Amy Mizner, principal Benoit, Mizner and Simon Real Estate, in their Weston office.
Amy Mizner
Title: Principal Broker, Benoit, Mizner and Simon
Age: Old enough to remember the original Jim Morrison
Experience: 23 years
Amy Mizner had a successful career making television commercials and brought those skills to real estate sales. The native New Yorker says her sports allegiances are with New England, but New York will always have a piece of her heart. After working for many years for a large global real estate company, she joined forces with Sheryl Simon and Debi Benoit to open their own brokerage in 2010, and the team now has 90 agents in three offices in busy communities. When Mizner isn’t working, she loves spending time with family, movies, visiting New York and exercising.
Q: How does your background in TV inform your real estate career?
A: It tapped into the creative side of my brain and gave me the best training possible for what I’m doing today. As a TV producer, I worked for huge clients like BMW, Oldsmobile and Samsung, to name a few. I was very comfortable sitting in business meetings with the CEOs of companies. I became very good at multi-tasking and putting pieces together. I learned about branding from the best advertising minds in New England and New York. It was superb training for real estate.
I wanted to get more into the business end of what I was trained to do. I was able to bring the branding experience immediately to getting listings. A home is like a product and you have to position it in a cluttered marketplace. I understood even back then in the ’90s when I got my license, what our demographics were, who our audience was. I was able to target the marketing to the audience I wanted to speak to for any particular house. I also understood the power of the visual image in presenting a home to the marketplace. I think I brought that skillset right out of the gate to my clients.
Every house has a story and something that makes it unique to a buyer and the job of a listing agent is to figure out what it is and expose it properly. It’s like you’re making a little movie and you want to create an environment where the buyer can see themselves living in that house. And that can change from buyer to buyer. Once again, that’s the art of selling. That’s what makes it creative and interesting.
Q: How did your advertising experience help you sell homes?
A: For one thing I always hired a professional to photograph my listings. I always wanted to put my best foot forward and I always felt you only had one shot to do that, even before the digital age and all the social media we have today. I understood the impact of messaging, positioning and branding. Whether you do it with film or digitally, right out of the gate I wanted it done professionally. Back then, people were snapping their own photographs. My photographs were crisper and more professional-looking.
I also had a business partner, Sheryl Simon. We were the first team in our market. Now it’s very common. I wanted to position myself for the high-end market. I figured that as long as I was going to be in this business, I’d rather be selling $2 million homes than $200,000 homes. That said, as my business emerged, you learn to treat every house like it’s a high-end home. That was my goal from the start.
Q: How is the market different today from when you started?
A: Buyers – especially Millennials – at this point, look at homes as a product. If they’re buying at the high end, they know the exit is not that easy. They want to know they have an exit. They’ll pay fair market value, but they won’t overpay because they don’t want to be like the seller who can’t exit their house and [end up] lose money. They’re being careful. They have a budget and a ceiling. There aren’t as many emotional buys as there used to be. It stems from the Millennials thinking the home is a product where they live. It’s an investment. They may trade up, they may get transferred, and they’re not thinking they’ll be there forever.
Q: What does it take to be successful in this market?
A: I want someone who is great at sales. They come in many shapes and sizes, but when you’re in the suburbs, it attracts more women than men, but that’s changing. I see a lot of Millennials getting into this business. [The business is] getting faster and people are looking at it in a more entrepreneurial way and we want to attract that kind of person. We’re looking for professionals who will grow and fit in with the culture of our company. They see it as an opportunity to invest in themselves. The sky is the limit. And we’re here to mentor them. Everybody is embracing the technology now. You couldn’t do business if you weren’t.
Q: You just opened a new office in Needham. Do you have plans to expand beyond that?
A: We don’t want to lose our culture and who we are. We aren’t looking to be the biggest. We’re looking to be the most focused in our marketplace and Needham was just a natural outgrowth. The brokers who have joined us fit with our brand.
I feel like our global network is in the Metrowest. We have amazing marketing materials that rival any of our competitors. It’s a world wide web now and exposure is at everybody’s fingertips now so it’s about taking the technology out there and embracing it in a smart way. We’ve been able to compete with all the big brands around the world and expose our listing on an even playing field. That’s proven in terms of our roster of clients.
Mizner’s Five Favorite Aphorisms:
- Actions speak louder than words.
- Think out of the box.
- Work hard, dream big.
- Live the life you live and live the life you love.
- From her father: Do your best and the rest will be best.
