How many years have you been a REALTOR®? 2.5 years

What is your career volume as a REALTOR®? $26 million

What was your total volume last year? $16.8 million

 

We started our career in real estate on January 4, 2021.

 

For 12 years prior to this, Nick worked for Salesforce selling software and I was a stay-at-home mom, spending my days and nights volunteering and raising money for our local childhood cancer charity.

 

One of the many ways working for Salesforce changed our life was they moved us to Atlanta, Georgia in 2014. I am from Spokane and Nick is from Asotin, Washington so living in Atlanta allowed us to experience a new culture, perspective, architecture and sweet southern way of life. Then, 2020 hit and like most people, we had a lot of time to really think about what we wanted for the second half of our life. It was May of 2020 when we decided to move back to Spokane and totally and completely reinvent ourselves.

 

The plan wasn’t really ever to become REALTORS®! In the 17 years we’ve been married, it feels like we’ve bought and sold that many houses!! We have always loved real estate – browsing, design, flipping, and buying and holding so when we moved home, the plan was to be investors. It was our Atlanta real estate agent who told us we should become agents ourselves as our passion and complementary skill sets would make us successful and we could use that to fuel the investment business.

 

What has been the most rewarding part of your business?
Very early on in our business, we knew we wanted generosity to be the star. Our pastor once challenged us with the question, “What is the one thing that breaks your heart and what can you do about it?” The answer to that question for us is childhood cancer so when we started The Salz Team we knew we had to have a philanthropic mission which is when our tagline “Do Well Do Good” was born. Our clients 'Do Well' working with us, but they also 'Do Good' because every time someone uses us to buy or sell a house, a portion goes directly to ACCOIN (American Childhood Cancer Organization of the Inland Northwest) to help local families fight childhood cancer. Over the last two and a half years, our clients have donated over $26,000 and enabled us to deliver over 1,200 Chick-fil-A meals to the third-floor Pediatric Oncology unit at Sacred Heart Children’s Hospital, something we do each month.

 

This is the thing that gives us the most joy – and seeing the local impact our clients make outside of real estate.

 

Anytime we have talked about our future it was always us working together - the flexibility and autonomy of having our own business fits us well & we also really like each other and make a great team. Apart we have distinguishable strengths and weaknesses, but together we are a formidable package. The agent life has swept us up and kept us busier than we expected or deserve at this point. While we do have long-term goals of expanding our team and services with new people (and potentially new areas), right now our goal is to add continuously to the value clients put on our services.

I think we each have a different favorite part! I love changing people’s perception of REALTORS® and reframing a home seller or home buyer’s experience to be something new and unexpected! I am all about client care and marketing/branding. Nick on the other hand loves the art of the deal & leveraging our relationships with an extended team (lenders, title/escrow, inspectors, contractors) to make magic happen. In other words, he loves being resourceful to help our clients win!

 

We define success by two words: Live Generously. We all have been given unique resources and talents to be used in everything we do, for others. When life and work get overwhelming, we go back to this as a guiding principle for why we’re doing what we’re doing.

Ask for help…and listen:

Much of what we have learned is on-the-job training and advice from those more experienced than us. Listen more than you talk.

 

Set boundaries:

Many times real estate work happens when everyone else isn’t working, nights & weekends. Start off by defining when “time off” is so you can give your family, friends, and clients your best.

 

Run your own race:

There are many examples of successful agents out there. Door knockers, networkers, social media gurus, sphere masters, cold callers...Stick with what you do best and don’t worry what everyone else is doing.  

We just hope our experience and life’s example will inspire someone to take risks and use their gifts to do some good in the world in an area that breaks their heart. We’re grateful to be given a platform and a chance to share our story to help others Do Well & Do Good!