Dave Liniger: The Importance of Daydreams

At 20, Dave Liniger was a scrawny, hardworking young father with big dreams but little confidence. A poorly paid air force sergeant anxious to provide well for his family, Dave supplemented his military paycheck by delivering newspapers, pumping gas, and selling tickets at a movie theatre. But when he stumbled into a new career, and later found a mentor who helped him develop self-confidence, Dave discovered a passion that enabled him to live out his dreams and, at the same time, help others find theirs. Not only that, he got rich.

Growing up on a farm in Marion, Indiana, Dave learned the value of hard work. “My father taught me start early and work long hours,” says Dave. “As soon as I could, I got every part-time job possible, from mowing lawns to cleaning up the sheet metal shop – anything that kids did back in Indiana.” But Dave’s daydreams took him far beyond the corn and soybean fields of his small town. He was fascinated with movies about Tarzan, cowboys, soldiers, and adventurers. He often imagined what it would be like to live the lives he saw played out on the big screen. He saw himself flying around the world in a hot-air balloon and big game hunting in the heart of Africa. Though Dave's dreams seemed farfetched for a farm boy, they inspired him to keep moving forward, even when times were tough.

At 17, Dave started college at Indiana University. At the time, he couldn't see the connection between his dreams and the business courses he was enrolled in. After only three semesters he dropped out, but not before meeting a beautiful young woman whom he soon married. After the wedding, Dave enlisted in the Air Force, and the young couple moved to Davis Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Arizona. Dave still dreamed of grand adventures, but a new responsibility set in before he had time to get his dreams off the ground. Within a year, Dave had a daughter. Suddenly, he was a family man. “I decided I had better grow up and figure out how to run my life.”

Hard work was second nature to Dave, who worked three part-time jobs in addition to his military duties. He made a decent living but nothing spectacular. Then one day he stumbled on a book that introduced him to a clever way of making money. It was written by a postal service worker who, in his spare time, bought “fixer-uppers” – homes in need of repair that could be bought cheap, fixed up, rented for a while, and then sold for a profit. The idea inspired Dave and he decided to try it himself. He bought his first house for $10,000, made improvements, and sold it eight months later for an astonishing $14,000. “I was amazed. I made more money off one house than I did from three part-time jobs and my full time military paycheck.” Dave was onto something. He set a goal of owning 21 single-family homes by the time he was 21, and he made it. Along the way, he decided to get his own real estate license; that way, he could save part of the commission he was currently paying an agent each time he bought a property. Once he had a license, Dave started dabbling in the sales end of the business as well. But sales takes a kind of confidence in dealing with people that Dave didn’t have at the time.

“Back then, real estate agents were these older, gray-haired guys in suits, and there I was with my military crew cut, skinny, and so young-looking the police would stop me just to see if I had a driver’s license. I drove a beat-up VW bug with no air-conditioning – in Phoenix! I didn’t have confidence that I could really do the job."

Dave tried selling houses for six months and was totally unsuccessful. Discouraged and ready to quit, he half-heartedly attended a talk by a motivational speaker, Dave Stone, at the ritzy Mountain Shadows Country Club in Scottsdale. Stone was unlike anyone Dave had ever heard before. A real estate agent himself, Stone exuded confidence. He understood what motivated people and the psychology of sales. While Stone spoke, Dave’s mind raced “I kept thinking, gosh, if I understood the real estate business the way he does and could be as convincing, I'm sure I could get some business.” At the break, Dave ran up to Mr. Stone and told him what he was thinking. He also told Stone he had been working in real estate sales for six months without listing a single home or making a single sale.

Stone advised him to quit.

Was it just a strategy to make Dave try harder or did Stone mean it? It didn’t matter. Dave was convinced that if he could learn Stone’s method, he could succeed. Something in Dave had woken up. On the way home, he stopped at the grocery store to purchase a half-gallon of milk.

“In the check out line I overheard this young woman talking to her father about selling his house. I said ‘excuse me, but are you talking about real estate?' She explained that her father needed to move from Tempe, Arizona to Albuquerque, New Mexico. 'Well sir,' I said, 'Do you know anything about title insurance or mortgages or closings?' He looked at me and muttered something in Spanish. 'He really doesn’t understand much English,' his daughter said."

At that moment Dave knew he could help. "I offered to sell his house for him and we went over to see it that very night. It was a 'fixer-upper' – I knew about those. I listed the house that night and immediately had two full price offers. The next morning, I took the young woman and her fiancée out and sold them a house by lunch. They referred me to two other couples and I sold them houses. So, basically, in two days, I had listed one house and sold four. I never looked back."

Dave got good at sales, very good. By the time his military stint was up in Arizona, he had established himself as a successful real estate agent. He moved his family to Denver, Colorado and got work easily. But he had begun thinking about started his own business. He had a radical idea that, if it worked, would shake up the conservative real estate industry. He decided to give it a shot.

The idea was to start a company that would let the agents keep 100% of the commissions they made, rather than splitting them 50-50 with the managing organization. In this model, agents would have a voice in running the office and share the actual expenses of doing so. The idea was very controversial at the time.

With profits from his own pocket plus a handful of investors, Dave started RE/MAX in 1973. Almost immediately the country went into a recession. His partners’ investments collapsed. With several offices already opened and managers hired, Dave found himself with no financial backing, no experience running a business, and with established real estate companies dead set against him.

“Right away we ran into a real buzz saw,” he chuckles, looking back.
The first couple years were pretty bleak for RE/MAX. "The harder we tried, the more money we owed, and the fewer people would come to work for us," recalls Dave. Still, the agents who did come to RE/MAX found that the model of sharing office costs while keeping their full commissions really worked. “The agents were thriving,” says Dave, “and we tried to learn from them. We asked, how do we make this business better? What can we do for you that we’re not doing? What are we doing right? What are we doing wrong?" With the agents help and Dave's determination, the tide eventually turned. Satisfied homebuyers and real estate agents spread the word about the fledging company, much to the aggravation of the older, established firms.

“They waged a constant crusade to drive us out of business. I guess I had enough military in me to fight back.”

Dave’s hard work and perseverance were essential to the RE/MAX start-up, but not enough. “I needed the courses I should have had when I was in college – economics, marketing, franchising, the legal implications of all the businesses we were running.” So Dave sought education any way he could get it, attending seminars with his mentor, Dave Stone, reading every business book he could get his hands on, going to real estate conventions, and taking training courses.

At the same time Dave was launching RE/MAX, another historic change was occurring in the real estate industry: women were getting into the business. Prior the 70's, there had been virtually no women in real estate, but by time RE/MAX started, a growing number had become successful agents with smaller companies. The two largest firms clung to the past and would hire women only as secretaries or receptionists. This pool of talented women was hitting the glass ceiling and RE/MAX offered them the right opportunity at the right time. "By our fifth year in business we had 289 agents, about 70 percent who were female. The two biggest companies in town didn’t have any women in sales."

And the rest, as they say, is history. The following year, over 200 men who saw the direction the industry was moving joined RE/MAX, giving the company 500 agents. "We had paid off our bills and cleaned up our debt. That year we were the number one real estate company in the Denver metropolitan area," says Dave. RE/MAX had taken over a market that had been dominated by two old line companies for over fifty years.

Since those early days, RE/MAX has grown tremendously. Today it is the largest privately owned real estate franchising company in the world with over 80,000 agents and more than 4,500 offices in 42 countries.

And what about Dave’s childhood dreams of being an adventurer? Many of those have come true as well. His lifestyle has afforded him the opportunity to take up flying, skydiving, ballooning, hunting, fishing, and boating. He is a Nascar driver and team owner, owns a private, 18-hole golf course used by charitable organizations, and recently built a museum, The Wildlife Experience, dedicated to wildlife conservation.

"I never lost my childhood vision," says Dave. "I think its okay to daydream. I think its okay to put yourself in different positions and imagine what it would really be like if you could grow up and be what’s in your dreams. If your vision is strong enough, it will help you get over the hurdles of getting there. Without dreams, there’s nothing to achieve."

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