Great Matchmaking Fuels Firm’s Growth
When Benita Carswell, the founder of Bo Bridgeport Brokers, Inc., talks about her company, she sounds more like a matchmaker than a CEO. “We’re interested in matching buyers with a home that not only suits their needs, but also with a home that suits their heart and budget.” This is a part of the Bo Bridgeport Brokers vision – something she mentions repeatedly during our conversation.

Benita founded Bo Bridgeport Brokers in 1997. In 1999, Janie Gray joined the company as a partner and principal. Today, with more than 80 agents on board, the company is one of the fastest growing real estate firms in the Southeast. Although it started in and still focuses on Atlanta’s intown communities, such as Kirkwood, East Lake, Oakhurst, Ormewood Park and Decatur, Bo Bridgeport also now operates in Midtown, Virginia-Highland, Buckhead and Sandy Springs, as well as in North Georgia, Tennessee, the North Carolina mountains and Florida.

The company provides both residential and commercial services with some 60 percent of the company’s business in residential resales and approximately 40 percent in new construction. The firm’s Builder Services Group serves new-construction clients. A strong link to new construction and development is not surprising, given the origins of the Bo Bridgeport brand.

A (strong) brand is born
The Bo Bridgeport name arose from two tidbits of information that were relevant to Benita’s life at the time the firm was born. While working in corporate America as a sales executive, Benita Carswell had a manager who had nicknamed her “Bo.” After a job transfer brought her from Florida to Atlanta, she bought a house on Bridgeport Drive in DeKalb County. Soon after she moved in, a “fixer-upper” house across the street became available. As she tells it, she called her Realtor, who said, “Benita, if you don’t buy this house I will.” Benita bought the house. That one stroke of the pen laid the foundation of a new career in renovation, redevelopment and real estate sales, and its name was Bo Bridgeport Brokers.

In 1999, Janie Gray joined Bo Bridgeport Brokers. Janie, who grew up in a family-owned real estate company, thought she would never be in the real estate business again. But, after a long career in corporate training, she bought a very large “fixer-upper” herself and found herself bitten by the renovation and redevelopment bug.

Janie proved to be a natural fit for Bo Bridgeport, with her experience in sales training and real estate. Benita and Janie went from being renovators with a strong sense of neighborhood and community to representing buyers and sellers, builders and investors.

“Friends and neighbors encouraged us to go into the real estate business because of our knowledge and ingenuity,” Benita says, “so the path we were on was quite natural.” No wonder, as Janie tells it, because “Benita is a visionary: She is very good at interpreting the dreams of home buyers and sellers – sometimes before they see it themselves. At the same time she has an innate ability to identify agents who ‘get’ what Bo Bridgeport Brokers is all about and want to be a part of it.”

As a result, Bo Bridgeport has evolved as a unique real estate company. It is a casual, intown, urban firm. You can wear blue jeans to the office and be comfortable solving some of the complex issues that arise in today’s real estate arena. “But don’t be fooled,” says Janie. “We know when to put suits on, too.”

The firm truly lives up to its vision of matching people with neighborhoods that suit that individual needs and desires – and then with homes that suit their budgets. Bo Bridgeport Brokers not only takes extra care of home buyers and sellers, but also of the family of agents it has built. “As we often say,” Janie notes, “there is an agent at Bo Bridgeport who fits the individual needs of every type of client.”

“To me, Bo Bridgeport Brokers represents my stepping out and taking a chance,” Benita says, “launching a new career that was a dream and making it work and sharing that spirit and vision with other people who want to change their lives and change their neighborhoods.”

About the Agents
“As a company, and as individuals, we are focused on providing our clients with the best results and service in the industry,” says Janie. “We listen carefully to understand their real estate goals and work hard to create solutions that make sense for them – individually. And we do this whether they are new to the market or an experienced investor or builder. We have the expertise, proven track record and resources to help them achieve their real estate goals.”

Benita adds that a key to this focus and success are the agents of Bo Bridgeport. “We focus on our agents and their needs, and we’re proud of the technology, training and other tools we provide that help them succeed,” she says, “because if they are successful, our clients will get the service they deserve. So we start by making a personal commitment toward making our agents successful. Our agents are Bo Bridgeport Brokers.”

Janie and Benita tell me that much of the philosophy they reference is embodied in the 2001 best-selling book, Good to Great, by Jim Collins, in which the author and his colleagues researched companies to find out which ones were truly great and then documented the common traits of success – many of which challenge conventional notions of corporate excellence.

As Benita sums it up, paraphrasing from the book, everyone in a successful company is on the same bus, headed to the same destination. “You’ve got to get the right people on your bus,” she says, “and make sure they are in the right seats, make sure they are a good match for the bus…for the team, and then make sure they all get what they need to do their jobs.”

In short, it takes everyone on the bus to make Bo Bridgeport Brokers what it is. Its agents agree that Bo Bridgeport Brokers is a great place to work. “We devote more time and effort in leading our agents into becoming the most successful and highest producing agents in the real estate industry,” Benita says. The proof is in the regular praise received by Bo Bridgeport agents.

Says one satisfied client: “As first-time homebuyers we really had no idea what to expect from the process. Throughout our experience, (Bo Bridgeport agent) Ken Malone was our star advocate. Ken conducted himself with the utmost professionalism; he anticipated our needs before we knew what they were and made sure that everything was handled appropriately. Our house is the best thing that we’ve ever done, and it would not have been possible without Ken and Bo Bridgeport Brokers.”

You can’t buy advertising that matches endorsements like that. The company and its agents also receive regular praise from other agents who laud the consistent quality of new construction listings or resale listings represented by Bo Bridgeport.

As Bo Bridgeport managing broker for our Virginia Highland office Kathy O’Brien puts it, “We enjoy working with Bo Bridgeport Brokers and appreciate the freedom we need to do what we do best – help buyers find their dream homes and sellers sell their homes. Bo Bridgeport has created for us a feeling of support and structure, yet the freedom to (share in) guidance, brainstorming, training and advice….” Kathy is the broker/manager of the company’s new Virginia-Highland office.

“We’re always looking for talented people to join our team – people who have that spirit to launch a new chapter of life for themselves and for the clients they serve,” Benita says.

Bo Bridgeport continues to grow:
Bo Bridgeport got its start in Atlanta’s Kirkwood neighborhood “when no one wanted to write a contract on a house there,” Benita says, noting that she and Janie were pioneers in the comeback of that neighborhood, one of Atlanta’s oldest. And, just as they focused on architectural appropriateness and consistency, and on creating an environment where people could “live, work and play in the same place” in that neighborhood, they have done so in each neighborhood into which they have grown the business.

“The ultimate vision at Bo Bridgeport is to match every client with a neighborhood that suits their heart and a home that suits their budget,” Janie says. “Achieving this vision means that we invest in efforts to build and strengthen communities in the markets we serve. We understand that people who are happy in their homes make the best neighbors.” Indeed, they are helping people become good neighbors in a growing number of areas.

Three years ago, the Bo Bridgeport vision was carried to Jacksonville, Florida, when longtime clients of the company bought in that area. It turns out hundreds of new homes were going to be developed in a section of the city much like the Atlanta neighborhoods in which Bo Bridgeport began – historic urban markets with unique architecture.

So Benita and Janie put a manager in an office in Jacksonville, and business in Jacksonville and the surrounding beaches has been going swimmingly ever since.

Another expansion came about a year and a half ago when Bo Bridgeport opened an office in Blue Ridge, Georgia, in order to serve a growing cadre of city dwellers interested in North Georgia and Western North Carolina mountain homes.

“One of our agents, who lives there part of the year, introduced us to that market and what great opportunities were there for our clients,” Benita says. Before long, Bo Bridgeport agents and clients alike were buying second homes in the area.

Says Janie: “Now we have great cross-marketing between the Blue Ridge area and Atlanta.” Bo Bridgeport Brokers customers can now see primary residences and second homes in the mountains and at the beach on the firm’s comprehensive Web site, www.bobridgeport.com, which won a 2005 Atlanta Home Builders award.

Just as they’ve helped many Atlanta and Jacksonville neighborhoods develop in a planned, appropriate way, Janie and Benita want Bo Bridgeport Brokers to continue to evolve. “I would love to find exceptional brokers to take this brand into other areas,” Benita says, “especially in other intown markets.”

“We’d like to expand Bo Bridgeport Brokers to many more neighborhoods,” Janie adds, “and create opportunities for successful agents and many happy clients.”

Given the company’s outstanding success since its founding just nine years ago, it’s no doubt that these dedicated and enthusiastic real estate pioneers will continue to identify the right agents and the right customers to bring Bo Bridgeport to other communities across the Atlanta area and the Southeast.

Bo Bridgeport’s Builder Services Group – Service, from the ground up:
Matching buyers with homes and neighborhoods is the founding vision of Bo Bridgeport. Since its inception, the firm’s Builder Services Group, which provides real estate services to builders, project developers and new home buyers, has taken this philosophy to a new level. They work with builders and developers on everything from pre-development analysis of market conditions to on-site sales. Highly proactive, New Home Certified Sales Professionals are involved in all phases of the development and sales process. Bo Bridgeport’s Builder Services Group works like a partner with the developer to ensure maximum value and profitability from every property.

Home builders and developers partner with Bo Bridgeport from the project feasibility phase of new home communities through plan and model home design. “Our dedication to the satisfaction of our builder and buyer does not end at closing,” says Benita Carswell, the firm’s founder. “Through partnership with Bo Bridgeport, builders know that they not only will sell out their communities in record time – they’ll be creating memorable communities.”

So, when it comes to new construction, Bo Bridgeport works only with select builders – those who are dedicated to building high-quality new homes that maintain the integrity of the surrounding neighborhoods as well as meet the buyers’ needs. That makes it possible for home buyers to find a new home with all the conveniences of the 21st century, but built with all the charm and architectural character of the existing neighborhood.

Certified New Homes Sales Professionals are trained to listen to the needs of their buyers and respond with knowledge and expertise about their community and product. They continue to work with home buyers throughout the construction process to keep them informed about the progress of construction and to validate that their homes are finished to their individual specifications, down to the last detail.

And if you have any doubt as to just how important is the Builder Services Group to Bo Bridgeport Brokers, consider that firm founder Benita Carswell serves as the group’s president.

“Quality new construction has always been an important part of what we do,” she says, “lending our expertise to builders, developers and new home buyers. We’re proud to work with some of the region’s leading builders – and some of the happiest new home buyers.”