Issue 2 2020

32 CORPORATE VISION / Issue 2 2020 , Dec19049 Reliable Real Estate Experts Whenmaking huge decisions, having expert advice at your fingertips gives an enormous amount of security that you’re making the right choice. For the people of South Carolina, Jeff Cook Real Estate are the experts you need whenmaking the biggest decision of your life – the decision about your home. Named as Corporate Vision’s Most Influential Leader in Real Estate 2020 - South Carolina, we profile this business to find out more. The process of buying and selling a house quickly is not straight-forward to the uninitiated. Doing the necessary research and preparation takes a great deal of time. The team at Jeff Cook are perfectly equipped to simplify the entire process from beginning to end, and their considerable success has seen them spreading their influence from Charleston across the rest of South Carolina. With over 150 real estate agents to draw upon, it’s no surprise that Jeff Cook has become a household name across the region. Jeff Cook Real Estate’s success is founded on its professional approach that transforms the buying and selling process into one that is incredibly easy for clients. Tailoring each case to the specific needs of the client, Jeff and his team take on work ranging from first-time home buyers to sellers looking to relocate to empty nesters ready to downsize for retirement. A team of highly qualified and skilled negotiators, led and guided by Jeff himself, ensure that clients always get the best possible treatment. With a genuine desire to see clients living in their dream houses, it’s not surprising that when difficult situations arise, the team will work tirelessly to create a solution. Two of the services that Jeff Cook Real Estate is able to offer clients are its Guaranteed Sales Program and new development, Jeff Cook Offers. The Guaranteed Sales Program does exactly it says, providing homeowners with the much- needed, and often quite rare, security that their home is certain to sell. If it does not sell in the agreed-upon time period, Jeff Cook Real Estate will buy it. Jeff Cook Offers is a new program for distressed homeowners and buyers that aren’t mortgage eligible and cannot sell or buy their homes through traditional real estate methods. Something sets Jeff Cook Real Estate apart from any other company is that it offers its agents support staff. These come in the form of transaction coordinators that manage to list anywhere from 70-170 homes a month. Key to the way in which Jeff Cook Real Estate operates is a sense of competition, with a variety of types from internal, to office-to-office, from a quarterly to yearly basis, that are designed to keep agents and employees sharp, focused and driven. More than anything else, this decision ensures that there is always a clear goal in mind. Finding space for success is another factor in the success of the company and how it works, with regular celebrations for friends and family when there are life changes. In this way, Jeff Cook Real Estate creates a circle of support that allows the team to take share and give more than its competitors. The company also gives back, with a chiropractor visiting weekly to serve hard- working employees, celebratory lunches and parties in the office and the traditional bell ring to celebrate the purchase of a home or other success. The success of the business has not always been so certain, with some formidable challenges thrown in the direction of Jeff and his hardworking team. The first major real estate downturn hit the budding business hard, with Jeff forced to take out additional mortgages to ensure that the small staff could still be paid. What it encouraged, however, was the need to ensure that his business was not also successful, but protected from other outside factors that could drag it down without warning. Should there be another market downturn, the team at Jeff Cook Real Estate are fully equipped not only to survive the change but thrive within it. A key part of this has not just been the continuing expansion of the company, but looking at how the company is run to find ways of sustaining that growth as time goes on.