When Stan Bishop decided to leave a successful marketing career to go into real estate, he first confided in his girlfriend, who supported the idea.
If he’d talked to his father first, Bishop doubts he’d be a Realtor today.
His father called several agents he knew to ask how to talk Bishop out of it.
One agent said, “You know, I highly discourage people to do real estate. But Stan’s one of the few that I think could be very successful at it.”
Fifteen years later, Bishop is president of Exit Real Estate Gallery, co-owner of the company he shares with Ray Rivera, Sonny Downey and most recently, his father.
It’s the second-largest realty firm in Northeast Florida by number of agents — it has 340 of them — and it fluctuates between fourth and fifth by transactions. First, second and third place go to companies that have been in the business since the 1970s.
The company also has been named top producer out of 800 Exit Realty franchises internationally for three years running.
Bishop credits the company’s success to its agent-centric culture and focus on technology.
But his marketing background played no small role in creating a brokerage that, like Apple, simply thinks a little differently.
Developing work ethic and marketing career
Bishop came from entrepreneurial roots.
His father was grounded in the corporate world as a biosciences worker for pharmaceutical giant SmithKline. But the family also, at different times, owned several businesses, including video stores in Orange Park and an antique-car dealership in Middleburg.
He and his father enjoy a lifelong friendship.
Close enough that at 12 years old, Bishop taught his dad to use a brand new computer sent by SmithKline.
Close enough that he can still remember as a teen the sting he felt over the words, “Stan, you don’t have a work ethic,” though neither can recall what it was about.
Those words were a “gasoline fire” under Bishop, he said, driving him to succeed ever since.
The elder Bishop had a marketing degree; he wanted his son to be a lawyer. But, studying bankruptcy cases as a pre-law student in college bored Bishop.
An employee at the time for curio and figurine company, The Hamilton Collection, Bishop switched his studies to the marketing career he was already in.
The Hamilton Collection tracked how well its ads performed. It taught Bishop to use test marketing during campaigns.
It would be fortuitous to his real estate business years later.
“Most real estate agents, when they farm, are not farming with different messages,” Bishop said. “What message gets through to one demographic doesn’t necessarily get through to another demographic.”
In the marketing industry, Bishop rose to a position where he was conducting integrated advertising campaigns for Fortune 500 companies like Hewlett-Packard, Mitsubishi and Xerox.
Integrated marketing means using multiple mediums to reach out to customers — another idea Bishop would later translate over to Exit Real Estate Gallery.
For every home listed, Exit places ads in real estate magazines and on television, designs and prints fliers and postcards, produces an Internet-based visual tour and places the listing on more than 400 websites. All free of charge to the agent.
“If you can get the message in front of the buyer the way the buyer likes to respond, you create more demand for the product you’re selling,” Bishop said. “And it should sell faster at a higher price.”
Bishop’s career was going well, but getting stuck in a Chicago airport during the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks made him reconsider traveling every month.
“I admit it. I just didn’t want to get into airplanes anymore,” he said.
New career benefits from longtime skills
He looked for a new enterprise that would keep him close to home. One of them, real estate, was a business he’d seen several friends pursue. He thought if he applied his marketing background, he could stand above the competition.
He and a partner took over an independent brokerage in Orlando, The Real Estate Gallery, and Bishop opened a second office in Jacksonville. When the recession hit, they split the business, leaving Bishop in Jacksonville full time.
He decided he would franchise with Exit Realty Corp., a company unique for its payment model.
The company gives agents a health plan, a retirement plan and a death benefits plan. Agents earn residual income based on the productivity of new agents they bring into the company. It’s something that promotes collaboration, rather than competition, between colleagues.
In his first year, Bishop’s office grew from 30 agents to 50.
The company soon merged with two local Exit franchises, one owned by Rivera and the other by Downey. All three brokers had a track record as top producing agents.
Rivera, a former teacher and stock trader, brought financial analysis to the mix.
Downey, a former hospitality industry worker, brought people skills and a team spirit.
A couple of years ago Bishop’s father joined the partners, finally convinced there was something to his son’s new career. He heads up project management for Exit Real Estate Gallery’s growing footprint.
The company in May opened an office in Fleming Island, its sixth, and hopes to open another four or five branches within the next five years. Being one of the youngest companies in the market gives them an edge, Bishop said, ensuring a long tenure in Northeast Florida.
Bishop, Rivera and Downey all have school-age children, and Bishop’s son already writes class essays about how one day, he’d like to be an Exit broker.
And, if one of Bishop’s kids decides instead to become a lawyer?
“I’ll encourage my daughter to do that,” Bishop said, with a laugh. “She’s the one, trust me. She’s definitely going to be the attorney in the family.”
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