? by Michele Newbern Gillis
Staff Writer
Timing is everything and no one knows that better than Martha Dickerson, the new director of education and development for Coldwell Banker Walter Williams Realty, Inc.’s real estate associates.
She came back to Jacksonville from Islamorada last fall to visit her parents and decided she needed to move back. She called her friend, Walter Williams, president of Coldwell Banker Walter Williams Realty, Inc. and met with him to discuss employment options with his company.
It just so happened that his company was considering expanding its education department and was looking for someone to be the director of education and development.
The company has grown to a point that a director of education and development was the best way to go to serve everyone best.
“The managers are very conscientious about service and meeting their agents needs,” said Dickerson. “It is very hard to be a manager. You do everything. It’s hard to be there completely for everyone. When someone is new, they have a million questions, so this way there is someone else they can call. Service to our sales associates is very important to the company.”
Dickerson said she and Williams discussed many options but when he brought up a education director, she said, “That’s me.”
The managers got together and decided it was the right time to add another person to the team.
Dickerson, who has been training agents since 1980, has been in charge of the training and education for the company since March.
“I’m delighted with the company and with the job,” said Dickerson. “Teaching is probably my first love. I really like on-the-job training. I enjoy it when I can help someone and see them really bloom and have success on something they implemented that we have talked about. I love it, it’s just the best.”
Some of the company’s training for new agents comes from Coldwell Banker corporate and is done locally by national trainers. That is going to continue. They also have some training of technical skills that is done by all of the managers and that is going to continue, but Dickerson will facilitate it and schedule it.
She is currently located at Coldwell Banker’s corporate office on SR 13. She goes to offices to train or has agents come to her, depending on what makes the most sense.
The training that she will be doing is going to be for new agents who start before a training session is available.
“We don’t want them sitting around and creating bad habits,” she said. “My job to have an interim training program to get them on track. Probably the most important is, after the formal training, a training program to keep them on track. People get into the real estate business and get very excited it. They get their first few sales and everybody thinks they’ve made it. And yet they really haven’t. They money is not steady yet and they tend to maybe even get out of the business. Those people are my target.”
Her goal is to really pay attention to those people and help them succeed in real estate in addition to the advanced training that is available to them.
Existing agents will also be counseled by Dickerson.
“I have started counseling with some existing agents who know the basics, but they really need to get their personal business plans in order,” she said. “There will be ongoing training to advanced training for agents.”
The type of topics Dickerson will be covering include everything from the very basics like what to fill in on a contract to how to present it so the other person can understand it and not feel intimidated by it. Other topics will be how to negotiate an offer, how to counsel buyers and sellers and technological help.
She really enjoys training, especially small groups.
“Small groups are really better than one-on-one training,” said Dickerson. “They learn more and they can share more experiences. I like coaching. When I was a sales associate and a customer got a new house, I was just as excited as though I had just gotten a new house. When a sales associate really makes it and has some successes, I have the same pleasure as though it happened to me.”
Through all of her years in training and experience, Dickerson has some advice for new agents.
“Don’t decide to come into the business when your life is in crisis. They don’t go together,” she said. “Also, if you can plan for it, have some financial stability. Find out what it takes financially to be on commission to get started and have a plan. That would be more important than anything else. More people end up out of the business either because of financial problems or their personal life.”
Dickerson has a hefty real estate resume dating all the back to 1977.
She has a bachelor’s degree in English with a minor in mathematics from Jacksonville University. She earned her teaching certificate after graduating college, but never pursued the career formally.
While in school she had worked in the registrar’s office and when she graduated, they offered her a job there, so she took it.
She took real estate courses to renew her teaching certificate and found she loved real estate.
She started her career with Harris Real Estate in Arlington and then worked for George W. Law as a site agent. She became sales manager of Century 21 Harris Real Estate on Park Street and then opened her own company, Century 21 Hart of the South Realty in 1980. She sold her company to ERA McDaniel and Associates and went to work for them as president and broker. They sold the company to ERA Davis & Linn, so she continued on as vice president of relocation. She left ERA Davis & Linn in 1998 to move to Islamorada.
Dickerson lived in Islamorada in the Florida Keys for five years. She moved there to help a new office in Tavernier get started and is happy to report she was quite successful. But family issues prompted her to move back to her hometown of Jacksonville.
She has been married to Richard since 1995. Between them, they have five children Kim, Aimee, Ronnie, Danny and Michael and four grandchildren, Zachary, 9; Drew; 4; Scotti, 3; Piper, 2 and two more on the way at the end of the year.
When she is not working, she raises two golden retrievers and four Persian cats and enjoys arts and crafts, charity work, music, attending football games and computers.