Paul Carlson of Five Star Real Estate offers top tips for leadership and succession planning
This week's host Tracey Velt sits down with President Paul Carlson for an informative chat. Five Star Property. Carlson explores his early career journey, including insights into how he developed his brokerage.
He also explores the key lessons he learned while inheriting the presidency from his father, Five Star Real Estate founder Greg Carlson. Carlson offers some top tips on centralizing management and creating a successful succession plan.
After a brief introduction, Carlson shares his background in the industry. He started his career as a young executive in 2006, and in 2012 he moved to the main management positions at Five Star Real Estate. Before that, Carlson was struggling with the 2008 recession and minimal support from his father. This challenge motivated him to learn and develop as a photographer before joining Five Star. Today, the company has about 740 agents and 22 offices and has closed about 8,000 transactions in 2024.
Velt follows up on the question of Carlson's transition to the role of president at Five Star. Carlson says the company enforced an anti-nepotism clause and forced him to move up. His father began inviting him to meetings with other executives. From there, Carlson began pushing for change within the company, which inspired his father to offer him a leadership role. Carlson emphasizes the importance of creating a unique leadership style rather than imitating a predecessor.
“The best thing I can do is realize that I can never be him, and the company doesn't need me to be him,” Carlson says. “I see a lot of people trying to emulate the president or the founder by taking over their parent's business, and it just doesn't work. I'm good enough as I am.'
Carlson still had to work to earn the respect of some senior members of the company, and he generally faced additional criticism as he tried to engage staff with Five Star's strategies for the future.
Velt then asks Carlson to share his initial strategy for Five Star's growth. At first, Carlson focused on rebranding the company. Internally, he steers his team away from external noise and products from technology companies and . Instead, he chose to focus on building a strong culture without relying on pervasive technology to drive Five Star's productivity.
“I was trying to create something unique because I think if anyone can get kvCORE, if anyone can get Cloud CMA, if anyone can get Adwerx, then anyone can get it,” Carlson said. “Realtors can get it themselves, and it doesn't really set you apart from the market.”
Next, Carlson explores several strategies he used to cultivate Five Stars over time. The company focused on three key areas to accelerate growth – reducing costs for agents; offering real-time centralized broker support via telephone; and in-house designed personal branding managed by a dedicated team. By offering these three forms of assistance, Carlson says he's built Five Star more like a consulting firm than a traditional one.
Carlson and Velt conclude the conversation by exploring the criteria for a good succession plan. Carlson believes that it is important for a child to take a company with their hard work and visionary thinking and change it in their own way. Companies that fail to implement these principles during succession may face downsizing. He advises successors to find their own internal motivation before taking over the reins of a business.
