Happy Agent Co. — Real Estate Podcast for Women hosted by Lindsay Dreyer, Real Estate Coach

From Real Estate Agent to Brokerage Owner with Allie Carlson, West + Main Homes Minnesota

• Lindsay Dreyer

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What does it really take to go from selling homes to running a brokerage? In this episode, I sit down with Allie Carlson, Broker/Owner of West + Main Homes Minnesota, to talk about her journey from top-producing agent to leading a boutique brokerage in a competitive market.

We cover:
✅ The mindset shift from agent to broker-owner
✅ Why boutique brokerages aren’t dead (and might be making a comeback)
✅ The cultural differences in real estate markets—and how they impact business
✅ The financial realities of owning a brokerage (spoiler: more overhead than you think)
✅ The hilarious email mishap that accidentally recruited agents
✅ Why creating a strong culture is the ultimate recruitment strategy

If you’ve ever thought about starting your own brokerage or just love a good real estate success story, you don’t want to miss this one!

Find Allie on Instagram and www.westandmainmn.com

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Speaker 1:

We are here with Allie Carlson, broker owner of West and Main Homes Minnesota. Allie is amazing and we met a really long time ago in like I think it was like seven years ago at a Ninja selling installation in Colorado at the Mothership.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I can remember you were sitting right behind. I remember it clear as day to this day. So I think it was 2017. Maybe it was magical, and who even knew what it was going to breed?

Speaker 1:

I know I was actually. Yeah, now that you mentioned it, I was pregnant with my son at the time. That's bringing back some memories. So, in addition to being a broker owner, you're also a mama of two boys.

Speaker 2:

I am. Oh a five-year-old and a three-year-old. I'm a mom 24-7, as it turns out, both in real estate and in life.

Speaker 1:

That's what happens when you own a brokerage. You're like a mom at home and a mom at work, and it has its ups and its downs, just like real momhood does.

Speaker 2:

It weathers you, though, I'm telling you. It gives you a skin that you need to be in the job, in the industry that we're in. You know what I mean. Like nothing really phases you.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I always hated when people were like you don't get it because you're not a mom, and I am going to take all of my hatred back from people who said that because I totally get it now, like, yep, you totally get it, and I also feel that sometimes too.

Speaker 1:

All right, well the mom tangent aside, today we're going to talk about your journey from being a top producing agent to owning your own brokerage, and just the lessons learned and any other tea you want to spill about that, because I am sure there is some. There always is. But let's kick it off with your journey to owning Weston Maine Homes in Minnesota.

Speaker 2:

How did we get here? Oh my gosh, how did we get here? First of all, thanks for having me here, like what a delight to sit here and to just go deep with you. So we got here. I started out in real estate. I'm actually a trained teacher, so I taught in public schools for years and then decided to make a pivot into something a little bit more entrepreneurial and real estate was the thing. I didn't know how much I was going to love it when I decided to take the step in and then I can't love it enough. It of like my like origin story, of like real estate. But I sold.

Speaker 2:

I was a little baby agent in Denver, colorado, for years and I always say like I grew up in real estate with Weston Mayhomes. From this company's conception in Denver, alongside leadership, stacey Staub, the, and Maddie Linder, the co founders and owners of Weston Mayhomes in Colorado, really kind of by proxy, mentored me about how to not only real estate, but gave me a lot of leadership opportunities and a whole lot of freedom to garner a cool mentorship program, become a managing broker, handle the hard questions. And when my second son was born, my husband and I decided to move back to Minnesota, where we're both from, and it was like a crazy town thought to. Even I still wanted to sell real estate. And it was like out of this world to think I would sell real estate for any other company besides Weston Maine. And so it was like, well, I guess we're going to have a Weston Maine and I'm going to own it.

Speaker 2:

Too bad, no choice. I mean I wish that it was like a little bit you know, it's not any more like fancy than that Besides saying like I believe in love this company and the foundation and the roots and everything that stands for so much. But I also wanted other people in the Twin Cities metro to have that opportunity of like what I loved and what I knew, and I also saw a big need for it. Like boutique real estate brokerages are not prevalent. There's a lot in Minneapolis and St Paul areas, not nearly as much in Denver, and so there felt like a niche and an opportunity there, but I didn't quite know what it was yet.

Speaker 1:

I'm going to take a little bit of a side tangent, because I do feel like the boutique brokerage is becoming a dying breed a little bit. I feel like there's a lot of mergers, acquisitions, a lot of consolidation right now. So I really personally feel like boutique brokerages actually are going to have a kind of a second coming, a little bit like because Are we in the renaissance? I think we are. I think there was like a little bit of a renaissance in like 2010. And I think there's another one coming in 2025, 2026.

Speaker 2:

Listen, starting a brokerage in a town where nobody knew. I mean, I'm from here originally, but as a professional, and my whole adult life was never spent in the Twin Cities Metro, and so I had to reestablish myself and then also bring a whole new real estate brand to a Metro area which is pretty predominantly held by some big box brokerages.

Speaker 2:

And, like I said, if you're a boutique or an indie brokerage, you're very, very neighborhood specific and West of Maine is a little bit neighborhood agnostic and more client facing forward vibe. But I did see a lot of people feel super excited about the idea. They just didn't even know it was a thing. So that felt exciting, but then also scary because you're like well then, how do I tell everybody about this? Which was a really big challenge.

Speaker 1:

So when did you open your doors?

Speaker 2:

That's a fun question. So we were officially licensed in December of 2022. And it took a little while to. I felt strongly about having a meeting place for people to come and do their real estate things whether it's working with clients, getting their stuff done, like living the real estate life and so we had a brick and mortar beginning in May of 2023. So we were in one spot for a year and then we just moved to a cuter location with easier parking. So we've been where we currently are physically since August of 2024. And it's awesome we are just over two years in the Twin Cities Metro at this point. That's awesome.

Speaker 1:

What challenges do you feel like you've faced, not only bringing a new brand to Minnesota and your market there, but also just in owning a brokerage? I feel like there's a big mindset shift that has to occur. So what do you feel like has been difficult maybe in the mindset, but also in the logistics of opening a brand new brokerage.

Speaker 2:

I mean, how much time do we have we?

Speaker 1:

have as much as you need.

Speaker 2:

Let me tell you, I think you hit it the nail on the head. It is as much as you need. Let me tell you, I think you hit the nail on the head. The first shift, which I didn't see until kind of later, was the mindset shift and realizing that I was and am really good at selling real estate, really good at connecting with clients, really good at mentoring agents, really good at tackling the problems in Denver. And then I moved to Minneapolis and St Paul, where I'm from, and I understand the cadence of life here.

Speaker 2:

But it is a little bit different. There's just a little bit of a different. The market operates a little bit differently, the speed is a little bit different, the type of people in our industry is a little bit different, and so I had to almost unravel and like put in a little box but take out the good parts of what I was used to and what I knew as real estate and take out the best parts of high level operation of real estate to the twin cities Metro, while also understanding that, like everyone, everyone in Denver isn't from Denver. I mean not everyone, but a large portion. Everyone in the twin cities is from here and has been here and good, bad or otherwise it just brings a different type of mindset in decision-making timelines, in open-mindedness to new ideas, and so when you come here and you're bringing this, like, hey, I know, this is a great brokerage, I know what we stand for is wonderful.

Speaker 2:

It was no problem to get people to understand that and see that in Denver and here everyone's like, are you sure? And so the challenge was understanding that like, oh, this is going to take. It's going to be a little bit harder to build and to grow and then also to shift my mentality, because even though I was in leadership in Denver, I wasn't an owner. I didn't make all the decisions. Not everything lived and died on how I operated the show.

Speaker 2:

And here it does. And with that came decision-making and ownership over decisions and hard decisions and not just being like one of the crew at the table but the person that everyone's looking to for the answer. And that was I've listened, I love my people and I like to be in it, I like to talk about it, and so and I had to somewhat separate myself from, like, all of the chatter to being in a really solo leadership role and, as you know, it can be a little bit lonely. So that was a hard adjustment to make, but also a necessary one, and I was okay with it once I understood that that was necessary. Does that make sense?

Speaker 1:

Totally yes. I think what's really interesting is that cultural shift of going from Denver to Minnesota, and I think it's something that we don't realize how local real estate really is. We say that it's location, location, location, but we don't realize that each area has their own culture, their own way of doing business or their way that it's always been done. And DC is very similar to Denver, where nobody's from there, but it's very affluent clientele. Typically it's very sophisticated and I remember when I moved to New Hampshire in 2017 and I started doing some real estate up here, I'm like where did I?

Speaker 1:

land. It's like another planet. It's something we take for granted, where, if you're changing location, that's definitely something to keep in mind, which is just the culture is so different from place to place.

Speaker 2:

And I don't know if you can fully prepare for it, aside from just being like, oh, this is going to be different. I made the mistake of assuming that I was just going to be able to carry on the way that I always had, and that caused some delay in I don't want to say success, but just maybe like momentum a little bit out of the gate. But I will also say that what I was able to realize kind of after the fact and in reflection over years, is that how grateful I was to have experience in a different market to bring here, which allowed for some, which is slowly allowing for new perspectives and new thought tracks and like, oh hey, have you thought about this, or this is how this has been done before, and, um, that's felt like a really cool thing to be able to present and bring both to my agents, or just like agents I'm talking to on a deal or just in the industry in general. You know what.

Speaker 1:

I mean.

Speaker 2:

Like. So it's not all bad, it's really cool. It's just the melding of it all and figuring out every day what little activated part of your brain you need to turn on.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. And also, how does Weston Maine fit into the broader market of Minnesota? What's your unique selling proposition? What makes you unique? Why would agents join you versus all of the other established players in the market? So I'm curious what is the answer to that question?

Speaker 2:

I mean, if anybody Weston Bean Homes like we have, I am so grateful we have such a beautiful design and marketing stack platform, all of the things. It was built so smartly with basically a whole in-house design agency which, in conversation with agents, most people are like, oh, my brokerage has marketing. And they do to some extent and they kind of see behind the fold and they see behind the scenes of what we have here and they're like, oh, we definitely don't have marketing.

Speaker 2:

So that's been a really cool piece is realizing just how much like, especially for agents who are used to becoming like Canva maidens, which, whatever you got to do, what you got to do to make a graphic look pretty. But I always say, like, your expertise is not in designing a flyer, it should be working with buyers and sellers. And Weston Maine has that market pegged with providing an extreme amount of resources and support so that all the pretty and the marketing and the design work is done and taken care of so agents can just do what they want to do. And we're also all about culture. It is not just a warm body incubator. I am here to make sure that people, I'm not going to turn you down because you want a chance and you've never sold a home, let's mentor you. But if you're not kind, if you're not collaborative, if you're shameful or anything like that, we are just not the place. And I've found that agents really have appreciated that mentality and I don't want to say strictness, but just boundary around who's part of this crew.

Speaker 1:

Right. I honestly think that's where boutique brokerages win so often is culture, because it's actually an easy lever to pull in terms of differentiating yourself against other bigger brokerages. So, like having leadership, that actually gives a shit having collaboration. I have a no assholes policy. I think you're right. It's those boundaries but those standards and allowing the right fit into the clubhouse and then when someone isn't the right fit, they're out of the clubhouse, because that really is so important and it factors in so much more than at the bigger boxes.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and I think, like I can't tell you I don't know if you've had the same experience how many agents have joined in and they're like I didn't, you know. I know who my broker was, but I didn't. I never talked to them or they never got back to me or I had to like only contact them in a certain Avenue way, and you know, we're just not that stuffy here. Like I'm your broker, send me a Slack message. I can't promise you I'm not at a kid's birthday party, but I will help you tackle that contract question and I think that people appreciate that. It's also real and authentic. We are just people out here trying to do our thing and we are not better or worse than anybody else, and I just really like that and I'm hoping that it's starting to catch on brush fire, because I think people deserve to have a brokerage like that, where they don't feel like they have to conform to some way or another, but they can just like be themselves and do really bad-ass real estate at the same time.

Speaker 1:

Yes, I love it. That's all we want. We just want to have fun and do bad-ass real estate. Hello.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's not. I mean it's hard, but it's not that hard.

Speaker 1:

You know what I mean. It's so true. Oh so let's talk about attraction, let's talk about recruiting. So I didn't say this, but you're a coaching client of mine and one of the things we were working on together was recruiting.

Speaker 2:

And so and also I hate the word recruiting I do too more than anything, let's call it attraction and also, like I'm also starting to get annoyed with agent attraction, right, because?

Speaker 1:

we're're like right with the next iteration of recruiting and now we're there, so like, let's evolve that one what are we gonna call it? Let's like coin something new.

Speaker 2:

Right now I need, like I know the slingshot, I don't know magnetic, but yeah, we'll figure it out we'll, we'll figure it out, but we're gonna call it agent attraction for now.

Speaker 1:

So we were kind of like building it from coming into this new market, like how did you stand out? And I think that you nailed it. It was like you guys have a really strong marketing in-house agency, so you're very design forward, which I think was a huge, huge, huge value add. And then we were talking about like systems and like hardcore recruiting, and I love the story about how you messed up this email. Can we talk about it please?

Speaker 1:

Because it's like my favorite thing on earth where you're putting in the email, like the intro email to your like list of agents, and you put hi first name and the first name didn't pop. I'm like and you got and you recruited agents from that I know.

Speaker 2:

Oh my God, talk about both the most mortifying, like fetal position in the closet moment, matched with like the most empowering thing, all at the same time One full pendulum swing, all within the same like hour or so. I mean, I agent attraction was something, that was something that I, that was a big challenge. Right, I didn't know what to do. I was so. I didn't realize how lucky I was to work alongside Stacey Staub for so many years, who just also has a little magnet inside of her of wonderfulness. And agents just jumped at Weston Maine Homes, rightfully so. And so when I came here and I was like that's going to happen here, it's going to be great, exactly that didn't happen, and so I had to put some structure around the process of attracting agents to Weston Maine Homes, more so, like, make sure they knew what it was. And so I was like that's it, I'm going to do the email campaign, I'm going to just put some feelers out there. It's just going to start sharing who we are.

Speaker 2:

I wrote a 26 email campaign and I had a placehold name on the email and I didn't do the merge tag in there, it just said hi, first name, and it's like this, the toothpaste that I couldn't shove back in the tube fast enough. Let me tell you I said I was like that's it it was. It was fun while we had it here. It was. You know, real estate's been a good time and I'll see you all in the next career path. Lo and behold, I had a handful of like. I had a couple of very unkind people respond to that with a snarky way which immediately went into my phone with little emojis that said they were not nice. I had a couple of very sweet people be like hey, don't know if you noticed this, and I was like did I notice it? And I had a agent come in for an interview and I love it.

Speaker 2:

Oh my gosh. I think it taught me like, listen, maybe it was intentional to weed out the unkind people, maybe it was me being a human because I'm not a big corporate conglomerate and it brought a big flurry of like pride and it weirdly kind of unlocked another layer of leadership and ownership that I was like. I am who I am. You know I make mistakes. It is not a reflection of the quality of person that I am or what we do here. I am just doing the best I can, just like everybody else, and I will be the first person to sit here and support you when you send me a place. Ironically, two weeks later I got a similar thing I did.

Speaker 1:

No way.

Speaker 2:

On a text message and it was yeah, on a text message, and it was like hey, first name, and then it was like Allie blah, blah, blah, blah, blah and it was like some sort of like recruiting thing and I just kind of gave it like a, I see you.

Speaker 1:

Oh, I'm going to give it a thumbs up.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, totally. I was like oh interested, but like all the best, like that's all you need.

Speaker 1:

You know what I mean. I'm sure they saw their mistake. What's up with people being just rude? I remember I sent a recruiting email once out and it was all about like all the stuff that we did. It was like we have the done for you program and this guy wrote back and he was like there's no way you do all of this for your agents and if you do, you're going out of business in a year. And I'm like, oh, okay, Wow. I'm like oh, okay, Wow.

Speaker 2:

You're nice. Yeah, it takes a lot of effort and energy to be unkind and spiteful, and I mean, that's not the people that we are attracting here to Weston Maitland.

Speaker 1:

That is accurate. Like we're like, how about we have some nice people? We just don't need those meanies.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and that's my funny like always check your watch fields, people and also guess what. The hours kept ticking. The sun set and rose again the next day and here we are.

Speaker 1:

And you still had to go home and make dinner for the family and do bedtime Exactly, and it was such a blip on the radar.

Speaker 2:

So it was a devastatingly comical moment in the kickoff to this year and, like you said, good things came of it, so I appreciated that as well.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that was the best. I loved it. I remember you were just like, oh, shoot. And I'm like, oh, this is good, this is great, don't worry about it.

Speaker 2:

I was like this is over. Oh my God, which I was like. If an agent said that to me, I'd be like we're good, let's turn this water into wine, and sometimes I just need someone to like broker me really quick and so I was very grateful to have as a sounding board and you were like it's all good, don't worry about it, you're human.

Speaker 1:

That's like the boutique broker, who's a human. That's the best. Totally, in fact, it made my brand. So here we are. Anyways, let's dive into some lessons learned, because I just love a good lessons learned takeaway. So what are two to three things that you feel like you have learned in the past two-ish years on this journey of going from producing agent to broker owner?

Speaker 2:

on this journey of going from producing agent to broker owner.

Speaker 2:

I love this question and it's like it's such an easy and complex question at the same time. Then, like the first thing that comes to my mind when I hear that question is, as boring as it sounds, the financials around broker ownership is significantly different than being a solo real estate agent. Regardless of whatever your LLC or tax status or what have you, is the operation of running a brokerage and how much that takes financially and the structure of it all. That was all taken care of you as a solo agent. So having a better understanding of that, looking back on it, would have been a smarter thing for me to know, but I didn't know. What I didn't know and I think a big lesson learned is I did it.

Speaker 2:

I did an okay job with agent attraction, but I think being okay with going slow, um, I was used to.

Speaker 2:

I was used to the cadence of selling real estate where you know I'm selling two or three homes a month and just like in the, in the shuffle of that and in the flow.

Speaker 2:

But that was my own silo and when I stepped into broker ownership it became the whole farm and so I had to be okay with like every little part of the farm, just like needing to get into place and slowly building up, rather than just like doing what I do and everything else gets taken care of. And I, I think I tried to go like speed up the process really fast, like make sure that I was like whatever success was, or financially and getting there, or that we had agents, we had signs in the yard that people knew who we were and it was going to unfold that as it was going to. And you know, in hindsight I can see that, but I think I would have taken my time to establish who we are like just not feel like I had to rush things. I was always trying to get to that next step, that I didn't always know what it was either, and so maybe that's called a lack of vision.

Speaker 1:

I don't know, I think you have a vision.

Speaker 2:

I had the vision. I knew what it was going to feel like, what it was going to look like, how it was going to be. I just I feel like sometimes I was a little aimless on how to get there and maybe having a little bit more of a plan would have served me well. Yeah, but I didn't really have a plan.

Speaker 1:

I wonder if you even needed a plan though, because I think, like I actually have a feeling that if you had a plan, it would have gone out the window, because you didn't know what market you were getting into, like you had no idea. You had to land to kind of know what land on the moon, to know what you were dealing with.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and maybe that's what it was right it was like, instead of just like starting the brokerage, like maybe I should have just like acclimated a little bit. But listen, I have literally never been one that doesn't jump out of the plane and find my parachute leader kind of person I just always jump and I find my feet and not that it makes anybody less stressed by any means, but it's just like my modus operandi, it's just how I go, and otherwise everything's boring to me.

Speaker 1:

I know I'm the same way, but that's why I loved working with you.

Speaker 2:

Well, totally oh gosh, it was like a match made in heaven. Yeah, it was wonderful, it was exactly what I needed, All right.

Speaker 1:

So if you could go back and give yourself one piece of advice, just one what would it be?

Speaker 2:

I want two, so I'm going to give you the boring one first, which is save more money.

Speaker 1:

Okay, you needed more money.

Speaker 2:

Okay. You just don't understand the operation costs of things or just don't go so fast. And I would also say like it's going to be okay. It's going to be okay. It's going to look different than you ever pictured it to be, but it's still going to be okay.

Speaker 2:

Because I didn't realize that I'm like a closet, type A, perfectionist type person because in my mind I'm like a type B personality turns out I'm pretty type A and that got in my way a lot of like I have to hit this benchmark, I have to appeara certain way this, this standard of success and what that looks like. And it kind of put like a block and a barrier of like the right people walking through the door. And the second I was like this is how I want it to feel. Come get it. Things became a lot easier, which was kind of like it's going to be okay. You know it will be how it will be and we will, and if the right placeholders are in place the culture, what we do, what we offer, how we want to appear the right people find you when they need to.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, they really do, and I don't know if that's good advice, but I truly have more money.

Speaker 2:

That would be the big, my big suggestion, if you're going to go in and start a brokerage like it has a lot more overhead than you think. Even if you run lean it has a lot of overhead.

Speaker 1:

Yes, I agree with that. I remember my first year. I was like 40K in the hole. I had to borrow it from my retirement account and I'm like, ooh, I definitely didn't know that was going to happen. So, yes, knowing that in advance is crucial. You have to definitely know your financials. I just think financials, all of that flows it's very important. That's like the.

Speaker 1:

I just think financials, like all of that flows, it's very important. That's like the foundation you're built on. Like the splits, you're offering the overhead, you're carrying your per agent break-even point, Like there's just so many things you have to calculate and know before you dive in Whether you have an admin fee or not.

Speaker 2:

Like there's just a lot, listen. I started I was like I went on feels and feels do not equal profit, so I had to learn that one really quick.

Speaker 1:

Oh, feels. I mean sometimes feels are really good though.

Speaker 2:

Yeah and listen. They get you to jump and do the thing. What I don't do is sit and wait for the thing to happen. I do not wait for opportunity, um, connections, the next step, decisions. Like I'm, I've also learned to fail fast and like cut the tie when you need to, which is a gift I gave myself.

Speaker 1:

I think it's a really good thing to do. All right. So closing question what are you looking forward to in 2025?

Speaker 2:

Oh, that's such a good question I'm looking forward to. I'm really cultivating. I love supporting and coaching agents, and especially with my agents here at Weston Maine homes, Um, the I call it like the tribe that we're building here. The people that are around the table are incredible and I'm really excited to help them uncover and cultivate their gifts and what is going to bring them to their level of success. You've got to sell real estate to pay for something that's really exciting, Whether that's charity, time away, college funds, whatever investment properties and so I'm really excited to help coach agents to get them to that level that they want to do and succeed and grow. Our collaboration table Like the amount of ideas shared and back and forth that is happening here is amazing and I just want to keep providing that opportunity. So I'm excited for how that's going to unfold and I think that we are really catching on to something here. So I'm just excited for a little bit of growth.

Speaker 1:

I love that. All right, we are going to end on. You are going to grow in 2025. We're manifesting it, putting it out there.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, bring it on.

Speaker 1:

Thank you so much for coming on. It was so great chatting with you. Thanks.

Speaker 2:

Lindsay, I will come on any day. I appreciate your questions. You know you have a big fan for me over here in the Twin Cities.

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