Robert Frost wrote about standing where two roads diverged and taking the one less traveled. As a young person, Pam Parsons found herself standing in a similar yellow wood, but she made a different choice.
Parsons wanted to be a novelist, or at least she thought she might try her hand at it, she recalls. She loves the poetry of words and the rivers of meaning that course through beautifully crafted prose, so she left her childhood home of Chattanooga and attended Hollins University, a liberal arts school in Roanoke, Virginia, that was producing more Pulitzer Prize-winning novelists than any other college at the time, she says.
Perhaps ill fortune placed Parsons in the class of a new professor who hadn’t yet learned the fragility of the dreams of youth. When he failed her first paper, her confidence was shattered, she says, and she switched her major to history.
“I ended up with a B in the class, which wasn’t bad,” recalls Parsons, 62. “But it scared me so badly that I didn’t take any more English.”
Upon graduating from Hollins, Parsons developed a career in sales. Her work might not have provided an outlet for her creativity, but she needed to support herself, and she found she liked what she was doing.
After serving as a travel agent for more than a decade, she filled sales roles at several different companies and sold everything from corporate travel to what she calls “trinkets and trash.”
“We’d put your logo on just about anything,” Parsons says.
Along the way, the irony of the choice Parsons made at Hollins was not lost on her. She switched majors because she lacked the confidence to write, but every day in sales, her self-assurance enabled her to engage others and make deals.
“I love people and building relationships,” Parsons explains. “People do business with people they like, so if you treat everyone well, then you’re halfway there.”
Parsons eventually found herself at Kenco Logistics in Chattanooga. This led to a headhunting position with Management Recruiters of Chattanooga, a company that places sales engineers and management personnel with warehouse companies across the U.S.
“I was doing three sales jobs at once,” Parsons laughs. “I had to sell myself to the client, then I had to sell the candidate on the job, and then I had to sell the company on the candidate.”
Parsons spent 17 years at Management Recruits, so she’s pleased to say she liked the work and did well at it. However, several years ago, her earlier passions began to rap on the door behind which she’d locked them away, and she started to wonder if it was time take a road less traveled.
Parsons had tried to retrace her steps once before but hadn’t deviated from sales. In the 1990s, she decided to make amends with her younger self and earned a master’s degree in English. She thought she might teach, but this notion vaporized when she realized she’d be at odds with the challenges she’d face in the classroom.
“I have tremendous respect for teachers,” Parsons says. “Their work is very difficult.”
Fortunately, Parsons says, she was already primed to explore another path: real estate, which had fascinated her for decades.
“Back when there were inserts in the Sunday newspaper, I’d look forward to seeing what was selling and what wasn’t. So, I was interested in becoming a Realtor, but the fact that it was commission-only scared me. Then four years ago, I thought, ‘I’m going to do it.’”
Parsons obtained her license but then took on the care of an ailing family member. This, combined with the challenges of trying to start a new public-interfacing career during the COVID-19 pandemic caused her to stall out of the gate.
“I needed at least one part of my life to be stable,” she says. “I decided it should be my job.”
In September 2023, however, Parsons pulled the trigger on real estate and joined Crye-Leike Realtors on Gunbarrel Road, where Jennifer Grayson, a high school friend, was the managing broker. When Grayson moved to Keller Williams Realty Greater Chattanooga after the death of Steven Sharpe, Parsons declared she was a member of “Team Jennifer” and switched with her.
Parsons is now in the process of laying the foundation for her business, which includes building a contact list. After decades spent talking with clients on the phone, she says she’s excited about the prospect of meeting people in person and joining them on their journey to either sell a home or to find a house to turn into a home.
“I’ve spent nearly my entire career on the phone. I’ve placed people I’ve never met in life-changing jobs. I’ve had 17-year relationships with people I’ve seen. That’s going to change.”
To prepare, Parsons is immersing herself in Keller Williams’ extensive training. She’s also shifting her mindset from sales to service, she says.
“Real estate is sales-oriented, but it’s more about relationships than making a deal. I’m going to have to be genuine in a way I never had to be over the phone. I’ll probably be pilloried for this, but if I approach real estate from a sales perspective, then it’ll be about me. So, I intend to make my business about helping people find what they need and creating a good space for their life.”
This mentality harkens back to something Parsons used to say to her recruiting clients when she was pitching a job to them.
“I’d say, ‘I’d love to make a sale, but at the end of the day, I’m not the one who’s going to have to work there every day.’ As a Realtor, I’m going to tell my buyers, ‘I’d love to make a sale, but at the end of the day, I’m not the one who’s going to have to live in this house.’”
Even as Parsons develops a new set of skills, the salesperson in her is holding on to some of the tenets that have guided her over the years. One of these is simple but true, she says: Doing the right thing pays off.
“Even if I don’t sell someone a house today, if I’m kind, honest and show up when I say I’m going to, then they’ll remember that and refer me to a friend. So, it’s about having integrity in everything I do.”
As Parsons settles into her new career, she can hear a fist rapping on a door that’s still closed. When she was young, she wanted to be a novelist; she might still someday travel down that road not taken, she muses.
“I think in retirement I’ll go back to writing. It continues to call to me.”
In the meantime, Parsons has phone calls to make and – best of all – people to meet.