Realtor Grows Business with Florida SBDC Network as Partner
Jodi Avery Real Estate of Pinellas County
Being a single mom, Jodi Avery originally got into the real estate industry because it fit with her busy schedule.
Now, Avery has been the number one real estate agent with Keller Williams Realty at the Palm Harbor office for the last five years and was awarded Business Woman of the Year in 2016.
Avery sought out business consultant Kurt Forster from the Florida SBDC at Pinellas County Economic Development (PCED) for marketing, growth, and overall business plan consulting.
“I started six years ago, and I started with about a million dollars in sales and currently today I’m doing $17 million in sales a year,” Avery said. “So, it tremendously has a huge impact. His strategic advice has not only developed as I grew. He kept implementing it and gave me new ideas and strategies to grow my business exponentially, really. “
Avery’s biggest success since becoming a real estate agent has been positively changing the lives of the people she works with and she believes the Florida SBDC at PCED has helped her reach that goal.
“The SBDC has tremendously impacted my business because it gave me the ability to create relationships in the way that I wanted,” Avery stated. “I want to connect with people and develop these incredible opportunities to help people and that’s what they have done for me.
“The same advice where they have impacted my life I’m able to impact others, and they gave me the tools and resources to do it. So the biggest success for me has been changing the lives of the people that I meet in real estate.”
Avery’s weekly meetings with Forster have evolved into meeting two to three times a year to discuss Avery’s business growth and how she can grow her business further.
“When I started meeting with the SBDC and Kurt Forster, we had strategic plans that we put in place, but as I grew it’s changed. We started meeting every week, then it grew into every couple of months, and now we meet two to three times a year.”
At the beginning of each year, Avery meets with Forster to see where she is in the market and develop a yearly strategic marketing plan to guide her in the right direction.
“It’s really a fine tuning to see where I’m at, how can I grow, how can I develop,” Avery said. “We do plans in the beginning of the year to see what kind of marketing strategies I can have every single month.”
Having gained success with the help of the Florida SBDC at PCED, Avery recommends that other businesses utilize the services as well.
“The SBDC is an amazing resource and I probably have recommended at least 50 people to this organization because of the impact it has made in mine,” she said. “Their strategies, their enthusiasm, and their advice is unprecedented.”
“I have to say Kurt Forster by far has been invaluable,” Avery added. “He is all about relationships. He understood my business. He took the time to care about me and really understand what it is my business is about.
“They really listen to what you have to say and what you want to promote. They don’t just give you their ideas, they give you the ideas that you need to grow and to impact and make a difference in the way you want to make it. I think it’s really individualized and that’s why I love the SBDC.”
