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INITE BROKERAGE, INDEPENDENTLY OWNED AND OPERATED
JOANNA LANE Staged for Upsell Halifax, NS
Joanna Lane turned a background in marketing and trade show management into one of Atlantic Canada’s most successful home staging companies, Staged For Upsell. While staging madness has yet to hit Halifax with the same intensity as it has Canada’s larger cities, Lane has still been able to build a highly successful business. After four short years, she has already had her work seen on HGTV’s Humble Home Hunters and has been named one of the top 10 vacant home stagers in Canada by the Real Estate Staging Association. “People think it’s very glamorous,” Lane says of life as a well-known home stager, “but it’s very physical, demanding work. You have to be a really good multitasker. You have to run a business, not just stage.”
ROBERT GOODALL Atrium MIC Toronto, ON
As founder of CMCC, Atrium MIC’s managing organization, Robert Goodall rarely deals with Realtors, but he has overseen the financing behind billions of dollars in developments. Between 1996 and 2011, CMCC arranged financing on over $6bn of real estate in Ontario alone. Goodall is also the trustee of two sizeable REITs, Dream Office REIT and Dream Industrial REIT. Atrium has grown to become one of the top five MICs in Canada, with a reputation of servicing not only large-scale developments and real estate investors but also individuals, including new arrivals to Canada who have yet to establish a credit rating. “Atrium does not compete by providing a larger loan amount,” Goodall says. “It tends to lend to select groups that have more difficulty getting that type of financing from the banks.”
RALPH STEPHEN Royal LePage Atlantic Halifax, NS
Ralph Stephen, owner and CEO of Royal LePage Atlantic, oversees the work of 350 agents across four Atlantic Canada markets – Halifax, the Nova Scotia Valley, St John and Moncton. Despite the sluggish economies in both Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, Stephen has managed to drive his company to new heights year in and year out. He attributes the remarkable growth to making the company a destination of choice for the best talent in the industry. “Ultimately, that’s what we strive to do every day,” Stephen says. Once agents are hired by Royal LePage Atlantic, Stephen says they pass through a thorough four-step preparation process that includes onboarding, training, an in-house mentoring partnership and in-house coaching, which helps agents develop a business plan and be held accountable to it. “That’s a differentiator for us,” Stephen says. “I don’t spend too much time worrying about what my competitors are doing, but I do know, for the most part, everybody out there is doing less. We try to do more.”
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