Focus, Discipline, Success: Debra Bain’s Real Estate Story

From Photography to Realty Royalty.

Join Ken McLachlan as he interviews Debra Bain, his wife and president of RE/MAX Hallmark, in a heartfelt episode of Realty Life.

Debra shares her inspiring journey from a 21-year-old photographer to a leading figure in the real estate industry, recounting personal challenges, career milestones, and her impactful role as a mentor to many, especially women.

Together, they explore the importance of focus, discipline, and the power of mentorship in achieving success and navigating the ups and downs of a real estate career.

Listen For:
02:51 - First Year in Real Estate
06:47 - Transition to Management and Leadership
12:21 - Role as a Mentor
21:30 - Advice for Aspiring Real Estate Professionals

Guest: Debra Bain
Broker/Owner
President, RE/MAX Hallmark Group of Companies
Website | Email | Office: 416-699-9292 | Cell: 416-564-9918

Ken can be reached at:
ken@remaxhallmark.com

Transcript

Ken McLachlan (00:09):

Hi everyone, it's Ken McLachlan, and I want to welcome you to my podcast called Realty Life. Today, I can't stop smiling. It's a special podcast for me, one that's been in the makings for quite a while, but I'm really, really excited about today. I get to interview someone called Debra Bain. And Debra Bain is very special in my life, obviously. Well, she's my wife, which is really important to me, but obviously she's also the president of ReMax Hallmark, my partner, one of our partners with other people. But Debra has been instrumental in my growth, the growth of the company, and growth of the industry, and a great big leadership position in the industry throughout actually North America and the world. So Debra, I'm really excited about having you here. How do you feel about this?

Debra Bain (01:06):

I'm good. I'm good. You are? Yeah.

Ken McLachlan (01:10):

Yeah. What do you expect from today? What do you expect happen?

Debra Bain (01:14):

Well, I guess maybe for people to know my story a little bit more. I think that most people in the company know me quite well, and sometimes hearing the backstory gives a different perspective on people, so I'm anxious to share that.

Ken McLachlan (01:32):

Yeah, the backstory is interesting, and really what we talk about in this podcast is that what gets you to where you are today? How did this all happen for you? Where did you start from? I know I know your story, but I want you to share how did you get to where you are today? What happened along the way?

Debra Bain (01:51):

Oh boy. Well, I originally got into real estate. I was very young. I was just turning 21 years old, and my mother had just passed away from cancer, and I was just looking for what was I going to do in my life? Where was I going to go? At the time I was a photographer. I had a degree in creative photography from Humber College, and I thought that that was something that I was really interested in. But then my father, after my mother had passed a up to take the real estate course, and he all of a sudden decided just before it was ready to start at Georgian College, I was living in Collingwood at the time that he wasn't going to take it, but he'd already paid for it. So he said to me, you should take this course. And I said, well, what is it?

(02:51):

And he said, selling houses. And I had no clue. Absolutely went into it blind. I didn't even know what a mortgage was, so I was pretty young, but eager to learn. So off I went and I got the course, and my first year in real estate was in Collingwood, and I had joined Century 21, wore the gold jacket, and really felt that it ended up being my calling. Really, I loved it. I had a successful first year selling everything from homes to farms to chalets, to waterfront properties, and decided that after a year that I was ready to come back to Toronto. So that's what I did.

Ken McLachlan (03:43):

How did you end up where you were in the beach in Toronto? You did end up in the beaches, didn't you? Yes. So why the beach? Why? What was it like living there at the time? Well,

Debra Bain (03:54):

When I was going to Humber College, that was my first introduction to the beach, and I lived there for a while. Before I had moved, I had been in Toronto, and then I moved back to Collingwood when my mother got sick to help before she passed. Yeah, so I liked the beach. So I went back there and I just looked in the paper for kind of a house to share, and I ended up on Glen Mount Park with two other girls in a little small semi-detached house. I walked up and down Queen Street looking for real estate brokerages and ended up at Daryl Kent Real Estate.

Ken McLachlan (04:34):

With your resume in hand? Right

Debra Bain (04:36):

Resume in hand with my trade record sheets.

Ken McLachlan (04:41):

Wow. I mean, it's important to have that. I mean that you are making a new identity for yourself in Toronto from Collingwood, but really nobody knew you down in Collingwood. No. But you didn't really know anybody there, did you?

Debra Bain (04:54):

No.

Ken McLachlan (04:56):

How was it starting out? What did you do?

Debra Bain (04:59):

Oh, I really did pick the right brokerage. Darryl Kent Real Estate was a thriving boutique company at the time with a lot of young people. And

Ken McLachlan (05:10):

Yeah, they were just next to Martel, I think, and being a classy act.

Debra Bain (05:14):

And we had offices in all the hot neighborhoods, and it was 1981, and it was just like we had so much fun and we learned all the skills around selling real estate. We used to sit in a big bullpen at the back of the office and listen, whenever somebody made a call, we could all hear it, and we heard from each other, and at the end of the day, we were all single. And so it was, whose house are we going to? What bar are we meeting up at? And it was just a lot of fun and we kind of all grew up together.

Ken McLachlan (05:53):

How did you meet clients in those days?

Debra Bain (05:57):

Door knocking, open houses, prospecting on the telephone, and putting ads in the Toronto Star, these little ads, and people would call you from these ads, but mostly I would say open houses were how I built my business.

Ken McLachlan (06:16):

So I want to fast forward a bit to you building your real estate career business as a sales rep to how you ended up getting into management and leadership. So you ended up at ReMax Hallmark after different things happened in the industry with the companies you're working with. What was that like about getting all of a sudden making that transition to be in management and leadership and ownership, that whole thing, how it played out for you?

Debra Bain (06:47):

That part was a big whirlwind for me. When I look back on it, I was scared Shitless Atlas, and I had joined ReMax as a realtor in the beginning of 1993, March of 93, and it wasn't, so I was a successful agent at that point in the beach in the east end of Toronto. And then one day, Kent Shepherd and Ken McLaughlin invited me for breakfast at the Toronto Hunt Club and asked me if I would be interested in managing the beach office, which was where I worked. And I was a little floored, and I said, I'm going to have to think about it because I knew that it was going to hurt my real estate career, and was it really something that I wanted to do? I think I took about two weeks to think about it.

(07:48):

I got back to Kent and I said, yeah, I'll do it. I'll do it. I just thought at that point in my career, I'd been selling real estate for quite a few years and I thought, there must be something more for me. I figured that this was an opportunity that was presented to me. And I'll never forget Kent saying to me at that breakfast, would you like to own ReMax Hallmark one day? And I just started to laugh. Nothing could be further from my mind at that given moment. So it's funny how all the dots lined up. Yeah,

Ken McLachlan (08:26):

Lee, I think at that time we had two offices and we were just expanding to at that Fairview Mall office, and we needed help in doing that. So we must have had maybe 80, 90 agents at the time, or maybe, I dunno how many we had, maybe more than that, but that's when it was a very pivotal time in our business and the career of ReMax Hallmark when you came in and did that, we had a quantum leap that happened after you came into the company.

Debra Bain (08:55):

Well, it was Kent went up to manage Fairview. I was at the beach, you were at the pap office, and then all of a sudden we opened the office on Mount Pleasant. So the growth was just starting to happen, and we were really, as a company, gaining momentum by branching out of the east end into other areas of the city.

Ken McLachlan (09:20):

It's not always been easy, has it?

Debra Bain (09:21):

No, it hasn't. I struggled in the beginning. I mean, I was really engaged and really excited, but my income dropped as I think yours did when you first took on this role. I went from being one of the top agents to, I think you guys paid me a thousand dollars a week, or sorry, a month. A month, not a week,

Ken McLachlan (09:49):

Let's be clear.

Debra Bain (09:50):

So I got very little money, but I really got engaged and excited by the role that I was in, and I was really wanting to make a difference. And the way that I did that was all through recruiting and I made that my passion and my mission to recruit. If I couldn't have the time to list houses, I was going to go out and hire agents.

Ken McLachlan (10:17):

So we always have these things that get in our way of life, business life, the ups and downs of it, and we've dealt with a lot of people in our life and ourselves as well, and how we get through things and how we fight through things and how we deal with obstacles that pop up. How do you do it? How do you deal with stuff that the negativity, the setbacks, the, oh my God, what's happening type of things. What's your strength?

Debra Bain (10:45):

I think it was really having you mostly to talk to, because you were very calm. Kent was kind of wild and crazy and different. His advice was sometimes didn't resonate with me. And yeah, it was different and Kent was brilliant, but the way that I thought about things and the way I went about things in business were more aligned with you. So having that sounding board and reassurance that I was going down the right path, I mean, the reality is that 50% of the people were going to love what I did and the changes that I made and 50%. So you have to make those decisions for the company and forge ahead. And we were very committed to growth. We saw, remember you saying to me one day, and I think we had at this point maybe 300 agents, which was more than any other ReMax broker had, so we were leading the charge, but you said, why don't we get a thousand, make that our goal. And I just thought, oh my God, a thousand agents, and how am I going to do that? Because I was the one doing most of the recruiting at the time. We didn't have any other managers, but then we started getting into acquisitions and buying other companies, which was an easier route to that path.

Ken McLachlan (12:21):

Yeah, I mean really. And you getting back to the recruiting part, that's what you did so well. That was the growth, just the steady growth of what we were doing. And it's not just about recruiting. It's about impacting people and their business and helping them grow their business and being a sounding board for their business. And you're exceptional with that. You help a lot of people. And I want to go into what I've noticed and a lot of other people have noticed, is the influence you have on women, because I've seen the feedback I've seen, heard the conversations women have had with you about the impact you have with them, the mentorship you do with them, how they look up to you and what they do. And so I know that's really important for you to be that person for especially a woman. I mean, you do it for everybody. I know Deb, but primarily younger women, how they see you as a role model for them. So talk a bit about that, about how you view yourself and how the impact that you've had on younger women or middle, whatever age of women really in the business.

Debra Bain (13:30):

Yeah, I mean that was never anything that I strive to be, but I think just naturally women gravitate to other strong women. And over the course of all of these years, as my leadership role in the company kind of grew people, especially women, and I think they look at what I've been through to get where I am. I mean, I didn't walk into the role as the president of the company. I had to earn it. And so there's respect around that. And I think I helped a lot of women because they looked at me and they went, okay, well, Debra's a mother. I had two young children while I was selling real estate, and when I got into leadership and how did I navigate all of that? And I mean, that part was never easy. Any women listening to this that sell real estate, that have children will know the juggle that's involved in that. You want to be there for your kids and your clients. So it's a constant, yeah, it was hard. And so I think that a lot of women saw that I did that. I gave advice on that. A lot of women that would come and say, I'm thinking of having kids that I don't know how that's going to work selling real estate. And I would kind of paint a picture for them that it was doable.

Ken McLachlan (15:12):

Well, you did. I've heard you do that, and I've heard you talk to people and mentor them. I've also heard you seen the transition of how you've developed into I think, the most exceptional public speaker I've ever heard with amongst a lot of people in this business. But I remember, and this is just a tribute to how you powered through things, to learn things and understood that you had a fear and you had being uncomfortable about doing something, but you made a difference and you actually did it. So tell us about public speaking for you and how you felt about that to start with and how you deal with it now.

Debra Bain (15:52):

The very first time, and I think we had our annual general meeting and I had to get up and give a talk on something I had written out in sentences, everything that I was going to say. And when I got up to the podium, I went completely red from the neck up and I was so nervous, and I just started to read it. And afterwards I thought, oh my gosh, that was terrible. And I vowed that I was going to get better at it because you can't just get up and read something, right, with all those people looking at you. So what I did was I learned how to know what I was talking about and make bullet points so that I had bullet points in front of me that I could look at if I got stuck. But because I knew what I wanted to say about all those things, I would just talk and I got better and better at it. I am still terrified before I get up on stage and talk. Are you really, I'm very nervous. Yeah, I'm very nervous, but I think that once my feet land on the stage, it's just this weird thing. Once I'm off the ground and on the stage I just go, yeah,

Ken McLachlan (17:19):

I didn't know that you were, everyone

Debra Bain (17:21):

Always says to me, oh, you were great. You're so natural. You're a good speaker. And I'm like, what? I don't feel that way. I feel like I really had to struggle to do it, but I'm glad that people think that I'm good.

Ken McLachlan (17:37):

Well, you are. You're tremendous at that. And that's one of the things we have is that you do the public speaking for us. So good at it, you present yourself well, and it makes it easier. Do you

Debra Bain (17:46):

Remember the time that we hired a company to help us with public speaking and it was like an all day event and they kept putting us in front of a camera and we had, there was a paragraph or something that we had to memorize and get up in front to do it, and it was all on video, and I did it, I think once or twice. I was so frustrated and I said to you, I'm not doing this.

Ken McLachlan (18:13):

I'm done. I remember that

Debra Bain (18:14):

We paid a lot of money for this guy to come in and coach us. And I was like, I can't.

Ken McLachlan (18:18):

Yeah, but you learned, we both learned a lot from that and learned how to trust it and get out there and do it, empower through it. My point of asking you all this is that you knew that it was important to have that for yourself and for your career and for the company, and for all of us, that you actually powered through that even knowing that it was really uncomfortable for yourself. And that to me is a standard that you do. And so many things really, Deb, you get out there and you actually get the job done, you put your head down, you make it happen, and you've done that with everything. Anything that we've really grabbed onto, we're doing Naples now Florida, and you are the one that's taking the lead on that. You are out there talking to people, setting the thing up, working with our sales team, and it's brilliant how that happens. The confidence about you speaking to them and doing that really resonates a lot with me and everybody else and actually the people that you're dealing with. So that's the biggest strength you have.

Debra Bain (19:18):

I want to get back just a minute to talk about women in leadership roles because there is a shortage of women. There's a lot of women in real estate who excel, and there are a lot of women brokers out there. There are not as many broker owners that are women or women that are in high level positions in real estate. And

Ken McLachlan (19:47):

Why is that, Deb?

Debra Bain (19:49):

I don't know whether they're not given the opportunity or, I mean, there is a push for women in real estate, and I think you'll see that through a r and different organizations, but I've been doing this such a long time. I think I was like a pioneer. And I have to say, I had a fabulous mentor. Pamela Alexander from ReMax Ontario became a mentor for me, Frank ler, and I went to a lot of ReMax events in the very beginning and talked to a lot of people. So all of that I think contributed to where I am today and how I see the business, and we've always been really clear on what our mandate is here to help build our agent's business. We've always taken that very seriously. And

Ken McLachlan (20:54):

So

Debra Bain (20:54):

How do you, what would you

Ken McLachlan (20:58):

Say to the women and I guess men that are listening to this, and what advice would you give them about their careers in real estate? What would you say? We always got frustrated. We were struggling, and I'm sure you did as well. And there's a lot of agents that are in this business, the balance of life, work balance, as you said, having the kids and trying to build a career and trying to build a solid career. And what do you tell people that are struggling?

Debra Bain (21:30):

I think people are too distracted. I think that's the main thing. If you want to build a great career, you need to focus on what's important as it going to help you build that. And in any of the coaching programs that I've done, I always say to people, if you can focus for two hours a day, only two hours, even five days a week on prospecting, you're going to have so much business. You won't know what to do with all of it. But they can't force themselves to prospect for whatever reason. Yeah, I agree with you. Whether it's their phone, their computer, their phone calls, they busy themselves with a lot of reactionary things in a day that don't lead to business. And if you look, and we have a lot of top performers in our company, and if you look at how they spend their time and what they do in a day, it's night and day from the person who's struggling.

Ken McLachlan (22:32):

So doing what's necessary every day. And the discipline of doing that, right? Yes.

Debra Bain (22:38):

The discipline around, because I know that

Ken McLachlan (22:39):

You show up for work every day when you're doing it. There's no question about that. You actually do the work, you put the time in, you meet the people you cause things to happen and your advice to have a great career. It's actually just do the work every day. It's not that we see a lot of people doing.

Debra Bain (22:58):

 Its not complicated.

Ken McLachlan (22:58):

We see a lot of people doing other things and it kind of gets in their way.

Debra Bain (23:01):

Listen, some people are more aligned to sell real estate than others. And we have watched over the last several years that a lot of people have gotten into real estate that probably shouldn't be, they'll scratch out a living. But what separates those people from the people who make a great living at this? And it doesn't have to mean that everybody makes millions of dollars. That's not what it's about. But it's having a fulfilling career that works for your lifestyle, whatever that may be. And that's possible for most people if they just commit to it and focus and do the work.

Ken McLachlan (23:44):

So are you happy with your career?

Debra Bain (23:47):

Oh, this career has given me so much. I've been able to travel the world, going to different remack conferences, speaking at conventions, just the perspective on the world being surrounded by the fabulous people that we have in our company. I don't think I could have chosen a better career. Very happy with it. So

Ken McLachlan (24:11):

What would you be, we're getting close to the end now. We have a few minutes left. And I'm curious about how you see the next five years or so of your life, your business life

Debra Bain (24:25):

Of my life, your

Ken McLachlan (24:25):

Business life. What do you see? What impact do you want to make? What?

Debra Bain (24:30):

Well, I think at this point in my life, I'm not doing the day-to-day work that I did for years and years. We have great people now in the company that have picked that up. Great managers, Steve, who is awesome, Barb, I don't need to do that work anymore. But what I can do is I can still mentor our leadership team. Funny enough, I still have agents that call me for advice on their business or on a deal, and the relationships that you have. I want to keep the relationships that I have with people and the company. Yeah,

Ken McLachlan (25:15):

Actually love what you do.

Debra Bain (25:16):

Yes, of course.

Ken McLachlan (25:19):

I love that.

Debra Bain (25:20):

You always tell people, I have a tattoo tattooed on me, but we won't say where. But yeah, I mean, I love the company. I love what we've created, and I think

Ken McLachlan (25:35):

Mostly love to really to be clear about this, what you mostly, and I watch you, what you mostly love is the impact you have on helping to change people's lives and helping them grow and helping to be the best they can be. And that to me is a day that's satisfactory to you. And when you come home, you tell me, I talked to so-and-so we did this, we did that, and they phone me back and said, it's really making a big impact on their life and all that stuff. That to me is when I see you're the most satisfied in the work you're doing and the impact you're making on people. And that to me is what it's all about. And that's who you are is doing that. You are very clear on what you do, you're very clear on what you want, and you're very clear to help those that need the help out there.

(26:25):

And that to me is your biggest asset, is what you've done. And the other thing I love about you, and there are many things I love about you, is that you're not afraid. You actually get out there and the expression is you get dirty with it. You get down and do the work that has to be done. And to me, that's just the biggest asset you have. And there are a lot of them out there. I'm proud to be working with you. Really proud to have those as my wife. No, thank you. And we're getting near the end of this. It wasn't as difficult as you thought it would be with this.

Debra Bain (26:54):

Well, you didn't tell me what the questions were going to be, so this was totally off the cuff.

Ken McLachlan (26:59):

Yeah. I wanted people to get to know you that really what powers you and the influence you have. One of the things I wanted people to know, the influence you've had, I've witnessed, especially on a younger woman in this business, and you've impacted, as I said before, a lot of people, but especially I see the impact you have on younger women or people new to the business or women. That to me has been so crucial because there aren't enough women leaders in this industry. And I don't know why we talked about that, but if you look across Canada, there aren't many Debra Bains.

Debra Bain (27:35):

You know what? It's important to a lot of women and not just younger women, that they have leadership that looks like them, and it's not just men. Yeah.

Ken McLachlan (27:50):

Good. Well, that's you.

Debra Bain (27:52):

That's me. Yeah.

Ken McLachlan (27:54):

So we're going to finish up now, Debra Bain, do you have any comments that I've missed out that you want to add to us or put in at this point?

Debra Bain (28:03):

No, I don't think so. I'm good. Very

Ken McLachlan (28:06):

Good. So how could people reach you if they wanted to get ahold of you?

Debra Bain (28:11):

Well, that's easy debra@remaxhallmark.com and my cell 416 - 564 - 9918

Ken McLachlan (28:21):

Brilliant.

Debra Bain (28:22):

Love to hear from

Ken McLachlan (28:23):

You. Yeah, I can't thank you enough. Thank you for being here.

(28:30):

This is the podcast, as I said called Realty Life, and we try to make an impact on people that are going through this industry. It doesn't just have to be this industry, but interesting stories about things that are happening. Debra's story is incredible how she's grown, the impact you've made in a lot of people's lives throughout the many years that you've been in this business is unbelievable. And I'm very thankful to be part of it. So if you like this podcast, just like it, do what you can about this, share it if you can, and certainly subscribe to it. Tell all your friends about it. The more people that listen to it, the better. We're trying to impact a lot of people on a lot of great things. Debra, thank you for being here. Oh, you're

Debra Bain (29:08):

Welcome.

Ken McLachlan (29:09):

If anybody has any questions for me, just throw me an email at ken@remaxhallmark.com and we're really glad you joined us today. Have a great one.