Nick Patsio
Title: Co-founder and CEO, Century 21 Commonwealth
Age: 57
Experience: 18 years in real estate; eight years as head of Commonwealth
Nick Patsio may not have grown up in the real estate business, but once he began, he certainly hit the ground running. He and his brother have built Century 21 Commonwealth into a $1.2 billion in sales, 400-plus agent behemoth since launching their own brokerage in 2006.
Q: I understand you didn’t always work in real estate – you got your start in the restaurant business?
A: Yes, I grew up with my brother in the restaurant business, and we were very big in the franchise business – we had a McDonald’s, Boston Chicken, several different things. But we were always interested in real estate, as investors, and we’d both had our licenses since we were young. We got tired of the restaurant business and the 18-hour days, and that’s when we decided to get into real estate. And I love it. Anything’s better than the restaurant business, but I love real estate.
Q: What drew you to real estate in particular?
A: Well, I think it was nice getting to come to work in a suit every day, instead of coming home and having dogs follow you because you smelled of hamburgers! [Laughs.] But really, I didn’t think it was too much different coming into real estate from restaurants – they’re both people businesses, they’re about the relationships you build up … But I remember when I sold my first house; you get to talk to people, make people happy. It’s a nice feeling. And I got thousands of dollars!
Q: In the broader brokerage world, there’s been a trend of companies coming in and offering different compensation options than the traditional splits. You’ve just announced a new compensation plan for your agents – do you see yourself in that mold?
A: Well, the way we’re positioned right now, I think we’re the only one who are offering, as in our new value package, 90 and 100 percent [commission split] plans. There are some companies that might offer [that kind of split], but I think we’re the only full-service brokerage around that does.
Q: That’s interesting – usually brokerage offer either higher splits or full support services for agents – doing both must be difficult. How do you balance that?
A: It’s simple – we have over 400 agents. With support staff, we’re above 500 people as a company. Right now, we’re in the middle of bringing on board another 23 agents, and I think it’s because that’s what people are looking for – they want someone who’s really going to help them build their business, not just the traditional plan where you take a step up, have a couple more sales, and make two percentage points more – that’s not building a business. They want that 90 or 100 percent split, because that way they know what they’re going to get. And we can achieve that balance because we have the economies of scale.
Q: Well, it’s interesting, because a lot of full service brokerages can’t seem to do that. When did you first see your way clear to saying “I think this could work for us”?
A: I think you develop instincts in business, if you have a good business sense. Certainly not everything we’ve tried has worked. But we always try and keep things rolling in the right direction – we always want to be at the forefront of the industry. That said, this certainly wasn’t something we did overnight – we spent probably the last year calculating, and figuring out exactly how this will roll out, how will it affect our business partners, the agents.
Q: What kind of qualities do you look for in an agent, when you’re out recruiting? Anyone can see volume numbers on the MLS, but beyond that, is there a type of agent in particular you seek out?
A: What I look for is someone who is very professional, who understand business mechanics, understands how the industry works – not necessarily that they be top salespeople. Because if we take them and plug them into our system, we can double and triple their sales. In our Westwood office, we have two or three [agents] we’d taken from a major competitor, and they’ve doubled their business in one year …
We have contact management programs, marketing programs; we pay for that. Someone comes in, we say, “Okay, what have you done and why have you done it? Let’s build a structure that can generate recurring business based on the marketing that you’re doing.” For example, if an agent wants to take over a certain condo complex, and do all the deals there, we have programs in place to help you do that. What we say is, “You want to make half a million dollars? We can make that happen. You want to make $100,000? We can make that happen.”
You just have to do what it takes. And that’s the kind of person who we’re looking for – someone who’s going to be able to focus in and execute a business plan. I don’t get excited when someone makes a million-dollar sale because they happened to be [in the office] when someone came in, or picked up a certain phone call. But when they say, “Hey, I sent out this mailing, and I followed up with this system, and I made that [sale] happen.” If they can make something happen, then they can do that over and over.
Top 5 Things That Make Commonwealth Different:
- Compensation plan
- Coaching agents as business owners
- The Commonwealth Program, which provides agents with recruiting incentives
- Technology
- Marketing
