RE/MAX Co-Founder Shares Tips to Excel
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When it comes to real estate, there are leaders — and then there are legends. Dave Liniger is most certainly in the latter category. In 1973, he, along with his wife, Gail, co-founded RE/MAX, the Denver-based global real estate franchise. RE/MAX is now the leading franchisor of real estate offices throughout the world and has expanded to over 9,000 offices in over 110 countries, with 140,000+ sales agents.
Throughout his fifty-plus year career, Dave Liniger has seen major shifts and shakeups in the industry yet continued to adapt and thrive despite those changes. And even as the industry is on the cusp of yet another seismic change after the recent National Association of REALTORS (NAR) lawsuit, Liniger is confident that agents who continue to follow best practices will be just fine.
Here are three best practices he recommends agents incorporate into their businesses.
Resilience, Courage and Confidence
As an industry leader who has seen eight recessionary periods, Liniger fosters a mindset built on resilience.
“It’s very simple,” he noted. “Courage comes from confidence and confidence comes from experience.
“The truth of the matter is this is a cyclical business. And this is just one more of the eight downturns I’ve been in. And with confidence, I can look at my audience and say, ‘This too will pass.’ What you have to do is get down on your hands and knees and grovel and dig and bite and kick and fight.”
Be the Professional Others Want to Mimic
As a leader, Liniger believes your team will mirror how you carry yourself and treat your work.
For example, he said, that might mean coming into your office on a Sunday morning while your agents are hard at work showing houses.
“If you’re not there, you’re just [sitting in] the ivory tower,” he said.
“98% of everything that you’re going to do in your life is because you mimic somebody else successfully,” he added.
Learn from Other Leaders
Throughout his career, Liniger has studied other leaders and businesses to learn from their successes and failures, he said.
As part of that ongoing education, he has also attended “100 different conventions of different companies and different industries just to figure out how do you put on a fantastic convention.”
“I wanted to see what they did. I was going to take the best part of their conventions. What they did on stage. ‘How do you adapt to that? Hey, could I use that? What speakers did they have that would speak generically at my conventions?’”
In his latest book, “The Perfect 10: 10 Leadership Principles to Achieve True Independence, Extreme Wealth, and Huge Success,”Liniger shares candid insights and lessons he has learned from his own experiences as well as those of other leaders and entrepreneurs.
“Every mistake that I made, I tried to figure out, ‘Why did I do that?’ And if you analyze yourself honestly, you know when you’re screwing up.
“And so I wanted to have it all. Wealth, adventure, prestige, friendship, a loving family. I mean, that’s it. And you can do that.”
The Curious CEO
In a recent interview on “The Curious CEO,” hosted by Buffini CEO Dermot Buffini, Liniger shared stories and insights from his 50+ years as one of real estate’s most iconic leaders.
Watch The Curious CEO with Dave Liniger now.
