2018 Dynamic Dozen No. 12: Keller Williams Greater Springfield

SBJ: What has been key to your recent growth?
Dan Holt: The keys to our recent growth have been the people that we put in place in the executive staff who are able to openly and publicly share the message of how our value proposition is different from most other real estate companies. It’s just the fact that we’re able to get our message out to more people.

SBJ: What are your top issues when it comes to managing growth?
Holt: We set our growth trends based on our goals, and it’s making sure that we’re always staffing in front of our growth. Our agents are our clients, and their clients are obviously the buyers and sellers of homes. Our goal is to make sure that we stay ahead of our growth-in-agent count by staffing that with people who are able to create the level of customer service that anybody would come to expect from a top-notch real estate company.

SBJ: What has the company’s growth enabled you to do?
Holt: The larger we’ve grown, the more we’ve been able to do. I’ll give you an example. Today (May 10) we had what’s called Red Day, and Red Day – obviously our brand color is red – allowed us to take 350 agents from our company and descend on Rare Breed [Youth Services] and completely renovate their building in one day.

SBJ: Can you grow too fast?
Holt: No. Matter of fact, we embrace fast growth. The challenge that comes with fast growth – but most people don’t embrace and enjoy – is the fact that exponential growth exposes holes in your systems.

SBJ: How is your fast growth sustainable?
Holt: Our fast growth is very predictable, and we hit our goals. We’re not surprised when we grow because we’re very strategically growing. So the way we’re able to sustain it obviously is by always finding top-notch talent to be on the executive team to support that level of customer service.

SBJ: Where is the tipping point?
Holt: Right now, we’re very near 20 percent market share, and I don’t know if the tipping point is 50 percent market share, 75 percent market share or even 100 percent market share saturation. I don’t know where the tipping point is, and I’m really excited to find that out.

SBJ: Have your goals changed as business has taken off?
Holt: Every year, we always sit down and set growth goals, and that’s in several different categories. The only thing they’ve done is gotten bigger, as our company’s gotten bigger.

SBJ: What is the worst business advice you’ve received?
Holt: I would have to say the worst business advice I’ve ever gotten is that what we want to do can’t be done in this market. Honestly, it was listening to people who had no idea what it was that we wanted to do, and I had to go outside of our market to receive the training through Keller Williams. I had to go to those trainings and remove some of my limiting beliefs as to what could and couldn’t be done.