The next installment of the Female Founders series on Union Street Media’s YouTube channel features Sue Meservier, Founder and CEO of Meservier & Associates. Meservier & Associates is known as one of the most trusted real estate companies in Maine, with deep local expertise. Click the video above to view the full interview.  

Like many who have been in the industry for decades, Meservier began her real estate career with very little, making calls using only a rolodex card, push button phone, desk, and chair. Meservier has grown her business from the ground up, and wasn’t always an independent broker. She started in 1988 with one listing, and decades later has sold thousands of properties, working for several well known brokerages as an agent and as a team lead. This year, as the pandemic began, Meservier decided, “it was time for us to open our own company,” given the success they’d achieved. 

With a management team composed of Meservier’s daughter and son-in-law, she had the talent she needed alongside her. An indirect role model to both, she trained them in the challenges and rejections of real estate. 

Meservier attributes her success to, “a do-or-die attitude” and doing, “what you needed to do,” in order to succeed. She has always focused on what she could learn from each challenge, as opposed to dwelling on failures. Meservier knows there will be more challenges ahead and believes in both the importance of staying focused on the future and her ability to persevere. 

“I couldn’t stay focused on the things that I didn’t do well. I focused on the things that I needed to do to succeed.”

—Sue Meservier

Striving for a successful launch of Meservier & Associates, they faced challenges along the way. Opening your business during a pandemic, she says, “was probably the absolute riskiest time to open”. The greatest challenge they’re finding is the reluctance of sellers to list their houses. 

Meservier says, “sellers are in control of what they sell their properties for,” with so few houses on the market. They’ve been overrun by buyers, many coming from out-of-state due to Maine’s accessibility to socially distanced space. With Maine typically being a balanced market, Merservier states, “it’ll be interesting to see how it changes, especially in the pandemic environment.” 

Looking to the new year, a brand new office space built for their agents is in sight. Having a space where agents interact, share experiences and are able to learn from each other, is something Meservier finds significant for their future success. 

“We’re really excited to get to be independent and do things the way that we like to, for our clients and for our agents.”

—Sue Meservier

Owning and being in control of the technology they use is important to Meservier. She praises Union Street Media as being, “a very large part of our technology,” who ensures they can, “own our own website that’s lead generating,” allowing them to communicate more directly with clients. 

“We rely on people like yourself [Rachel Allard], to sort of teach us ways to use technology to our benefit and our clients’ benefit.”

—Sue Meservier

Meservier measures success through looking at the numbers. Meservier states, “Union Street Media does a great job of giving us our results based on the numbers,” allowing them to track multiple metrics. However, Meservier goes back to the basics, attributing success to also being about relationships and building strong connections between agents and clients. 

When she reflects on advice she would give her younger self, Meservier talks about getting more support for herself, and sooner. She wishes she had hired a team earlier and sees now the importance of focusing on her strengths. Meservier’s strength is in building relationships and communicating with her clients. She believes if she had invested in building a team sooner, she would have been able to build a stronger skill set for herself and would have seen more success earlier on. 

“The younger me I would have spent less time focusing on [the challenges], and focus more time on what I knew I needed to do to be successful.”

—Sue Meservier

You can learn more about Sue Meservier and Meservier & Associates on their website: https://meservier.com/

Be sure to subscribe to the Union Street Media YouTube channel so you don’t miss the next installment of the Female Founders series.