Today we’d like to introduce you to Seth O’Byrne.
Seth, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
In 2000, I moved to San Diego to go to college. I told my family I was coming here to make a career for myself in California. I told my friends I was moving to the beach to learn to surf and catch a mermaid. Both were true. Like a lot of people, I believed that California was the only place my dreams were possible. It was a place I could live a lifestyle I had only seen in movies and get out of my small town and make a name for myself. My first love has always been literature and movies, but I had always considered myself an entrepreneur.
So, when I was halfway through college and was given an opportunity to pursue an internship in real estate I was excited for the chance to explore. I made coffee, sent faxes and basically did anything and everything I could to be around the stars of our industry in La Jolla. This city was the type of place that was unimaginable in other parts of the Country.
Every home was stunning, the beaches were pristine and the brokers here were at the absolute top of their game. So, very soon thereafter, I was lured into residential real estate and began making a formal push to make that my path. From 2004 when I first formed a real estate team (at age 23) to today where we have sold over $1 Billion under the O’Byrne Team brand of agents I have always loved the speed of it. My ideas start on napkins on Monday. By Wednesday they are being talked about with my team.
By Friday, they are actually happening and in just a few weeks we can see our entire company turn and shift. It has always felt so gratifying because this business always reminds me how quickly you can reshape your reality if you put in the work to do it. It always feels new. It always feels exciting. And, after having been in the business now for nearly 15 years what brings me back to real estate is the creativity and the connection with the clients and people we serve. We have an opportunity to pursue our own dreams while helping others pursue theirs too. That is an amazing gift to Realtors and to me, the main thing that gets me jumping out of bed in the morning.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
In 2007, I closed escrow on my own home. I had just bought my dream car and was rapidly collecting frequent flyer miles from all my elaborate vacations. Life was incredible, I was on stage speaking to hundreds of Realtors as a “Young Up and Comer” and I had convinced myself that no market was too tough for me. Then the greatest global recession our generation had ever seen happened…like 3 months after I had hit my absolute peak. It was beyond the scariest moment of my life. What was worse was that it wasn’t a close call in a car crash that happened in an instant. It was a multi-year implosion that sent myself and all of my colleagues on a downwards spiral of self-doubt and fear. It took many years to unravel my company, retool my mental outlook and begin to pick up the pieces again. In some ways I still live with that experience today. It was humiliating at times and it forced me to reconnect with what I thought was important in life. As a young 20-year-old I experienced success and praise very early in my life. What I teach other entrepreneurs in my classes and speeches now is that often times when things come so easy we truly take them for granted. That is likely one of the most dangerous moments in an entrepreneur’s life.
Since then, I have focused my life on my relationships and my experiences. In business I have focused my time not just on the sales we are a part of, but the lives we touch and the gratitude we feel for that. What’s more is now I focus my efforts on not just “grinding” away at work for the pursuit of financial success but doing things I am truly passionate about.
For me, that is creating beautiful story-based marketing for our homes and our company. I have found that my creativity is my best attribute and as I have begun to dive into that my business has thrived. This is because I am focusing my energy on doing things that are my unique skills, while hiring around me to have the other details handled by my team. Our brand identity, our message and our relationship with our clients has soared since this change back in 2014. Today we reach nearly 100,000 people a week through our Instagram and Facebook pages and we keep growing all over the world. That is an exciting thing for a local real estate business and it is truly proof to me that passion is what makes a company truly great. That passion, above money or ego, is what I learned to hone coming out of the adversity of the 2008 Recession.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
We believe that our Story-Based marketing approach to advertising homes is what we excel at. We focus on short vignettes, films, long format videos and photo collections to make our homes attached to lifestyle. We service clients all over San Diego, with a wide array of prices. That said, for our clients in the luxury high-end we find that we particularly excel because we have truly honed the art of storytelling. The concept is to tell about how a home lives, how it makes someone feel and why its uniquely able to shape our client’s lives. We hire our actors from all over California, bring our videographers from Hollywood, Miami and Seattle and are very hands on with the planning and mapping out of the shots. I consider myself the producer and director for our films and I take great pride in being hands on with the process. To date we have produced over 300 films across all platforms and have put out 30 Hollywood style films for our homes. The look is always changing to fit the feel of our properties; however, the underlying theme is always lifestyle and humanity.
We try to bring our structures to life because we know that luxury properties are bought with dreams in mind. These dreams have a lot less to do with how many bathrooms the home has and a lot more to do with family, fulfillment and friendship. We have won several national awards for our films and are proud to say that we have collected over 2 Million views of our library across all platforms. That reach is incredible and since it has grown in an organic fashion it has shown me that people really resonate with the stories too.
What were you like growing up?
I was boundlessly outgoing. I felt energized around people at all times. It was exciting to interact, make jokes with and connect with people. Throughout all of my life my businesses have centered around people. I was never the best snowboarder but was sponsored throughout high school because the company saw that I had influence on my peers. I was never the best DJ but was constantly being booked to play shows because I could bring crowds to places I would play. It has always been a strange thing for me; to pursue a craft and every time come back to realize that my real craft is the art of influence. I struggled to wrap my mind around that since it felt like it always came back to business and influence.
Today, I have come to find that it is an amazing tool for me because I have found things that I am passionate about that truly matter. From my charities like the Seany Foundation and Giveback Homes to my love of real estate and its incredible role in people’s lives. We draw crowds to what we do and when we are passionate about what we do, the crowds are passionate too.
Contact Info:
- Address: 1111 Prospect Street La Jolla, California 92037
- Website: www.obyrneteam.com
- Phone: 8588693940
- Email: seth@obyrneteam.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seth_obyrne
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesethobyrne
- Other: www.otluxury.com
Image Credit:
Seth O’Byrne
Jessie O’Byrne
Keke Jones
Stephanie Jezek
Mia Tidwell
Debbie Keckeisen
Frank Glaser
Erika Spears
Jodette Goebel
Alina Mendoza
John Carroll
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