Inman is profiling real estate leaders. Here’s Kyle Matthews, Chairman/CEO at Matthews Retail Advisors.
Are you the first entrepreneur in your family?
Yes, everyone else played professional football.
Why’d you decide to join your company?
Create a company? I found myself in an industry that has been slow to adapt to changing times and advancing technologies, and I saw a better way to do things.
Describe a time when you felt particularly insecure about the future of your company. How did you bounce back?
Hasn’t happened yet! Candidly, there is no room for doubt when 50-plus rely on you. I must have 100 percent conviction in every decision that I make.
What would you describe as your company’s biggest victory since you joined it?
When we left the former company we platformed at (Colliers International) and launched our own enterprise, business was not affected whatsoever. I looked at that as an amazing accomplishment — to launch a new company yet revenue remaining unaffected. This is 100 percent due to the talented people we have here.
What’s been the biggest obstacle your business has encountered, and how have you dealt with it?
Not only effectively getting the message out to clients about how our service will accomplish their goals, but also walking them through all of the misinformation that exists in the real estate brokerage industry, an effect of brokers making claims about their own successes that just aren’t even close to accurate.
What is the most important lesson you’ve learned about building a business?
If you are good to people — clients, employees and partners — they will be good to you.
What’s your favorite activity outside of work and why?
Spending time with my family at the beach. My family is everything to me.
What’s your favorite classic piece of literature and why?
“Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand. I am a huge believer in Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism, which advocates reason, individualism and capitalism, which makes up the premise of the story in Atlas Shrugged.
What puzzles you most about the industry?
How in such an entrepreneurial field, there are so many brokers who are not truly committed to working the hours and at the pace that it takes to ensure one’s success in this business. I believe that when a client trusts me to give me their business, they deserve the hard work that it takes to ensure success for them.
What’s the most overrated real estate technology?
E-blasts.
How will the role of the real estate agent change over the next five years?
It won’t.
What motivates you more: power or money?
Money equates to power, but only in the material sense. Power, whether it’s the power to buy something, influence people or effectuate social change, is so much more. So, power.
What is your biggest professional fear?
Physical health keeping me from accomplishing my goals and/or ambitions.
What is your biggest personal fear?
Something happening to my children. I’m sure I share this fear with most people.
Who do you respect most in the industry?
I respect too many people to identify just one!
Age: 33
Degree, school: International Relations: University of Southern California (USC) 2004
Location: El Segundo, California
Social media: Twitter, LinkedIn
Are you a real estate leader who’d like to be profiled on Inman? Email amber@inman.com.