Small Business, Big Advice: Alpha Realty MO LLC

Aaron Owens, Alpha Realty MO LLC
Title: Co-owner and agent
Years in Position: Co-founder
Founded: January 2019

The Alpha Realty story begins in high school. That’s when Adam Johnson and Aaron Owens sparked a friendship that has turned into a 50/50 business partnership. The early-stage growth of the startup real estate brokerage even surprised the founders, who say they’re blending life and business throughout the company culture.

Five questions with Owens:

What are ways you and your team have demonstrated small-business grit?
Grit to me is taking a risk and sticking with something until you accomplish your goal. There are sometimes when people have too much grit and they probably should pivot. Me and Adam had people discourage us from starting a brokerage. We decided to make that jump anyway. We knew that what we wanted was more important than someone telling us it probably wouldn’t work. The real estate market is tough; there’s a lot of competition. For us, it’s that idea of being resilient, having a positive attitude, keeping expenses low and providing that good customer experience.

What’s your No. 1 survival tip?
We are big proponents of running a lean business. When it comes to marketing in our industry, there are a lot of expensive and traditional ways to market. We just tried to find creative ways for cheap or free marketing. Social media was big, and strategic partnerships and networking early on, using our sphere of influence. What that did was allowed us to keep our price point low for agents coming in.

What’s one trend your company has bucked?
A lot of real estate agents think they have to do billboards and get their face out there, in radio and TV and magazine. For us, the very first thing we wanted to do was create video content. We have not done any traditional marketing.

What’s the one thing that will propel you forward in the next year?
Our goal is not to be the largest brokerage in town. But all of the new agents, the ones that have recently gotten their license, making sure they are equipped and trained properly to accomplish their goals is really going to help.

The five-year plan was to have 40 to 50 agents. We hit that a lot sooner. The most important thing for us is keeping that relationship with every agent. You start losing that once you start getting hundreds of agents.

Secrets to recruiting and keeping quality employees?
We have not done any recruiting. Me and Adam have not reached out to any agents to come join Alpha. It’s really important for me and Adam to have personal relationships with every agent. We ended the first year with 20-some agents, ended the second year with 40-some and we’re up to 55, 56 agents.

Maybe it’s cliche, but if you build a business and a system that people want to be a part of, you don’t have to recruit because there’s no convincing needed. Our industry is a little bit different, because agents are 1099 contractors; they’re not employees. But if I have a secret to recruiting and retaining, it’s making people feel valued.