253 - Building Dreams: Redefining Project Marketing in Real Estate with In2ition Realty's Debbie Cosic

Welcome to Listening with Leaders. I'm Doug Noll, lawyer turned peacemaker. I teach executive leaders how to listen to emotions rather than words so that they can become the leaders everyone wants to follow. And I teach those same leaders how to be authentically present, available, and connected to their families despite being insanely busy. I have learned that we are 98% emotional and only 2% rational. Learning how to listen to emotions is, in my experience, the foundational skill of life. Stick around to the end of the show and I'll reveal how you can be on our next guest in 15 to 20 minutes. So let's get started. Debbie Kosick, welcome to Listening with Leaders. You are the founder of a company called Intuition Realty in Canada. And the website is innumeral2ition, so that's intuition with the 2, realty.ca. Thanks for joining me today.

Hi Doug, thank you for having me on. It's a real pleasure on this beautiful 4th of July.

4th of July for us Americans, and for you, you've got to tolerate all the Americans because you're right on the border up in Ottawa. On a beautiful lake and all the crazy people are out today.

They're a lot of fun, that I have to admit. And we're actually in Fort Erie, but not in Ottawa, Fort Erie.

Okay.

But very close, 5 minutes from the American border.

There you go. So tell us a little bit about your backstory.

So Intuition Realty is a real estate company, but we are a project marketing company. So by that it means we just sell pre-construction real estate for developers across Canada. We have some— done some work in the past in the US, or hoping to head back down there soon. We sell high-rise, mid-rise, low-rise. By project marketing means we get involved with the development. Usually when the developer buys the land or unlocks it from his land base and decides that they're going to bring it to market a year or two in advance, we start working on project design, marketing strategy, floor plans, budgets, etc. So we do everything that's behind the scenes of launching these big developments. And we're, we're actually based, the company's based outta Mississauga, Ontario, which is just outside of Toronto. Mm-hmm. And in the GTA, I would say the Greater Toronto Area, we really are one of the, I would say, most successful market, not just us, but the market in general, one of the most successful pre-construction markets in the world. We have more cranes in Toronto than the the whole American Eastern Seaboard combined.

What's causing the growth?

Pardon?

What's causing all the growth?

Immigration. Oh, really?

People—

immigration. We let in about 450,000 new immigrants last year, keeping in mind Canada is a much smaller population than the US, and the bulk of them have stayed in the Greater Toronto Area, like the Greater Golden Horseshoe. And that is because of various ethnic groups, jobs, large market base here. They just choose to settle here. So we need housing.

Wow.

Definitely need housing.

How did you get into this business?

Worked for a developer for 12 and a half years. Actually got outta university in one of those weird years in the '80s when you couldn't find a job. Just one of those, we, we've, we've seen those cycles and this is one of them now that all these young kids are telling us that they simply can't find work. Decided in the interim to get my real estate license while I was fishing around, applying for various positions. I actually have a degree in political science, and yes, don't laugh, everybody seems to think that's basket weaving nowadays, especially my kids. But I was always interested in politics. It's something that I actually still am involved in and wanted to actually be involved on the party level. So while I was trying to obtain work with the government or one of the political parties, I decided to get my real estate license. And during that time period in the summer, joined a real estate office once I completed the licensing and top dog in the office who has 50 listings at any given time. They approach all the newcomers and newbies and ask if I want to hold an open house on one of his multimillion-dollar listings on Mississauga Road, which is, I don't know, you told me you live in California, it'd be like on the Bridal Path or a very exclusive, the most exclusive part of our city. And so I go hold this open house, told me if I don't even know how to get the signs out of my trunk, And in walks this lovely couple and decides they want to buy the house. So it blew me away. Totally shell-shocked. Don't even know how to type an offer. Go back to the office, type this offer with assistance. Anyway, the deal ends up coming together and I make $11,000, like fresh out of school, big money back then. And a couple of weeks later, I get a call from the Liberal Party actually offering me a position. And the first thing I said to them— I'd gone through multiple interviews— was, what is the pay? And she goes, it's such a prestigious position. The president of the party started here and blah, blah, blah. She's like, no, no, no, what is the pay? $16,500. I'm not interested. Like, what do you mean? You went through 3 interviews. Over 1,000 people applied for this job. I'm simply not interested. What are you going to do? I said, real estate. She goes, but that's not a career. I said, no, this is definitely a career. I just made $11,000 in 4 hours, it's definitely a career. And that, that's the backstory. That's how I ended up in real estate.

And how did you get into the, how did you get into the big time? What you're talking about is high millions, tens of millions of dollars.

Hundreds of millions.

Hundreds of millions.

Oh yeah. We sell about over $2 billion worth of real estate a year.

Wow.

We sell 2,000 to 3,000 units depending on the year and the launches for developers across Canada. Big, some big mega projects. Like we have right now, we have 22 launches waiting to go out the gate around 9,000 units in total, various communities, right? All over Canada, not just Ontario, but ended up working for a developer. Just saw an ad, ad in the paper and decided to apply again during that whole time period where I was waiting for a job and they called me, ended up working for them for about 12 years. But in the interim, they fired their sales manager and asked me to take over because I was, I think I was just the youngest one on our sales team at that point in time. And I was the only person that believed in spreadsheets. Everybody else would come to meeting and they'd be like, oh, we had 62 traffic and we wrote one deal. And then that was it. And I'd come with a spreadsheet, 62 traffic. This is where they came, the source. The builder was so impressed that when he got rid of his sales manager, he offered me the job. So ended up— that's how I ended up in the development industry. Worked for them for 12 and a half years, hired and fired a series of listing brokerages like myself. I could never find the right formula of what we needed because we were a company at that time that went from 50 units a year to 500 units, which is an immense growth over that 12 years I was there. And when you're going through the pressures of that kind of growth and you need innovation for that, you need a myriad of things to make it work. We just couldn't find it. So I decided at the end of the day, I was just going to form my own company. I sat on the developer's end for 12 and a half years, so I knew what they needed and wanted. I think that gave me a big leg up in the industry and went out on my own and found— I had a partner back then and we founded a very small real estate company called Intuition and had one client at the time. And from there, business just rolled in. And I think it rolled in for a whole series of reasons. I think that we were the young kids on the block. So we had a very innovative, aggressive edge to our marketing. We figured we don't know anybody, we don't know anything. What do we have to lose? Throw it to the wind. It's not like we had to conform to some box or we had this formula. We went from just a disruptive viewpoint. That's really the right word now. It was so long ago, but where we look at a project and say, nope, this doesn't work. You gotta do this, you gotta do this, you gotta do this. And the developer would be like scratching his head going, nobody's ever done that in the business. And we're like, let's give it a whirl. And when it started to work, As the business just started to come in consistently.

So, and, and today you're doing billions of dollars a year in sales.

Billions. Yeah.

How many people do you have in your organization?

We have 100 full-time and 50 part-time, just give or take depending on the week, but just over 150. And, well, you know, we run about 40 projects at any given time for some of the largest developers in the country and some mid-range developers and even some small developers, depending on the client, but it's strictly project marketing and it's been an incredible industry for the last decade. We're all affected by the real estate market now. I don't know what the market like is in California, but here in Ontario, we're definitely affected by the high interest rates and—

high interest rates, lack of insurance, lack of availability, high prices. So people can't get in because at least in single-family homes, because the pricing is so crazy. I think people are spoiled. I remember back in the day when a 7% mortgage was a pretty good deal.

Absolutely.

We went for 15 years with 1% interest rate and mortgages at 2.5% or 3%. And I think people just got spoiled and now it's at 7%, which is the average over the last 50 years. And all the young people are screaming and yelling that they can't afford a house. Anyways, so you've been doing this for a long time. What is it that gets you up in the morning? It gets you excited to go to work.

I love the fact that I have, I've had the liberty of assembling an amazing team. I have a great culture. Culture is very important in my organization. We, when we started to grow, decided that we had to bring people in from outside of our industry to keep that edge and to keep ourselves at the forefront of the marketplace. Our, my VPs came from HR, retail, design, advertising. My, only myself came from real estate. I was the only one out of a team of 5 of us. So I love the fact that I had that diversity and we all happen to be female. So.

Okay, there you go.

That was not intentional, but most of my executive team is female. I just found that in the hiring process, they were— they had better intuition, no pun intended, right? A little bit more flexible when it came to multitasking. They're amazing multitaskers. And it just— that's the way sort of the, the team evolved, and we've kept it like that for the last 15 years for the most part. We are big believer of growth from within. Like, my VP of Operations is My right-hand person, Lisha Lynn, started off as a receptionist at our real estate company while she was in university. Went and did her degree, did her gig, and when she came in, I remember her coming to me and saying, I'm gonna go follow my dream, 'cause she got a degree in HR. I said, yeah, go ahead. You're, you're gonna be back soon. And 2 years later I get the call. I, I, real estate's exciting. HR isn't. I'm tired of sitting behind a desk. Can I come back? And she's been with me since then climbing through the ranks of the company, so I I love the team I've assembled, but the thing about project marketing, why it's so different from regular real estate, is you are working with a big team and you're working with a developer's team. So, and every single development is different. So if we launch 20 developments a year, we have 20 basically stages to be on where we're the driving force of product design, interior design, marketing, advertising, strategic positioning, budgeting. We're really, we're driving the ship, but every single ship is different. So the there's never really time to get bored, which is amazing. You're dealing with all kinds of characters, the best of the best and the worst of the worst. You get everything in, in, in any industry where you're dealing with billions of dollars at stake, right? Like our developments can be one we're launching this fall. It's got an $800 million sellout, right?

So how do you guys get compensated?

Commission.

That's pretty nice.

It is nice. We don't get the $800 million, obviously, but we get a nice percentage of that and it really Again, gives us the ability to earn great money, but also to reward our team so that they also have the ability to have a very comfortable lifestyle, build for their futures. Always been a big believer, and it's not enough that I'm comfortable out of this business and my various investments, but the team has to be too, especially the core team. They— if somebody's been with you 10, 15, 20 years, you have to compensate them. And you want them to stay there. There's big reasons. Money is one of the big driving factors, but culture is also, and respect, and the ability to grow within the company. We do simple things. We've had an investment fund for the last decade where I put some money in, they put some money in, we purchase units. We're realtors, so we don't— I don't know what it's like in the States, but in Canada, we don't have a pension unless you purchase investments and you plan for your future. You simply are going to have nothing when you retire except for this tiny little government pension. What happens is we We bought quite a decent fund, about 50 units together, and we're hoping as these units mature and the values go up, that one day as people start retiring, there can be a payout for them that's equivalent to the share of what they put in, right? So we were in the forefront of our industry to do that. But again, that was in lieu of any kind of pension or retirement fund that they would have.

Hmm. So what is it? Debbie, that's unique about you that you bring to the table that's made all of this so successful?

I don't know. I think I'm a very easygoing boss. I think I'm a generous boss. I think that was, that's very important right from the beginning. I have been a big believer of work very hard, but have a lot of fun. We do all kinds of things, trips, contests. Actually yesterday, believe it or not, I had this wonderful interlude during the day. I went jewelry shopping from 12 to 1 o'clock. At my jeweler's where I made an appointment because I have my annual awards coming up, uh, in 2 weeks. And I've had a, I have a handful of people that have been with me 5, 10, and 15 years, and they always receive very nice gifts. 10 years is a Rolex, amazing stuff. 15 years is things that are, you know, worth more than that. We've given away Cartier bracelets and all kinds of stuff. 5 years is a, is a trip, a voucher for travel, voucher for their family. Stuff like that to me is fun. I like giving it back. I know that they're growing A lot of them are growing families and just don't have the ability to treat themselves like that. So I like to do that for them. And the loyalty and the reward that you get back is just— you can't— it's immeasurable.

Absolutely. So listening, I suspect, is a pretty important part of your success. How did you learn how to listen?

I think I was born a listener. Really? I was one of those quiet, wise kids. My mom tells me all the time that I like to sit with the adults. I, I also grew up with scoliosis, so I spent a lot of time in and out of the hospitals. A very different upbringing from other children that were all playing baseball or soccer or something. I had to sit on the sidelines and watch people. I had a very small group of friends. I wasn't this big popular group of people because I actually wore a back brace through most of grade school and junior high. And then when it was time to go to high school, I put my foot down and said, absolutely not happening. I'm not going to I'm not going to tolerate this. So through that evolved this quietness of watching people, studying them, really valuing who your true friends are because there weren't a lot of them. Even when I was younger, kids would make fun of you. They didn't want anything to do with you. You were the class freak, for lack of a better word, right? That teaches you very early to be very selective and to be very wise. So I think that comes from that, the basis of that.

That's interesting because I was born with a lot of severe disabilities myself. Oh, um, I was born with two club feet, partially— practically blind, partially deaf, left-handed, bad teeth. That's good. You growing up and people don't know how to deal with you when you're a kid and you've got all this messed up stuff. They really don't know how to deal with you. And you're right, you have to— you learn independence and you learn to rely only on yourself. And, and you do, you learn how to deal with all the slings and arrows that the other kids throw at you because you get it a lot.

Oh yeah. Yeah. And you learn to be wise very young. You learn to analyze people and really see through the, the bullshit, right? Who is real and who isn't, who's a real friend, who's, who can look beyond that. And I do have that handful of friends that I've had since grade school that have been my friends, will always be my friends. Because they were the ones who were there when the disability was very evident and other kids wouldn't sit beside you at school or would never involve you in anything, simple as that. So I think part of that is that yearning to create this culture of inclusion where anybody can feel included at work. As long as they work hard and they're a good person and they're not creating problems, we're gonna give you the benefit of the doubt and help you through the system.

And that all comes from early life experiences. And I know that the things that I do today, what I, what my work, especially as a teacher and a coach, all goes back to the time when coaches couldn't coach me. They wouldn't coach me. Too impatient. They didn't take the time to work with me. And it sounds like that's the experience you've had with the intolerance that people have with you because of your disability, that you learned Choose the right people and be kind and compassionate, and they will— if they're the right fit, they'll perform for you.

Oh, absolutely. They're loyal to no end.

Absolutely. I think that's the secret. I think that's the power of leadership listening too, is that when you know how to listen and make people feel heard, they will follow you anywhere. That loyalty will be reciprocated in spades, and it— that's what you've experienced in your career, I think.

Well, you have to listen and then you have to deliver too, Doug. Absolutely.

Deliver.

You have to deliver what— if you can't just preach the culture, you have to deliver the culture. You can't preach the success or you have to help as a team to deliver that success. And we are very fortunate. We got enormous successes in our career and it's a team effort. It's a huge team effort. And they all reap the rewards because everybody has some segment of commission involved in their remuneration. So they're very gung-ho to take on extra work. To launch building after building when necessary, work till midnight, 7 days a week. I have people saying, I've worked 21 days in a row. And I'm like, that's— make sure you, you know, schedule time off. They're like, no, I'm fine. I just don't want to launch this site. I want to score. I want to put it in the bag. I want to make sure that it's the best launch around. And I know in the back of their head, they're counting their commissions, which is fantastic. And then I'll take my time off, right? So I don't even have to ask, can you work this? They volunteer to do it, which is amazing.

Part of that is how you model, what you model as a leader. Because I'm sure you put in more work than anybody else and they see that. And so you're setting the example. And I think a lot of leaders don't understand how important it is that to model the behavior that you want to see in your team. They think that they can be above it all, and in fact they're not. They've got to be in it. And that sounds like what you do.

I've been doing this for so long now. I'm not involved in the day-to-day. Obviously, I have quite a very competent and talented executive team that runs that, but I'm involved in all the strategy and They call me the rainmaker. I still bring in a lot of the business because I love that. I love socializing. I love bringing in clients. I love attacking them, going after them very methodically, deciding who we want to pick up as clients and working on them sometimes for years to be able to sign that contract. You have to look at everybody's talents. Everybody is good at something. And I think I'm wise enough of a leader to have decided that these are the things that I'm good at. I'm going to let them take care of the other things that I'm not a techie. I'm not going to pretend to be a techie. But I do have people that are brilliant when it comes to that in our organization. And you know what? I'll let them run with that. It's fantastic.

One more question. I'll let you go. What's one thing— you already told us one thing that I wouldn't have known, and that is that you had a disability growing up. But what's one other thing about yourself that we wouldn't know about unless you revealed it to us?

Probably I'm very shy deep down.

You're an introvert.

Very much.

Yeah, I, I gotta tell you, I've— you're— this is somewhere like interview 220 on this show. So over 220 leaders just like you, only one of them has been an extrovert.

Really?

Every— and I'm an introvert myself— every single successful person I've interviewed is an introvert, with one exception. Isn't that amazing?

That is incredible. But I think for your— I think for you to be cognizant of all these qualities that it takes to have enormous successes, I think you have to be able to be okay with yourself first. That's right. And if you're not, you need to heal yourself so you can be okay. I'm quite fine, as you mentioned, growing up in your youth, being alone. I have no problem. I'm, I'm not the person that if I travel, I can sit in a restaurant by myself. I relish it. I'm gonna open my iPad. I'm gonna talk on the phone. I'm gonna read something or read a book. I couldn't care less. But I'm also just as comfortable hosting a group of 100 people in my house at a charity event. I have no problem doing that. So you've got to be able to do that yin and yang. I think that makes that success.

That's right. This has been an amazing conversation, Debbie. Thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciate it.

Thank you, Doug. It was a pleasure meeting you. And don't melt down in Southern California.

I won't. Only 104 today.

Enjoy it. I hope you get some swimming weather in.

Thank you. Take care.

Take care. Bye-bye.

Doug Noll here. Thank you so much for listening to Listening with Leaders. If you are a successful executive leader who would like to be on this program, please visit podcast.dougnull.com/podcast. If you got something out of this interview, would you please share this episode on social media? Just do a quick screenshot with your phone and text it to a friend or post it on the socials. If you know someone that would be a great guest, tag them on the social media to let them know about the show and include the hashtag #ListeningWithLeaders. I love seeing your posts and guest suggestions. We are regularly putting out new episodes and content. To make sure you don't miss any episodes, go go ahead and subscribe. Your thumbs up ratings and reviews go a long way to help promote the show and mean a lot to me and my team. Want to know more? Go to my website, DougNoll.com, or follow me on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram. That's @DouglasEnoll. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you on the next show.