April Peterson & the All Access Team: Sharing the Strength of a Common Bond
Written by Dave Danielson | Photos by Nested Tours
There are no doubt times in your life when you’ve needed to move something especially heavy. While you may have been able to get the job done by yourself, another set of helping hands will always make the job much easier to handle.
That’s the same kind of dynamic that is at work with Team Leader April Peterson of The All-Access Team with Chamberlain Realty LLC. Together, her team shares the strength of a common bond through professionalism, knowledge and friendship. April’s leadership is the cornerstone of this relationship to not only mentor new real estate agents but also in helping their clients navagate an extremely competitive market.
Professional Teamwork
When you talk with April, it’s easy to see the level of confidence she has in her team members, including Nick Jones, Nancy Joy, Nanci Makowitch, Chastity Parker and her husband, Pete. Her team has continued to grow with new team members not featured including Bliss Elise and Zach Adams.
April is quick to point out, “I think that one of the big things that people who work with us notice right away is the fact that we have a very genuine nature and that’s done on purpose. We push for each member of the team to just be themselves and not feel like they need to conform to any preconceived notion.” That attitude and drive is not only why April has been a top producing real estate agent for the last eight years straight but her team members are also becoming top producers.
April stresses work-life balance to all of her team members, because you can only operate at 110% for so long. One of the benefits of teamwork that April points to is the fact that members can cover for each other, allowing team members to get away on vacation, attend family functions or just take a personal day without their clients experiencing any change in service level.
Pitching In to Help
That atmosphere of cooperation and teamwork is fostered by meetings that the group conducts twice a week. During these sessions, team members must first state what they are grateful for in life then it's down to business, with each member providing an updated transaction status and any new nuggets of knowledge they can pass along. The team also does require events together to foster teamwork which also includes Cold calling and Mimosa’s once a month that the team invites anyone from any brokerage to join. Have a drink, make cold calls,laugh and possibly pick up a new seller.
“I’m very happy with the open communication and atmosphere our team has, it has really enabled us to grow and evolve” April says.
Part of the respect and care that April has for her team is a genuine desire for them to pursue their own goals through time.
“I know that If I grow my team right, some of them will leave,” and that ok April explains.
“The end goal isn’t to keep everything for yourself, but to make the world a better place. My goal is to teach, lead and help as many people as possible, so they have the knowledge to share with others.”
Setting the Tone
Setting the tone for success is April. As she says, she has a consuming love for the business, she eats, sleeps and lives for real estate.
“I’m addicted to real estate. I wake up, look at MLS, make phone calls and look for new opportunities for my team. I think everything in this world is real estate-based,” April points out.
“That’s how our society functions, by selling products that all lead back to real estate in some shape or form. It’s interesting to see how many different intersecting avenues there are in real estate. It’s fun learning their new aspects and how everything intertwines together.”
The Start of a Rewarding Career
April earned her first real estate license in Florida 2013. Pete's military career required the family to move to a new state every few years. This meant every 3-5 years April had to find a new job, make new friends and build a new support network from scratch.
As she recalls, “At the time, my background was in economics, but people were wary of hiring me because we had to move. So I earned my teaching degree with a specialty in high-risk kids that no other teacher either wanted to deal with or could effectively reach.” April taught high school in New Mexico from 2008 till 2012 when her family then moved to Florida.
During the process of moving to Florida, the family learned that their youngest son Zander was diagnosed with severe Crohn’s Disease. April was basically alone to deal with setting up a new home in a new state while managing her son's illness because Pete was deployed for 5 months only 2 weeks after arriving in Florida.
“I decided to get my real estate license and do flips between times he wasn’t in the hospital,” she says. “Along the way I became a REALTOR®. It took me a year to sell my first house and then it clicked.”
Leading and Building
April hadn’t planned on building a team. But, while working in Florida, she brought on another person to help with work life balance. “Florida was a dog eat dog real estate market due the financial crisis with everyone fighting for table scraps. This gave me the thick skin and knowledge that is required to be succesful in real estate” April points out. After just three years in Florida the military once again moved the family, but this time to Oklahoma. This move created two challenges, first, leaving her oldest son in Florida alone who had just started college and second, starting all over again without a sphere to lean on.
“At that time, I told my husband that even though our son was doing better, I felt like I might need to slow down a bit. He laughed and said you won’t be able to do that,” April says with a smile.
“When I see someone who needs a little push, that’s natural for me as a teacher and I work with them.”
As April continues to work with her team to make an impactful difference in the lives of their clients, they do their best to ensure that their clients feel a high level of care.
“We want to do everything we can to have our clients feel like they are heard and that they feel like part of the family,” April emphasizes. “Most of the people I work with end up becoming friends. They understand that the whole team will take care of them.”
Congratulations to April Peterson and the members of the All-Access Team for turning their shared vision strength into real results for those they serve.
