In 2001 my first child was born. I was teaching 5th grade in the Alief Independent School District, Houston. Teaching in the Texas public system was not how I envisioned a career in education so my husband and I decided to take a leap of faith and I retired from teaching and became a stay at home mom. We quickly came to the realization that with this career path we would not be able to meet our basic financial needs. My husband was a gifted teacher and attending  graduate school, while at the same time officiating baseball and basketball games just to help make ends meet. I soon came to the realization that it would be up to me to begin filling in the hole that we had gotten ourselves into.  I checked into tutoring, teaching part time and in home child care. While I was definitely not excited about these ideas, they didn't pay enough to cover childcare costs with enough money left over to pay bills.

I had completed my real estate classes several months before but didn't do anything with it because I was busy being a mom. Frankly, we just didn't have the money it would take to for me to become an active agent.  Sometime later, I started talking with my neighbor who was a Realtor. I told her that I really wanted to pursue my dream of becoming a real estate agent but that we just didn't have the funds. She offered for me to join her team, pay my expenses, train me, and send me leads. I said, “sign me up”! So my career in real estate began. It turned out that I had a knack for selling real estate. I went after every possible lead that came my way. My strategy was to continue to follow-up with a lead until they disconnected or died. I got very creative with child care. I took advantage of any time that I had without my children. Within 6 months my team leader decided that she wanted to go in a different direction (meaning she was kicking me off her team). I freaked out. I was scared to death of being on my own. My husband gave me a much needed reality check and confidence boost; so my search for a new brokerage home began.

So in the fall of 2004 I joined the Keller Williams family. What the Team Leader told me that peeked my interest was KW's belief in God, Family, and then Business, continuing education and the belief that there is enough business for everyone so why not help each other out and share our ideas! Within a short time I became a top producer. After a year I was approached about future opportunities within KWSW. After meeting with leadership I asked, "what do I do next?" I was told to double my production, get on the market center's agent leadership council and be mentored by the incoming Team Leader. I said ok. In less than a year, I did what I was told and was offered the Team Leader position in my market center in the fall of 2006. Since that time we have attracted top producing agents, trained to new agents to be successful, gained the market share in Fort Bend County and doubled the amount of profit share.
 
Andi St. Jean [email protected] 281-265-0000