With two graduate degrees, Trey deMoville is vastly credentialed.
But he didn’t have a lick of real estate know-how when he took over Watson Realty Corp.’s professional development responsibilities a few months ago.
That is, except for what he learned buying and selling his own house.
DeMoville’s bailiwick is adult learning theory — not bringing homebuyers and sellers together.
And that’s exactly how Watson executives drew it up.
“We were looking for a trainer versus a Realtor,” said Watson President Ed Forman.
That’s not all.
“Whoever we hired had to hold our core values,” stressed deMoville’s boss, Watson Executive Vice President Carlotta Landschoot.
A six-month recruiting effort lured deMoville to Jacksonville from the Fort Worth, Texas area, where he spent about 10 years working in organization and employment development.
DeMoville and his wife, Sadie, are particularly keen on their two young children being educated in the highly acclaimed St. Johns County school system.
But deMoville says it is his new employer’s genuine commitment to “legendary quality service” — a longtime catchphrase of company founder and Chairman William Watson Jr. –– that sold the couple on making the move east.
“A lot of what we do in the professional development area is built around core principles and values and Mr. Watson’s commitment to the community and doing the right thing is legendary,” deMoville said. “It had to be the right opportunity — and it was.”
He says the motivation he receives from his wife, a physical therapist, is responsible for much of his career success.
“We both are in the business of helping people, which is pretty cool, but she’s an incredible person — a total rock star,” he said. “And if you’re ever going to make a life with a successful person, you’d better learn to be successful yourself.”
In his new position, deMoville is responsible for enhancing Watson’s training program, which has long been among the company’s key focus.
“We felt that bringing in a training professional that did not already have pre-conceived real estate notions would allow us to open our minds to greater innovation,” Landschoot said.
In deMoville, Watson landed a gregarious former rock singer-wannabe with master’s degrees in education and business administration along with a hunger for “making people better at what they do.”
He’s also a member of the Association for Talent Development.
“There’s always been a nice marriage between training and development and my extroversion,” he said.
During the first day of Watson’s monthly Success School for new real estate agents, deMoville continually stressed the importance of prospecting for business.
That’s something he learned in his first months on the job as he crash-coursed the industry and developed the strategy for Watson’s redeployed, technology-driven training and development initiative.
His message was echoed by Watson and Forman, the company’s top two executives.
“When the two leaders of a company can find the time every month to come and talk to new agents about what it takes to succeed in this business, it says a whole lot,” deMoville says. “Again, it shows that I’m at the right place.”
Watson and Forman recognizing the importance of hiring a career development professional to lead the company’s training program was visionary, deMoville said.
“There’s a big difference in standing up and saying, ‘Hey, welcome to real estate’ as opposed to, ‘Let’s build a script for you and let’s role-play that script,’ ... which is where I came from,” he said.
DeMoville and three team members are developing a learning management system that will offer online registration and attendance reporting, as well as customized distance learning program for Watson associates and employees to continuously improve professionally.
Watson officials say they think they’ve found someone at the top of his field.
“We truly believe that the educational offerings that result from our hiring of Trey will be money in the bank to our associates,” Landschoot said.
In an interview, deMoville recurrently lauded the importance of collaboration and said he’s fortunate to have inherited a strong group of team members at Watson.
“These people who work with me every day are brilliant in their own rights,” he said. “I’m a strong believer in the thought that while the human being is capable of doing good things and making good decisions, the team is capable of great things and great decisions.”
How will deMoville know if he’s successful at his new job?
Watson’s bottom line, for one.
Testimonials, for another.
“If I bump into a real estate agent that says, ‘I know you. I took your class six months ago and I believe you helped me close three houses and that helped me pay for college tuition for my kid,’ I mean, how awesome would that be?” he said.