketing. This marriage of approaches creates sustainable business practices that withstand market fluctuations and technological changes.
The conversation also explores how the industry has evolved, with teams effectively replacing the supportive function traditional brokerages once provided. Gina's "team-ridge" model offers the collaborative benefits of a team structure while maintaining individual agent identities—all built on the foundation of strong relationships between broker and agents through consistent one-on-one coaching.
Whether you're new to real estate or a seasoned professional, this episode offers a powerful reminder that our business thrives on human connection. As Gina wisely notes, "You can have every shiny toy and a million followers, but if they can't connect with you on a higher level, you might not get business." Ready to build your business through relationships rather than transactions? Listen now and discover how the "little things" truly become the big things in your real estate career.
Connect with Maria Quattrone:
Facebook: Maria Quattrone
Facebook Page: REMAX at Home Facebook
Facebook Page: Rise in Real Estate Facebook
LinkedIn: Maria Quattrone
YouTube: Maria Quattrone
Instagram: @maria_quattrone
TikTok: mariaquattronerealestate
Website: MQrealesate.com
Office number: 215- 607-3535
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Maria Quattrone (00:00):
Hi, I'm Maria Quattrone and this is the Be the
Solution podcast, and today Ihave a new guest, gina Romano.
Gina is from Mullica Hill, newJersey, and she is a broker.
She has two offices, one thereand one in Hanfield.
I'm excited to have Gina on.
(00:21):
Although we are so close we'reonly about a half hour apart
this is the first time we'reactually meeting and so I'm
excited to bring Gina on.
Gina, welcome to the show.
Thanks, maria, thanks forhaving me.
(00:49):
I have a quote specifically foryou this morning, gina, and the
quote is this in relationships,the little things are the big
things, and that's by StephenCovey In relationships, the
little things are the big things.
I love it.
So when we talk about you know,in real estate, in life,
relationships are everything,and it's the development and the
growth of the relationship thatreally makes or breaks you as a
(01:14):
human and as a business owner.
Today we're going to dive intorelationships and the capital
that you build with people overtime.
So people don't.
(01:37):
You're not meeting somebody anddeveloping a relationship in
one moment.
That would be like meeting themand saying do you want to get
married?
That would be ridiculous.
Gina Romano (01:43):
I use that analogy all the time with my agents.
It's funny that you say that.
So you talk to them about whenthey meet new people and yeah,
so I've built my whole entirereal estate career prior to even
being a broker because I was anagent.
I started as a solo agent backin 04.
And I started that whole realestate business one relationship
(02:07):
at a time and my success tookyears, where you know, sometimes
you get rookies they dophenomenal but I've built like
relationships.
I always like dive really deep,but I do that with any
relationship.
I've been married 31 years.
You know any relationship that Igo after friends.
(02:28):
I'm still friends with one ofmy best, one of my best friends
I've been friends with for ohgosh, I don't even want to date
myself, but probably 50 years.
So so I dive really deep inrelationships and I believe
that's the core of every humanis how you build relationships
with people.
So part of my brokerage andmentoring my agents, I have a
(02:49):
lot of new agents, newer to thebusiness, very young.
We attract a very young agentand I stress on that that this
is a relationship business atthe end of the day.
And you can have every shinytoy, you can be on social media
and you can have a million andone followers, but if they can't
connect with you on a higherlevel relationship, then you
(03:10):
might not get business from that.
Maria Quattrone (03:13):
So how do people build the relationship
when you're just starting out inthe business?
What are some things thatpeople can do?
Gina Romano (03:21):
I teach them to be authentic, right, because people
want in this day and age, theywant authentic people.
Don't be salesman-y, don't tryto sell them.
You know, just listen.
People want to be heard inanything, but more so in our
business, right, I feel likepeople really want to be heard
and, you know, make people feelimportant and, like you said, do
(03:42):
the little things becausethey're actually the big things.
If you think about arelationship between a husband
and a wife, and if it doesn'twork, it's usually the little
things that broke down therelationship to make those
bigger things.
So I just feel like everythingin life is built on
relationships and I think that'swhat I have attacked my real
estate business.
Then, when I moved over to abroker, which I was in the
(04:04):
business 15 years before I evenbecame a broker, owner of a
company, and I get to lead thatwith my agents.
I build that rapport with them.
So hopefully, leading byexample is one way.
If you say, what do I tell them?
Hopefully it's leading byexample because I do do little
things for them to make themfeel special and important and I
(04:24):
felt like one of the reasonswhy I opened my brokerage was I
felt like that lacked a lot inour industry, because you had,
like the brokers, owners, andthen like the agents, and
sometimes that gap the brokerdidn't know who they were, and I
felt like that was one of thethings that made me open my
brokerage, because I wanted totake a little bit of a different
spin on it.
Maria Quattrone (04:45):
No doubt.
So that's something interestingyou know how our setup is here,
and you just met Dara is thatwe work together.
Dara is here every day, eventhough she's our broker of
record for the office.
I don't want to be a broker ofrecord.
She's a broker worker.
We work together, hand in hand.
(05:08):
I'm the front of the company,dyer supports that and handles
all of our seller clients in theback part of the office and
also works with the agents.
So it's a very differentdynamic than what you would see
at.
I would call it like a big boxbrokerage, a hundred percent.
I won't name any kind of names,but most of them there's this
(05:32):
person broker that nobody evermeets or like literally there
could be.
There's one broker record forfive offices and maybe they pop
into an office like once a weekor once a month or only when
there's like a major problemthat is managing.
You know associate brokers,maybe of the office.
(05:52):
So it definitely is a differentdynamic and I think also that
you know the.
The style brokerage is that youhave all these agents that are
under there and everybody isdoing their own thing and
they're doing it differently,correct, and the reason I
started my company it soundslike maybe you did too so when I
(06:14):
asked you, gina is it so thateverybody shares in all the
marketing, all the tools,everything that you would have
to do if you were an independentagent?
Gina Romano (06:27):
Correct.
So, yes, I've run my companysimilar to what you would think
is a team platform, right?
So they call it a team ridge,which is like a broker and a
team, but we're not an officialteam.
We don't.
It's not.
We don't collect numbers, weweren't do any of that.
The company started as that andit was only because I started
the company as a very small teamand then, you know, broke away
(06:51):
from that when I was able tofinancially and it made sense
and things like that and but Ilove collaboration.
I was the person and I did comefrom a Remax platform.
I was the person that everyonecame into my office and been
like, how did you do that flyer?
What are you doing with the newconstruction to get business?
And I am an open book.
I will tell anybody anything,because what I've learned
(07:14):
through the years is you cantell everybody what you do and
maybe 1% is going to do it.
So it's not like it's mycompetition or anything.
I don't believe in any of that,and that was one was that we can
all share, similar to almost,like you're saying, like a team,
but we're not a team, right,we're not the.
(07:35):
They're not the teams that yousee that are massive and and
like that.
What do you think about?
Now I'm going to ask you aquestion because I get this.
What do you think um, did theteam actually just replace?
Because you've been in thebusiness as long as I have do
you think the team actuallyreplaced the traditional
brokerage when the brokerage dida lot for you?
Maria Quattrone (07:55):
I do, yeah, and we're a team office.
Okay, so we also, even though Ido own the brokerage and we are
Remax in name, but we don'toperate on the Remax platform,
so we're not that you pay intoit.
You know 95, five kind of thingAbsolutely not, because I am
(08:18):
the rainmaker at our firm, so Ibring all the business in and
then it gets dispersedthroughout.
I still do.
I am still in production atthis point, so I am handling the
listings.
In fact, this year I've listed123 properties so far.
Gina Romano (08:37):
Wow, I'm like barely breathing at this point.
With with production, I think Iclosed four deals this year.
Maria Quattrone (08:45):
So, yeah, I am a listing machine.
So I and some of them now I'mstarting to so I and some of
them now I'm starting to like Ihave been this year I've been
giving listings, assigning themto some people and some other
agents in our company, and asmore agents learn the list side
of it, I'm going to assign moreout.
(09:05):
So it's um, I do believe in thevalue of a brokerage.
I think that you know one ofthe things when I was at my old
firm, and that was, you know,I've had my own office for 11
years.
So when I was at my old company, I would be making you know the
(09:29):
listing presentation and theprocesses and the systems, and
nothing was given to you.
And then my friend, he and Phil,they sat over there like 15
feet from me and they had tomake their own too.
And then we had to get assist,hire our own assistant, and then
(09:52):
we had to all train our ownassistants.
And yet we're next to eachother, but we're competition,
but we're in the same office andwe got to redo all the same
stuff.
That makes zero sense to me.
Exactly when I entered theindustry 21 years ago, I thought
it was the stupidest setup I'veever seen in my life.
Why are all these people doingall different things?
Gina Romano (10:18):
And why are they all running around trying?
Maria Quattrone (10:19):
to figure it all out.
Gina Romano (10:19):
Right and no one wants to share.
Let's face it.
There's no share.
I always did, me too, but noone else does.
God forbid, anyone should tellyou how to start a team or how
to do a listing packet, or, likeyou said, the burgers that I
started was conventional.
It was a century 21 at the timeand we did have people for that
.
So I was, I was kind of, I waskind of brought up on that as
(10:40):
baby gina realtor and, um, wehad uh, they'd call them back
then marketer people, but theywere marketer people and that we
had somebody to put our sign upand somebody that that take the
sign down and somebody thatwould send out the postcards for
you.
So I was very fortunate that,as you know, 21 years ago there
really was no teams Like,everybody was solo agents.
(11:01):
That's just what it was.
Maria Quattrone (11:02):
Well, that's the thing.
I started a team within lesslike a year of probably around a
year, in 2005.
Okay, and so what?
That did not make me verypopular.
People did not like that.
They did not really.
They didn't know where it camefrom.
(11:22):
They're like how is this person?
My first deal was March 31st2004.
And from March through December, I closed 17 sides in a time
where I was working full-timesomewhere else.
(11:45):
And then in 2005, february, Ileft my career in that business
and I did 38 sides, you know,and we didn't have DocuSign
right.
Gina Romano (12:00):
People had to come in and explain the contracts.
Maria Quattrone (12:03):
And that's when we had to take the packet and
drive it to Feast of RealPennsylvania on a Friday night
at seven o'clock.
Gina Romano (12:11):
And you needed six copies.
Maria Quattrone (12:13):
And you wanted to-.
Gina Romano (12:14):
And she needed six copies.
Maria Quattrone (12:15):
So it's like so you know.
They're like where'd she comefrom?
How is she doing this?
And it's like the reality wasis that I learned my sales
acumen in radio sales Right, andI learned how to sell into cold
call when I was 23 years old.
And I learned how to sell andto cold call when I was 23 years
old, and so I did that hardwork for many, many years.
(12:38):
Where I even entered thisindustry and I actually tried to
explain and impress upon people, gina, is that you have to do
the work, whether you alreadydid it or you're going to do it
(12:59):
now.
And when you enter thisbusiness with zero sales
experience and zero realty, it'sthink of it as a four year
minimum owning curve.
Yeah, it really is.
Gina Romano (13:03):
When they come in at least this is what I see with
my organization is I get a lotof young people come in right
out of college again, zero salesexperience, zero life skills.
Young people come in right outof college again zero sales
experience, zero life skills andthey see me today you know, I
say this is the Gina Romanoafter 21 years and the you know
the fancy cars and the niceclothes and the things and
they're like they think they'rejust going to get right in and
(13:23):
they're like I want to make$150,000 in like six months.
I'm like, okay, that's probablynot going to happen.
But but they, because you're sosuccessful that it can happen
right away, but they don't seeeverything you did on the back
end to get to where you're at no, and that's from the very
beginning, Gina, I explained topeople we I have a thing called
a day in the life of a realtor.
Maria Quattrone (13:42):
I host it twice a month, In fact.
I'm going to record it, and Iexplained very upfront what the
expectations are, what, how longit's going to take.
This thing is like you'reentering college.
Forget about if you went tocollege or not.
I could care less, because Ihave three ones in college.
(14:03):
Two of them are 19, no college.
They went one a little bit andthen didn't go.
The other one came here rightafter high school.
So I have like three 19 yearolds here and I explained to
everybody and I have 50 yearolds that are just starting and
or ish, maybe older, older than50, older than me, and I'll be
(14:26):
55 in a couple of weeks.
So I said this is four years.
You have to say, you have toknow going in, this is four
years and I need to tell youthat people quit and by two
they're out 87%.
Are you going to be a statisticof the positive or the negative
(14:46):
?
Because if you want to have acareer in this business, you've
got to be all in, you've got tobe willing to roll up your
sleeves, you've got to bewilling to work days, nights,
weekends, whatever it takes.
It's five o'clock.
You go home Right now.
There's no clock.
Okay, I'm leaving, yeah, no,you know what the clock is 20
(15:08):
conversations a day.
Gina Romano (15:10):
Agreed, but you could say it.
I don't know how you feel aboutthat, but I mean you could say
it.
But I think when people reallylike get in it and really say it
, it's really eyeopening.
Well, I show them you shouldhave not helped.
Like selling sunset, selling LA, whatever, selling Manhattan,
it's ridiculous.
Maria Quattrone (15:27):
Millionaire real estate agent.
Gina Romano (15:30):
Yeah, it's like that's not reality.
Maria Quattrone (15:32):
People, I wish it was that that's the worst
show, I know, but no, we're notHGTV and this is a sales
organization and this is a salesbusiness.
So it all comes back to thatbuilding of the relationship.
And really, you know, ginathing, you said building one
(15:52):
relationship at a time when youentered in the business, how did
you do it?
What did you do every day?
Gina Romano (15:59):
So, funny enough, I came from, so I was a
stay-at-home mom for 12 years.
That's my backstory Prior tothat I was right out of high
school I worked for a secondarymortgage company.
Again, I'm dating myself, butthis goes back to the late 80s.
There were secondary mortgagecompanies, so I had a little bit
of that background.
Of course it changed andevolved and things like that,
(16:20):
but I kind of understood it alittle bit.
So, being a stay-at-home mom, Ijust wanted to get out of the
house and I did home decoratingor not decorating, direct sales
and I did very well.
I sold a product called.
Well, I did sold a bunch, but Idid very well with Longaberger
baskets.
It was a handmade basket out ofDresden, ohio.
(16:41):
Long story short, they wereoverpriced, $150, litter like
baskets that you could have wentto AC more and bought for like
10 bucks and I realized throughthat that I was really good in
sales.
But again, what they teach youin there is handwritten notes.
Reach out to five people a day,have meaningful conversations
(17:03):
because you have to go intosomeone's house and sell them an
overpriced basket.
So I was building relationshipsthrough that.
I did very well.
The first year I sold baskets.
I sold $100,000 in baskets andI made like peanuts.
I made like $25,000.
Okay, so my husband was acontractor Market was really hot
in 2004, as you know and he waslike I want to start doing
(17:24):
something flipping houses orbuilding, because he's a builder
by trade.
Why don't you get your licenseand sell like a real product?
Because this is crazy.
You're going out three nights aweek, four nights a week, and
you're selling these baskets.
Whatever my point of that is, Iattacked my real estate career
the same way.
I knew how to sell baskets andthat was building relationships.
(17:46):
That was writing handwrittennotes to people.
That was reaching out to people, not to ask for anything but to
literally just check in withpeople.
So, like you, I didn't do a lotof cold calling, but I did a
lot of my sphere calling.
So I came into the business.
They said, okay, you need asphere of influence, which I
didn't even know what that was.
But I was like, well, I haveall these names from all these
(18:08):
demonstrations that I did.
They're like great.
So I would reach out to thesepeople and build a relationship.
Like, oh, how are you doing?
How are the kids?
And again, going back to therelationship took it to a whole
nother level.
I knew their kids, theirdaughter because I was in their
house.
So I knew everything about them,which is kind of how I evolved.
So everything I did as a homedemonstrator I did as a real
(18:30):
estate agent.
But like, who does that?
Who goes in and dives reallydeep into relationships from day
one with the people theyalready know?
So that's how I built out mybusiness, building out
relationships.
And then that evolved to takingpeople to lunches and like I
tell my agents, like you know,take past clients, like I go out
and have drinks with clients, I, you know, I have lunches with
(18:53):
clients, like I'm just doingthat, like building that
relationship.
I always did real big clientappreciation parties and in oh I
think, oh nine, I connectedwith Ryan Holmes and that was
like a game changer for me.
So at that time they werelooking for someone who could.
Because you remember, oh nine,the market, oh eight, no nine,
(19:14):
the market tank, and nobodycould sell houses and Ryan
Holmes was selling brand newhomes but they couldn't.
They, the other people thatwere moving to their houses
couldn't sell their houses.
So they were looking for whatthey called a preferred realtor.
I had had a couple of friendsthat sold houses for new
construction and they were justgood friends of mine.
And again through thatrelationship, they put me in
(19:34):
front of the executives at Ryanhomes and they were like, yeah,
we love this girl, she's great,she's got a great listing
presentation, whatever.
But again it all went back tothe relationship because I had
two girlfriends that sold newconstruction and I never asked
for anything.
I never asked for anything.
I don't believe in asking forthings, I believe in attraction
(19:54):
and you attract what you put out.
We kind of talked about that alittle earlier.
But yeah, so I just really deepon relationships and that's
really how I built my wholecareer.
And again, that's a slowerprocess and I tell people that
you know, if you're going to doit that way, it's a very slow
process but God bless you.
Today, 21 years later, I stillget people that will call me
(20:18):
that I sold five, six houses forthroughout.
You know they're moving, theytheir divorces, whatever happens
happen in their life.
And I would never have to takean online lead at this point in
my life, like if my kids wentaway and it was just Gina Romano
, it just went back to where itstarted.
I would still have a nice bookof business and never have to do
(20:40):
an online lead or talk to aperson again, but of course we
do, because that's what we do,right?
I'm sure you're like me.
You go in a bar, everybodyknows I'm the real estate agent
and things like that.
But the relationships are sostrong now and a lot of my
clients have become very closefriends.
Maria Quattrone (20:54):
Isn't that what it's about?
Gina Romano (20:56):
It is.
Maria Quattrone (20:57):
Helping people, and so for the new agents that
come in, would that need to dobusiness right now?
Gina Romano (21:04):
Yep, so I teach a lot of the basics.
A lot of them that come in areunder 30.
So I would say three quartersof my organization is probably
28 and under.
I do work side by side with myson who's 29.
Well, he'll be 29.
And, you know, I feel like I'ma mother to them a lot, like I'm
(21:26):
teaching life skills as well,because I think that that comes
into play because, you know,there's a.
I have guys that are like 22years old, that never sold a
house or bought a house, don'tknow anything about real estate.
So I feel like I teach basics,what we learned a lot in 08 or
04, because I believe inhandwritten notes, I believe in
(21:48):
reaching out to your sphere,actually by phone calls.
I teach them how to farmneighborhoods because we live in
a you know pretty.
We're in the suburbs outside ofPhiladelphia, so we have
subdivisions, so it's, you know,having an ice cream truck.
I had one girl put flags outfor 4th of July.
She's a brand new agent.
(22:09):
She's like.
She texted me the other daywith the favorite word.
She's like oh, my God.
I put the flags out.
They put a shout out onFacebook to me.
I had people from theneighborhood texting me and so I
teach a lot of the basic stuff,like the stuff that we were
taught when, when we back in 04.
And then I surround myself withall these young kids I like to
call them, and they're verysocial media driven, so we kind
(22:31):
of marry them two together likethe old school with the new
school, and that's kind of, Ithink, what our sweet spot is.
So, yeah, I mean, I just, I'msure, like you're doing, just
constantly mentoring people.
I coach people one-on-one.
Every one of my agents I haveabout 30 agents right now and I
coach everybody one-on-one.
I tried group coaching and allthat.
(22:53):
I don't like it.
I like this because, again, I'ma relationship person.
So I feel like I can move theneedle more with Maria.
If I sit and talk to you likethis and we through what to do,
and then you say to me this ismy pain point, then I can.
And again I feel like you knowa lot like you, you take a pain
point and like just spurtsomething out.
(23:15):
At this point, 21 years later,I don't know how many
transactions I've done in mycareer.
There's not pretty muchanything that somebody can like
kind of hit me with that I don'thave any response to.
Maria Quattrone (23:26):
So you coach weekly, monthly.
Gina Romano (23:29):
Bi-weekly, every agent two half hour calls, so an
hour a month just one-on-onewith men, and a lot of them are
through Zoom like this, and Ifind that it moves the needle a
lot quicker and we can getsomeone into production fairly
quickly.
We're also a Zillow Flex teamso that helps but we can come
(23:52):
into production.
But again it's the one-on-one,just kind of guiding them,
building the relationship.
I also believe that I'mbuilding the relationship with
my agent, so we have retention.
Maria Quattrone (24:02):
Sure Right.
Gina Romano (24:04):
Kind of goes hand in hand, because you're getting
me again the broker, my, myoffice in Haddonfield has
another broker, but I stillmanage all the agents meeting,
like I coach them, I do themeetings and things like that.
So we do two meetings a monthand they get two coach calls.
Maria Quattrone (24:21):
So that's, it's a mentorship, and again, it's
all about building relationships, and relationships are built
one thing at a time, like youknow.
If you think about you know, Ialways say the devil's in the
detail, it's in the littlethings, it's really not the big
(24:42):
things.
People will say, you know, oh,nobody gets divorced over
toothpaste on the counter,toothpaste in the sink, stuck on
the sink right.
It's usually like the littletiny thing was the last straw.
Yeah, as an example, as anexample, as an example, as an
(25:03):
example, as a positive example,though you know, it's the, it's
in contribution, so that we canmake an impact on people on a
daily basis, weekly basis, asmuch as possible.
So that's how we have to be thesolution podcast.
We believe that each and everyindividual is the solution for
their own life and so, gina, Iappreciate you.
(25:26):
Thank you so much for coming onthe show today.
It was great to have you as anew guest and I'm excited to
watch your continued journey andhelping all your agents grow
and build one relationship at atime.
Gina Romano (25:42):
Thank you, thanks, I appreciate it, it's been fun.
Hi, I'm Maria Quattrone and this is the Be the
Solution podcast, and today Ihave a new guest, gina Romano.
Gina is from Mullica Hill, newJersey, and she is a broker.
She has two offices, one thereand one in Hanfield.
I'm excited to have Gina on.
(00:21):
Although we are so close we'reonly about a half hour apart
this is the first time we'reactually meeting and so I'm
excited to bring Gina on.
Gina, welcome to the show.
Thanks, maria, thanks forhaving me.
(00:49):
I have a quote specifically foryou this morning, gina, and the
quote is this in relationships,the little things are the big
things, and that's by StephenCovey In relationships, the
little things are the big things.
I love it.
So when we talk about you know,in real estate, in life,
relationships are everything,and it's the development and the
growth of the relationship thatreally makes or breaks you as a
(01:14):
human and as a business owner.
Today we're going to dive intorelationships and the capital
that you build with people overtime.
So people don't.
(01:37):
You're not meeting somebody anddeveloping a relationship in
one moment.
That would be like meeting themand saying do you want to get
married?
That would be ridiculous.
Gina Romano (01:43):
I use that analogy all the time with my agents.
It's funny that you say that.
So you talk to them about whenthey meet new people and yeah,
so I've built my whole entirereal estate career prior to even
being a broker because I was anagent.
I started as a solo agent backin 04.
And I started that whole realestate business one relationship
(02:07):
at a time and my success tookyears, where you know, sometimes
you get rookies they dophenomenal but I've built like
relationships.
I always like dive really deep,but I do that with any
relationship.
I've been married 31 years.
You know any relationship that Igo after friends.
(02:28):
I'm still friends with one ofmy best, one of my best friends
I've been friends with for ohgosh, I don't even want to date
myself, but probably 50 years.
So so I dive really deep inrelationships and I believe
that's the core of every humanis how you build relationships
with people.
So part of my brokerage andmentoring my agents, I have a
(02:49):
lot of new agents, newer to thebusiness, very young.
We attract a very young agentand I stress on that that this
is a relationship business atthe end of the day.
And you can have every shinytoy, you can be on social media
and you can have a million andone followers, but if they can't
connect with you on a higherlevel relationship, then you
(03:10):
might not get business from that.
Maria Quattrone (03:13):
So how do people build the relationship
when you're just starting out inthe business?
What are some things thatpeople can do?
Gina Romano (03:21):
I teach them to be authentic, right, because people
want in this day and age, theywant authentic people.
Don't be salesman-y, don't tryto sell them.
You know, just listen.
People want to be heard inanything, but more so in our
business, right, I feel likepeople really want to be heard
and, you know, make people feelimportant and, like you said, do
(03:42):
the little things becausethey're actually the big things.
If you think about arelationship between a husband
and a wife, and if it doesn'twork, it's usually the little
things that broke down therelationship to make those
bigger things.
So I just feel like everythingin life is built on
relationships and I think that'swhat I have attacked my real
estate business.
Then, when I moved over to abroker, which I was in the
(04:04):
business 15 years before I evenbecame a broker, owner of a
company, and I get to lead thatwith my agents.
I build that rapport with them.
So hopefully, leading byexample is one way.
If you say, what do I tell them?
Hopefully it's leading byexample because I do do little
things for them to make themfeel special and important and I
(04:24):
felt like one of the reasonswhy I opened my brokerage was I
felt like that lacked a lot inour industry, because you had,
like the brokers, owners, andthen like the agents, and
sometimes that gap the brokerdidn't know who they were, and I
felt like that was one of thethings that made me open my
brokerage, because I wanted totake a little bit of a different
spin on it.
Maria Quattrone (04:45):
No doubt.
So that's something interestingyou know how our setup is here,
and you just met Dara is thatwe work together.
Dara is here every day, eventhough she's our broker of
record for the office.
I don't want to be a broker ofrecord.
She's a broker worker.
We work together, hand in hand.
(05:08):
I'm the front of the company,dyer supports that and handles
all of our seller clients in theback part of the office and
also works with the agents.
So it's a very differentdynamic than what you would see
at.
I would call it like a big boxbrokerage, a hundred percent.
I won't name any kind of names,but most of them there's this
(05:32):
person broker that nobody evermeets or like literally there
could be.
There's one broker record forfive offices and maybe they pop
into an office like once a weekor once a month or only when
there's like a major problemthat is managing.
You know associate brokers,maybe of the office.
(05:52):
So it definitely is a differentdynamic and I think also that
you know the.
The style brokerage is that youhave all these agents that are
under there and everybody isdoing their own thing and
they're doing it differently,correct, and the reason I
started my company it soundslike maybe you did too so when I
(06:14):
asked you, gina is it so thateverybody shares in all the
marketing, all the tools,everything that you would have
to do if you were an independentagent?
Gina Romano (06:27):
Correct.
So, yes, I've run my companysimilar to what you would think
is a team platform, right?
So they call it a team ridge,which is like a broker and a
team, but we're not an officialteam.
We don't.
It's not.
We don't collect numbers, weweren't do any of that.
The company started as that andit was only because I started
the company as a very small teamand then, you know, broke away
(06:51):
from that when I was able tofinancially and it made sense
and things like that and but Ilove collaboration.
I was the person and I did comefrom a Remax platform.
I was the person that everyonecame into my office and been
like, how did you do that flyer?
What are you doing with the newconstruction to get business?
And I am an open book.
I will tell anybody anything,because what I've learned
(07:14):
through the years is you cantell everybody what you do and
maybe 1% is going to do it.
So it's not like it's mycompetition or anything.
I don't believe in any of that,and that was one was that we can
all share, similar to almost,like you're saying, like a team,
but we're not a team, right,we're not the.
(07:35):
They're not the teams that yousee that are massive and and
like that.
What do you think about?
Now I'm going to ask you aquestion because I get this.
What do you think um, did theteam actually just replace?
Because you've been in thebusiness as long as I have do
you think the team actuallyreplaced the traditional
brokerage when the brokerage dida lot for you?
Maria Quattrone (07:55):
I do, yeah, and we're a team office.
Okay, so we also, even though Ido own the brokerage and we are
Remax in name, but we don'toperate on the Remax platform,
so we're not that you pay intoit.
You know 95, five kind of thingAbsolutely not, because I am
(08:18):
the rainmaker at our firm, so Ibring all the business in and
then it gets dispersedthroughout.
I still do.
I am still in production atthis point, so I am handling the
listings.
In fact, this year I've listed123 properties so far.
Gina Romano (08:37):
Wow, I'm like barely breathing at this point.
With with production, I think Iclosed four deals this year.
Maria Quattrone (08:45):
So, yeah, I am a listing machine.
So I and some of them now I'mstarting to so I and some of
them now I'm starting to like Ihave been this year I've been
giving listings, assigning themto some people and some other
agents in our company, and asmore agents learn the list side
of it, I'm going to assign moreout.
(09:05):
So it's um, I do believe in thevalue of a brokerage.
I think that you know one ofthe things when I was at my old
firm, and that was, you know,I've had my own office for 11
years.
So when I was at my old company, I would be making you know the
(09:29):
listing presentation and theprocesses and the systems, and
nothing was given to you.
And then my friend, he and Phil,they sat over there like 15
feet from me and they had tomake their own too.
And then we had to get assist,hire our own assistant, and then
(09:52):
we had to all train our ownassistants.
And yet we're next to eachother, but we're competition,
but we're in the same office andwe got to redo all the same
stuff.
That makes zero sense to me.
Exactly when I entered theindustry 21 years ago, I thought
it was the stupidest setup I'veever seen in my life.
Why are all these people doingall different things?
Gina Romano (10:18):
And why are they all running around trying?
Maria Quattrone (10:19):
to figure it all out.
Gina Romano (10:19):
Right and no one wants to share.
Let's face it.
There's no share.
I always did, me too, but noone else does.
God forbid, anyone should tellyou how to start a team or how
to do a listing packet, or, likeyou said, the burgers that I
started was conventional.
It was a century 21 at the timeand we did have people for that
.
So I was, I was kind of, I waskind of brought up on that as
(10:40):
baby gina realtor and, um, wehad uh, they'd call them back
then marketer people, but theywere marketer people and that we
had somebody to put our sign upand somebody that that take the
sign down and somebody thatwould send out the postcards for
you.
So I was very fortunate that,as you know, 21 years ago there
really was no teams Like,everybody was solo agents.
(11:01):
That's just what it was.
Maria Quattrone (11:02):
Well, that's the thing.
I started a team within lesslike a year of probably around a
year, in 2005.
Okay, and so what?
That did not make me verypopular.
People did not like that.
They did not really.
They didn't know where it camefrom.
(11:22):
They're like how is this person?
My first deal was March 31st2004.
And from March through December, I closed 17 sides in a time
where I was working full-timesomewhere else.
(11:45):
And then in 2005, february, Ileft my career in that business
and I did 38 sides, you know,and we didn't have DocuSign
right.
Gina Romano (12:00):
People had to come in and explain the contracts.
Maria Quattrone (12:03):
And that's when we had to take the packet and
drive it to Feast of RealPennsylvania on a Friday night
at seven o'clock.
Gina Romano (12:11):
And you needed six copies.
Maria Quattrone (12:13):
And you wanted to-.
Gina Romano (12:14):
And she needed six copies.
Maria Quattrone (12:15):
So it's like so you know.
They're like where'd she comefrom?
How is she doing this?
And it's like the reality wasis that I learned my sales
acumen in radio sales Right, andI learned how to sell into cold
call when I was 23 years old.
And I learned how to sell andto cold call when I was 23 years
old, and so I did that hardwork for many, many years.
(12:38):
Where I even entered thisindustry and I actually tried to
explain and impress upon people, gina, is that you have to do
the work, whether you alreadydid it or you're going to do it
(12:59):
now.
And when you enter thisbusiness with zero sales
experience and zero realty, it'sthink of it as a four year
minimum owning curve.
Yeah, it really is.
Gina Romano (13:03):
When they come in at least this is what I see with
my organization is I get a lotof young people come in right
out of college again, zero salesexperience, zero life skills.
Young people come in right outof college again zero sales
experience, zero life skills andthey see me today you know, I
say this is the Gina Romanoafter 21 years and the you know
the fancy cars and the niceclothes and the things and
they're like they think they'rejust going to get right in and
(13:23):
they're like I want to make$150,000 in like six months.
I'm like, okay, that's probablynot going to happen.
But but they, because you're sosuccessful that it can happen
right away, but they don't seeeverything you did on the back
end to get to where you're at no, and that's from the very
beginning, Gina, I explained topeople we I have a thing called
a day in the life of a realtor.
Maria Quattrone (13:42):
I host it twice a month, In fact.
I'm going to record it, and Iexplained very upfront what the
expectations are, what, how longit's going to take.
This thing is like you'reentering college.
Forget about if you went tocollege or not.
I could care less, because Ihave three ones in college.
(14:03):
Two of them are 19, no college.
They went one a little bit andthen didn't go.
The other one came here rightafter high school.
So I have like three 19 yearolds here and I explained to
everybody and I have 50 yearolds that are just starting and
or ish, maybe older, older than50, older than me, and I'll be
(14:26):
55 in a couple of weeks.
So I said this is four years.
You have to say, you have toknow going in, this is four
years and I need to tell youthat people quit and by two
they're out 87%.
Are you going to be a statisticof the positive or the negative
(14:46):
?
Because if you want to have acareer in this business, you've
got to be all in, you've got tobe willing to roll up your
sleeves, you've got to bewilling to work days, nights,
weekends, whatever it takes.
It's five o'clock.
You go home Right now.
There's no clock.
Okay, I'm leaving, yeah, no,you know what the clock is 20
(15:08):
conversations a day.
Gina Romano (15:10):
Agreed, but you could say it.
I don't know how you feel aboutthat, but I mean you could say
it.
But I think when people reallylike get in it and really say it
, it's really eyeopening.
Well, I show them you shouldhave not helped.
Like selling sunset, selling LA, whatever, selling Manhattan,
it's ridiculous.
Maria Quattrone (15:27):
Millionaire real estate agent.
Gina Romano (15:30):
Yeah, it's like that's not reality.
Maria Quattrone (15:32):
People, I wish it was that that's the worst
show, I know, but no, we're notHGTV and this is a sales
organization and this is a salesbusiness.
So it all comes back to thatbuilding of the relationship.
And really, you know, ginathing, you said building one
(15:52):
relationship at a time when youentered in the business, how did
you do it?
What did you do every day?
Gina Romano (15:59):
So, funny enough, I came from, so I was a
stay-at-home mom for 12 years.
That's my backstory Prior tothat I was right out of high
school I worked for a secondarymortgage company.
Again, I'm dating myself, butthis goes back to the late 80s.
There were secondary mortgagecompanies, so I had a little bit
of that background.
Of course it changed andevolved and things like that,
(16:20):
but I kind of understood it alittle bit.
So, being a stay-at-home mom, Ijust wanted to get out of the
house and I did home decoratingor not decorating, direct sales
and I did very well.
I sold a product called.
Well, I did sold a bunch, but Idid very well with Longaberger
baskets.
It was a handmade basket out ofDresden, ohio.
(16:41):
Long story short, they wereoverpriced, $150, litter like
baskets that you could have wentto AC more and bought for like
10 bucks and I realized throughthat that I was really good in
sales.
But again, what they teach youin there is handwritten notes.
Reach out to five people a day,have meaningful conversations
(17:03):
because you have to go intosomeone's house and sell them an
overpriced basket.
So I was building relationshipsthrough that.
I did very well.
The first year I sold baskets.
I sold $100,000 in baskets andI made like peanuts.
I made like $25,000.
Okay, so my husband was acontractor Market was really hot
in 2004, as you know and he waslike I want to start doing
(17:24):
something flipping houses orbuilding, because he's a builder
by trade.
Why don't you get your licenseand sell like a real product?
Because this is crazy.
You're going out three nights aweek, four nights a week, and
you're selling these baskets.
Whatever my point of that is, Iattacked my real estate career
the same way.
I knew how to sell baskets andthat was building relationships.
(17:46):
That was writing handwrittennotes to people.
That was reaching out to people, not to ask for anything but to
literally just check in withpeople.
So, like you, I didn't do a lotof cold calling, but I did a
lot of my sphere calling.
So I came into the business.
They said, okay, you need asphere of influence, which I
didn't even know what that was.
But I was like, well, I haveall these names from all these
(18:08):
demonstrations that I did.
They're like great.
So I would reach out to thesepeople and build a relationship.
Like, oh, how are you doing?
How are the kids?
And again, going back to therelationship took it to a whole
nother level.
I knew their kids, theirdaughter because I was in their
house.
So I knew everything about them,which is kind of how I evolved.
So everything I did as a homedemonstrator I did as a real
(18:30):
estate agent.
But like, who does that?
Who goes in and dives reallydeep into relationships from day
one with the people theyalready know?
So that's how I built out mybusiness, building out
relationships.
And then that evolved to takingpeople to lunches and like I
tell my agents, like you know,take past clients, like I go out
and have drinks with clients, I, you know, I have lunches with
(18:53):
clients, like I'm just doingthat, like building that
relationship.
I always did real big clientappreciation parties and in oh I
think, oh nine, I connectedwith Ryan Holmes and that was
like a game changer for me.
So at that time they werelooking for someone who could.
Because you remember, oh nine,the market, oh eight, no nine,
(19:14):
the market tank, and nobodycould sell houses and Ryan
Holmes was selling brand newhomes but they couldn't.
They, the other people thatwere moving to their houses
couldn't sell their houses.
So they were looking for whatthey called a preferred realtor.
I had had a couple of friendsthat sold houses for new
construction and they were justgood friends of mine.
And again through thatrelationship, they put me in
(19:34):
front of the executives at Ryanhomes and they were like, yeah,
we love this girl, she's great,she's got a great listing
presentation, whatever.
But again it all went back tothe relationship because I had
two girlfriends that sold newconstruction and I never asked
for anything.
I never asked for anything.
I don't believe in asking forthings, I believe in attraction
(19:54):
and you attract what you put out.
We kind of talked about that alittle earlier.
But yeah, so I just really deepon relationships and that's
really how I built my wholecareer.
And again, that's a slowerprocess and I tell people that
you know, if you're going to doit that way, it's a very slow
process but God bless you.
Today, 21 years later, I stillget people that will call me
(20:18):
that I sold five, six houses forthroughout.
You know they're moving, theytheir divorces, whatever happens
happen in their life.
And I would never have to takean online lead at this point in
my life, like if my kids wentaway and it was just Gina Romano
, it just went back to where itstarted.
I would still have a nice bookof business and never have to do
(20:40):
an online lead or talk to aperson again, but of course we
do, because that's what we do,right?
I'm sure you're like me.
You go in a bar, everybodyknows I'm the real estate agent
and things like that.
But the relationships are sostrong now and a lot of my
clients have become very closefriends.
Maria Quattrone (20:54):
Isn't that what it's about?
Gina Romano (20:56):
It is.
Maria Quattrone (20:57):
Helping people, and so for the new agents that
come in, would that need to dobusiness right now?
Gina Romano (21:04):
Yep, so I teach a lot of the basics.
A lot of them that come in areunder 30.
So I would say three quartersof my organization is probably
28 and under.
I do work side by side with myson who's 29.
Well, he'll be 29.
And, you know, I feel like I'ma mother to them a lot, like I'm
(21:26):
teaching life skills as well,because I think that that comes
into play because, you know,there's a.
I have guys that are like 22years old, that never sold a
house or bought a house, don'tknow anything about real estate.
So I feel like I teach basics,what we learned a lot in 08 or
04, because I believe inhandwritten notes, I believe in
(21:48):
reaching out to your sphere,actually by phone calls.
I teach them how to farmneighborhoods because we live in
a you know pretty.
We're in the suburbs outside ofPhiladelphia, so we have
subdivisions, so it's, you know,having an ice cream truck.
I had one girl put flags outfor 4th of July.
She's a brand new agent.
(22:09):
She's like.
She texted me the other daywith the favorite word.
She's like oh, my God.
I put the flags out.
They put a shout out onFacebook to me.
I had people from theneighborhood texting me and so I
teach a lot of the basic stuff,like the stuff that we were
taught when, when we back in 04.
And then I surround myself withall these young kids I like to
call them, and they're verysocial media driven, so we kind
(22:31):
of marry them two together likethe old school with the new
school, and that's kind of, Ithink, what our sweet spot is.
So, yeah, I mean, I just, I'msure, like you're doing, just
constantly mentoring people.
I coach people one-on-one.
Every one of my agents I haveabout 30 agents right now and I
coach everybody one-on-one.
I tried group coaching and allthat.
(22:53):
I don't like it.
I like this because, again, I'ma relationship person.
So I feel like I can move theneedle more with Maria.
If I sit and talk to you likethis and we through what to do,
and then you say to me this ismy pain point, then I can.
And again I feel like you knowa lot like you, you take a pain
point and like just spurtsomething out.
(23:15):
At this point, 21 years later,I don't know how many
transactions I've done in mycareer.
There's not pretty muchanything that somebody can like
kind of hit me with that I don'thave any response to.
Maria Quattrone (23:26):
So you coach weekly, monthly.
Gina Romano (23:29):
Bi-weekly, every agent two half hour calls, so an
hour a month just one-on-onewith men, and a lot of them are
through Zoom like this, and Ifind that it moves the needle a
lot quicker and we can getsomeone into production fairly
quickly.
We're also a Zillow Flex teamso that helps but we can come
(23:52):
into production.
But again it's the one-on-one,just kind of guiding them,
building the relationship.
I also believe that I'mbuilding the relationship with
my agent, so we have retention.
Maria Quattrone (24:02):
Sure Right.
Gina Romano (24:04):
Kind of goes hand in hand, because you're getting
me again the broker, my, myoffice in Haddonfield has
another broker, but I stillmanage all the agents meeting,
like I coach them, I do themeetings and things like that.
So we do two meetings a monthand they get two coach calls.
Maria Quattrone (24:21):
So that's, it's a mentorship, and again, it's
all about building relationships, and relationships are built
one thing at a time, like youknow.
If you think about you know, Ialways say the devil's in the
detail, it's in the littlethings, it's really not the big
(24:42):
things.
People will say, you know, oh,nobody gets divorced over
toothpaste on the counter,toothpaste in the sink, stuck on
the sink right.
It's usually like the littletiny thing was the last straw.
Yeah, as an example, as anexample, as an example, as an
(25:03):
example, as a positive example,though you know, it's the, it's
in contribution, so that we canmake an impact on people on a
daily basis, weekly basis, asmuch as possible.
So that's how we have to be thesolution podcast.
We believe that each and everyindividual is the solution for
their own life and so, gina, Iappreciate you.
(25:26):
Thank you so much for coming onthe show today.
It was great to have you as anew guest and I'm excited to
watch your continued journey andhelping all your agents grow
and build one relationship at atime.
Gina Romano (25:42):
Thank you, thanks, I appreciate it, it's been fun.
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