One Big Happy Family

A recurring theme here has been my harrowing guilt over selling Beltri Realtors as one big happy family. I can attest from 2003 til 2007 we were one partying company. If there was a holiday or a birthday we were at a bar hootin and hollerin. The MCAR beach parties should have been known as the Beltri Bash because no one had a better time than we did. Looking back it was the day after these occasions that should have made me more suspicious of our rotund leader. It was always 99 questions, who drank what and how much, who was dancing with who, anyone get sick, who exactly was out, etc etc. The more gossip the better. And he interrogated everyone, especially the agents he fronted money to, those were the ones who owed him and would give up the most idle gossip. For myself and the agents it was just letting off steam, venting about the boss and at worst, innocent flirtations. Far be it for any male to engage in conversation with one of Al's personnal favorites for more than two minutes. First you could feel the glare from across the room, than you could see the pouty face, and then the next day you could expect the 10 minute interrogation about what you were discussing. Everything was a company secret, no one knew from one office to the next what was going on in the company unless it was an ill conceived contest with the reward being lunch with the Bloateds'. Big Deal!!!
Many times I would call another office and ask to speak with an agent or a secretary and find out that they had left or been fired. I was the senior manager and was constantly kept in the dark over personnel decisions. Part of Mrs B's bio is that she personnally sits with each agent and goes over the contract with them. What took Al or I 20 minutes max to go over, takes her 90 minutes and the agent walks out of the room with a dazed look in their eyes. It wasn't till the masses started leaving the company and phoning me that I found out that the Beltris had changed up the contract from your commission being cut to 50% if you were at a higher split and you were leaving the company to 50% of the rate you were currently at. That means an agent at a 50/50 split leaving the company a week before a closing, would get paid 25% and probably wait 3 weeks to get it. Everything started going downhill the day the supportive wife became the do nothing, long winded VP of operations. The more she talked, the less the agents and mgmt respected her. When she yelled or cried, her credibility went down to nothing. Her hiring, and the purchase of the Brielle Showplace, is when the company went from looking out for their agents to looking out for themselves. "Everybodies got their hands in my pocket" is a phrase that just echoes in my mind from hearing it so much.
Besides the 70,000 hits a month on his website, the other thing the Round Mound liked to brag about was his 100 agents. I ran some numbers and names through my head and consulted with some other exes and came up with the following. When we were growing, having fun with wifey as a supportive bystander, Beltri grew to 100 agents in about 4 years. Through that time approx 11 agents left the company, 1 was a porn addict, 1 a drunk, 1 was crazy as a loon, 1 a daughter-in-law, and the other 7 or 8 were for a variety of reasons but nothing to give the company a black eye. Than I ran the numbers since "There's a new Sheriff in Town " speach. Over 30 agents have left since then, almost a third of the company and the majority of the full time agents. I can say with a clear conscience??? that I had nothing to do with any of it. If an agent called and asked for advise, I gave it to them. And 95% of the time my advise was to stay with the devil you know and see if things turn around. Invariably TBO would do something inane or unethical and drive the person away anyway. Of the 30 that had left, 20% were former Million $ Club members, what company could afford to lose that amount of quality producers ane expect to survive??? As always I ponder, what a way to run a company...
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