WHEN THE
STARS ALIGN BY MELANIE ROBITAILLE, SR. STAFF WRITER & GRAPHIC DESIGNER
Legacy. Up until almost 30 years ago, it was a concept only enjoyed by the client when it came to real estate, relegating the role of agent to just another job. That was until the arrival of EXIT Realty's innovative three dimensional model that finally made it a true entrepreneurial career worth introducing others into. Ed Martens was a professional who had sold his insurance agency after seven years in business then got into new home sales and managing building sites. At a time when Royal LePage was still A.E. LePage, he decided to get licensed instead of waiting for clients to come to him and ended up managing an office while creating a Power Farming program and training agents. Just over five years in he would make a fateful move to Re/Max, where he would meet Steve Morris, a broker at the time, whose friendship and genius would eventually change both of their lives when he launched EXIT Realty. Ed would become one of EXIT’s Canadian District Owners, while still selling real estate alongside his wife, Angie, and then in 2001 he joined EXIT’s corporate ranks and was promoted to VP of Franchise Sales within six months and then to Sr. VP of Franchise Sales for Canada a year later. “I’d been selling real estate for 20 years at the time Steve started EXIT and I realized that agents were only as good as their last deal or their last year. It was a no-brainer, the residual income, retirement income, and beneficiary income. I saw the potential right away,” he explained. “The genius of the EXIT system is that the agents help and mentor newer agents, and when they sponsor into other offices the agents there are helping the newer agents. Everyone benefits that way.” He enjoyed a 12-year career growing EXIT across the country, and would also meet and coach the man who would go onto find EXIT’s next generation of stars saying, “I met Mike McCarron when I sold him and Franchisee, Ron Young the EXIT Realty Specialists franchise in Saint John, NB. Mike really saw the genius of the EXIT plan the very first time it was presented to him also.” Though, at the time, Mike was retired, he had once taken $1,000 worth of JOICO hair-care product, and built a thriving, 18-salesperson team that grossed $300,000 a month. It also turned into the family business, employing his wife, two daughters, and his son-in-law, which made it all that much harder to sell when the option presented itself 10 years later. Believing strongly in timing, that’s exactly what he did in 2003.
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