By Martie Thompson
editor@floridanewsline.com
Brandy Lewis is a self-described “outdoors girl,” which she credits to her childhood in Middleburg, near Jennings Forest. “We lived down a one-mile dirt road,” she said. A multi-year age gap between her and two older sisters gave her plenty of time to play outside and contributed to her current passion for gardening and being outdoors. Initially intending to study to become a teacher after she graduated from Middleburg High School, she said that “life happened” and she went into sales instead because that’s where the money was. After a series of sales jobs, her entrepreneurial spirit eventually led her to open her own commercial real estate brokerage firm, Platinum Realty Group. Recently, she was recognized as the Small Business Leader of the Year for the Arlington chapter of the Jacksonville Chamber of Commerce for her work in that area. She and her husband Michael have a blended family of two 21-year-old sons, a 17-year-old daughter and a seven-year-old son. The family lives in St. Johns with two rescue pups and a rescue cat — and they spend as much time as possible on the St. Johns River on their bass boat.
Q: What types of sales jobs have you had and what is appealing to you about sales?
A: My first sales job was selling advertisements on the back of register receipts for a retail store. Then I sold advertisements for Money Pages before I moved on to selling IT managed services. I like the aspect of talking to people and learning about them. Also, I have the ability to not take a “no” personally.
Q: What made you go into commercial real estate?
A: It was actually one of my cold calls for the IT managed services that brought me to commercial real estate. The potential client asked me if I had ever thought about selling real estate; I had always thought of residential real estate, which I wasn’t interested in. But he opened my eyes to commercial and since I’m very business minded, this became “it” for me. I like to help set other people’s businesses up for success by helping them get the best location for their business. In 2018, I opened Platinum Realty Group and now have a staff of six in sales.
Q: What do you like best about your career and what do you find to be the most challenging aspect?
A: I like the flexibility of my schedule to be able to be with my family, in addition to helping my clients. As for the most challenging, I would say it’s name recognition. In the commercial real estate industry, my firm is considered “boutique” and sometimes it’s tough to compete with the big firms whose names are so well known. But once we have a client, we’re more hands-on and can provide better customer service with our successful approach.
Q: How did you meet your husband?
A: Michael and I worked together at one point when I was a bartender and he was a regional manager at a restaurant. We both ended up leaving the company when we realized we wanted to explore our relationship. We’ve been married for 10 years.
Q: What do you like to do in your spare time?
A: We all love the outdoors. We go hiking locally and on camping trips in our camper. If we can be on the river in our boat, we are there. We enjoy fishing — in fact our littlest one recently caught a seven-pound bass from our backyard! We also love to entertain and I’ve been told my claim to fame is that I make a master charcuterie board!
Photo courtesy Brandy Lewis
