Monday, October 26, 2015

Meet Your Team Leader! Lisa Ekanger CEO/TL KWRE

Hi I'm Lisa ~ your new Team Leader at Keller Williams Elite Eden Prairie. My professional story is in line with my D.I.S.C. personality of being a high D (driven) I (influential) personality. I'm a graduate of Blaine Senior High class of 85'. At 19, I moved to New York, and for one year I was employed as an Au pair -- after that, I returned to the Twin Cities to attend college. I'm a graduate of CVA in St. Paul (College of Visual Arts) with a focus on graphic/advertising design and copy writing. I've spent most of my life in various sales/marketing positions where I sharpened the saw of becoming a master communicator. In 2008, during the worst economic downturn of our times, I decided to get my real estate license. I battled the negative mindset that permeated the Detroit area due to nearly 1 million automotive industry job losses (and the same number in consequent departure)s from the state. 100% of the homes I showed in my early days as a buyers agent were foreclosed and vacant. Some day (over drinks) I will share the horror stories about my early days as an agent. I fumbled and suffered until I was recruited to work for Keller Williams (in 2010) where I immediately plugged into ALL of the amazing training offered at both the market center and regionally. I've attended camp 443, Ignite (2x) BOLD (3x) Family Reunion and Regional Leadership summits. I was mentored by an amazing agent who was a Mo Anderson Cultural Award recipient and joined a team. My role on the team was getting listing appointments and by 2012 I was recruited by Floyd Wickman (right out of his class) because I had huge success in applying the coaching provided to me. I leveraged myself and sent my book of business through my existing KW team as I worked on growing my coaching and training career with The Floyd Wickman Team. I spent nearly three years being mentored and coached one on one by Floyd as one of only two trainers that were chosen to represent him during the last ten years. In addition, for the last 4 years, I was coached by Rick Geha, KW University Master Faculty. I'm a two time Speakers Academy Graduate, Belong to The Master Sales Society and recently spent 3 days working at a clinic with Shon Kokoszka (President of MAPS Coaching) and Don Hobbs (co-founder Hobbs/Herder Advertising, an industry interrupter and leader in real estate marketing). I've earned a quarter of a million dollars in revenue from flips and have accomplished every goal on my five year growth plan developed by me through my BOLD coach. I've lived in Minneapolis, New York, Norway, Indianapolis and St. Clair Michigan. My personal story is...I've been married for 27 years and am the mother of 2 biological and 3 adopted kids. My oldest child is a son, Levi lives in Detroit and is graduating from Wayne State University with his PhD in Chemistry; his focus of research is MRI contrast agents for cancer detection. He will be attending Harvard, M.I.T. or Northwestern for his post doc next fall. Levi is married to my daughter-in-law Kelly who is a histotechnician at St. John's Hospital in Ann Arbor. My oldest daughter is Sigourney -- she attends Macomb College and studies Media Arts, and lives in Algonac Michigan. My youngest daughter is Chanda (adopted at 5) she is in 11th grade and lives in Marysville Michigan with my spouse. I have two other children that I spent 7 years parenting (Alex and Margaret) after their mom died of cancer when they were 8 & 11. Since 1998, I have been an advocate for children starting with becoming a Court Appointed Special Advocate (C.A.S.A) in Indiana and a foster parent in 2004 in Michigan. I worked as a trainer for the Department of Human Services recruiting potential foster and adoptive families from 2007-2014. My spouse is Norwegian and is the Director of the Technical Center of Engineering & Advanced Technology at Macomb Community College...I also speak Norwegian. What do I do for fun? I am currently working on earning my private pilots license and I love sailing, cooking, traveling and writing. I've been associated with the Department of Homeland Security (as a volunteer first responder C.E.R.T.) National Rifle Association, American Sailing Association and among other real estate organizations, The Women's Council of Realtors. I'm happy to join this amazing group! Together we will have fun growing our market center (and agent wealth too) through our team effort and the tips and techniques I plan to share with you :) Thank you in advance for your commitment and support! Lisa Ekanger