Autobiography narratives and their forms

Autobiography

I have heard it said that life beings at 40, and considering that I am near 40 and embarking on a new stage in my life, I can see how people have come to that conclusion, since 40 seems to be the age where people have that combination of wisdom, experience, and energy that makes embarking on new adventures exciting, rather than intimidating. For me, however, my current life began more than 20 years ago, not with my first taste of success, which came shortly thereafter, but with my first crushing failure; I did not succeed in my first attempt at higher education. I graduated from high school in 1990 and enrolled at Illinois State University. However, I was too immature for college at that time and did not give my studies the attention that they deserved. I did not make the grades that I needed to make, and I left the University after a single year.

To some people, failing to achieve as they expected might have tempted them to resign themselves to underachieving, but I did not respond in that manner. I left the University, not because I was afraid that I would not be able to achieve success there; I knew that if I devoted the time to my studies that I should have done from the beginning, I could do very well. Instead, I left the University because I was very angry with myself. I grew up in a home with a focused work ethic, and failing to excel was oftentimes equated with failure. I was furious with myself that I had failed to excel at a goal that I set for myself, and I was determined to, not only achieve, but excel, at my next chosen venture.

In 1991, along with my brother, I founded Northwestern Communications, Inc. In Schaumburg, Illinois. The company worked similar to a vending route and consisted of payphones in a specific service area. As difficult as it is to imagine in an era when pay phones are all-but obsolete, the business filled a void at that time and provided me with my first real taste of business success. My brother and I started the company with 30 phones, and, by the time we sold the business in 2003, we had grown it to 2500 phones in a 4 state area. Founding and growing a start-up company gave me my first real experience with success, although it provided challenges for me as well. I learned, from trial and error, how to engage in corporate business plan development and execution, strategic planning, obtain financing, analyze the market, schedule operations, handle marketing, handle sales, determine acquisitions, and manage the interior workings of an office environment.

I think that, for me personally, it would be impossible to overstate the role that Northwestern Communications, Inc. played in my development as a business person. Through that experience, I learned so many aspects of business that are best-learned through experience. Furthermore, by having hands-on involvement in the day-to-day operations of the business, I was able to experience all aspects of a business. Perhaps most beneficial was the fact that I honed my skills as a negotiator while learning how to negotiate for Northwestern Communications, Inc.; I was responsible for negotiations with major established telecommunications service providers, such as AT&T, SBC, and Illinois Bell, and was able to negotiate in such a way as to maximize profit. In addition, as the company grew, I had to learn how to transition from a hands-on owner to a successful manager, learning the delicate balance between failing to utilize employee talent to its fullest and giving employees responsibility without the adequate training and decision-making authority to meet those responsibilities. Eventually, I managed a team of over 35 service technicians and two office managers.

However, as one might expect, despite our tremendous success, my brother and I were constantly watching the evolution of the market and we began to realize that the proliferation of cellular phones meant that the payphone model would not continue to provide increasing returns, as it had since the inception of the company. We made the decision to sell the company while we could maximize profit. At the time of its sale, the company was valued at $7.5 million, which, to me, established my success as a business owner.

Having seen the writing on the wall in the telecommunications industry, I decided to pursue another career. Rather than try to recreate success in the telecommunications industry, I decided that I would change industries, and I entered real estate. Given that I had financial resources from my last venture, I could have gone into real estate investing, but I felt like, in order to be a success in property acquisition, I needed to have a better understanding of the real estate market. Therefore, I decided to become a real estate broker. I began my career as a real estate broker at Starck Realtors, Inc., where I worked with both buyers and sellers on the sale and purchase of single family homes, investment properties, and commercial real estate. I found that my experience as a salesperson was invaluable to my experience as a real estate broker, and in 2002 I was named the Rookie of the year, and I was a multi-million dollar producer for two consecutive years. I feel like this experience provided me with the background I needed to transition to the next phase in my real estate career.

My practical real estate experience provided a foundation for me in real estate investing, and I did that while, at the same time acting as the general manager for NCI Holdings, LLC, a property management company. In my position at that company, I was involved in all aspects of commercial property management. I was responsible for researching and identifying properties that were available for acquisition. My position as a broker put me in an ideal position to locate distressed, foreclosed, and bank-owned properties, and also gave me a good understanding of competitive pricing for these types of acquisitions. However, my position went far beyond acquisition; once the properties were obtained, I handled renovations for the properties, and then the rental and sale of the properties. I was responsible for a portfolio of 20 properties with a combined value of approximately $15 million.

In 2003, I moved to ERA Northwestern Realty, because I saw the opportunity for upward mobility at that real estate company, which did not exist at my prior brokerage firm. I began working at the firm as a managing broker. In addition to sales, I was responsible for managing a team of real estate professionals. This involved not only locating talent, but also training and hiring that talent. I continued to engage in real estate transactions, but I also began transitioning my focus to short and distressed asset sales. While I was primarily working with asset managers with these distressed sales, it is important to keep in mind that I also focused on working with homeowners in distress. Foreclosure is rarely, if ever, the best option for a homeowner facing difficulties, and I worked with homeowners to explore all of their options, including foreclosure. In my role as a manager, it was my responsibility to help the other real estate professionals develop and meet their goals, handle monthly meetings, and handle training and feedback meetings for the staff as well. Eventually, I transitioned from a managing broker to a broker-owner.

Not all of my business ventures have been as successful as my real-estate and telecommunications ventures. For example, in 2010, I decided to add insurance professional to my resume, and began working with American Income Life Company as an insurance producer. In many ways, the position was a familiar one. I was in charge of a sales team with responsibility for enrolling union members in supplemental insurance benefits packages. I was also responsible for handling training as well as daily reports for the company. While I was successful in this position, I found that it did not hold my interest. It was not an issue of not believing in the product; I would never have taken the position if I did not believe that supplemental insurance could provide significant benefits for people. However, I did not feel a passion for the business and left after about a year. I thought about omitting this part from my autobiography, but I realized that doing so would be dishonest. After all, the failure to excel in a particular business is part of my experience, and has helped shape me into the person that I am today.

The person that I am today is a successful real estate professional who is the managing owner/broker at ERA Northwestern Realty. However, as my story suggests, I am not one to rest on past accomplishments. I am a high-energy person who has always thrived in challenging environments. Real estate no longer provides the types of challenges that I think I need in order to continue to grow. Real estate will always be a passion of mine, but I feel like, in order to continue evolving as a business person, I need to gain more knowledge about different types of businesses.

In addition, despite my successes, I feel as if I have not achieved one of the hallmarks of the successful professional in modern America: a college education. To many, a college education is a means to higher earning power. It is not for me; I have been able to achieve significant earning power without a college education, and have sufficient real-life experience in a broad variety of areas that I do not feel as if my lack of a degree would serve as a barrier in any professional ventures. Instead, the goal is a personal one. I have always considered a higher education a means of attaining a well-rounded, balanced educational experience, and I am ready to have that experience. So, perhaps those people are correct after all, and life does begin, if not at 40, at least in one's 40's.

Entrepreneurship

I was barely more than a kid when I began my first business venture; I believe that my youth was an asset for several reasons. First, as such a young man, I did not have the commitments and obligations that prevent many older people from starting their own businesses, because the consequences of failure are too great. For me, because the consequences of failure were not overwhelming, I did not think of failure as a possibility. Instead, I committed myself to the idea that my first business would be a success, and with that commitment, I developed a set of skills that I believe is critical to any entrepreneur: be an expert in your field, respect the company, manage the money, plan growth carefully, be customer-focused, constantly self-promote, hire the best team you can afford, be accountable for all of the business's decisions, and protect your business's reputation.

When my brother and I began the telecommunications company, it is fair to say that were not experts in the field. We had researched various start-up opportunities and found one where we recognized a significant potential for growth and a relatively low-barrier entry point, so, in many ways, we had made ourselves experts in available small business opportunities. However, to be successful in the industry, we had to become experts in pay-phone telecommunications, and we had to develop that expertise quickly. Both of us studied everything available about our product before making our first sales call. If a customer had a question about the product, whether it was about technology or service, we had an answer. Even more important, we had an answer about competitor's products as well, and we gave the honest answer. We quickly became experts in the field, so that, even if someone chose to go with a competitor, we had established ourselves as honest, reliable, and knowledgeable people in the telecommunications industry.

The next thing I observed as an emerging small business owner was that many small business owners seemed embarrassed or apologetic about their businesses. Because their businesses were small, they did not respect the business. This struck me as odd at the time; how could they inspire confidence and respect in their employees if they did not have confidence and respect in the business? To me, respecting the business had several different facets. First, my brother and I committed to working the business like we would any other full-time job. When we initially began, the actual work commitment that we had was far less than the 80-120 hours that would equal to two men working full time jobs. However, we still put in those hours on sales, marketing, customer service, and educational opportunities. We respected our business and treated it like it would continue to grow and become successful, and gave it the attention that we would have given any full-time professional job at a major corporation. We also spoke respectfully about the business. Neither of us would engage in negative talk or doubts about the business, and we did not use dismissive language such as "we just have four phones." When we had four phones, we gave those four customers the best possible customer-service, showing them respect by respecting ourselves.

Of course, one of the more difficult aspects of being an entrepreneur is money management, because most start-up companies struggle with owner-operators who are trying to survive on their proceeds and still have the money to grow the business. This links back to the idea that I began the business when I had few responsibilities. That is not to say that entrepreneurs cannot begin businesses at different life stages, but they should be realistic about their financial needs and the needs of the business, and separate the two. My brother and I established the salaries that we had to make from the business in order to survive, and we put the rest of the money back into the business. Initially, that meant that, for personal financial reasons, one or the both of us would be working side jobs in order to increase our personal finances, but we absolutely committed to not taking more from the business than our salaries. We kept the money separate, so that we could grow the business. Of course, as the business expanded, we reevaluated salary availability, but always kept the total of salaries at or below a certain percentage of revenue.

Another skill we had to master was planning for growth, appropriately. When you start a business, you think that the growth will occur in a sequential manner, building slowly. However, we quickly discovered that growth does not proceed in a sequential manner. Instead, growth opportunities can appear at unexpected times. For the beginning business owner, it may seem dangerous to avoid any opportunities for growth. However, we quickly discovered that expanding too quickly can put a business in jeopardy. Early on, we had an opportunity to double the number of phones in our business, but did not have the adequate support personnel to manage those phones. We decided to take the opportunity, and it almost ruined the business. We did not have the personnel to meet customer service expectations, so that there was a real decline in the customer-service experience. This could have proven fatal for a new business. We were able to borrow money to pay to hire an additional technician, averting a customer-service disaster, but, while borrowing to finance an emerging business can be a good idea, having to borrow in order to cover expenses that have already been incurred is a horrible idea. It made us realize that being ready for growth means having the employees, technology, and infrastructure in place to handle new clients from the first day of service.

In fact, focusing on customer needs is another significant component to being a successful entrepreneur. It may be difficult to imagine payphones as a necessity in this era of easy mobile phone access, but when we began our business, few people carried mobile phones, and even those that did often experienced service-related issues with their phones. In emergency scenarios, the payphone was an indispensable tool. Furthermore, for business owners, having a payphone available did two things: it provided an income stream to the business owners, who received a percentage of money used in the payphones, and it enabled them to provide phone service for their customers without tying up business lines. Being customer-oriented meant meeting with potential customers to assess their need for a payphone, their maintenance needs, and how many phones that they would need. For example, a gas station may have required a single payphone, while a shopping center might need a bank of multiple payphones. However, the business was also focused on end-user customers. We continually checked service at the phones, repairing or replacing broken phones within 48 hours, and responding promptly to customer complaints about telephones that had "eaten" their money without providing service with refunds. We tried to ensure that our end-user and mid-level customers were always satisfied with the service that we provided, and, when they were not, do what was in our power to make things right. The most memorable experience with customer service-related issues was linked to a gas station that was not getting the receipts it anticipated from a payphone. Because the customer was not happy with the service provided, we allowed for an early contract termination, not because it was in our financial best-interest, but because it was the best decision for customer service.

Perhaps one of the most difficult things to do as an entrepreneur is to learn how to self-promote. We are taught to be modest and downplay our achievements, but an emerging business owner who is modest will miss many business opportunities. My brother and I had a set of professional business cards printed and we carried cards with us at all times. If, in the course of a conversation, it became apparent that someone might have a need for one of our phones, we would be sure to tell them a bit about the business and give them a business card, along with an offer to buy them lunch if they were interested in learning more about the business. We did not monopolize personal events with talk about business, but did use them as a means of introducing the business to potential customers.

As the business expanded, we began to see a profit potential that, frankly, went beyond our initial projections. If we had paid technicians the industry average for our area, we would have seen even more profit. However, after experimenting with several different hiring plans, we began to realize that when one pays the industry average, one gets the industry average. We did not want average employees; we wanted exceptional employees so that we could feel confident that our customers were getting the same level of customer service from our employees that they would get from either of us. We began to pay our employees at the top of the industry average ranges, and we were able to recruit technicians that had years of experience and were the best in the field. This allowed us to continue to grow the business's reputation, and probably saved money because we did not have high turnover rates or high training expenses.

No matter how carefully hiring decisions are made, and how top-notch the team, the reality is that there are going to be errors from time-to-time. Another skill I learned was that a business owner has to be accountable for all of a business's decisions. It erodes customer confidence to be confronted by a business owner who fails to take personal responsibility for any failures that the company encounters. I may not have always been able to immediately provide an answer to a customer's question, but I always made it my responsibility to find the answers and made sure that customers were aware that I was making a personal commitment to them.

All of the above skills contribute to what I think is penultimate skill for an entrepreneur: protecting the business's reputation. When I was growing my first business, reputation was important, but was also more elusive; a business could do more to control its perceived reputation. In this day of expansive social media, a single bad review can damage a business's reputation. As a result, I carefully guard what my business does, not only in its interactions with customers, but also in other business decisions, like charitable giving. We do not donate to any organizations unless I have personally vetted them to determine if the organization meets my standards and complies with the prevailing community standards. Furthermore, when confronted by the occasional negative review, I always offer the customers the opportunity to resolve the issue, and make the offer both publicly in whatever venue was the source of the complaint, as well as privately, but refrain from having a debate about the issue in a public forum. It never looks good for a business to go after a customer in a public forum, even if the customer is wrong. In those ways, I look after the company's reputation, understanding that customers always have a choice.

Management

Becoming an effective manager has probably been the most challenging aspect of my professional life. The same skills that made me such an effective entrepreneur actually seemed to work against me as a manager, because I had a difficult time establishing the appropriate boundaries for delegation of duties and responsibilities. Initially, I was hesitant to use my employees' full capabilities, which meant that I did not get the benefit of having additional employees. What has made it even more challenging is that I have discovered that I needed to approach management differently in my two major chosen careers: telecommunications and real-estate. Understanding the differences in the two types of businesses helped me become a better manager to the real estate professionals who currently work under me, though I would have to, once again, change my approach if I move into a different industry. That is probably the most important thing that I learned about management; some qualities in a manager are universal and cross-industries, while others are industry specific. A good manager learns what skills he or she needs to apply in a particular scenario and watches how industry trends and demands impact those necessary skills. As a result, I have identified four essentials for a good manager, and will explain how I adapted each of those essentials to either industry. The essentials include: communication, team-building, problem solving, and project management.

As a manager, I discovered that one of my biggest challenges was effective communication. For many people, experiencing communication difficulties actually refers to having a problem listening to other people. However, from my perspective, I actually had more of a problem communicating my expectations to my employees than I did listening to their feedback about the company. With my telecommunications company, I initially spoke with my technicians multiple times a day, so that I was aware of any service problems and could discuss solutions with them. However, as the business grew, we developed a reporting system that would allow me to keep abreast of developing problems without requiring personal communications. However, I found that this did not allow me to convey expectations to them. Moreover, because my brother and I were I equal positions, employees might go to either of us when a decision needed to be made. This was fine, but, as the business grew, it became increasingly difficult for us to keep each other up-to-date on developments that we had handled. I learned that we had to develop a protocol for service calls, which gave clear guidelines about our expectations without requiring the type of constant interaction that had been possible in the early days of the business.

When I began to manage real estate professionals, I realized I had to tweak my communication skills. As the owner of a company with employees, communicating involved developing standards and ensuring employee compliance with those standards. While employee feedback was necessary and useful for me as I developed those standards, at the end of the day, it was my company and my reputation. The scenario is different in a managing owner-broker scenario in a real-estate situation. My brokers are not exactly employees, but are closer to independent contractors working with me. As a result, I have had to hone my skills at listening to them and their personal goals. Some of my brokers want to be million-dollar real-estate professionals, while others of them are pursuing real estate as a means of making extra money. I cannot begin to manage them and help guide them effectively without understanding their personal goals in the real estate business. Therefore, I have had to remind myself and to revisit those goals from time to time, as people can and do frequently change their minds about what they want from their careers. To do this, I needed to focus on my communication skills.

Team building is another skill that I had to focus on as a manager. In a business that I wholly owned, with employees rather than sub-contractors, I found team building to be easier than in my current position. I have given this a significant amount of thought and believe that it is easier to select appropriate team members in such an environment. The employer/manager establishes the workplace environment, and team members are selected, in part, because of how they will fit into the existing workplace environment. Furthermore, if team members are not merging into that environment, they can be retrained or replaced. This reflects a top-down form of team building that works well in small-business environments with hands-on managers or owners.

However, in my current position, I find team-building to be more challenging. Individual brokers have greater autonomy than employees would have, and they do not work together in groups, so that team cohesiveness is not as critical to day-to-day functioning. However, this autonomy and lack of daily interaction can make it difficult to build teams. When one adds in the natural competitiveness that tends to occur in occupations where people earn commissions, it can be very difficult to build a supportive team in that environment. However, a supportive team is important because clients are put off by competitive teams, which can drive down business for the individual brokers and for the business as a whole. Therefore, I have focused a significant amount of effort on team building in my current position as a managing broker/owner. One of the ways that I have attempted to build team cohesiveness is by scheduling recreational activities for the team. In order to select the recreational activities, I choose activities that all of the employees can do, which require cooperation and communication, and I plan them at times when all team members should be available, and which will not interfere with their work schedules. As a result, many of these team building activities have occurred in early morning hours or later at night because those are not times when people are generally going to be engaged in showings or client meetings. Some of the activities that we have done have included pub quiz events, bowling, and game nights at my home. Of course, not all team building activities are recreational, and I utilize a weekly scheduled team meeting to ensure communication between all team members. At these team meetings, we share information and also clear up any disagreements between team members.

As a manager, one of the greatest challenges that I face is that I am expected to be the problem solver for the organizations. In fact, I believe that problem solving is one of the most necessary skills for a manager. Furthermore, because some problems are difficult to predict, problem solving can be a difficult skill to master. I have not seen significant differences in problem solving in different industries; while the problems may be very different, problem solving techniques remain the same. For example, one problem solving technique that I have found to be invaluable is consulting with experts when I am not sure how to solve a problem on my own. One of the problems that brokers face is that they are at risk of danger; they meet with strangers in isolated scenarios, which places them at some risk of personal violence. Moreover, these circumstances are an inevitable part of the business; a broker who refuses to go to isolated places with strange people will be unable to do any business. Knowing that this was a problem, and that the risk to my female brokers was probably greater than the risk to my male brokers, I decided to consult with personal safety experts about ways to limit risk. The safety experts suggested instituting a multi-point safety system. No brokers go to client meetings or showings without giving detailed information about the client and the meeting location to the office receptionists. Brokers text license plate numbers to the office, as well, because it is often impossible to otherwise verify identity for clients. In addition, one of the aforementioned team activities was basic self-defense training. This example of problem-solving reflects the reality of problems encountered in the business world; some problems lack full solutions, but can be mitigated and risk reduced, if not eliminated.

The final of the four skills I believe is essential for good managers is project management. Many people mistakenly believe that project management and people management are the same, but they are distinct processes. By definition, projects are temporary endeavors with set goals. Therefore, project management can and should have defined time-specific goals and ways to measure whether or not those goals have been achieved. There are many different approaches to project management, but when I owned the telecommunications company, I embraced the lean project management ideology. Now, as managing broker, each individual client is seen as a project, but a lean approach is not necessarily the best approach. Instead, a more traditional approach to project-management has proven useful.

Lean project management requires focusing on reducing waste and reducing the time required for project completion. When I owned a telecommunications company, I headed several projects that focused on the expansion of telephones into new markets, with new clientele. A lean approach was critical in those times, because reducing the time to completion would result in happier clients and hasten the time for each phone to become profitable. Therefore, I applied the lean approach, looking to avoid duplicate actions or activities, thus reducing time and expense.

I still engage in project management in my current field of real estate. In fact, as a broker, I view every client as an individual project. These projects have the standard elements of a project: initiation, planning, execution, monitoring, and completion. Initiation occurs when the client and the broker come into contact with one another and begin their relationship. Planning includes sitting down with the client, assessing the client's wants, and also having realistic conversations with clients about whether their wants are possible in the surrounding economic environment. The execution phase can be seen when either looking for properties or searching for buyers for listed properties. Monitoring may seem to be an extraneous step in the real-estate context, but that is not true; project management requires watching prevailing market conditions and adjusting expectations and goals accordingly. Finally, completion involves either entering into a sales contract or reaching the termination of the exclusive-brokerage agreement.

Management skills are learned, not inherent, and being placed in a management position is not sufficient to make someone a good manager. Instead, I found that some of the skills that made me an effective entrepreneur hampered me as a manager. Moreover, some of the management skills I learned in my first management position did not translate well into later positions. However, by developing the above four management skills, I have developed my skills as a manager, and feel confident that I will be able to adapt them in future positions.

Real Estate

I began my real estate career in 2001, when real estate was still doing very well, housing prices were on the rise nation-wide, and it was easy, in fact too easy, for people to get mortgages to buy properties. Then the real estate bubble burst, and a growth industry retracted. I do not have to explain the consequences of the fall in the real estate market and the ripples that the housing crash sent through the rest of the economy; those are well-understood. However, I have to say that my experience during this time helped me learn two critical factors about the real estate market. The first is that a real estate professional has earning opportunities regardless of the prevailing economic climate. The second is that, I believe, real estate professionals have a moral duty, if not a professional ethical duty, to discuss the financial impact of potential purchases and sales with their clients. Because I have learned and embrace the second principle, I do not feel guilty about being able to make profits even when the real estate market is in distress.

When I entered the real estate market, the economy was booming and real estate property values were not only high, they were actually rising. Moreover, I entered real estate in two distinct areas: as a broker and as the manager of a property investment group. My approach to earning money was distinct in each area, but I was able to capitalize on market conditions in both capacities. The first thing that I realized was that property values could not continue to climb like they were. Although my area did not see the meteoric rise in property values that was evident in other areas, the rise we did experience was not precedented by resent real estate market trends. To me, this was indicative of a bubble, which suggested caution, not only in my personal investments, but also in my advice to clients.

Even before the housing market bubble officially burst, people in the industry were beginning to see some of the impact of the bad lending practices. People were beginning to experience foreclosures and be threatened with home loss. This provided me with opportunities in one of my roles, which was to purchase distressed real estate, with the intention of either flipping the real estate or using it as rental property. However, I had to watch the market carefully in order to evaluate whether property would be improved and resold (flipped) or used for rental property. When the market was thriving, buying a distressed property for the purposes of resale was still a very profitable venture, especially if the distressed property was in a desired area. Flipping such real estate could result in significant profit opportunities, and, furthermore, was relatively low risk because a brisk market ensured that the property owner would be able to find a buyer within a reasonable time period. However, as the market began to slow, the earlier assurances of a buyer for every improved property no longer existed. Instead, it was not uncommon for properties to sit vacant for extended periods of time, which had the potential of eating up profits from any flipping project.