by Michele Newbern Gillis
Staff Writer
Even though she may be the most powerful female executive in Jacksonville, Linda Sherrer really thinks it is important to take time out for fun.
“Believe it or not, I really do have a pretty balanced life,” said the president and CEO of Prudential Network Realty. “You have to make it work that way. I bought a kayak at the RPAC auction and went kayaking at Amelia Island all one day.
Do as we do, as well as say, she says.
“We get downright preachy talking to our agents about balance because you are no good to us, yourself or your family if you burn out,” she said.
Sherrer said she read somewhere once that you never had an original thought or great idea sitting at your desk.
“You really need to be out walking on the beach, horseback riding, playing golf or whatever it is that you love to do,” she said. “That’s when you really have these growth spurts or a real quantum leap and think about where your business should go, whether it’s your personal business as an individual sale associate or your company. It helps you stay focused.”
Speaking of balancing, Sherrer has a lot on her plate to balance. She not only runs a multi-million dollar real estate company, she holds powerful community positions.
She is a gubernatorial appointee to the board of the Jacksonville Airport Authority, a director of the Florida Association of Realtors and the incoming president to the Northeast Florida Association of Realtors, a board member of the I.M. Sulzbacher Center for the Homeless and the Jacksonville Women’s Network, a member of the board of trustees of the Jacksonville Regional Chamber of Commerce and on the board of Epping Forest Yacht Club, where she was the first woman commodore.
Her latest recognition is an appointment to the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s Jacksonville Branch. Her term began January 1 and runs through Dec. 31, 2006.
Despite her lofty status, she says she never loses sight that her people are what make it happen.
“It’s all about the people,” said Sherrer. “My agents are probably tired of hearing me say it, but our assets walk out the door every night. We don’t ever lose sight of that. We really try to stay in the trenches with the agents, hear what is going on and support them. I really feel like the head cheerleader or someone who is trying to stay focused, look for the long vision, try to figure out where we should go next and what is important for the success of everyone. It’s not a power position as much as a support position.”
As the company’s president, Sherrer said her job is multi-faceted. She identifies talent in people, bringing them on board and giving them the freedom and platform to be successful.
“I’m a bit of a rainmaker,” she said. “I love to bring in corporate business or developments. I meet with the managers every other week. I’m in every single office every other week. We’re always looking for developing different niches.
“We are now working on creating a publication for the entire southeast to promote all the houses for sale. We banded together with all the Prudential offices all along the east coast to create this publication. We have a fine homes division for upscale properties, but unless you get it in the right hands it doesn’t matter. So, I collaborated with Water’s Edge magazine and now it goes from Hilton Head to Atlanta to Ft. Lauderdale and parts in between. I’m kind of think tank for the company.”
Being a risk taker is a good way to be in a diverse profession as real estate, especially for women.
“I think the biggest thing is to have a dream or a vision and dare to step out and take a risk,” said Sherrer. “Whenever I’ve taken any of those Myers-Briggs type tests, (they indicated) I am a pretty high risk taker. It’s with knowledge; it’s not just an uncalculated risk. You have to look at all the odds and say this is something I think has merit and I’m going to go for it. I think if you really want it, work hard enough and collect great people to do it with you, you can do it. No one does anything like that alone.
Sherrer moved to Jacksonville in 1979 and started her real estate career in general real estate with Watson Realty Corp.
“I was a Navy wife in Hawaii and my husband left to go to Vietnam,” she said. “I had decided we would buy our very first home. It was $30,000 with no heat and air. I bought this $30,000 home and was scared to death. I drove from where we lived to downtown Honolulu to the closing by myself. It was a VA closing, I was shaking like a leaf and the paperwork was this high. I said I would never be in this position again. I really felt like I signed my life away.”
So, she went and took a real estate course and two and a half years later she sold the home for $60,000.
“I said I like this, I’d like to do this again,” she said. “So, when we moved to Jacksonville I got into real estate.”
After five years in general real estate she moved up to corporate vice president and director of relocation for Watson for the next two years.
In 1984, Herb Peyton, president of Gate Petroleum Company, acquired Epping Forest from Raymond Mason and asked Sherrer to help him interview candidates for the club’s marketing director.
“We needed them to know the local landscape, but we wanted them to be savvy enough to understand transferees and relocation to capture some of that business for Epping also,” she said. “Finally, after interviewing people that weren’t working out, he told me I had to take the job.”
She did, and became the estate’s broker and marketing director.
“I knew it would work for my family and for me,” she said. “It was a huge opportunity. It’s not every day you get 3,200 feet on the river, a deeply wooded tract and a mansion. I went to work for Mr. Peyton and I was there three and a half years. It was a $50 million project, but we had whittled it down to $7 million in three years, so I knew that no matter how much he liked me, I was going to be out of a job soon. It was a dream job. I had wonderful clients that were appreciative and great to work with.”
In 1988, Prudential Network Realty had decided to get into residential real estate. The company sent executives to every high growth area searching for someone to open a franchise, and interviewed business and civic leaders for recommendations.
“It’s not just about money, it’s about who would you want to run an organization,” she said. “These folks see you at your best and at your worst. They see you when a transaction is falling apart and when everything is just dandy.”
Sherrer was on Prudential’s list.
“It had never occurred to me to open my own real estate company,” said Sherrer. “It had never even gone through my mind.”
But, she met with the Prudential people.
“They had commercial, but never residential,” she said. “All you have to do is look at the skyline of Jacksonville at that time. They had 6,000 Prudential employees, two magnificent buildings down on the river and were a great corporate citizen. So, I thought, I would have to be a fool not be interested in that.”
She told them she wanted her territory to be all of Northeast Florida so she could have quality control over those offices.
“I hired an attorney and a CPA to put together a five-year business plan and I had to raise roughly $2 million,” she said.
She started knocking on doors of all her friends but that left her mostly empty handed. She had a goal each day of meeting with three people.
“I didn’t come home until I had met eyeball to eyeball with three people and asked for $50,000 from each,” she said.
Finally, she got a call from a past customer, Tom Petway, who had heard about her efforts. Petway has built an international insurance company and wields extraordinary political power as well.
“He said, ‘It’s going to have a national name and local ownership and that is an unbeatable combination’,” said Sherrer.
Petway asked her to meet with him discuss the company.
“I walked in his office and I could tell he had read our proposal,” said Sherrer. “He said ‘I don’t want $50,000 of your company. I don’t even want half of your company.’
“I’m sitting there thinking I need to get out of there and get onto my next calls because I needed money.
“Then he said ‘I want the entire company.’ I clutched my proposal to my bosom and said, ‘Just a moment, there are some non-negotiables, there are some things that I will not allow. I have to have non-competing managers and other beliefs that think the company should be founded on.’
“He loved it. Here he is, offering me $2 million, and I’m saying ‘Wait a minute.’ That was on Tuesday and by Friday we were drinking champagne and celebrating.”
They opened five offices the first year — Sherrer figured if they didn’t come on strong in the beginning, then no one would take them seriously.
Today, Prudential Network Realty has seven branch offices in Northeast Florida with nearly 300 sales associates. Sherrer has also opened a title company, a mortgage company and has site agents in six builder sites around town.
Currently they have offices in Atlantic Beach, Ponte Vedra Beach, Arlington, San Jose and University Boulevard, Mandarin, Fleming Island and Avondale. Branch offices are already in the works in Amelia Island, St. Augustine, the Westside and the Northside, and she expects to have 400 associates by the end of this year.
“You have to be prepared when luck goes by or you won’t know it went by,” said Sherrer. “I have been very lucky my whole life, but I also worked real hard to get where I am. But, no one does it by his or herself. It is all about the good people you cover yourself up with. That is the most important thing.”