Portland Real Producers - Tony Kelly

PORTLAND

C O N N E C T I N G .

TONY KELLY

KELLER WILLIAMS REALTY PORTLAND PREMIERE Photography by Michelle Stevens, Artistique Photography

E L E VAT I N G .

I N S P I R I N G .

RISING STAR: Jordyn Jones, Berkshire Hathaway Homeservices Northwest Real Estate BEHIND THE BROKERAGE: Urban Nest Realty SPONSOR SPOTLIGHT: Alpha Environmental Services, Inc.

SEPTEMBER 2020

Tony top producer An interview conducted

by Karen Alati

K E L LY

Keller Williams Realty Portland Premiere Have you ever picked up a book, found it so interesting and entertaining you just could not put it down? Getting to know this month’s Top Producer, Tony Kelly, co-owner of Keller Williams Realty Portland Premiere, felt just like that. From the moment we started our Zoom call his friendly demeanor, fascinating story, and multifaceted personality grabbed my attention and kept me completely engaged.

Tony, born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, met his wife, Libby, while they were in high school. Libby and Tony have been together for 35 years and just celebrated their 28th wedding anniversary!

After high school, Tony went on to study engineering at the Air Force Academy while Libby attended the University of Denver, an hour away.

Upon graduation from college, the two packed up and headed to Grand Forks, North Dakota, where he was stationed for five years as a Nuclear Launch Officer in charge of nuclear weapons.

During that time, the Air Force sent Tony to graduate school where he earned his MBA. Once he finished his duty with the Air Force, Tony and Libby moved to the St. Paul/Minneapolis area and Tony entered the corporate world as a Sales Account Manager for Tektronix. After two years, Tektronix moved the two to the Bay-area where he took over as a sales manager of a semi-conductor team before sending them to San Diego so Tony could head up a wireless division of the firm. Tony earned the moniker of “The Fix-it Guy,” throughout Tektronix, always being sent to repair the problems.

Eventually, Tektronix brought him here, to the Portland-area where he and Libby plan to stay forever.

After many years of working in corporate America and managing people on multiple continents, Tony went 12 • September 2020

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through what he calls an “early midlife crisis.” He decided he was done with managing people and just wanted to work for himself, “I had been managing people for a very long time. From the time I finished high school and went to the Air Force Academy, my tract has always been leadership. At the Academy, I was in leadership; active-duty Air Force, I was a Captain; I get out of Air Force to go to work in Corporate America, I managed sales and marketing divisions, which grew to world-wide teams.”

When Tony was looking to get out of the world of big business, he was looking for an industry he could get into where he could hit the ground running and yet leverage his corporate experience managing marketing and sales organizations, as well his extensive knowledge of the high-tech industry. All of the moving with Tektronix meant multiple experiences purchasing and selling homes, something that had always piqued the interest of Tony and Libby. “We always bought a house wherever we moved, starting with our first $51,000 townhome in North Dakota. We had these experiences with REALTORS®, both good and bad. I can tell you, we still exchange Christmas cards with our very first REALTOR® in ND. She made our first purchase an incredible experience.

We never had a truly bad experience, but just a few, ho-hum experiences. When I was looking to get out of corporate America I thought of real estate and its need for high-tech innovation. This was 18 years ago and there wasn’t a lot of hightech in the real estate industry at that time. Most agents weren’t even using email!”

Tony managed to persuade Libby into getting her real estate license along with him and they started together with RE/MAX Equity Group in the Tualatin office. “I talked my wife into going real estate with me. We decided our differentiator would be that we were the ‘husband and wife team.’ We wanted to service families, as our kids were young and it was something we could relate to. She agreed and did it for five years before she returned to education.”

During their first year, they were approached by Linda Alexander about joining the newly created Lake Oswego Keller Williams office. Tony graciously declined, telling Linda that “they were happy at RE/MAX, but if they were planning on franchising another Market Center, we would be very interested in ownership and helping to get that started.

Six months later, Linda approached us again and, within a year, I and a few other agents started Keller Williams Realty Portland Premiere. Immediately we were hiring agents, building up the Market realproducersmag.com

Center, and again, I am managing people! I just can’t get away from it!” As co-owner of Keller Williams Realty Portland Premiere, along with Peter Clark and Dwight Schwab, Tony, the only remaining original founder, helped open Luxury Homes by Keller Williams in Lake Oswego a few years ago. About a year ago, they also launched an office in Newberg.

Throughout his very successful 18 years in real estate, Tony has managed numerous iterations of teams, from small to very large. Recently, while taking a Leadership and Management class for the doctorate program he is in, Tony came to the realization that he has been in a management capacity for almost 35 years now. “About two years ago I made the conscious decision to get back into production, as I had been out for about three or four years. I was just doing personal referrals, but my full-time job was managing 15 people. It was a matter of constantly hiring, training, etc. I did that for several years and realized I really missed the production side of real estate. I just want to get back to providing the customer service I built my business on and I just cannot do that with a large team. It is rather fortuitous that I shrunk my team by design. The timing has worked out perfectly with the pandemic.”

The changes that have taken place due to Coronavirus have caused some introspection and reflection on what is important for Tony. “Understanding the need to truly qualify your prospects. As agents, when times are good, we have no problem with just jumping in a car and showing someone a listing on a whim, not knowing if they are prequalified. We just get in the habit even though we know better. This has forced us to really be way more cognizant of our time. Our time is valuable, yet we don’t value our time. I think, if anything, this has really made me value my time.”

Along with realizing and appreciating the value of his time, Tony started to contemplate the value of his service, “The other thing is this has really made me reevaluate what I mean by exceptional customer service and how I ensure I provide that. Even though the market has been down and things have been slow, we have actually done pretty well. I think we have done well because my clients trust me. They trust that I am going to take care of them, take care of their needs, and take care of their safety. So, ensuring that we are providing that type of customer service, reevaluating how we go about doing that, and how we adapt to COVID-19. It has made us reevaluate some of our systems.”

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see that happening I know I did something right in that initial transaction.”

Tony’s attention to detail and extensive customer service is one of the features that sets him apart. He takes great pride and finds it truly rewarding when his clients keep coming back. “I tell my clients when they hire me, ‘When you hire me you are going to have a REALTOR® for life.’ It is very rewarding for me when I get referrals from those clients. I love closing the transactions, I want them to be incredibly happy and satisfied, but I get really excited when I get that call from someone they have referred or I get a call from my client telling me they referred me to someone. That is the most rewarding for me. About 60% of my business is referral-based, so when I 14 • September 2020

Along with the rewards of real estate come the challenges. For Tony, there is a crossover between the two, as showing the value of his customer service can be challenging in the time of online real estate. “When you have been doing this as long as I have you have seen how the market has changed.

Even before I got into this, the REALTORS® were the depository for all the knowledge – they had the listings and they had access to all the listings. You can see over time how that has really changed. Now the clients have just as much, if not, even more, information about a particular listing. You are not even necessarily finding the clients the homes, they are finding those homes for you. So, the challenge is always ensuring that you have a value proposition, what is the value that you are bringing to the table.

And that definitely changes as the market changes and as technology has evolved. For me, that goes back to there being no substitute for incredible customer service and ensuring that it is always front of mind when putting together a business plan.”

Another challenge for Tony is the lack of kindness and consideration he sees amongst his cohorts. “I hate to say it, but dealing with some other agents can be a real challenge. The lack of professionalism in this industry is just mind-blowing to me. I think it is just coming from the corporate world and coming from the military, I just see how we treat each other and it is just incredible to me.”

Some of that structure that made Tony successful in the military came through when discussing his hobbies. One day when training for Hood-to-Coast, Tony was reading an article in Runner’s World magazine about streak runners, those runners that kept a running streak going by running at least a mile every day.

Tony wondered if he could keep a streak for 30 days. When that 30 days were up, he went for six months. Fourteen years later he is still running! Every day, through multiple countries, through pneumonia and Swine Flu, for 14 years! He is a member of the US Streak Runner’s Association, and, believe it or not, he says he does not even love running.

One thing evident when talking to Tony is his love for his family. Not only is he happily married to his high school sweetheart, but he is so proud of their two children, 25-year old Adrian, and 23-year old Emily. Both kids graduated from Lake Oswego High School where Adrian played football and Emily ran track. Their sports took them both to Oberlin College where they were captains of their respective teams. Adrian is on the fast track to running his own Enterprise Rental Car branch through its management-training program. Emily is in her second year of law school at the University of Michigan, and, following in her parent’s footsteps, she too, married her high school sweetheart. Libby is a Teacher on Special Assignment (TOSA) with the Lake Oswego School District. Along with Tony, she too is working on her doctorate degree.

Tony’s other hobbies, collecting single-malt scotch and golfing have led him across the globe to one of his favorite countries, Scotland.

His love of scotch has even trickled over to what he names his dogs. “I have been collecting scotch for 26 years and have named almost all our dogs after my favorite scotches. Right now we have a Cairn Terrier named Balvy, short for Balvenie and a Poodle-type mutt, named Ardy, short for Ardberg.” @realproducers

We asked Tony if he had any advice for an up-and-coming Top Producer. realproducersmag.com

“Be kind. Be nice to people. With all the stuff going on in society and the world right now, if people could just treat each other a little better, it would go a long way. Whenever I am in a transaction, I look for that win-win, and I find that I get much further in the negotiations if I try to make it a win for both parties, not just for my side. Unfortunately in real estate, there isn’t enough of that. I am not sure if it is the sales training, the advice they are getting, or they are just coming at it with this ultra-competitive mentality, but if you are going to be successful in this industry, you will be dealing with the same agents time and again, your reputation is everything.

Just be kind.”

Connect with Tony Kelly Phone: 503-753-7300 Email: tony@thetlkgroup.com Web: thetlkgroup.com Facebook: @TLKGroupProperties Portland Real Producers • 15