This week we feature John Williams, Managing Director, Sperry Van Ness / Delta Group Realty Inc., in Novato, CA.
1. What is your geographic market and product specialty?
Marin and Sonoma Counties in Northern California are my primary market areas. I specialize in office and retail sales and leasing.
2. What’s your latest best practice tip that you can share?
Collaborating with two other SVN brokers on a proposal, we used Mike Lipsey to help us craft our proposal on a large office property for sale. Mike helped us craft our presentation to help us get the listing and we refined it several times before our meeting. It was well worth the time and effort and this was the most professional presentation that I’ve made in my 32 years as a broker. The Lipsey videos can be found on the SVN Resource Portal.
3. What’s been the biggest change over on how you run your business in the past decade?
We have increased our reliance on technology over the past ten years without changing our primarily listing side business model. We market our listings electronically much more than ten years ago when the telephone was our primary method of selling or leasing properties. I’m still a belly to belly guy but LoopNet and CoStar have helped us make big changes in how we run our business.
4. What business book do you like to recommend to your colleagues?
Like most busy brokers, organizing my time and prioritizing my daily activities into dollar productive activity is a real challenge. I continue to read and re-read Brian Tracy’s “Eat that Frog” which is a follow up to his book “Goals” that was presented at the Sperry Van Ness 2012 National Conference. It helps me to stop procrastinating and get more done on a daily basis. My focus is sharpened and it has helped pay my dividends.
5. What’s a fun fact that not everyone knows about you?
I live just north of San Francisco in California’s wine country. For the past 35 years, wine tasting, wine research and wine drinking have been hobbies of mine. I’ve shared wine information and recommendations with many of my SVN colleagues. It’s a fun hobby to have!
*All Sperry Van Ness® offices are independently owned and operated.