Watching her dad run his own business, never having to punch a clock but facing an uphill climb, Alexis Willis often wondered what his entrepreneurial journey would have been like if he’d had more support.
“I’ve always been drawn to the grit of entrepreneurship, the moving through fear, moving through challenges,” says Willis, who in March became head of the budding commercial division at The Group Real Estate Brokerage, a boutique firm. “It really does take a special kind of character to get into entrepreneurship, because there are a lot of highs and lows. I love connecting with and supporting people. I just kind of follow the flow of supporting entrepreneurs.”
Willis continues to follow that flow as she builds The Group’s new commercial division from scratch and cultivates diversity in an untapped field.
“Right now, I am the only African American broker that’s exclusively commercial, male or female, in Chattanooga,” she says. “It’s great being the unicorn. But that also means there’s a lot of opportunity to fill this space with people from different heritages. I get an opportunity to do that, as a group, kind of long term.”
Willis is the perfect choice to lead the new venture, says Kadi Brown, The Group’s co-owner.
“Alexis’s history of entrepreneurial experience, plus her enthusiasm and professionalism, are impressive,” Brown says. “She is a natural leader and teacher and we feel confident she will not only continue to grow and succeed in her own commercial career but will be instrumental in mentoring agents looking to transition to commercial real estate, which is a sector of the business that can oftentimes be intimidating.”
The new post is Willis’s latest stop in a decade of creating opportunities for small-business owners, including herself. After working in the fair housing sector, she oversaw business support for The Company Lab (CO.LAB) and later directed the INCubator program for the Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce, all while operating Natural Beautiful Me, a platform designed to empower women.
Most recently, Willis worked as a commercial broker at Second Story Real Estate Management. “I felt like commercial real estate was the next right step to continue to support entrepreneurs, just in a different point in the life cycle of their business. Commercial real estate helps me help them create space.”
During her year and a half at Second Story, she says, “I found myself really leaning more toward tenant representation, helping business owners find space. I’m really attracted to the industrial space, hospitality and retail.” In her short time there, she racked up more than $2 million in sales.
“The common thread through all of that was making sure that marginalized voices were heard,” Willis says. “Even with my work with fair housing, I was making sure that people were getting equitable opportunities to find places to live. With Natural Beautiful Me, it’s about embracing natural beauty and valuing identity. It was the same work I did at CO.LAB, helping entrepreneurs get from idea to launch and giving them access to resources to be successful. It’s the same thread in commercial real estate – creating access to wealth-building, whether they’re a tenant or if they own or want to own commercial property.”
Given Willis’s experience and the burgeoning need for a strong commercial division at The Group, it makes sense for the two to join forces now, Brown says. “We had always planned on growing a commercial division, but the timing wasn’t right when we first opened (in 2017). And our focus has been on other divisions in real estate.
“We have been experiencing a growing need, not just from commercial clients but from our agents wanting to understand more about commercial real estate in our market, and having a division would provide this,” Brown continues. “We are, of course, at the beginning stages, but we do have a long-term plan and Alexis is the important first part of it.”
Willis not only brings her hard-won knowledge to the table; she also offers a level of approachability for clients who may not have felt fully supported by other firms in the past. “That’s not to put anyone down,” Willis says. “But I really show up for (my clients) and connect with them. If they have doubts, I help them move through that, help them feel confident from the beginning to the end of a transaction. Some of my clients need a little bit more hand-holding than others, and they appreciate me taking the time to do that.”
During her tenure with the Chamber’s INCubator, Willis helped a chocolate maker find a site to manufacture her products. “And she’s now a client,” Willis points out. “I’m helping her again in another point in the life cycle of her business. … Now she’s gone viral and needs to expand. So she came to me to help so that she can continue to grow her business. That’s the fun part.”
As she embarks on the next leg of her own professional adventure, Willis is crafting the infrastructure for more brokers to join The Group on the commercial side and serving as a resource for existing agents who currently focus on residential sales.
In her own brokerage business, she plans to concentrate on the Rossville area and East Chattanooga. “Talk about opportunity and potential and blank slate. I mean, that’s a really yummy area. And it even includes the new development where the stadium will be. So I’ve really been digging deep into those two areas, looking at their zoning changes and connecting with the groups that have been doing work in that area for the last few years and asking around to see what they want to see there.”
From a big-picture perspective, she adds, it could also lead to improved diversity in the real estate field as a whole. “It’s not just on the broker side that we aren’t represented. It’s in terms of contractors, appraisers, surveyors. We’re just not represented there. In a lot of those roles, like a contractor, you have to have certain resources in the bank, and school costs a lot. So I think there are some barriers to entry. As I grow in this space, I’ll figure out more about what those are, but I’m hoping that through my role, I can tackle those challenges head on, create pathways for others to get into the industry.”
Granted, Willis’s lofty dreams often prompt friends to tease her about wearing rose-colored glasses. “They’re like, ‘Alexis, you’ve got to be more realistic.’ I’m like, ‘I am being realistic.’ The reality is we’re not in this space. The great thing is we can fill this space. I am enthusiastic about the impact that I can have in the commercial real estate space, especially locally, but I would love for it to be regionally or nationally. Only time will tell.”