Interview With Tripp Butler – Owner of Southbridge Greater Savannah Realty
Tripp Butler has almost 30 years of experience in the residential real estate market. His expertise is taking over real estate companies that are underperforming and increasing not only the growth but the profits by threefold. Tripp started his career at Wild Dunes Real Estate in 1993 as a sales executive, by 1998, Tripp was a Broker and partner of the firm. At the end of 2005, Tripp sold the Company to Lowes Management which was the 5th largest resort management Company in the Country. In 2008 Tripp purchased Southbridge Greater Savannah Realty and had made this Real Estate Company one of the premier real estate companies in the surrounding area. Southbridge Greater Savannah Realty handles the relocation work for some of the biggest companies in the Southeast.
How and why did you get started in this line of work?
I was born in Rome, Georgia and grew up outside of Atlanta. After graduating from The University of Alabama, I started my career in commercial real estate in Atlanta before moving to Charleston, South Carolina, in the early ’90s as a sales executive with Wild Dunes Real Estate. After being a full-time sales executive for a few years, I then took over as broker, then partner and finally CEO with full responsibility for P&L performance, goal setting, overall operations, marketing and sales management, managing a staff of 20. While working on real estate development projects in conjunction with Wild Dunes Development Company, I held responsibility for sales, marketing and infrastructure matters resulting in a rejuvenated residential development firm which at the end of 2005 was sold to Lowe Enterprises (the country’s 5th largest independent management company) after having increased annual sales by over $70 million.
Since 2008, I purchased Southbridge Greater Savannah Realty which has grown to be one of the Top Boutique Real Estate Companies in the surrounding Savannah, Georgia area. Over 20% percent of Southbridge Greater Savannah Realty’s business comes from relocation work with some of the largest names in the country. The relocation companies choose to work with Southbridge Greater Savannah Realty because all agents work from an actual office location that allows the team to have daily walk-in/call-in traffic. Plus, the office location in Savannah is minutes away from Mitsubishi, JCB, Gulfstream, International Paper and more. Southbridge Greater Savannah Realty has built an extraordinarily strong team of sales agents with unprecedented passion, integrity, a strong work ethic, and market knowledge to meet the unique needs of each client.
What do you look for in the sales executives you hire?
I am always looking for genuinely good people. I do not need to have a sales executive with real estate experience, but I am looking for individuals with a great Attitude who realize we are in a 100% service-related business. This means returning all emails and phone calls by the end of the day at the very latest, and realizing every day is a gift from God, so live it to the fullest because it may be your last.
There is a saying, “Successful people are not gifted; they just work hard, then succeed on purpose.”
How would you describe your business to a potential client?
Every day is a new and different day. When you get to work each morning, you truly do not know who may walk through your doors or be calling the office to either list their home or want to go look at homes to purchase. Over the years, I have had the pleasure of meeting professional athletes, entertainers, and CEOs of some of the biggest companies in North America. Your home purchase or sale is probably your biggest or one of the biggest investments in your life. When individuals call me and ask that I work with them, this is truly a huge honor.
