In two short years, the leadership at Samson Properties grew the brokerage 71% by real estate transaction sides. While CEO Donny Samson swears it’s the culture of family, we dug deeper to find out the secrets of the firm’s incredible organic growth.
Today’s REAL Trending features an interview with Donny Samson, CEO of Samson Properties. The firm has over 4,000 agents in 30 offices, serving home buyers and sellers in Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia. According to RealTrends data, Donny’s firm has grown from 7,200 sides in 2018 to 12,300 sides in 2020. And, that’s mostly organic growth. That’s a growth rate of a whopping 71% in just two years. His firm will undoubtedly be in the top one fourth of the Real Trends 500, launching this month. In this interview, Samson shares why agents join his firm, how he keeps them engaged, the services he offers and, most importantly, the secrets to the firm’s massive organic growth.
Here is a small preview of today’s interview. The transcript below has been lightly edited for length and clarity:
Tracey Velt: You’re an independent broker, so tell me about your business model.
Donny Samson: We went to a 100% with a transaction fee model in 2011. We were an 80/20 company forever, but we were able to make the change because we started our own title company in 2009. We own a title company 100%. We thought, if we take care of our agents, and give them tons of great incentives to help them grow—great tools to help them become better, beautiful offices to meet clients in and grow—then hopefully, they’ll use our title company. We can’t make them, we can’t pay them, but if we take care of them, maybe they’ll want to do back-flips and run next door to use our title company. It’s working. Our conversion rates are absurd, up to 70% of our agents use our title company.
That’s really how we can find organic growth and profit, and the business plan makes sense. My main focus is to create a real estate company that helps people become more successful and that they love working at. And if they love working here, then the rest will take care of itself. We’ll all grow together, we’ll all be more successful together, and people will be so thankful to keep all of their money and work for a great company, they’ll encourage others to join our brokerage.
REAL Trending features the brightest minds in real estate. Twice a month, brokerage leaders, top agents, team leaders, and industry experts share their success secrets, trends, and lessons learned navigating this ever-changing industry. Hosted by Tracey Velt and produced by Victoria Wickham.