“The Real Estate Broker”
Donna Dalonzo is the Provincial Director of eXp Realty, Quebec. Her passion is assisting real estate agents to expand their businesses as well as their teams. The brokerage she is part of now is actually providing an exit strategy while keeping a close watch on the future of real estate at all times. She has been in the real estate estate industry for over 23 years. The talented broker has owned and operated 6 Remax franchises for many years as well as being part of the KW Team in Quebec before joining the team at eXp Realty.
The great thing is that agents who are joining forces with eXp keep their existing branding, and so they should since they worked so hard to build on-point strategies. She is the Provincial Director and as well as Executive agency officer at eXp Realty, Quebec. The company is focused on ensuring that you, the broker, have everything you need to excel. According to Donna, her company offers you free personal websites as well as a free Lead Generation system with a CRM and more.
She is a coach; a team builder & she proudly promotes the fact that they at eXp can build a Global real estate business by extending their team internationally. She speaks nonchalantly about the time (almost 23 years now) she’s given to her real estate career. It took Donna Dalonzo a while to find her place, she did and now is working with an innovative real estate company such as eXp Realty.
Donna Dalonzo and her journey towards success
Donna is the mother of two beautiful children. She’s the true definition of a warrior. She holds the statement true that there is nothing a woman cannot do. Donna started her career in the fashion industry. Initially, she was fascinated by the fashion industry and she loved fashion, but a small part of her always kept looking to women entrepreneurs in business. She shifted towards finance and started working on mortgage brokerage and appraising homes. The journey of her career in real estate started very smoothly as it was completely a natural transition for her. The real estate business has always been a lucrative option in her mind.
Her start as a franchise owner made her dreams come true, the partnership and popularity made her very busy. It led to bringing on board many amazing agents and very substantial expansion for her offices. The years of Remax & KW are in her past now, she moved forward with an innovative international company which created a roadmap of how to proceed and succeed while building wealth for the agent and not only for the franchise. eXp Realty is her last stop. She created a network and relationships with the realtors and is always happy to share the exciting news about the fastest-growing company in history. eXp Realty Canada has her involvement as a Provincial Director for eXp Quebec and has just awarded Donna the “Best Provincial Broker of Record of the Year for eXp Canada 2021!
Donna loves to travel, working with eXp Realty makes it so easy to work from wherever she is. According to Donna Dalonzo, she is pretty focused on her business and maybe a bit of a workaholic. She has eXp agents on her team in several countries. She really enjoys meeting with agents and assisting them in their business. Donna has extensive experience in the field of real estate as a real estate agent, team leader and broker of record. In one sentence she is not just the director of eXp global, she is an all-rounder of the company. She has a large following on various social media platforms. Her love for her children, traveling, laughter and nature is shown on her social media pages. Like in any business there are challenges when starting out, but since day one in real estate she never gave up on her dream and never looked back.
eXp Realty of Canada
It all started with Glenn, eXp Realty was founded by Glenn Sanford in the year 2009. He had a huge vision for this company. Glenn wanted to revolutionize the real estate industry by creating a virtual brokerage that offered state-of-the-art technology, coaching and so much more to its agents. After meeting Glenn Sanford, Donna Dalonzo joined eXp Realty. This company is a disruptor in the real estate industry.
It is growing extremely fast. eXp realty was built as a virtual office where hundreds and even thousands of agents simultaneously can log in and attend live & interactive courses. The way this company was built allows for tremendous corporate savings which are given back to the agents in the form of free technology tools, lead generation systems, personal websites, and stock awards. eXp also offers a referral system that creates an Exit Strategy for all agents. The set-up is a real Game Changer.
The achievement that made her top real estate agent
One of the things that excited Donna most when she started working with eXp is the fact that their Core Values were so in tune with hers. She noticed eXp seems to attract people that increase these values. Transparency is so important to Donna that she feels that honest, clear, and open communication is crucial. The merging of a family to a new home gives her immense joy. The passion is driven by helping other agents and leading them towards the path of success. She is a humble, soft-spoken and determined woman. Her personality of never giving up and working hard has helped her reach the steps of success.
She believes things happen for a reason at a certain time. When Patrick Ashby from Ottawa contacted her about eXp she was intrigued. She realized in her head after some time that this is going to be big. As a result, today’s eXp is the fastest growing real estate company. She met many phenomenal leaders and influential people at that conference in Florida that changed her life, Jason Gesing, Gene Frederick, Steve Gabellini & Glenn Sanford and many more. The number of agents in October 2017 at the time of that conference was 2800, today eXp has grown to over 69,000 agents.
In 2019 she launched eXp in Quebec. According to Donna, the numbers are constantly increasing. Now eXp is operating in all 50 states and 9 Canadian provinces. They are in many countries such as – the UK, Australia, Mexico, Portugal, France, South Africa, India, Panama, Colombia, Italy, Germany, Hong Kong with many more opening soon. Inman has named eXp as the “Innovator Brokerage of the year” as well as the “Best Place to Work” for several consecutive years.
Obstacles and challenges along the way
The most difficult obstacles she faced launching eXp in Quebec were due to system changes that needed to be compliant in Quebec. For example, their MLS system is very much different from that of North America, so they had to build a system that worked with their Quebec MLS Centris system. They also had to build their website and lead generator in 2 languages such as French and English. Bringing any industry in any field to another Province is always very challenging still she managed to pull it off with her great business skills. During the first year, they reached a total of 40 agents which was considered to be a great milestone. The whole team lives like a big family. They support and teach each other. It creates positive energy and increases productivity in the company.
Nowadays, there is a huge increase in buyers but little inventory. An agent’s life is listing and selling. As of late they have a listing one minute and sold in another. Multiple offer situations and selling over asking are complicated. It is not only in their market, it’s everywhere such as Vancouver, Toronto, and the US, etc. In the contemporary world, a lot of investors are buying second homes. The company is the best fit for individuals buying or selling, agents provide deep local real estate experience and knowledge to make your experience as frictionless and empowering as possible.
Donna Dalonzo on her brand expectations in the coming years
They, meaning their industry, actually say that eXp global would probably be the first company to hit one million real estate agents, 500,000 agents within 5 years. The teams that they are bringing over are incredible from every angle. The eXp does not ask you to change your branding to sell theirs. While you will keep your branding, your deals will be brokered by eXp Realty. By this process, a lot of very successful individual agents, as well as large teams and brokerages that are already branded, are making the move. In the present day, the number one luxury Remax team has joined eXp.
The agents and teams who have worked at other companies such as Remax for as long as 34 years are joining eXp realty of Canada instead of opening their own agencies partly because they could keep their branding. eXp Realty is growing day by day with brokers from all different banners who are making a move to eXp Realty.
What separates Donna’s company from the rest of the market
The thing that attracted her most to this company was everything they offered to each real estate agent. Being fully virtual was great timing for her. She had noticed over the last several years that agents were not coming into the office much for meetings and coaching. She wondered why they needed so many physical offices in this day and age, so she found a company with a great plan to solve it. Being virtual allows us to use technology exceptionally. Virtualization reduces tremendous brick-and-mortar office expenses that are pretty much paid by the agents. eXp Realty makes it possible to give so much to agents while keeping the cost low.
In the case of traditional brokerages, the companies where the more an agent earns, the more the agent pays. In that situation, she thinks of why a high-producing agent should be penalized for that? She loved this part about eXp, her company rewards them with stock options that cover their fees for the year, so the company ends up paying the agent instead of the agent paying. That’s how this plan works!
She loves building and expanding. She loves helping agents to build their businesses and finding out exactly what they need to do it all. Whether it is team building, structure, guidance & them to reach and or surpass their goals.
The real estate market, post-pandemic:
Most companies have felt many challenges in the past 2 years and had to learn how to pivot their business to work virtually, some took months to figure that part out. We were blessed to continue business as usual and see unparalleled growth, said Donna In the situation when they look at upcoming challenges, she doesn’t see those & only focuses on her goals to make eXp Quebec the best brokerage to work at.
So when we asked Donna about the challenges she foresees, her answer was, “I don’t see obstacles, I see opportunities”.
