From Solopreneur to Successful Exit, Cultivate Advisors Helps transform boutique brokerage into a Real Estate Powerhouse.

In 2013, Mike McElroy was just starting his business. He was a solopreneur with a vision to create a new experience in the industry. He saw success on his own, but he struggled to connect his vision of what the company could be and find real estate agents to join his brokerage.

When Mike met with his advisor, they sat down and developed a plan. Mike wanted to scale. A big challenge was attracting talented agents to his boutique brokerage in a market saturated with larger firms offering extremely competitive commission rates. It became clear that Mike would need to work on his differentiator and create a unique model to attract talent. Together, Mike and his Advisor worked on the company vision and marketing the brand to be attractive to recruits. Over the first few years, they grew the business from 1 to 13 employees. As the company grew, Mike and his advisor saw an opportunity to pivot to an employee model for higher profit control and sustainable growth. They implemented the employee model, flipping the traditional real estate model on its head by hiring agents on salary instead. Mike scaled back agents, rebuilt his firm to 6 employees, and continued looking for ways to increase profitability. They worked on their core offering, refined services, and created business packages to increase revenue. After spending time growing and proving out the model, Mike shifted his focus to marketing. With the help of another advisor, they implemented a lead engine that now generates 60% of the firm’s leads.

With a marketing funnel, recruiting processes, and leadership systems in plan Center Coast Realty was running like a well-oiled machine. In 2021, when Mike was looking for a change and wanted to take the next step in his entrepreneurial journey, his advisor connected him with a local real estate investment firm that was interested in taking their unique model and rolling it out to other businesses in the industry. In early 2022, Center Coast Realty was successfully acquired by Elmdale Partners.