Shawn O’Neill
Broker
JP & Associates REALTORS® City & Beach
Jacksonville, Fla.
www.jparfl.com
Region served: Jacksonville and St. Augustine
Years in real estate: 18
Number of years with JP & Associates REALTORS®: 1
Number of offices: 2
Number of agents: 45
Best recruiting strategy: Hire agents who are productive—with a heart toward service—and they will recommend like-minded agents to join.
No. 1 piece of advice for new agents: Join a team or find a mentor.
Motto that you live by: If you help enough people get what they want, you will get everything you want.
How has being part of JP & Associates REALTORS® (JPAR) helped you navigate these challenging times? Thanks to the collective force of the large, multibillion-dollar company, we’ve been able to leverage a multitude of resources that have helped us navigate these unprecedented times. Another huge advantage is the fact that JPAR’s leadership team is always leading from the front. When the pandemic hit, they were willing to take a stab and lead without knowing all the answers. They took the lead in transitioning the brokerage to a virtual environment so that we could continue to conduct real estate—offering 8 a.m. morning club calls that were focused on providing motivation through actionable tips and strategies that could easily be implemented into our day-to-day business practices. As we transitioned to a web-based world, the team at JPAR went above and beyond to provide us with the necessary tools to generate buyer and seller consultations online.
In what ways have you adjusted business practices/operations to keep business going during the pandemic? One of the ways we kept business going during the pandemic was by cutting expenses, not people. In addition to focusing on our per-agent production, we also met our buyers and sellers where they were, providing them with exactly what they needed. We also instituted a weekly connection call, which gave our agents the opportunity to share something positive and ask questions at the same time. While our educational and social events were conducted virtually, I’m happy to say that we’re now back to face-to-face meetings. That being said, for anyone still wishing to meet in a virtual format, that option is always available.
Having recently opened a second office, what would you point to as the biggest factor in the growth of your business over the years? The biggest factors in our growth are our agent-first culture and our commitment to providing everything a top producer and team leader would want. It’s one thing to serve agents, but it’s another to help them become more productive and develop a higher level of service. We’re a non-competing brokerage, so we’re there to support our agents and challenge them to grow their businesses.
What sets the firm apart from other brokerages? Aside from productivity and service, agents can also leverage my exclusive endorsements of American radio and television host, author and conservative political commentator Sean Hannity, and “Shark Tank” star and real estate expert Barbara Corcoran. The fact that we’re the most productive per-agent brokerage in Northeast Florida is yet another thing that sets us apart from the competition.
Why JP & Associates REALTORS®? The economics of layering your team into JPAR is unbeatable, especially if you run a team that does 30 transactions or more. This is what I did with my team, which was ranked the No. 1 team in the state of Florida. It made sense economically, as I was able to plug into the things being done at JPAR, rather than trying to pay for it all myself. We are young and being part of an office where you get the ground-floor opportunity is unique.
Where do you see your business in five years? I see JP & Associates REALTORS® City & Beach as the most productive per-agent brokerage in Northeast Florida, doing over $1 billion in sales annually.
For more information, please visit www.jpar.com.
Paige Tepping is RISMedia’s managing editor. Email her you real estate news ideas to paige@rismedia.com.
