Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Vicki Looney of Keller Williams Memorial


The Pleasure of Her Company
By Kate Sullivan-Conlan


When Realtor Vicki Looney trains new agents for Keller Williams Memorial, she advises them: “Know what you’re selling. If you can’t figure out how to market, it’s because you don’t know what you’re selling. You’re selling yourself.” Marketing is Vicki’s forte, and marketing her homes begins not only with solid real estate expertise and business acumen but also with being herself -- a woman who loves people.


Barbara Myers, one of Vicki’s clients who became her friend, explains Vicki’s approach: “I remember thinking, during the arduous process of fixing up and selling a house, that God didn’t send an agent, He sent an angel. Vicki is the most fun person I have ever known. They don’t come with more humor or more honesty or more ethical rigor!”

Marketing Key:

“It matters as much to me as it does to my clients.”

Vicki consistently closes forty-five to forty-eight homes a year because she makes the relationship with her buyers and sellers her priority. She says, “Marketing should be about you and your client – your bond.”

When Vicki finally got to the closing of the very first house she ever sold, after a difficult back-and-forth process with the seller and the seller's agent, her client broke down and cried. Vicki thought that the “sweet, funny, charming young woman” was just stressed, but the woman told her, “I’m crying because I’m the first woman in my family who has ever been able to buy a home on her own.” Stunned, Vicki realized right then-and-there, “It’s not about the money. It's about making the client happy and about the feeling of accomplishment when their deal is done. You do the right thing, take care of your client, and the money will come.”

Vicki’s marketing stays true to her commitment to that bond. She writes twenty personal notes every day to her friends, her clients, her clients’ friends, their children, and their spouses. These personal contacts and referrals drive her marketing, for she dislikes the sterility of mass mailings and email. When people call her, Vicki personally answers the phone; she wants her clients to get her when they call. At closings, Vicki presents her clients with glasses that she has personally hand-painted with her signature "Looneybird" design. Says Vicki, “I ignore all the 'correct' sales management rules. I hug my clients and call them ‘honey.’ That’s the way I feel about them.” She educates her buyers and sellers, especially the young and inexperienced buyers, and makes them feel confident: “It matters as much to me as it does to my clients.”

Another client who became Vicki’s friend, Susan Wenck, loves to talk about Vicki’s spirit. “Vicki is experienced not only in life, but also especially in reading people. She looks for the ‘ties that bind’ - those life experiences that we all share - in her attempt to truly connect with her clients.”

Vicki’s Business Ethic:

“Doing things right, in the right way.”

When it comes to her business, Vicki says, “There is a correct way to do things. It takes more effort, but I’m willing to do it. It’s about treating everyone fairly.”
Susan Wenck has collaborated with Vicki on two sales and attests to Vicki’s way of working with all sides involved in the sale: “Vicki’s comments about the changes, updates, and necessary repairs to the homes she lists have always been for the sole purpose of finding a common ground of acceptance for both buyer and seller.” She adds that Vicki stays focused on both “what sellers need to do and what buyers want for their hard-earned money.”

Vicki’s business community comprises her team, including her part-time assistant Alane Beard, team leader Stephanie McClimon, and an extensive network of resources and vendors. For all her listings, she uses the services of a professional stager, a professional make-ready team, and a professional photographer. With all this added expertise, Vicki can often do what others cannot. Barbara Myers states unequivocally, “If no one else can sell your house, Vicki can! If no one else is able to find the right home and the right deal for you, Vicki can!”

Monica Bennett, another client, says that she and her husband had been searching for a new home for almost two years when they met Vicki. They had used six realtors and had looked at over one hundred homes. “The problem seemed to be that we knew what we were looking for, but the realtors felt that they could sell us on something different.” They met Vicki by accident after calling the number on a realtor’s sign. They ended up not choosing that house, but when they told Vicki what they were looking for – as they had told so many others – Vicki said she knew just the house and took them there the next day. Monica’s husband walked in the front door, took a brief look around, and said, “We’ll take it.” They closed on the house, and “The rest is history. Vicki did in one day what six other realtors failed to do in two years.”

When Lauae and Matthew Wolfe met Vicki, they were newly married, “young, and inexperienced.” They were renting a one thousand square foot house and had a limited budget, but they wanted to start a family. Vicki did extensive research on the houses she thought they could afford; she educated them on the negotiation process; and she kept them constantly informed. While driving to a listing one day, they passed a large house for sale, and Lauae remarked wistfully that she wished they could buy “that one.” Vicki pulled the car over, called the agent, and in five minutes had them inside the house.

With over four thousand square feet, the house was one that the Wolfes “knew right away that there was no way we afford it,” but Vicki insisted on researching the listing history. Lauae says, “It felt so good to have someone that really cared, that wasn’t interested in just the high-dollar client. She knows her stuff. She took time with us and did not take advantage of our inexperience. In the end, we purchased this amazing home within our budget. It was a dream, and as I sit here at home with our new baby, I am really proud of what a wonderful home we have for him.”

When Vicki was first setting up her business, she often turned to her mentor, Pat Noel, to help her through her frustrations. He would tell her, “There’s a buyer and a seller for every piece of property. Just be honest and always do what you think is the right thing for your clients.” His advice continues to inspire Vicki in her business. Her mantra is: “If you do what’s in your heart, it’ll always be the right thing.”

A Lifetime of Sales:

“The key to all sales is listening.”

Even though her mother had been in sales for years, when Vicki was a young woman, she felt she was too shy to follow in her mother’s footsteps. When a friend told her, “The key to all sales is just talking to clients,” Vicki knew she could do that! She soon discovered, however, that the real key to all sales is not talking -- it’s listening. And she is a very good listener.

For several years Vicki owned her own business selling insurance and financial services. Then she worked for ten years in the security services industry, selling commercial guard services. After years of corporate life, she felt burned out, so she answered an ad at The Center for the Retarded (now called simply The Center). When the director met her, she asked Vicki to also handle marketing as well as teach ceramics and art. In Vicki's early life, she had studied painting and had opened her own arts and crafts shop where she taught art classes of all kinds, so this job took her back to her first love. At The Center, after working with her new students on their ceramics projects, Vicki added a marketing experience for them. She helped them learn how to dress up, took them around town, and introduced them to the building managers who had been Vicki’s former clients in her security services sales business. They were so impressed with the individuals' enthusiasm and art work that they arranged to display her students’ masterpieces in their lobbies. This whole experience was life changing for some of her disabled students. Vicki continues to support The Center today.

About the time that Vicki lost her teaching job because of a funding cut, she was diagnosed with cancer. At first she was utterly stricken by the diagnosis, and her first doctor, who responded to her inquiry about vitamins and spiritual work with “You can do whatever you want, go to Mexico and get goat milk injections for all I care,” caused her to look for a different doctor. She found Dr. Peter de Ipolyi at the Stehlin Clinic, who told her, “Look at all the people in this room who love you. You’re going to be just fine; don’t cry. We're going to do whatever's necessary to make you well!” From then on, Vicki just did what she had to do. She did not worry about dying, for, as she says, “I’d lived my life to the fullest. I’d had fun. I had great friends, a great family. If I died, it was just meant to be.” Her one reservation was that her death would have been so hard on her husband and son. “Michael and I are still like newlyweds. Who would have been Michael’s best friend if I died? And who would have had marathon talks with my thirty-six-year-old son Andy?”

For a woman who had been so active and innovative all her life, not working was just plain boring. A friend suggested that she try real estate sales, so she studied, got her license, and five years ago went to work at Keller Williams Memorial, her home away from home. Vicki thrives there because "Real Estate sales is one of the blessings of my life. I have a lot of fun. And I still get to do my art through my gifts to my clients and friends!"

The Families in Her Life:

“One needs a very special family to be in real estate.”

Keller Williams is like family to Vicki, and their corporate meetings are giant family reunions. “Keller Williams is a company that truly lives its culture,” says Vicki. “When other organizations use the term ‘culture,’ it makes me gag. I've never liked that term. But when I came to Keller Williams, I learned what a true company ‘culture’ meant." The centerpiece of that culture is KW Cares, a foundation that assists Keller Williams agents and their families during financially devastating times. “We support agents with prayer and all kinds of assistance during difficult times.” For example, not too long ago, an agent was hit by a car when he was putting out his signs. He struggled for several days in the hospital before dying and leaving a wife and three children. KW Cares was there for them. “It’s this caring heart of Keller Williams that makes me so happy here,” says Vicki. “It’s why I mentor and teach new agents, and why I have been happy to recruit eight new agents to Keller Williams.” Vicki also serves on the Agent Leadership Council at Keller Williams. As one of the top ten agents in the Memorial office, Vicki was invited to sit on the council where she is the committee chair for Career Development and Training. Stephanie McClimon says, “Vicki is a member of the prestigious Agent Leadership Council. She is always willing to offer advice and guidance to her fellow agents, contributing greatly to the success of others. She personifies the real meaning of ‘teamwork.’”

With all her achievements, Vicki is proudest of and most passionate about her own family – her husband Michael, her son Andy Simpson, and her parents. “My parents are my role models and my mentors. They are extraordinary personalities.” Her mother, Ethylene Marsh, now seventy-seven, for many years ran an insurance sales organization that employed seventy to eighty agents. She still works part-time. “She’s demanding, but she is also the kind of person who can get a whole room laughing.” In fact, says Vicki, “My parents taught me that I could do whatever I wanted to do. They also taught me to treat others well, the way I want to be treated. And we laughed a lot.” In her family as in her whole life, Vicki believes, “If you can’t figure out how to laugh, you can’t get through the difficult times.”

Vicki met her husband of eighteen years through his ex-wife, with whom Vicki worked selling insurance. One day she went to her associate's house to baby-sit for her, and saw Michael, a tax attorney, down the hall talking with his two boys. They dated for a few months but drifted apart because of the competing demands of their own small children. Ten years later, fate intervened when Vicki ran into him again at a Rockets game. Six months later they were married. Michael is her most ardent cheerleader, her best friend, and the love of her life. He’s a history buff who thoroughly researches their travel destinations so that they can see it all. Besides Paris, their favorite spots are Austin (they're Longhorn fans) and northern California. “We love the back roads and the winery tours -- especially when the farmer comes up, personally pours the wine for us, and invites us back to see the vineyard.” Vicki is proud of their marriage: “Unfortunately, a lot of people are just married. We have fun. Our life together is great, and we’re happy.”

Vicki is exceptionally proud of her son Andy, who recently became a Keller Williams agent in Austin. “You go from badgering your kids when they’re little,” she muses, “to being their friend and enjoying, admiring, and respecting them when they’re grown. When I got off the phone from talking to Andy the other day, I thought to myself, ‘My son is such a nice young man!’"

In an environment of mass mailings, recorded messages, and phone menus that require ten minutes to navigate, Vicki Looney focuses on the personal. To her, this business is VERY personal. Her success as a Realtor can be measured not only in her phenomenal sales record but also by the love and admiration of her clients. How many Realtors have clients that say, as Barbara Myers says, “Vicki’s quite simply someone I admire, enjoy, and hope will be a permanent part of my life!”

As Vicki says, “If you do what’s in your heart, it’ll always be the right thing.”

1 comment:

Carlos said...

Vicki you are "the best"