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Takeaways:

  • Dr. Tommy Sowers served 11 years of active duty in the U.S. Army, including two combat tours as a Green Beret.
  • Training yourself to think like a soldier and act like an entrepreneur lends itself well to the real estate industry.
  • Organizing a strong team to support your business endeavors will increase your productivity. Sowers will be at Inman Connect to share more about his experience.

Dr. Tommy Sowers is the current CEO and founder of SOLOpro, a venture-backed real estate marketplace that offers a full 3 percent rebate to homebuyers as well as access to real estate agents who have unbundled their services.

He also served 11 years of active duty in the U.S. Army, including two combat tours in Iraq as a Green Beret.

The chasm between soldier and entrepreneur may seem vast, but as his session at Inman Connect San Francisco will illustrate, there are many similarities between the two roles.

Tommy Sowers

Tommy Sowers

Training yourself to think like a soldier and act like an entrepreneur lends itself well to the real estate industry.

As an Army Special Forces detachment commander in Iraq, Tommy Sowers was well-versed in persuading people to cooperate with the U.S. Army.

“Some of them wanted to kill us, but you had to find out how to get them to work with us,” Sowers said of building rapport with different elements. (Sounds a little like dealing with clients …)

That experience, along with a number of other stints that required him to win over strangers (teaching at Duke University, serving as assistant secretary for Public and Intergovernmental Affairs at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs), has taught him quite a bit about how to build relationships, which is arguably the cornerstone of establishing, managing and maintaining any kind of successful business. This is particularly true for real estate.

So how do you think like a soldier and act like an entrepreneur, particularly when you’re out on the firing line, trying to close a deal?

Tip No. 1: Assemble a platoon. Organizing a strong team to support your business endeavors will increase your productivity. Alone, you can go fast, but as a team, you can go far.

Join us at Inman Connect San Francisco to learn the rest of Sowers’ tips for thinking like a soldier and acting like an entrepreneur.

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