Maria Galizia: From Zero to a Million

Austin, Texas-based Maria Galizia shares how she went from start-up to $1M GCI in just seven years

When Texas native Maria Galizia graduated with a marketing degree in 2015, she was drawn to the dynamic nature of sales — particularly the idea of creating your own income—and decided to venture into real estate.

From the beginning, she partnered with the Adelina Rotar and BKT Austin team in Austin, Texas and later joined PLACE, where she’s been a perennial top agent on the Austin team, recently closing $1 million in GCI. With seven years in the business, Galizia shares more about how she went from startup to top earner in less than a decade.

Make Lead Generation Your Priority

In the beginning, your only business is lead generation. All day, every day. Your main priority is finding business. One big catalyst for me was Bold 6000, an intense six-week, lead-generation push where we generated at least 250 contacts each week. Some of the avenues I explored for leads were expireds, withdrawn, sign calls, Internet leads, and For Sale By Owners.

Trust The Process

My first year wasn’t anything to write home about. I did three deals in my first six months. The majority of my days were spent lead-generating for my entire first year. I also had a second job waiting tables. While the income part of the business hadn’t come yet, I knew it would. All the leads I continually added to my database, along with stellar service, gradually led to more deals.

Once business starts flowing, you can shift your focus to service. For me, this meant:

Deepening Our Relationship

Now that I have a good flow of business, my larger focus is strengthening my relationship with each client, including:

• Being incredibly precise with every detail

• Focusing on the long-term relationship, not short-term gains

• Advising them along their wealth building journey

• Keeping them updated on assets once they close

• Sending updates as their home grows in value

• Checking in after life events to ensure they’re still in a home they love

The relationship never ends with the transaction; it’s ongoing.

Transactions Are Opportunities For Referrals

This idea goes hand-in-glove with providing incredible service. Every transaction has a compounding component that can lead to future transactions. My best advice for getting the next referral from your current clients is to peel the onion. Don’t ask just one question — open-ended queries that go several layers deep get to the heart of their motivations and goals.

Lean Into Leverage

I now have a buyer partner and just hired a Brivity Virtual Assistant. I’m very invested in their growth and our future business, and we work really well together, which has proved a huge piece of leverage as far as gaining back time to pursue more listings and achieve quality of life.

Be Consistent

Consistency may not seem like a strategy, but it’s enormously important in establishing a productive business. I’m not a natural salesperson, but I do have consistency and focus in my activities when it comes to following up with people and providing the very best service; I excel at ensuring nothing is missed. Being someone that people can always count on for offering consistency is a real strategy, one that has served me well.

Partner Well

PLACE is such an incredible platform to help agents put any vision to life. I have continuous access to marketing, technology, resources, systems, and models that free me to fully focus on my day-to-day business, while the back-office activities run seamlessly, truly powering my success.

POWERED BY PLACE