A Family Business How Jane Hoffman and Michael Hoffman have grown thriving, intertwined businesses with family and their family name at the core.
t the dinner table when Michael Hoffman was a teenager, it wasn’t unusual for him and his mom, Jane, to slip from talking about his school assignments to Jane sharing the details of her exciting new listings. “From a young age, my mom and I have always enjoyed talking about her work—our work—and then we would talk about family, and then back again to work. Now we work together as a family, so there’s always that crossover. I think this family interaction has had a strong influence on the way we’ve always done business.” Jane Hoffman was born a Beruschi, an Italian-Canadian family now in its third generation of operating The Regent Hotel in Revelstoke. When you grow up in a family business, and a hospitality business at that, life is family and business, all the time. Jane wouldn’t have it any other way. “Sometimes people say, ‘Why don’t you take the night off? Don’t worry about the phone tonight,’ but I know what the right thing to do is. You know the client just needs to hear from you,” says Jane,
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who believes a big part of her role is helping people overcome the anxious feelings of buying or selling a home. And because she has the unique ability to switch from personal to business and always be 100 per cent engaged, Jane gladly steps out of functions in her clients’ best interest because “it’s the right thing to do. That’s how you build relationships. That’s how you earn the clients’ trust and prove your value. I believe that’s what being a real estate agent is.” Michael has always admired how his mom balances her workload: she can be intensely focused on a deal one minute, and hosting a dinner party or playing with her grandson at the beach the next. Michael earned his real estate license in university and helped his mom for a few years, but early on he knew he would earn his living a different way. But in some respects, not so different. As a boy, Michael’s father, Jane’s husband, died in a tragic plane crash that also took the life of his uncle. Michael’s father and his uncle together owned a construction company, and there was a parcel of land on Industrial Road in West Kelowna that Jane had held onto after his death. Michael, back in his late twenties, saw possibilities.
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