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After 25 years as a managing broker where she was known for her training and coaching initiatives, Annette DeCicco pivoted to her role as director of growth and development, creating content and curriculum across multiple brokerages.
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“Our company attracts agents at every level and is dedicated to the growth of all,” she said, “investing in both tech and touch, hard skills and soft skills, to develop the team. That’s one of the reasons I’m a part of this experience, and why others have joined me. If we can’t learn, we can’t grow. Curate culture where camaraderie and learning flourish, where you work for work-life balance and work-life happiness.”
With an organization of approximately 200 agents and employees, “the glue is definitely culture,” DeCicco said. That stems from the company’s deep roots as a family brokerage since 1952, led first by founder Jordan Baris and now by his son, Ken.
Find out how this broker put her background in education to work to create training that resonates and gets results.
Name: Annette DeCicco
Current title: Director of Growth and Development, Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Jordan Baris Realty
Location: West Orange, New Jersey
Brokerage name: Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Jordan Baris Realty
Team size: 185
Awards:
- Manager of the Year, 2013, Livingston
- Top office companywide, Prudential New Jersey Properties
- Second place in Prudential Real Estate Affiliates, residential GCI, U.S. Northeast 2013 (rebranded to BHHS the following year)
- Realtor of the Year 2018, North Central Jersey Association of Realtors
How did you get your start in real estate?
That is a classic story I have told to countless new licensees during company orientations. “Before real estate,” as the holder of a graduate degree in education, I was an instructor at a community college. I loved the classroom, but not the bureaucracy.
“Year after year, several of us were RIFFed [reduction in force] at the end of the term and rehired for the start of the new school year to prevent us from getting tenure. After years of no advancement, no opportunity, no income steps, I resigned because someone who would become very important to my success in real estate told me that in sales, “You can earn in direct proportion to your skill level.”
I never looked back, never doubting my ability to reshape myself, to learn or to earn.
Tell us about an epic fail you’ve experienced since you’ve been a broker
It was a fail in recognizing that no matter one’s experience, tributes, stature, whatever one has “earned” and even “given back tenfold,” none of us is protected from unpredictable events that can quickly propel us down to earth. There is no fair in fail.
What I had failed to learn early is that no one is irreplaceable, and no one’s job description is sustainable and “needable” through various markets where other new factors surface. Yes, you can grow all over again if you have the will to do it. Skill without will equals retirement!
There is also no ego in fail. Fail is actually a badge you can wear as you reinvent yourself. When a new door presents itself, don’t wait for someone to invite you in. Proceed across the threshold. Someone, somewhere, may be glad you did.
What’s your top tip for freshly licensed brokers?
This is also a tip for freshly licensed agents. As a “new” managing broker whose job it is to foster office growth, don’t hire anyone who tells you in an interview that they are going to “try” real estate. A new agent’s business will be shuttered as fast as the percentage of restaurants that fail because of “trying” for the wrong reason.
Money is not a driver. The prospect of money will never drive the “try” because money is not the driver. Money is the result. Managing brokers need to help agents find their “why.” “Why” is not a goal. “Why” is the driver of the goal.
