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By changing and setting new goals, building an excellent team and crafting new skillsets, Bonneau Ansley continues to grow his business consistently.

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Invest in yourself, grow your business—real estate’s biggest moment is in San Diego!

After a certain point in their careers, some top producers encounter a challenge familiar to many — the much-dreaded plateau.

It feels like being stuck in the mud with no viable escape route, and even though it’s better than watching your sales volume decline, it is still incredibly frustrating.

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Not all agents overcome a career plateau, but Bonneau Ansley found a formula that has helped him grow consistently nearly every year for more than a decade.

Ansley shared with Inman how he made that change happen for his business. Take a look at some of his key tips below.

Changing every year

Agents cannot expect to grow if they just continue to do the same things year after year, Ansley told Inman.

Bonneau Ansley | Bonneau & Company

“You need to make sure that your habits are on par with your goals for tomorrow,” he said. “What I mean by that is, if you want to grow your business, if you continue to do the same things you did the year before, you’re going to have the same results.”

When Ansley was bringing in about $100 million per year and wanted to work towards becoming a $200 million agent, he said he made steps to grow his team size to one that could support $200 million in production.

“Since I’m a single producer, that’s more support roles for me,” Ansley said. “That’s, if I’m trying to double my business from $100 million to $200 million, I’m going to double my social media. I’m going to double the amount of calls I do, I’m going to double going out to meet people. So change those habits to get you to the place you want to be at.”

Ansley has been working in his primary market of Atlanta for more than two decades, but about 10 years ago, he realized that he had capped his sales volume around $200 million. He sold just as much as he had the previous year, but was disappointed that he hadn’t grown.

He knew that, once again, he had to do something different to move the needle, and made the courageous move to launch his own brokerage.

“I felt stuck, even though I had a good year, just as good a year as I did the year before, but I felt like I couldn’t grow anymore,” Ansley told Inman. “So at that time, I started Ansley Real Estate, and I did that to continue growing as a person and an entrepreneur and a human being.

“We’ve been able to take the same philosophies that I’ve had personally grow my own real estate business to the business of Ansley Real Estate, where we started with me as one agent, and have grown to over 500 agents across Georgia.”

Ansley and the firm became a Christie’s International Real Estate affiliate in 2022. With the acquisition of @properties Christie’s International Real Estate by Compass, he is now also affiliated with the brokerage giant helmed by Robert Reffkin.

Building a highly competent team

In addition to his brokerage affiliate, Ansley also continues to run his own team, Bonneau & Company, in which he is the sole producing agent (and of which his wife, Jen Ansley, is a member). But there’s no way that he could have reached a recent personal best in 2022 of about $490 million in annual sales volume without that team of support staff behind him, he told Inman.

“I’m smart enough to know how dumb I am,” Ansley said. “And what I mean by that is, I focus just on 20 percent of the business, both as a personal agent and as the founder of Ansley Real Estate. But that 20 percent, I feel I do better than anybody else. And anything that I’m not super great at, I’m able to delegate out to somebody that’s very, very highly trained and skilled in that position. So I’m able to do a lot more knowing that I’m not going to be good at something and don’t try to spend time, effort or energy on that certain thing.”

Some of the players on his team that Ansley said he couldn’t do without include a closing coordinator, a listing coordinator and scheduler, a social media/marketing/PR whiz, and another crucial teammate who acts as his right-hand man on every transaction, he said.

“Everybody on my team, for the most part, has been with me for 10 years or longer,” Ansley said. “So building a team that has longevity and loyalty really makes things very efficient.”

Growing skillsets

Over time, Ansley has also grown his areas of specialization to include new development and expanded into key feeder markets, as part of his commitment to sustained growth.

“I’m able to have a whole side of Bonneau & Company that handles new developments across Georgia, from 23-story condo buildings to master-planned communities, and we do a super job with brand creation, sales strategies, PR, marketing and that kind of thing throughout the team,” Ansley said.

Once Ansley noticed that several of his clients owned properties in Highlands, North Carolina, and in Sea Island, Georgia, he realized he could continue to advance his business by operating in these feeder markets. Today, he actually co-owns an affiliate in Highlands, North Carolina, with co-investor Jackson Properties.

These strategic business moves have allowed Ansley to consistently grow over the years, but his personable interactions with clients are what keep his referral-based business strong, he said.

“I try to create fans in the community,” Ansley said. “It could be the local guy who cuts hair, or it could be the valet guy. And I make sure that when somebody’s talking about real estate or a nice car pulls into dinner, the valet guy leaves my magazine in the passenger seat. So, I try to create fans around my community to help talk about me, to get business.”

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Email Lillian Dickerson

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