Five Years of Melanie Everett & Company
It is nearly impossible to wrap my head around the fact that Melanie Everett & Company is celebrating 5 years (!) this month. Wasn’t it just yesterday that 25-year-old, starry-eyed me sat criss-crossed on our living room sofa, announcing this new brokerage to Instagram? How can this possibly be? The past five years went by in a flash, a nanosecond, and I wanted to take a moment to s l o w down and acknowledge this (huge!) milestone. Wow.
Building a business has taught me lesson after lesson. If I wrote them all down here, this blog post would be a mile long! To commemorate five years of M&Co., I thought I would compile five of the (many!) lessons I’ve learned:
Lesson One | Take the leap. In January 2019, I could have listed a million reasons why I shouldn’t leave my established brokerage and start one of my own. For starters, I’d only been an agent since 2014. What could possibly qualify me to be a managing broker? And, of course, this was a massive risk at a very pivotal time in my life. I got married in December 2018. Wouldn’t I be wise to enjoy newlywed life, not start up a business from scratch? In the end, taking this leap was the best thing I could have done for myself and my career.
Lesson Two | Pivot when necessary. 2020 marked two years of M&Co. We’d grown to 3 and found our groove! Then, out of nowhere, I was faced with the challenge of how to continue growing and building in the middle of a global pandemic, all the while pregnant with my first child. 2020 was an impossible year with hurdle after hurdle. M&Co. would not have survived it if we did not adapt to the new normal.
Lesson Three | Relationships matter. Especially at a boutique brokerage. When I started my real estate career, I knew getting to know and learning from other agents was important, but it wasn’t until I launched my own brokerage that I realized the power of being able to pick up my phone and call someone outside of M&Co. for advice. Now, I’m priviledged to know fellow team leads, broker-owners, and managing brokers in the city and beyond. I learn from them constantly.
Lesson Four | Not an I, but a we. Melanie Everett & Company is truly nothing without the people behind the brokerage. I might sound like a broken record saying this, but that’s okay: My team means so, so much to me. They hustle hard, they put clients first, they embody M&Co.’s values in more ways than one. And, perhaps most importantly, the women I work with are also dear friends. What a gift!
Lesson Five | Trust in the Lord. Always, always, I come back to this lesson. Every single day! When I’m up late the night before a team meeting, a million ideas & anxieties running through my head. When teeming interest rates put a pause on the entire market. When I am filled with self-doubt & unsure of my next step. My faith is the rock on which my business is built on.
