Sean is the CEO of Close Concierge, a transaction coordination as a service business designed to serve top real estate agents. Prior to Close Concierge, he built (and still runs) a consulting firm that counts multiple Fortune 500 companies and leading private equity firms as clients.
Sean started his career at the Boston Consulting Group (BCG). Sean graduated with honors from The Wharton school. He lives in Chicago with his wife, Pear, and their son, London
What is Close Concierge all about?
Close Concierge is designed to help real estate agents grow this business. The reality is most agents get into real estate because they’re people-people and want to be with clients & showing houses.
However, once agents start to grow, they end up spending a significant amount of time on transaction coordination. That’s everything complete from contract-to-close, meaning everything from earnest money deposit receipts to scheduling inspections to ensuring lender’s “clear to close.” It’s about 15 hours worth of work for agents.
For an agent who closes multiple transactions per month, that 15 hours adds up to be a significant amount of their day-to-day. By outsourcing transaction coordination to one of our Concierge’s, agents can instead focus on getting more deals under contract while resting assured that our team’s quality is getting the deal closed and protecting the agent’s paycheck.
Tell us a little bit about your background and how you started your business?
Real estate has always been a huge passion of mine. My first business was actually baking cookies for realtors to have at open houses so customers could eat cookies and buy houses. I took the agent licensing course as soon as I turned 18 and my wife and I bought our first investment property at 24.
Outside of real estate, my education skews heavily on business. I attended The Wharton School in Philadelphia, focusing on Management & Marketing while there. After graduation, I worked for Boston Consulting Group (BCG), in their Chicago office. Most of my work there was on highly strategic initiatives for Fortune 500’s.
I left BCG & started my own consulting firm, primarily consulting to leading private equity funds and $1B+ companies. That consulting firm still exists and has been a fantastic experience & highly profitable. However, I don’t have the passion for it in the same way I do for real estate.
The great thing about the consulting firm, however, is that I kept on hearing from realtors looking for transaction coordinators. That led to more conversations with coordinators, which eventually led to Close Concierge.
How have the pandemic affected you or your new business?
COVID has been an interesting impact for two key reasons.
First, the real estate market is booming. With agents busy, it means more are interested in outsourcing non-revenue generating tasks like transaction coordination.
Secondly, agents have historically been most interested in local transaction coordinators. Our model relies on remote, US-based coordinators. The new work-from-home/Zoom normal has made remote TC’s more appealing to agents than ever before.
What was the biggest problem you encountered starting up and how did you overcome it?
The reality is that I’ve tried to start at least a dozen businesses. I even had a list of business ideas on Evernote that I would update every time I came up with an idea.
The problem is: those ideas were venture capital, “unicorn” type ideas. Think, the Uber for XYZ.
Those businesses never worked. The odds those businesses work is extremely low. I was stuck for years, thinking I needed to come up with a brilliant idea that had “product market fit.” My problem was I was looking for the billion-dollar idea.
My solution is to build a business, like transaction coordination, that already exists.
The key to overcoming it is realizing that most successful startups are not revolutionary, and don’t need to be.
What were the top mistakes you made starting your business and what did you learn from it?
The largest mistake I made was my cost structure. I had a very detailed excel model budget and $10,000 to start my business. I had a very detailed file that showed exactly what I would need to spend money on (largely software), and how much money I would have left in the bank.
The reality is: your costs are always going to be double what you expect them to be. Things start adding up, prices advertised have fine-print that make them more expensive, and you realize you need something (e.g: trademarking the logo, a different type of business insurance than expected, etc.) that you didn’t plan for.
My lesson is this: the next time I try to build a business, I’ll make the same exact Excel budget and then multiply it by two for a “fudge factor.”
What is one thing that you do daily to grow as an entrepreneur?
I read. No matter what, I crack a book open to learn. It doesn’t matter if I’m doing well today, if I’m not constantly learning, I’ll eventually be in trouble.
What are three books or courses you recommend for new entrepreneurs?
These will be unorthodox selections, but fantastic
- Hero of the Empire: About young Churchill. The ultimate story of setting sights on a target (e.g: becoming prime minister) and working to achieve it
- Genghis Khan and the makings of the modern world: It’s true: Genghis played a huge role in the making of the modern world. Fantastic book
- Alexander Great. One of the greatest leaders and students of all time. Really interesting book.
What has been your most effective marketing strategy to grow your business?
Cold Email, by far.
Cold email gets a horrible rap because of the amount of unbelievable spam churned out. The reality is that good cold email software (Woodpecker, Lemlist, Reply, etc.) is incredibly cheap and easy to use. That means any 16 years old with $30 can suddenly email 50,000 people.
However, if you take the time to actually have a laser targeted persona and a personalized email, the ROI is incredible. I highly recommend it.
If you only had $1000 dollars to start a new business, knowing everything you know now, how would you spend it?
I would start a business that is immediately profitable.
Starting businesses that don’t generate revenue is ridiculous. Pick something that can generate revenue today (from a consulting company to a leaf blowing company) and start making money. It’s substantially easier to grow when you already have data from real customers and money coming through the front door.
What’s your best piece of advice for aspiring and new entrepreneurs?
I strongly recommend studying people who have the life you want.
Most people say to get a mentor. I think a mentor could be valuable, but it’s also only one perspective. Instead, I’d find a group of ~5 people who are living the life you want to have. Then, make sure you study and learn and figure out what they did to get to the point they’re at today.
What surprised me when I did this is that I had the incorrect perception of how they got there. I assumed most were consultants, doctors, lawyers, CEO’s. In reality, most were business owners of “boring” businesses: lawn care, small-scale manufacturing, pool cleaning, residential cleaning, etc.
What’s a productivity tip you swear by?
Get up early. It’s a cliché, but it really is true. Every extra hour you can steal and allocate to productivity before you wake up in the morning is worth 3 hours later in the day.
What is your definition of success?
Success is living up to my potential.
How do you personally overcome fear?
This is a great question! I’m going to steal this answer from Sarah Robb O’Hagan, who has been CEO of several companies, such as Equinox. She’s brilliant and I highly recommend anything she says or does!
Her answer to this is to work harder than everyone in the room. For example, she used to run 5 miles every morning before work. That way, no matter how bad a meeting went or how scared she was in that meeting, she knew she could look around and know she was the only person in the room who had gotten up that early to run. It gave her confidence to overcome fear.
I try to do something similar. If I’m afraid, I look around the room and remind myself that I’ve worked more hours, read more books, and exercised harder than everyone else in the room.
The implication is, of course, that you need to actually put in the work for this technique to be effective!
How can readers get in touch with you?
For sure. I’m available at sean@closeconcierge.com for the business, and I tweet fairly regularly @seanodowd15 about the business as well.
Entrepreneur Interview: Phillip Lew Founder and CEO of C9 Staff: My Top 3 Business Mistakes
