Secrets of Success - Real Estate Webmasters

---

Morgan Carey(left) with Michael Audet of the Wave Group, at the REW reception in New York City

 Walking into the offices of Real Estate Webmasters one immediately notices the spacious cubicles, a high-end stocked kitchen, couches for relaxing and a couple of guitars on stands,  all which lend themselves to creating an atmosphere that says, “we care about our employees”. This was a predominant theme in our discussion with owner and CEO Morgan Carey as he shared with us his secrets of success.

DNBIA: What motivated you to start this business?
Morgan: I started in my house as a consultant helping clients position themselves with Google and Yahoo.  At the time I was working out of a 1000 sq. ft. space I had built with just a few support staff, for graphics / programming and billing. As a consultant doing SEO work I was working 16 hours a day and I couldn’t scale it because everyone wanted to work with me personally. I was the brand.  I needed to find a way to offer value add services that did not depend on my personal labor.  Along with big name SEO consulting clients such as Adobe and Digital River, I ended up with a lot of high- end real estate clients in my portfolio and I received a lot of recognition internationally for not just my SEO work, but the Realtor website and technology we had built – people said “we want that too” and so Real Estate Webmasters was born. With a background in search engine marketing I was able to expand into the real estate space and attract new customers quite easily.

DNBIA: Can you give us a short description of your business?
Morgan: We are the world’s largest provider of custom real estate websites. All projects are built on our proprietary software as a service platform that includes best of breed hosting, support, content management, IDX / MLS and CRM technology. Once launched we also offer end to end internet marketing services to Realtors including search engine optimization and pay per click advertising. In short – we drive leads to our customers and our platform converts them.

DNBIA: Who are your customers?
Morgan: Our customers are Realtors who want leads and a way to convert them. From national franchises such as Sutton here in Canada to Brokerages and top performing individual agents; we service all of the US and Canada, however 80% of our customers are US based.

DNBIA: After you left your home office where did you go?
Morgan: It was 2004 and we were growing and we needed more talent so we had to move. I felt that interviewing people in an office with an ocean view would attract more talent than interviewing people in my basement. We originally started out in Frank Ney’s old office on Church Street on the 4^th floor. At that time, things were starting to move downtown. It was our first investment in commercial lease space.

DNBIA: Why at that time did you come downtown, was it to attract clients?
Morgan: It never had anything to do with clients, remember most of our clients were in the US. It was about the experience for the staff. We wanted access to amenities, coffee shops and restaurants. We took a second space right above what used to be Tanya’s Bar and Grill in the old MacMillan Bloedel building, so now we had two offices close to each other. We weren’t even there two years because we just kept growing.
Next we moved to Treesea place; we were there for five years. I tried to buy it, I wanted to buy the whole building or the top floor, but we lost the bid to the current owners, so that was the impetus to start looking. At the time there weren’t a lot of other buildings that were for sale and vacant downtown, so I bought our current 4500 sq. ft. location at 210 Fourth St. Later to accommodate growth I also bought 324 Terminal Avenue, where we occupy roughly 6000 sq. ft. – the whole 2 & 3 floor.

DNBIA: So what made you choose the Free Press Building on Commercial Street for your operation?
Morgan: The reason for buying the property on Commercial Street was to unite the two offices and provide space for additional growth. We needed staff yesterday. We bring in talent locally from courses such as the ITAS program but we also bring talent from other places, which means we need an amazing facility to help keep them happy. Right now we are hiring marketing people and management level operations people. We plan to have 100 people in the new building.

DNBIA: What is your expected move in date?
Morgan: We are targeting the first quarter of 2014. February would be nice.

DNBIA: How many employees do you have?
Morgan: Around 70. Many of the staff has been here over 5 years.

DNBIA: Can you tell us more about your new office space?
Morgan: The new building will be 15,000 square feet. The concept is to bring it back to its original heritage state. The fire in the 1950′s took off the 3rd story, so the idea was to bring that back and then add a brick façade back on the building. There will be a 70 person deck on the roof with and ocean views from all floors. The 2nd and 3rd floors will be office space. We are planning on opening a restaurant on the first floor, depending on how it goes with the City.  If we can get the easement we would also like to have an outside patio. We plan to have an app in the office for ordering food and the time you need it. The idea is to build in efficiency, so employees don’t have to wait for their food. We love providing healthy food and I want the best options for the staff.

DNBIA: What does a day in the life of Morgan Carey look like?
Morgan: I have three different lives; life as a father – when my daughter is not in school I am 100% focused on her – be it Karate, horseback riding or just spending quality time doing crafts at our farm. I have my real estate interests, I love dealing with the investment and improvement side of the property. I’m not just in it for flipping but for the sake of long term investment and improvement to Nanaimo. Finally there is the REW business side – I’ve stepped out of operations for the most part. I run the Research and Development side and I am an evangelist for our company. I do the conferences, close the feedback loop, and listen to potential customers. My role is to continue to be the innovator and entrepreneur. I can do this because the staff and leadership are fantastic at their jobs.

DNBIA: Tell us something people wouldn’t necessarily know about you.
Morgan: I was raised in Nanaimo. I grew up sleeping in a guitar case; my mother has been a busker (street musician) in downtown Nanaimo for 30 years. I am an accomplished musician (most stringed instruments and vocals). At 15 years of age I was on stage at the World Beat Café when I found out I was going to be a dad; that was why I stayed in Nanaimo, for my son.  At 34, I am pretty young to have an 18 year old. I don’t get to play much live any more, but when I can I sneak in Karaoke or a jam session.  I have sung karaoke in twenty countries around the world.  One of my favourites was a place in Rome called the Scholars Lounge. The quality of the sound is amazing and there were hundreds of people.

DNBIA: What advice would you give to a new business starting out downtown Nanaimo?
Morgan: Do your homework. Interview the downtown businesses, interview the owners. Far too few people know what’s happening when they start out.  Ask when is it slow? When is it busy? Pick a business that is right for downtown. I think downtown is awesome but it has not reached its potential. What are needed are destination businesses. The kind that will drive unique interests, not just blend in with the existing offerings.

DNBIA: We are seeing a shift in Nanaimo right now, investment is happening in the community and rather than the government, we really need the private sector to come in and invest. What are your thoughts?
Morgan: Even though I have been able to purchase property at very low prices, for now, I am probably not going to invest too much more in downtown Nanaimo and would advise others to do the same until something changes. The City is very hard to deal with. Unfortunately the City has a work to rule attitude, it was like dealing with a bad doorman; you know, someone who knows they have the power and they want to use it. Unless that changes, I won’t invest in more property downtown.
We have a lot of opportunity for investors. Personally I would like to own most of Commercial Street it’s a good investment we just need the city to be more onside with investors. I want people to be positive about Nanaimo. Nanaimo has a great future we just need our city’s leaders to step up and embrace the private sector and do anything they can to be accommodating. Good investors don’t want to cut corners but they do want less red tape, efficiency and a positive investment experience.