Real estate company improved bottom line through Zoom calls and virtual happy hours
As DOBI Real Estate CEO Simon Thomas tells it, a decision to embrace change paved the way for his Birmingham-based company to experience growth and success during 2021.
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“I was the guy who was about ‘you got to be in the office,’ ” explained Thomas, whose firm earned the No. 2 ranking among small companies in the 2021 Detroit Free Press Top Workplaces competition.
“But by making greater use of technology to run our business we became a lot more efficient. We got really sharp with our finances, too, which made us 10-times stronger.”
Along with embracing the different workstyles of his team members, Thomas reports that DOBI began giving agents even more during 2021 as well.
“We spent a lot of time with our agents on Zoom calls and virtual happy hours,” Thomas said. “We wanted to give our team more, so we invested in marketing and training and we grew from 48 agents to 98 agents in nine months.”
The company’s growth is a source of pride for Thomas, but with humility he says growth also is something he expects given the team he has assembled.
“People come to me and say you guys are really growing, really exploding, and for me that’s about 1% of where we want to go,” Thomas said. “We want to become massive in Michigan and perhaps in other states and it’s hard to implement that vision if you don’t have people who care. Come to our office for 10 minutes and you’ll see the office is off the hook; everyone is smiling and the energy is amazing.”
DOBI Real Estate
Industry: Real estate
Top leadership: Simon Thomas, CEO
Home: Birmingham
Employees: 85
Website: wearedobi.com
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: DOBI Real Estate invested in agents, virtual happy hours to lift team
