Paul Carlson of Five Star Real Estate offers important leadership and succession planning tips

On this week’s episode of the RealTrending podcast, host Tracey Velt sits down for an informative conversation with Paul Carlson, president of Five star real estate. Carlson explores his early career, including insights into how he grew the real estate business.

He also explores the key lessons he learned when he inherited the president’s seat from his father, Greg Carlson, the founder of Five Star Real Estate. And Carlson provides some key tips on centralizing management, building a brand and creating a successful succession plan.

After a brief introduction, Carlson shares his background in the industry. The young manager started his career in 2006 before moving into key management positions at Five Star Real Estate in 2012. Before that, Carlson was forced into adversity by the 2008 recession and minimal support from his father. This setback caused him to learn and grow as a real estate professional and photographer before joining Five Star. Today, the company has approximately 740 agents and 22 offices and closed approximately 8,000 transactions in 2024.

Velt continues with a question about Carlson’s transition to the role of president at Five Star. Carlson says the company enforced an anti-nepotism clause, forcing him to move up. His father started inviting him to marketing meetings with other executives. From there, Carlson began pushing for change within the company, which inspired his father to offer him the leadership role. Carlson emphasizes the importance of establishing a unique leadership style rather than trying to emulate a predecessor.

“The best thing I can do is realize that I could never be him, and the company doesn’t need me to be him,” Carlson says. “I see a lot of people taking over their parents’ businesses and trying to imitate the president or founder, but it just doesn’t work. I am good enough as I am.”

Carlson still had to work to earn the respect of some of the company’s senior members, and he faced even more criticism overall as he tried to get the staff on board with Five Star’s forward-looking strategies.

Afterwards, Velt asks Carlson for his initial strategy for growing Five Star. First, Carlson focused on rebranding the company. Internally, he focused on protecting his team from outside noise and tech companies looking to pitch products and AI tools. Instead, he chose to focus on building a strong culture without relying on widely available technology to increase Five Star’s productivity.

“I tried to create something unique because in my opinion, if everyone can get kvCORE, if everyone can get Cloud CMA, if everyone can get Adwerx, any of us can buy it,” says Carlson. “Real estate agents can also go and get it themselves, and that doesn’t really distinguish you from the market.”

Next, Carlson explores some of the strategies he’s used to grow Five Star over time. The company focused on three primary areas to drive growth: reducing agent costs; offering real-time, centralized broker support over the phone; and internally designed personal branding managed by a dedicated team. By offering these three forms of assistance, Carlson says he founded Five Star as more of a consulting firm than a traditional brokerage.

Carlson and Velt conclude the conversation by exploring the criteria for a good succession plan. Carlson believes it is essential for a child to turn a business into their own through hard work and visionary thinking. Companies that do not implement these principles during succession may experience shrinkage. He advises successors to find their internal motivation before taking over the management of a company.