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Steve Roberts (Property Brokers of MN) Real Estate Agent

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Steve Roberts
location_on Rochester, MN — Property Brokers of MN
Get to Know Steve Roberts

I have been in some kind of sales business nearly all my adult life.  I enjoy being self sufficient without having a boss looking over my shoulder at every turn.  Personal satisfaction on a job well done & everyone involved is happy.  It's great working with first time buyers, as they are always very appreciative of my time and experience.  It's just as much fun working with repete clients too, because everyone is pretty relaxed and comfortable with each other.  Doing a new construction home is great as well.  Literally making something out of nothing.

Certifications

I have worked in the single family housing market since 1986 with some investment property along the way, as I owned a property management business for about 5 years prior to getting into real estate sales.  I managed a 20 unit motel along with 150 apartments.  Before that I tried selling cars, that didn't go so well in 1982.  From 1975 to 1982 I worked at our local Schwinn Bicycle shop as assistant manager.  My first job after getting married in 1973 was for a local business that did basement water proofing and installing permenant siding. 

Details on My Real Estate Career

In June of 1986 when I had just begun my career as a Realtor, I only knew that a little hard work never hurt anyone, and if that was all I needed to do to make more money than I ever had to date, then, I was all in.  I had been in property management for the 5 years prior to getting my real estate license, but that didn't really do very much in the way of preparing me for the world of living on just my commission.  But it was better than being on call 24/7 and having to take care of more than 150 apartments and a 20 unit Motel.  
I was a little disappointed in myself at the end of my first half year, I only grossed about $12,000.00  But I told myself that would be $24,000.00 in a full year.  I could live with that, plus I was my own boss.  For whatever reason I don't enjoy being told what to do.  How a parent might tell a child what to do.  If it's presented to me in a way that explains why it's done this way, or that, I can get my head around it then.  That was one reason my first Broker Leo Ciani, paid for a sales class for me to attend. 
The class was by Dave Beeson and he really laid down a good foundation for me to be successful in the real estate business, using his system.  And Leo's wife Marlene, who was an experienced agent in the office, taught me how to give my clients the best service you can, and you will have a customer for life.  (more on the customer for life later on) The office manager was Dean Mack, and he got me real interested in new construction.  That is an area that I really liked, as it felt like making something out of nothing.  And to be able to transform an idea on paper into a home.  It gave me a great feeling of satisfaction. Plus the commission was better too.  I did learn allot at my first office, and I also started to get involved in our Realtor Association as well.  Over time, I was on nearly every committee our association has, and even chaired the member services committee, and served as a Director for 3 years.  Member Services is very close to what you may think of as community services.  We organized fund raising events for Habitat for Humanity, did odd jobs for folks in the area that were not able to do them on their own.  I also recall helping out with at least 2 lock box conversions.  That is where the association changed it's lock box vendor and we had to remove all the lock boxes in the system and replace them with the new ones.  I also served on 2 MLS software providers search.  This was finding our next new software vendors and help set up the agent run applications.  Since I was on these committees, then the agents in my office would enlist my assistance in how to work the new software for themselves. 
The next big area of learning came from an office called The Real Estate Connection & it was run by Jerry Jenson.  Jerry was a long time agent/broker and innovator in real estate from the area and showed me how to make the most of my time.  He provided me with a log or tally sheet that had points attached for each task I did.  Then by simply adding up the points we would be able to know if we were on track for getting more buyers or sellers.  It also gave Jerry a very easy way to monitor his sales staff.  I still have those forms too.  At the Real Estate Connection is also the time I started to trust my gut instinct about what a client might be thinking or doing more and more.  Prior to that, I would either ask another agent or Jerry if what was going on to be expected or not. It's all about getting to be a veteran agent and how to read people.

 

 


It was less than 2 years at the Real Estate Connection before it was merged or purchased by Jim & Diane Nelson.  They own the Coldwell Banker At Your Service office.   It was my first exposure to a large national name brand real estate office.  There were lots of in house training and continuing education made easily available to the agent along with promotional material and presentation pieces.   I thought it was great for about 5 years. 

Then as I started to make more money, but not keeping any more of it, I sought out the agent that had sold us our very first house.  His name is Frank Armstrong and in 1997 was one of 5 owners of the south east Minnesota Re/Max franchise.  I called Frank to see if there was an empty desk there for me. After going over the details of the office, I moved my license to Re/Max of Rochester and stayed there for over 14 years.  Re/Max was just what I was looking for.  It is a place with the most successful agents in the area, the friendly staff and loads of fun while at work.  After just a few years, the owners offered the franchise to Duane Sauke the acting office manager.  Duane ultimately bought the franchise, but the owners still own the real estate part of the business.  My opinion of Duane, is he is head and shoulders above any other office manager/owner I have known.  So he made our work environment the most productive one you could get, without getting in our way all at the same time. This is where I learned about having a customer for life.  I had learned early that you want your clients to tell their friends, neighbors, relatives & coworkers about what a good job I had done for them, and I of course wanted to have their business as well.  After having watched allot of video and done some reading about Brian Buffini's customer for life program, I decided that was for me. 
The Buffini programs point was that if you give the best service possible, you would get your customer's referrals for as long as you kept in regular contact with that person. It sounds simple, but takes regular and structured events to make it work.  In addition to the Buffini program I enrolled in what is called Quality Service Certified.  This program truly holds the agent accountable to their customers. They do this by way of third party evaluations, then posting the results on the internet with the agent ranking according to his or her customer's analysis.  The only way you can be sure of getting a good ranking is to be the best agent your customer has ever had.  I stayed with Q.S.C. the longest of any agent in the Re/Max office and held the highest ranking available, Platinum.  This brings me up to date on my real estate career.  9/1/2010

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I have lived in the Rochester area since 1960, went to school here, and raised my family here. First licensed in 1986 and still love it!