Although Ginger King was the owner of a cleaning business, she didn’t think of herself as an entrepreneur.
King also didn’t believe she’d ever be capable of owning a home as nice as the ones she dusted and vacuumed. As she completed her duties, she admired the craftsmanship and furnishings but never saw herself living in such a place.
Even after King learned Realtors often grew from roots as humble as hers, she scoffed at the notion of becoming an agent.
When she told a friend as much, her husband, Joel King, delivered a news flash.
“I told my friend I didn’t feel I was adequate enough to be a Realtor,” Ginger recalls. “After she left, Joel said, ‘You start classes Tuesday.’”
That was seven years ago. In 2022, Ginger took part in the sale of 63 houses. With this in mind, she says she’s grateful her husband pushed her to become licensed.
“He said, ‘You’re not going to limit yourself. You can do this,’” she continues. “I needed that because I wanted to become a Realtor but didn’t think I could.”
At the time, Joel was fresh out of the U.S. Army after 21 years and tending the micro farm he and his wife enjoy at their Ringgold homestead, which is populated with “eight chickens, a Great Dane, two daughters and a son,” Ginger says.
Joel’s father is a Vietnam veteran and his grandfather fought in World War II, so the military was only path he knew, he adds. In addition to operating tanks and serving in the infantry, he became a cavalry scout, which tasked him with acting as the eyes and ears of his fellow soldiers in the field.
Along the way, Joel says he learned a person should never limit themselves.
A year after schooling his wife on this very thing, he took a spoonful of his own medicine and joined her real estate venture.
“She was the only one who would take me after I retired from the Army,” he says with a straight face. After waiting a few seconds to allow that sink in, he erupts with laughter and a wink.
“I applied to work in management at Amazon because I like how they think and do business. And they were going to hire me in Maryland or Las Vegas or somewhere else, but I didn’t want to move. So, Ginger said, ‘Come on with me.’”
“He didn’t have a choice,” Ginger says with a smile. It seems she has jokes, too.
When it came to real estate, however, Joel and Ginger were all business. Over time, they developed a small team and became the North Georgia and Southeast Tennessee presence for an Atlanta-based brokerage called Real Tall Real Estate. (Neither of them is joking this time; rather, they say a 7-foot, 3-inch man owns the company.)
To be able to provide quality services for their clients and to ensure their agents did the same, Joel and Ginger began attending Tom Ferry real estate coaching conferences around the country. To their dismay, wherever they traveled, they kept hearing one Chattanooga name: Doug Edrington, the owner of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices J Douglas Properties.
“It didn’t matter if we were in Dallas or Vegas or somewhere else, Doug had a reputation as an excellent coach and his name would come up. And every time I heard it, I thought, ‘God bless,’” Ginger huffs.
When the time came for her and Joel to expand their business, they decided to stop grousing about Edrington and learn what he had to offer. Ginger prefaces her explanation of what they found with a “wow.”
“His training covers things we’d never dreamed of offering, including all the systems and processes his team uses.”
“It also includes a mentor who talks you through everything,” adds Joel. “And they review everything you do to make sure it’s correct and meets their standards. Although we’d been in real estate for several years, we’d never had that level of training. We were blown away.”
Ginger says she and Joel were convinced The Edrington Team would allow them to “take their business to a new level,” so they dismantled their group and climbed aboard.
Jesse Slowinski, The Edrington Team’s vice president of business development, says Edrington the rest of the crew are just as thrilled as Joel and Ginger are.
“We feel like they’re going to bring us to the next level as well. We have big goals nationally, and bringing on power hitters like Joel and Ginger will help to make them happen.”
Ginger smiles at the thought but brings the conversation back to Earth by saying she and Joel will use the tools The Edrington Team provides to not just increase their sales but also better serve their clients.
Sales are great, she adds, but the relationships they develop in the process are far more valuable.
“We had a client who lost her husband two years ago and needed to buy a house, but she wanted to be close to her parents, so we sold her house and her parents’ house and found them condos next to each other.
“At one point, she was on the verge of breaking down because she didn’t think she’d be able to make all of this happen, and Joel stopped what he was doing and prayed with her.”
Later that day, the woman’s father called Ginger and expressed his gratitude through a river of tears, she says.
“He said, ‘We appreciate what you did for us. We could tell it wasn’t about money or making about a sale but that you value our friendship.’ That’s what we want to hear more than anything else. To us, that’s golden.”