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Beach Cities Agency DOMO Makes a Perfect Match With Corcoran Global Living
“I like to refer to Rob as the Harvey Keitel character in ‘Pulp Fiction,’ where he’s the fixer,” says Greg Geilman, the co-founder of DOMO Group. He is referencing firm partner Rob Freedman, a seasoned Beach Cities agent with whom Geilman partnered in 2015, who are moving from RE/MAX Estate Properties to Corcoran Global Living.
“I jokingly tell people that we’re way past the over-under of how long Rob and I would stay as business partners,” Greg Geilman remarks. It’s a partnership where respective talents and likely, temperament (Rob Freedman’s style is animated, Greg Geilman’s more measured), create a sum greater than its parts.
Happiness on Staff
DOMO has a dedicated Director of Client Happiness—a backup point of contact for clients that’s seldom used, but is a nice touch that adds to client comfort.
Mentoring
A longtime agent, Freedman delights in sharing his knowledge with the DOMO team: “Having a team has made me more passionate about real estate,” he says. “Teaching is the ultimate goal beyond success.”
Timely Giving
The DOMO team has recently offered to sell three homes sans commission for homeowners needing to sell due to the pandemic.
“Some people call him the Deal Doctor,” he says of Rob Freedman. “He’s very experienced and creative with real estate problems. He’s also one of the most creative negotiators that I’ve ever met.” Greg Geilman, on the other hand, has a particular bent for technology and communicating DOMO to the world.
“He’s more of the marketing guru who thinks about the way things look and the way things present,” describes Rob Freedman. Overlapping in both agents is a hard-charging work ethic and a love of real estate, in all its minutiae and glory.
The word ‘domo’ is a multi-shaded Japanese term denoting thanks and gratitude, chosen deliberately by Greg Geilman and Rob Freedman as the name of their firm in order to represent a service-first approach, to the exclusion of all else. “It’s the antithesis of salesmanship,” Freedman describes.
“It’s pretending you don’t have a horse in the race and saying, ‘How can I help this person get to their truths, get to what they really want to do?’” The success of the team by conventional markers (such as revenues, properties sold, industry ranking, and so forth) bears witness to their approach.
“If you want to be a really good, dynamic real estate agent,” he points out, “you don’t want to concentrate on commissions. You concentrate on helping people. The more people you help, the more money you make. They go hand in hand.”
The same is true for a brokerage. Which is why Geilman and Freedman paused when approached by Corcoran Global Living (CGL), a new offshoot of Corcoran that’s moving swiftly into Southern California.
“We were not looking to make a move,” recalls Greg Geilman. At first contact, however, the duo’s interest was piqued by Corcoran, which seemed to be speaking DOMO’s language when it came to the business of real estate.
“They wanted to have big growth,” says Freedman, “but they also wanted to do it right. They didn’t just want to set up a company so they could sell it or go public.”
“We’re very like-minded,” Tom Swanson, partner at Corcoran Global Living and district manager for L.A. and the Beach Cities, says of the two firms. “We’re very forward-thinking. We’re all about what’s coming next in our industry.” Staying nimble in order to ride the crest of industry change while sticking to one’s personality—recognizing it as the perennial of one’s success—are shared premises.
“We will always keep that human touch in our brand in a very real and relatable way,” Tom Swanson says of Corcoran Global Living, adding that Rob Freedman and Greg Geilman’s day in and day out involvement at DOMO is another draw.
“Greg and Rob are very engaged in the process, in growing their team and helping their group succeed to the best of their ability,” Tom Swanson explains. “It’s very refreshing to see that in team leaders.”
Another area of attraction is in the similarity of each organization’s brand personality. While “luxury” ranges from the traditional cuff-and-collar sort to the uber-relaxed end of the spectrum, their respective takes on the concept were in sync.
“The way I like to describe our brand is ‘approachable luxury,’” says Greg Geilman. So too is Corcoran’s, focused these days on an individualized sense of the idea. “Our philosophy is ‘live who you are,’” says Tom Swanson. “It’s infused in everything we do.”
“We kept waiting for that dealbreaker to pop up,” Greg Geilman says of the signing process, “and it never did.”
In the end DOMO ended up with more than just a new brokerage; they’re now equity partners at Corcoran Global Living, which launched only last February yet is off to a breakneck start. “In our first year we’re at about 47 offices, with about 1,700 agents,” states Tom Swanson. “We’ve done over 6.3 billion dollars in sales in our first year—and we’re profitable.”
Rob Freedman and Greg Geilman
THE DOMO GROUP
(310) 341-2017 | domorealestate.com
Photographs Courtesy of the DOMO Group
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