Today we’d like to introduce you to Jordan Lee.
Hi Jordan, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
My family moved to the Triangle area from New York when I was five years old, and I’ve now spent 40 of my 45 years here in North Carolina.
For the longest time, I thought I wanted to go to law school, and I was on that track. Then I realized what I really wanted was to negotiate for a living and connect with people on a very real level.
On my very first day out of college, I launched Jordan Lee Real Estate.
My parents pleaded with me not to do it. They told me it wasn’t the right time in my life to be completely on my own and wanted me to spend a few years in corporate America first. The ironic thing is that now my parents work for me. It’s a funny feeling signing your parents’ paychecks.
For the last 23 years, I’ve built my business around a few core principles.
The first is to take care of people first and trust that the money will come. That philosophy has served me extremely well.
Another principle I’ve built my business on is authenticity. Showing up as who you are unapologetically. I’ve gone through a lot of different phases in my career. I had a very short stint at one of the big-box firms and quickly realized we were completely misaligned across the board. How I wanted to do business and connect with people was nothing like what they thought I should do. So I went independent and built my business slowly, one client, one person, and one relationship at a time.
Another principle I’ve built my business on is understanding what my job actually is.
My job is not to sell houses.
My job is to be present in my relationships and add value to the lives around me any way that I can. A house selling is a byproduct, but it’s not the core function of the company I’ve built.
Fast forward 23 years, and Jordan Lee Real Estate has surpassed 2,000 sales and more than $800 million in volume, all generated through word of mouth and personal referrals.
We don’t buy leads. We don’t cold call. We don’t knock on strangers’ doors. We don’t have a single client that we don’t have some level of connection to.
That all goes back to understanding the job and being present in your relationships.
Last year, I was ranked among the Top 25 practitioners in the Triangle market by the Triangle Business Journal out of more than 10,000 licensed real estate professionals. What’s unique about that is it’s just me. No buyer agents. No listing agents. No big team. No army of people out there chasing transactions.
It’s simply myself and Lauren Potter, my Director of Operations, who handles client care and keeps everything running behind the scenes.
It’s a grind. We work hard. We love what we do. And after 23 years, I still enjoy helping people just as much as I did on day one.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Building a business always has its struggles.
I’ve always said this is not a job, this is a lifestyle. If you want a Monday-through-Friday, 9-to-5 job where you get to leave work at the office, go work for corporate America and help build something somebody else built. This is a profession that you live in.
The lines between personal and professional life are very blurred. Some people view that as not setting boundaries, but I don’t. I view it as a sign that your business is thriving and operating the way it should. It means you’re showing up in your relationships. It means people view you as a resource.
Anytime there’s a need, not just related to buying or selling a house, but in general, if you’re the person people think of and come to for help, you’re doing your job right.
Sure, there have been moments over the last 23 years where I’ve struggled with work-life balance. There have been times I’ve had to cancel a vacation to help someone. There have been periods of burnout where you realize you need to change things up to make sure the business is operating as well as it should.
Sometimes that means having the right tools. Sometimes it means having the right people around you to take things off your plate so you can focus on growing the business and working on the business, instead of always working in the business.
The burnout can be very real. But I think that’s part of entrepreneurship. The key is recognizing it when it happens, making adjustments, and continuing to evolve so you can keep showing up at a high level for the people who depend on you.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Jordan Lee Real Estate is a residential real estate brokerage serving the Triangle area of North Carolina. We help buyers and sellers navigate one of the biggest financial decisions of their lives, but the way we approach that process is probably very different from what most people expect.
I’ve never viewed myself as a salesperson. I’ve always viewed myself as an advisor, consultant, strategist, and advocate. Real estate just happens to be the vehicle.
What we’re probably best known for is our relationship-first approach. Every single client we’ve ever worked with has come to us through a personal referral or some level of existing connection. We don’t buy leads. We don’t cold call. We don’t knock on strangers’ doors. We built the company one relationship at a time, and that’s still how we operate today.
Professionally, I think what sets me apart is my background. In addition to being a real estate broker, I’m also a licensed appraiser. I’ve always had a very analytical mindset, so I tend to approach pricing and negotiations from the perspective of a broker, an appraiser, and a statistician all at the same time. That combination is fairly uncommon in our industry and allows me to advise clients with a much deeper understanding of value, market behavior, and strategy.
We’re also intentionally small. A lot of companies in our industry measure success by how many agents they recruit or how large they can grow their team. I’ve never been interested in that. I’d rather serve a smaller number of clients at a very high level than build a massive organization where people become numbers.
What I’m most proud of is the reputation we’ve built. More than 23 years, over 2,000 homes sold, and more than $800 million in sales volume, all generated through word of mouth and personal referrals. To me, that’s the ultimate report card. It means people trusted us enough to recommend us to their friends, family members, coworkers, and neighbors.
If there’s one thing I’d want readers to know, it’s that our business was never built around houses. It was built around people. The houses are simply the reason we get invited into some really important moments in people’s lives. We take that responsibility seriously, and I think that’s why our clients continue to come back and refer the people they care about most.
We’d be interested to hear your thoughts on luck and what role, if any, you feel it’s played for you?
What people want to call luck, I want to call perseverance, discipline, and sacrifice.
I don’t really believe in luck when it comes to business. I believe in showing up.
In the early days of my career, I was the first person to show up in the morning and the last person to leave at night. In my twenties, while a lot of my friends were out partying, I was sacrificing and working on my business.
I’ve always been extremely intentional about everything I do and how I connect with people on a consistent basis. Over time, I’ve leveraged those things to create opportunities for myself and for others.
That’s not luck.
That’s years of discipline, consistency, sacrifice, and showing up when nobody is watching.
When it comes to business, I don’t believe in luck. I believe in building something. I believe in creating opportunities through hard work, relationships, and consistency over a long period of time.
What some people call luck, I call the result of being intentional every single day.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.jordanlee.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thejordanleelife
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jordanblee
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordanblee
