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Joe Costantino
Joe Costantino
Title: Founder, Costantino Realty Group
Age: 57
Experience: 35 years in sales and marketing; 1 as a real estate broker
Joe Costantino got his start in business early, taking over his father’s dry cleaning business at the tender age of 16 when his father fell ill. Since then, he’s leveraged his years of sales experience into a career as a consultant, founding his own firm, Business Marketing Success, in 2003. More recently, he entered the lively world of real estate brokerage.
Q: I understand you started a business at 16? Tell me about that.
A: I did start at 16. I was actually helping my dad. My dad was a firefighter and a meat cutter, and one of his dreams was always to start his own business. He started a carpet-cleaning business in the late ’60s, and I [was] one of the guys emptying buckets. … He got hurt in a fire that was right in South Weymouth. He eventually passed away due to the injuries. Phone calls were still coming in [to the business], because people didn’t know. I started taking the calls, and I started slowly but surely running the business, and hired some people to keep running the business – and actually, I ran it right through college with people I hired, and it helped pay for my education. So I kind of got a little bit of a start that I really didn’t want, to get into business – but I did start at 16. And I learned a lot, too. I learned how to think on my feet, because when I was making these calls to people, you know of course they were expecting my dad, and I had to explain that.
Q: When you graduated from college, having had that experience, did you know that you wanted to go into business yourself? Or were you looking at other industries?
A: I always wanted to work for myself. That’s always been my goal and it still is. I have three kids – and I don’t know if it’s right or wrong, but I try to tell them that – this is my opinion, right? – the only way you really have control of your life is to have some kind of sales-type job or work for yourself – or a combination of both. So I always wanted that.
Q: Is that how you got into consulting?
A: Well, I’ve worked in marketing and sales for about 35 years. I’ve worked as everything from a sales representative to the vice president of marketing and sales for [various] companies. I really just got to the point where I was tired of working for other people. I said, “I’ve been doing this for so long, I can teach other people how to how to market and sell themselves.” So I started a consulting business in 2003, and that was Business Marketing Success. I’m still doing that. And last fall I started the real estate company. I’ve always had my real estate license, and have worked part-time at it, off and on.
Real estate was always one of my passions. I’ve bought and sold property – I bought some investment property and sold it. I’ve always loved real estate, and I really never thought I’d get back into it. Then, my son came to me last summer, and he just graduated in the fall. (And I never thought he’d get through high school, so I was thrilled.) And he said, “Dad, do you think I’d be good in sales?” I said, “I think you’d be awesome in sales, Jake.” And he says, “Well, I’m thinking about real estate.” He didn’t even know that I had a broker’s license. I said, “Jake, I’ll tell you what. If you’re really serious – I have a broker’s license, [and] I’ll start a company. I’ll bring you along slowly, and we’ll get you involved in the business at your pace.”
Q: When you were thinking about going into real estate – like you said, you had your broker’s license – is it all pretty much the same thing for you, in terms of using the same techniques?
A: I think the fundamentals of what a guy like me has to do to build a business is the same stuff. It hasn’t changed that much. One of the reasons I started the business: I find there’s an incredible hole in real estate … before I started, I interviewed some people, kind of an informal survey, and asked them to tell me the biggest thing that they didn’t like about real estate brokers.
I think sometimes real estate brokers are maybe just a hair above used car salesmen, right? It was always communication – a lack of communication, lack of follow-through, not hearing from their brokers. So our message is to be very responsive, to guarantee return phone calls [on the same day]. I actually started off by saying within an hour. I had a procedure done on a Monday, and I got a call – and didn’t call back [right away], and I got some crap about that. You know, it’s very difficult. So, just to be very responsive, that’s kind of our positioning, if you’re doing business with a local company. I find it really is the same stuff – just a different industry.
Top Five Marketing Tips For New Business Owners:
- Have a core message that differentiates you from the competition.
- Come up with a really powerful value proposition.
- Have systems in place for every stage of customer acquisition and retention.Stay consistent.
- Act smart. A lot of people spend a lot of time getting ready, but they never really take action.
