Raising the Level

The entertainment scene on Marco Island was at its pinnacle in the 1970s and into the 1990s, and Alan Sandlin was right in the thick of it at the Marco Beach Hotel, now the JW Marriott.

“Back in those days,” said Linda Sandlin, "little Marco Island was a major entertainment center. You had the great local groups like Roger and Karen Raymond’s Morningstar. Gladys Knight and the Pips played there. I mean, you had all sorts of name entertainers in the Caxambas Lounge. Quinn's was the local place. This little bitty island was unbelievable for entertainment.”

“Crystal Gayle played here,” Alan Sandlin said. "Don't it make your brown eyes blue?"

“There were other places around the island, too,” Linda said, “but just at that hotel, you had three great entertainment venues going on."

“Frankie Ray and Mary Ellen were at the Voyager Lounge,” Alan said. "And of course, that was exceedingly popular. They were doing a great job over there, and that was a totally different style they were doing. They were the ones that had the dancing thing because they had a little dance floor there. People would come in and have dinner, and they loved it. Those were some fun times. I don't think people realize how amazing the beginnings of Marco were.

"When we came to Marco the first time, we drove over the bridge and were mesmerized. In those days, the two things people remember when they first come to Marco is the bridge and the mosquito planes. Because they mosquito dusted at 4 or 5 a.m. with a DC-3 that flew 150' off the deck. I remember the first time we were in our little condo at Riverside Club."

"I thought we were getting bombed,” Linda laughs.

"I heard this incredible DC-3 engine roaring over my head,” Alan said, "and I went, ‘Oh my God, Cuba is finally getting us.' And I went out on the balcony, and I see this DC-3 with all of this smoke coming out of its stern. I'm going, ‘Oh, he's going to crash!’ You know, those were memories that people don't have today of Marco."

The Riverside Club was a dream come true for the Sandlins. 

 “Having a house on the water with our boat at our back door,” Alan Sandlin said, “that was a dream of ours. Of course, later on in real estate we realized how important that was for people. It still is.”

“Our first home on the water with our boat at our back door,” said Linda Sandlin, "was a one-bedroom condo at Riverside. We went from a three-bedroom house inland in Sarasota to this little condo. And we were happy as larks. Oh, that was so much fun to look out and see our boat out there. And it was also a wonderful way to be introduced to Marco because there are 275 condos there. We made all these friends instantly. It's a really wonderful place to make friends."

It was after a poolside conversation between Linda Sandlin and Norene Barnes at the Riverside Club that the Sandlin’s really started to blossom on Marco Island.

“Norene Barnes was an early Marco Islander,” Alan said. “She was here back when you went across the swing bridge in Goodland. She had gotten into real estate when she was in her 30’s - the same age that we were when we met her. We met Norene around the pool and then at parties at Riverside. She was just a sweet, sweet lady. Norene said, 'Linda, you have got to get into real estate and come be my partner. We would just be great together.’”

Linda initially balked at the idea of selling real estate.

“Linda’s thinking, 'That doesn't make any sense for me,’ Alan said. "Then Norene says, ‘Well, Linda, at least come and get your education.’”

Education was the magic word for Linda.

"Education was her background in college,” Alan said. ‘That and theater. So, Linda gets her license in late 1981, and in 1982, she goes into the real estate business at Century 21 with Norene. God bless her. And by 1988, Linda was the number one agent with RE/MAX in the state of Florida.”

But Alan didn’t immediately abandon his entertaining career at Quinn’s.

"In 1986, I decided to go to RE/MAX,” Linda said, “and make this a serious career and dedicate myself to it. Interestingly, one of the things that helped build a business was Alan's entertaining at night at Quinn’s. People loved him. He was just the most fun entertainer and so personable. Besides being incredibly talented musically, he was just fun. They would meet him and say, ‘Oh, we're shopping for real estate.' And he'd say, ‘Well, my wife's in real estate.’  Many of our longtime dear friends and wonderful customers were the people that he met at Quinn’s. People like to feel like they know you and trust you before they choose to work with you. And that was Alan. He’s such a good guy."

"In 1989, I could see her career was going to be bigger than mine,” Alan said, “she was working 80 hours a week, and I was working at night. She was working all day. We never saw each other. So, I got my license to alleviate that situation, and I was still working at Quinn's for another six years. But I wasn't working six days a week. In 1990 I went to taking two days off a week. A couple of years later I went to just singing three days a week. In 1995, we made the conscious decision to create the Sandlin Team.”

“We were the first real estate team on Marco Island,” Linda said. "Now that's a fairly common thing. But we were the first. When we started our business, it was our goal to raise the level of the profession. Realtors didn't necessarily have a great professional reputation. And we felt it was such an important career because you are helping people make major financial decisions and major life decisions in many cases. And so, we were determined to look at it from a very serious standpoint. We had been attending seminars and doing things to learn more. That's where we learned about the benefits of putting a team together for being able to serve your clients better. We had fun working so hard, but even more fun putting our real estate career together."

Hard work and education are certainly the foundation of their success in real estate.

“It was so much fun building our business and teaching and taking classes with top realtors around the world,” Linda said, "and putting all that together. We were working like maniacs, but we were just having a blast. We were just working, working, working all the time. It was creating a system and a team that provided a higher level of customer service and communication.”

"It was amazing how quickly our business grew because of two things,” Alan said. "Number one, Linda's dedication to service. There was nobody that would spend more hours studying. Her dedication to service was unbelievable. But, you know, that takes time. You want to learn how to do something. It just doesn't fall out of the sky. You've got to take time and study it. You need to know the market. You need to know the ups and downs and ins and outs. So, we were taking classes and we were studying literally all over the country with top Realtors from all over the country.”

"Alan's business degree was so important in turning real estate into a business that the customers benefit by,” Linda said. "And my education degree was great because, you know when you're working for sellers and your buyers, what you want to do is educate them so they can make a good decision. It's not so much about selling. It's about educating so that they do the right thing.” 

Another key to the Sandlins’ success was their introduction to Howard Brinton and the Star Power Network.

“He's just a brilliant top international real estate teacher himself,” Linda said. “He brings together top Realtors from all over the world to work together for these major conferences. And we went first to learn. Then he brought us in as teachers. But when you're teaching you're also learning. So that was just huge for us. The great ideas on how to market better, on how to serve better, on how to communicate better, just all of the aspects of being a top professional Realtor. We essentially learned and grew with that group."

“He's still alive and he's still a brilliant man,” Alan said. "Every time we found somebody smarter than us, we tried to learn from them. And I think that's something that my father and Linda's father kind of instilled in us. If you find somebody that is a real leader and somebody you can learn from, don't fight it, learn from them. And we did that. It was interesting how it all progressed. We were anxious to learn, we were willing to learn, and we had the energy. Most people don't have the energy. We didn't have any children, so we could literally dedicate our entire life to helping people with real estate and to learning about it."

The Sandlins attacked their real estate career with gusto. They barely took time to eat.

"Our schedule for those years were up at the crack of dawn and into the office,” Linda said. "We'd walk across the street to Winn-Dixie to grab a bite to eat back when it first opened. And just before Porky's was getting ready to close at night, we'd run over there for a salad bar for dinner. We were never looking at how much money we were going to make. We were looking at how we can help people get through this time of their life, how we can be better.”

By the 1990s, the Sandlin Team was hitting their peak.

“As we started growing in our business,” Alan said, "we also brought in other people. At one time I think we had like 15 people on our team between the staff and the Realtors. We had a lot of people on the payroll. And then we had six or seven or eight Realtor partners. And our partners were people that we handpicked or who came to us and said, ‘You know, we see that you guys are really doing some great stuff and we'd like to be part of it.'"

“Between Star Power and Alan's business background,” Linda said, "we had put together business operations that related to everything. Everything we did was systemized so that nothing would fall through the cracks. Whether it was the details leading up to listing a property for a customer that wanted our services, to all of the steps related to the marketing, to all of the communication throughout the listing, to every step related to the closing. Everything was systemized and as computers came in that was such a key to our success. Our hearts wanted to do the very best thing for people, and our education was providing us with the means. But without a system, there are just far too many steps to say, ‘Well, you know, I'll just wing it.’" 

“You can't do 150 closings in one year without a good system,” Alan said. "We were doing that.”

“We learned so much from Star Power about that,” Linda said. “That was a huge help to us in how to put those systems together. 

"Linda particularly has got this excitement,” Alan said. "You know, you can't talk to Linda without feeling excited. She's just got that excitement. And she brought it into her business. And by the end of the 1990s, we were in the top ten real estate teams literally in the world."

"Literally on Alan's 50th birthday,” Linda said, “we were in Las Vegas for the international RE/MAX convention, and he was awarded number one commercial Realtor in the world."

The awards and honors continued to roll in for the Sandlins. But there is one particular award that perhaps stands out above the others.

 "They gave us the Spirit of RE/MAX award for the State of Florida,” Linda said. "That was the first time we'd gotten an award for something besides making a lot of money. And that was so thrilling. It is just the most rewarding thing when you help your customer, buyer or seller make an important life decision, and they become your friends. And when you are able to give back to the community and help people that need to be helped, it's so rewarding." 

"And in this particular situation,” Alan said, “RE/MAX was an up and coming brokerage, and we were like just at the tip of the iceberg of where RE/MAX was going to go. I mean, today, for instance, RE/MAX is the number one brokerage in the world."

"But probably the most rewarding thing for us were the awards we received for giving back, not the money earned,” Linda said. "The things that we've been able to do for the community. So, when we've gotten those kinds of awards, those are more gratifying than the dollar signs.”

"In 2004-2005, when the market was going through the roof, our team was huge,” Allen said. "Our team would go up and down a little bit to respond to the market, to make sure that we had the manpower to provide the service we wanted to provide. As we got further along, we were going, you know, we love real estate. We'll always love real estate. But we were feeling more and more of the desire to give back more to the community. And we were working so many hours as Realtors, giving to our customers, that we didn't have a whole lot of time to give back to the community. So that was when we met with Mike Boland and Mike O'Rourke, who were Realtors in the RE/MAX system, but not with the Sandlin team, that we had huge respect for. We put together a plan for them to come in as business partners with us and to take over the running of the daily operations of the business and to eventually own the business outright."