At least from the outside, JP Piccinini had no reason to leave his successful, lucrative career as an engineer. But internally, he felt the tug every successful entrepreneur has felt at one point or another: I can do more.
So Piccinini took a leap of faith. In 2004, he left a stable 8-to-5 job and launched into home sales as a Realtor. After coming of age in the DFW area, he moved to South Carolina, where "I think I knew a total of 10 people," he says, and started over from scratch. New to an entire industry, Piccinini literally started from the ground floor and started working his way up.
So how does someone go from selling homes in South Carolina to owning Frisco-based JP and Associates, one of the fastest-growing real estate brokerages in the country? By running toward the roar.
"I always treated my real estate career not just as a Realtor, but as the CEO of my company," Piccinini said.
Sometimes the safest place to be is the one that feels the scariest. Lions - with their intimidating teeth and deafening roars - are designed to provoke fear. But the real danger lies with the smaller, quieter lionesses. In the animal kingdom, the lion's job is to roar and send prey scattering away from the startling noise - right into the path of the waiting lionesses, the true hunters. If gazelles knew to run toward the frightening sound, they would have a better chance of survival.
Likewise, humans sometimes have an instinctive desire to shy away from pursuits that look and sound scary. But often, running toward those challenges and conflicts is the best (or only) way to grow and meet our goals.
That's what Piccinini did when he stepped into the daunting world of home sales for the first time. And he did it again when, after years as a top 1 percent sales pro, he founded JP and Associates in 2011.
"I essentially started my business for a couple thousand dollars," says Piccinini, who originally moved to Texas at 13 after growing up in Italy. "Where else can you start your business for a couple thousand dollars?"
Those early days were a test of will. Piccinini basically worked out of his trunk as a one-stop shop. He'd wake up at 4 a.m. and do just about everything, from the operations and paperwork to the actual selling of the homes. Even through some of those 18-hour days, Piccinini knew his time in South Carolina had prepared him for the rigors of starting a business and running toward that roar.
"There were a few times in my real estate career that I questioned, should I be doing this or should I be doing something else?" Piccinini says. "You thicken your skin pretty fast when you're out there in the streets selling homes. I definitely wouldn't be where I'm at today if it wasn't for the thick skin I got in the trenches selling homes."
At the end of its first year in business, JP and Associates had around 25 people on staff. Today, seven years later, the company boasts 1,300 Realtors and crested $2 billion in revenue in 2017, with more than 7,000 homes sold that year. It's the fastest growing brokerage in DFW, and REAL Trends rated JP and Associates as the No. 88 fastest growing brokerage in the country.
Piccinini also touts the company's positive culture, a reality that led the company to a No. 2 ranking on the Dallas Morning News" top 100 places to work in DFW in 2017. "For us, we'll take care of our people," Piccinini says, "and they take care of our business."
What's the reason for the growth? Piccinini has always run his business a bit differently from the industry norm, a reality that quickly saddled him with the label of a disruptor in the DFW real estate market. For one, his Realtors take home 100 percent of their commission, instead of splitting it 70/30 or 60/40 with the company. In addition to the company's positive work environment and fast growth, that was a major selling point to area Realtors who saw a path to more income if they worked hard enough.
"The 100 percent model was not well perceived [by our competition]," Piccinini says. "We had a lot of our competitors undermine us and roadblock us and negatively speak about us in different ways and not necessarily be a huge fan of our model, because it basically was a disruptor."
And Piccinini makes no allowances for how hard his Realtors work compared to baseline industry standards. His Realtors are required to be full time and carry a productivity requirement of at least six homes sold per year. Piccinini says his brokerage is one of the few in the entire country that has a productivity requirement of any kind, and that, he says, is a big reason why his Realtors experience such unfettered growth and results from year to year.
"Real estate's a tough business," Piccinini says. "If you're scared by having a productivity requirement that's six homes a year, which is a home every two months, then my first question is whether you're really committed to selling real estate. We call it the PHD: poor, hungry and disciplined. If you don't have that PHD, you're probably not a good fit for us."
As far as Piccinini is concerned, JP and Associates is just getting started. The company is on track to do about $3 billion in sales in 2018, and his goal is to become the top real estate brokerage in DFW by 2025. On its current trajectory, Piccinini estimates the company will get there in 2023, two years ahead of schedule.
If that happens, then JP and Associates will be a top 10 broker in the entire country by that time. The company's roster of agents continues to grow, and its sales are still ballooning as well.
Through it all, Piccinini knows how far his company has already come - and how much growth is still yet to come.
"The key to success is just to never lose enthusiasm," Piccinini says. "It's about going from failure to failure and never losing enthusiasm. Of course, failure is part of the product. It's a learning lesson. It's just about staying enthusiastic about it and eventually it will turn into passion. I'm in love with my job. My wife argues that I have a love affair with my job every single day. That's key. I just love it. I'm jacked up about it."
By Jason Forrest, CEO of Forrest Performance Group
