Realtor Advantage: How to Make a Sideline Lead to Real Estate Sales Are you too busy looking for real estate sales to open a side business? Maybe you’d make the time if you knew it would secure your real estate business. Here’s how one Realtor® took a shot at it and hit a bull’s-eye. by Ron Shema 
After four years of development, I launched a side business, the Gainesville Target Range, a private membership club. It wasn’t an easy project, and it cost me a lot of time and money to get started, but the payoff for my real estate business has been huge. My real estate sales topped $5.6 million in 2004, and I have 40 closings coming up. My clients are high-end professionals who have cash to buy more property. The icing on the cake — many of them are paying members of my target range too.
Here’s how my sideline business leads to real estate sales and how you can set one up too: 1. Choose a Sideline You Know You choose a real estate sales farm based on how well you know the people in the farm, especially their real estate needs. Think of your side business as taking your farm to another level. Guns have been part of my daily life since I was a child growing up in Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountains. I received my first .22 caliber rifle with bullets when I was 11. My experience with firearms continued into adulthood. I spent four years in the Air Force and five years in law enforcement as a police officer and criminal investigator. After law enforcement, I changed careers to become a real estate professional. Three decades later, I’m president and owner of Gainesville Realty Inc., but my interest in firearms never waned. 2. Juggling Success Even though it’s a side business, it must be successful by itself, so it requires a huge commitment. You should expect a difficult start up because the real estate business is very demanding and must come first. To do it right, opening the range took four years and nearly $400,000. For starters, I had to make sense of local zoning laws. There is no zoning for a target range in Alachua County, but inside the Gainesville city limits, there was a use-by-right provision for a target range under the light industrial zoning laws. (The site is surrounded by other industrial properties and there is no possibility of future residential encroachment.) To create the range, I had to put in a 600-foot roadway with water and sewer improvements. Moving the dirt and building the berms cost $100,000 alone. [See inset drawing.] To help me manage the target range while I take care of real estate matters, I hired a right-hand man. My range manager handles the day-to-day business and is very capable — I can be away from the range for weeks at a time. You need someone you can trust. 3. Make It Reflect Well on You Make sure the service you provide to the customers of your side business reflects positively on you. When clients see how well the range runs, they have more confidence in my real estate business. I convey professionalism by maintaining my target range as a beautiful park where people can relax. I have a 100-yard rifle range and two 25-yard handgun ranges. There are covered shooting positions at all ranges, with room for 15 to 20 shooters each. I also provide a covered pavilion with restrooms. The entire range is accessible to people with physical impairments. 4. Cross-Sell Both Businesses Because of our shared passion for the sport, I no longer have to spend much on advertising my real estate business — my target range members spread the word for me. After target range members go through an orientation on range rules and safety, I hand out my real estate card and let them know that my real estate business financed the construction of the target range. After one such orientation, a new member told me he had refinanced his apartment units and acquired $600,000 in cash. He wanted to buy a $2 million shopping center. I sold him a $1.9 million strip center. Most people who target-shoot are more financially secure and become good real estate customers. Everyone who buys or sells real estate through my company gets a one-year free membership at the target range (valued at $155 per year). They can come out as often as they want. In addition, many of my real estate buyers send their family members to obtain professional instruction on firearm use. I mail out a newsletter for the range once or twice a year and include information about my real estate business. I also link my Web site for the target range (www.gainesvilletargetrange.com) to my real estate company’s Web site (www.gainesvillerealty.com). The Web site has led to some profitable real estate business. One of my customers who moved to Florida from Virginia found me online because he had been searching the Web for a target range. He was a physician who enjoyed target shooting and gun collecting, and he bought a $400,000 home. This has happened no fewer than 10 times in four years. After three decades in the real estate business, it’s rewarding to be able to compete against big companies for a listing and overcome what they offer. My side business makes this possible — it’s one of the largest private clubs in Gainesville, with more than 400 members, and it’s my competitive edge for my real estate business. If you are determined and follow your passion to start your sideline venture, you can also see the same results. Ron Shema is president of Gainesville Realty and holds the Certified Residential Specialist (CRS) and Graduate Realtor Institute (GRI) designations. The Gainesville/Alachua County Association of Realtors appointed Shema to the Million Dollar Congress for earning $1 million in real estate sales each year since 1979. Questions, comments or suggestions on this article? Send us an e-mail: flrealtor@far.org. © 2005 FLORIDA ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS |
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