Paul Carlson of Five Star Real Estate offers valuable tips for leadership and succession planning

On this week’s episode of the RealTrending podcast, host Tracey Velt sits down to chat with Paul Carlson, president of Five Star Real Estate. Carlson explores his early career journey, including details on how he grew the brokerage.

He also examines the important lessons he learned as he inherited the presidency from his father, Greg Carlson, founder of Five Star Real Estate. And Carlson offers some valuable tips on integrating management, building a brand and creating a successful succession plan.

Following a brief introduction, Carlson shared his background in the industry. The young manager started his career in 2006 before transitioning to key management roles at Five Star Real Estate in 2012. Before that, Carlson was forced into hardship due to the 2008 recession and little support from his father. This difficulty prompted him to learn and grow as a real estate professional and photographer before joining Five Star. Today, the company has about 740 agents and 22 offices, and closes about 8,000 transactions by 2024.

Velt follows up with a question about Carlson’s transition to the president’s role at Five Star. Carlson says the company invoked an anti-discrimination clause, forcing him to work his way through the agency. His father started inviting him to marketing meetings with other executives. From there, Carlson began looking for change in the company, which prompted his father to give him a leadership role. Carlson emphasizes the importance of developing a unique leadership style rather than trying to imitate predecessors.

“The best thing I could do was realize that I’ll never be him, and the company doesn’t need me to be him,” Carlson said. “I see many people taking over their parents’ business and trying to imitate the president or the founder, it just doesn’t work. I am enough as I am.”

Carlson still had to work to gain the respect of other senior members of the company, and he faced more criticism as he tried to onboard employees with Five Star’s strategies for the future.

Afterwards, Velt asks Carlson to share his first strategy for raising Five Star. First, Carlson focused on reproducing the company. Internally, he focuses on protecting his team from outside noise and tech companies reaching out to AI products and tools. Instead, he chose to focus on building a strong culture without relying on widely available technology to expand the Five Star brand.

“I was trying to create something unique because, in my opinion, if everyone can get kvCORE, if everyone can get Cloud CMA, if everyone can get Adwerx, any of us can go buy it,” Carlson said. “Sellers can go find it themselves, and that doesn’t really set them apart in the marketplace.”

Next, Carlson explores a few of the strategies he used to grow Five Star over time. The company is focused on three main areas to drive growth – reducing agent costs; offering real-time, one-stop dealer support over the phone; and personalized advertising designed in-house managed by a dedicated team. By providing these three types of assistance, Carlson says he has established Five Star as more of a consulting firm than a traditional trading company.

Carlson and Velt close the discussion by examining the criteria for a good succession plan. Carlson believes it is important for a child to take a company and make it their own by working hard and thinking about ideas. Companies that do not apply these principles during succession may experience decline. He advises the successors to find their inner motivation before taking over the reins of the business.

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