15 Minutes With … Sharon Wilson, founder of Wilson Associates Real Estate
For more than three decades, Sharon Wilson has been one of the region’s top real-estate professionals. Her name and the familiar circle W logo adorn signs in front of many, many homes for sale in the area.
Wilson Associates, formed by Wilson and business partner Nick Carlson, roared onto the local real-estate scene in 2014, with an innovative strategy of using digital marketing channels and social media to connect homebuyers with their future homes.
Her roots run deep here. Sharon Pearce Wilson is a seventh generation Greenvillian on her mother’s side. Three generations of her father’s family built Pearce-Young-Angel into one of the nation’s largest foodservice companies, now known as US Foodservice.
Wilson says her parents encouraged self-reliance and hard work. She always had a job, she says, from the time she was old enough to work – after school, and summers – among them jobs in retail, as a lifeguard and as a tour guide in Charleston.
She and her husband, Steve Wilson, live in the Alta Vista area of Greenville, close by her children and grandchildren and her mother, Betty Pearce.
We caught up with her at the Wilson Associates offices in the historic Carolina Power and Light building on Broad Street, which was built more than a century ago and is located about a block from the original PYA headquarters.
TALK GREENVILLE: Thank you for taking the time to talk with us. I want to talk about real estate, obviously, but this conversation is in the July Issue of TALK-Greenville – our inaugural Pets issue. Do you have pets?
SHARON WILSON: We don't have any right now -- it's the first time we've been without one, but we've had every kind of pet known to man. We've had dogs and cats, a ferret, a parrot, gerbils, turtles, saltwater fish ... you name it, we've had it. We are all pet people, but now my children have their own homes and their pets. Our last one passed away about a year ago and this is the first time we've been without one. We have some koi in the fishpond, but we just enjoy our children's pets.
TG: Most people are familiar with you in a real estate context, talk a little about what you’re involved in outside of that.
SW: Greenville has so many wonderful organizations to be a part of. I have been involved with the Cancer Society, was a founding member of McCall Hospice House and a benefactor for the Greenville Museum of Art and Artisphere, to name a few. Most recently, Wilson Associates has been a sponsor of bike racks in Unity Park, and we were a presenting sponsor for the Meyer Center’s major fundraiser this fall.
TG: Project Host, too, right?
SW: Project Host probably has my heart more than anything. My dad was very involved at Project Host and the CC Pearce culinary school is named for him. It was kind of a "teach a man to fish" theory. He donated to Project Host right when it was getting off the ground (in the early 1980s) until they had enough funding to be on their own. He always wanted to be anonymous. It was just a passion of his about hunger -- maybe it's because of the food business. He would say, 'we need to find a way to help these people where they don't have to come here. We're glad we can provide it, but how do we break the cycle?' When the board was trying to start a culinary school, my mom and family donated the seed money. Now, it's fascinating to watch lives get changed.
TG: How did you get involved in real estate? What drew you to the field?
SW: I always loved houses. I loved architecture and I knew my heart was in sales. But I found out it's not really about the houses, it's a people business. I mean houses is just the way I help somebody transition to different parts of their life … Every house has its unique features and it’s so fun to see how different families make it their own.
TG: Did you get into the business right out of school?
SW: My first job right out of college, I was a teller at First National Bank on Main Street (now TD Bank). I was not very good at that. It was a great bank and really good people, but I felt like a trapped rabbit. My second job, I worked at Fairway Ford. I did their advertising and their rental cars and had a ball with that. When you're straight out of college and you've never owned your own home, nobody's going to listen to you (about real estate). You have to have some life experience and have bought several houses. I got into it when I was in my late 20s. I had children in car seats. Still pre-cell phones, pre-Internet.
TG: Speaking of technology, you’ve said that when you and Nick Carlson decided to start the firm, you put a lot of emphasis on the technology that was emerging at the time in the real estate industry. What was the key?
SW: Social media was out there, but it was more individual stuff. It wasn't being used so much for houses. We said, 'let's see how it works.' So, we started having professional photography done of our houses and we realized how much interaction we were getting. Other companies here weren't really doing that yet. Now everybody's doing it, but we really were the first ones to use Instagram and Facebook to market houses here. As we've grown, we hired a full-time person to do that for the agents. She does our website and social media so that the agents can spend their time with their clients, listing and selling houses and doing what they're good at.
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TG: What are the next technological innovations you see on the horizon? Artificial Intelligence?
SW: It's coming. We were at a national convention and a lot of the talk was about how to use it to reach people. I'll give an example: I'm not bilingual. I wish I was, but I'm not. But I can do that through AI. It's different than an app on your phone because it can create words for you, versus just translating. If I want to post something, I want to do a description of a house, I can tell it bullet points and it writes this beautiful description in a matter of minutes. I think it could be a good accessory to real estate, but part of it bothers me a little bit, that the human touch and the individuality may go away -- I don't want to lose that. That's the next challenge: How do you use it? How do you harness it properly?
TG: Are great real estate professionals made or are they born?
SW: You absolutely can teach somebody real estate, but I think it's the person more than the subject matter. When we interview agents, it's more about who they are, how they interact with people, do they care about people? Do they give of themselves? Do they have a charitable heart, are they connected to the community? It’s the ability to listen to the client and be their best advocate before and after a transaction.
TG: When you talk to a prospective agent, do you just know?
SW: You can tell. I've heard people say, 'Either you're born a salesperson or you’re not,' and I do believe that. I think you can help make someone a better salesperson, give them better sales skills, but you've just got to be a salesperson by nature.
TG: You went to school in Charleston, then to USC, right? So, you were out of this area (much of the time) during the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, when a lot of young people were getting out of town for good.
SW: People of my generation, when they graduated college, headed for larger cities like Charlotte, Atlanta and Charleston, if they were staying in the South. They wanted a bigger city, with more things to do and an active social scene. What's been so exciting to see since I've been in real estate is how beautiful and energetic -- but still affordable -- Greenville has become and how attractive the job market is now for young people. The transformation we’ve witnessed over the past 20 years or so is astounding!
TG: Why did you come back here to settle?
SW: My husband’s job, and family here, too. But it was still the Greenville I knew. You had the new bedroom communities on the Eastside -- that was farms and fields when I was growing up -- but that was kind of expected. What was unexpected was all that happened downtown, starting with the Peace Center and the parks system -- and Travelers Rest, that was unexpected.
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TG: What do you think was the biggest thing that has “made Greenville ‘Greenville’”
SW: When the textile mills went bust -- and Greenville's economy was really based on textiles -- when that all went away, it was interesting to hear my dad's generation talk about building a very diverse economy. They made a concerted effort to recruit all these international headquarters to this small Southern city. Look at our tax base, it is so diverse – Greenville is the home of 539 international companies from 34 different countries. We’re a hub for the arts and a “foodie” paradise. Our parks and the Swamp Rabbit Trail are outstanding.
TG: What’s important to you? It’s cliché these days, but what’s your “Why?” What gets you up every day ready to go?
SW: I am beyond blessed to have a wonderful and supportive husband and a large, extended family that lives in Greenville. I have a job that I look forward to every day that’s somewhat flexible, so I can enjoy them. I get to meet people relocating to the area who have remained friends for years.
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TG: OK, a couple of lighter questions: What’s your go-to place for lunch?
SW: Oh my goodness, we're terrible about that. We hardly eat lunch around here. We just get going and half the time, we're eating at our desks. But Greenville has so many good places. We love Green Fetish to get a salad. We love Pomegranate. Greektown Grill. Something that's fast and easy.
TG: What’s “the best thing you ever ate” in Greenville?
SW: There's so many good places and I love to go out to eat. I like Rick Erwin's, Davani’s. I like Giorgio's, Hall’s, Soby’s, Augusta Grill, the Anchorage. We just kind of go around, don't have one we go to regularly. There are just too many fun ones to go to. I do like to experience the new restaurants that have opened up, especially in the West End. Greenville is very lucky with our food scene.
TG: What’s your favorite spot in the area?
SW: If I just want to get out and walk or bike, the (Swamp Rabbit) trail. We like to go to The Commons at Unity Park. If I'm energetic, we'll ride up to Travelers Rest and have lunch, because it's downhill coming home. My bike is electric, so the hills aren't too bad, but I'm still pedaling (laughs)! It's not a moped, you have to pedal, you know!!"
TG: Greenville has so much public artwork. Do you have a favorite sculpture or mural?
SW: We have so many great local artists! What it does for us, particularly the statues, is that it tells a little bit of our history. Even if you're just here visiting, you're going to see one and you're going to ask about it or go and read it. Look on Main Street in particular and watch people. They're reading what those plaques say and they want to know what it's about. It's also fun to see the murals. The one down at Camperdown is very cool.
TG: You said that you were going to be at the beach in the coming week, but that you’d probably be working about half the time while you were there. When was the last time you really unplugged for, say, a week or more?
SW: (laughs) I mean, when I go to the beach, it certainly is more unplugged than being here. We did take our children and grandchildren to the Turks and Caicos to one of those children friendly places for four or five days and you're pretty unplugged there -- we had a great time! But I don't know how to unplug, really. My family teases me that my job is my hobby, too. I love it so much. It's just been a part of my DNA for so long, that I don't feel like 'oh my gosh, I've got to get away.' I don't get that feeling.
TG: Talk a little about your parents. What’s the most important thing they taught you?
SW: "My parents had a wonderful marriage. My dad died way too young, but they had a wonderful marriage, and they were very supportive of each other. They taught us to be pretty independent. They were not helicopter parents at all. They believed in doing chores and allowances and summer jobs. They were very loving and could give us what we needed, but they expected us to be responsible at a young age. Now, you try to take the good and the bad of what you had and make it better with your group.
TG: You talk about being a seventh generation Greenvillian –- that’s great, great, great, great, grandparents, right? What do you think they would think about Greenville now?
SW: I hope they would be proud that we have taken care of so much of what started Greenville. I think they would love the bridge over the falls versus a road. I think they would love that. I would think they'd tell us to be careful how much we grew and not to forget where you came from, to stay true to what Greenville is.
TG: Keeping with that theme, that makes your grandchildren 9th generation Greenvillians – what do you hope for them and their children – the 10th generation?
SW: You hope we just keep on being better. I know that sounds cliché, but you want to be better than what was before. For them, I hope they have the same opportunities I had or even better ones. I hope that the economy is as diverse and that they have the freedom and the ability to do what they want to do and stay here. You know, I don't want them to have to leave Greenville to achieve what they want to achieve. I want them to be able -- if they choose to -- to have that opportunity and I think Greenville is doing a good job of that."
This is an extended version of an interview that appears in the July 2023 print issue of TALK Greenville magazine.
This article originally appeared on Greenville News: 15 Minutes With … Sharon Wilson, founder of Wilson Associates
