Being in the multi-family industry for almost 20 years now I have experienced many mentors. When first starting as a leasing consultant I was fortunate enough to be part of a great team. We were coaches for each other, we were friends and yet we had a competitive spirit that pushed us to achieve and grow. I fell in love with the industry and with marketing because of this team and I am so thankful they are the ones I began with. We have each gone our separate ways, although we still keep in touch occasionally.

Success is not an individual effort and growth is spurted by a number of individuals we have the fortune to get to know throughout our career. I remember moving over from the management side to a sales position for the first time and the naïve behavior that comes with it. I sometimes wish I could go back to the naivety and forget some of the behaviors I have learned. I assumed everyone liked me, needed my product and genuinely wanted to do business with me. There were no preconceived notions.

I recall attending my first association dinner, not knowing anyone and not having an agenda in mind. I sat at a table with my manager and a group of other men and women in suits and proceeded to have a very nice, very friendly conversation with a woman about life and the holidays. I have never been one to conduct business at a dinner and learned early on, from that night, casual conversations can be quite a valuable relationship builder. That woman was there with her husband. She was not in the industry but he was. At the end of the night he thanked me for talking to his wife (really?), stating the understanding that there was no real benefit in it for me and told me to “keep in touch”. He couldn’t tell me why or when but that it would be to my benefit. I did, for just over a year when his company built a community in my area and I got the sale followed by the purchase of a portfolio that brought them to be the largest management company in our state and my customer. I earned the retention of their business, built the relationship and gave them a great product but would I have achieved it if it weren’t for a simple conversation? I learned quite a valuable lesson from that experience and have enhanced those experiences throughout my career.

Twenty years in the multi-family industry, I now attend not just local but national functions. I not only recognize but know so many of the other attendees within the room and it, sometimes, feels like a reunion. It’s hard not to navigate to those familiar faces and carry on a reminiscing conversation yet it is the unfamiliar faces that I need to know. Those people are not only my future customers but my future mentors, possible future friends and those who can enlighten me on unfamiliar territories and topical subjects. Through my experience I, too, may be able to enlighten them, mentor them or introduce them to the network of people I have come to know.

I can contribute my success to my hard work and dedication and, just as much, to my mentors. I am fortunate to call my mentors my friends as well and I am so appreciative to have each of them in my life. A good friend (and mentor) once explained about your “circle of influence” and how the ones you associate with, not only in your business life but your personal life, effect who you are. Those around you need to enhance your life in all the important aspects. I have tried my best to live by that philosophy, have changed or banished some relationships that have not nurtured who I aspire to be and have learned to appreciate others for their specific qualities. I am so fortunate to have such wonderful people in my life (and you know who you are) and look forward to meeting my future mentors and friends.