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<< History Main
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Milestones in the History of Crye-Leike
Select an excerpt from the list below or scroll down for the complete
story.
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The company's beginnings.
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The Crye-Leike success story begins in Memphis, Tennessee when friends
Harold Crye and Dick Leike decided on December 6, 1976 to leave the
real estate firm they were were with and start their own business together.
They committed as partners to build a real estate company that would
be results-oriented, professional and would provide superior service
"above and beyond" what any other company could offer.
"We were naive enough then not to know what wouldn't
work so we went out and made it work," said Harold.
Harold and Dick first met and became friends and colleagues while working
together at the Memphis real estate firm, The Sterling Company.
Dick had left his job at
International Dairy Queen and started selling real estate in June
1973. Harold had joined the same company earlier in the year. In the
winter of 1976, Dick had become the top producer and Harold was sales
manager and the No. 2 producer.
"When we began discussions about starting our own
firm, I can remember saying to Harold that there were things that I
did not like about running a company and his reply was, 'You take care
of the things you like and I will take care of the rest,'"
recalled Leike.
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The telephone company story that named the firm.
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As Crye and Leike were quietly setting up their new business while
still employed at The Sterling Company, their start-up plan got an
unexpected boost.
"We had inquired with the local telephone company
about what it would take to get an active business phone line,"
said Dick.
"No deposits were made. But, one day, quite
unexpectedly, the phone company called Barry Sterling's secretary and
asked when they wanted the Crye-Leike, Realtors' phone line installed.
This call immediately started a fast pace of events that terminated
any further relationships with The Sterling Company and sent us
Crye-Leike boys walking out the door."
So, with that episode behind them, Harold and Dick walked out one door
and opened the next into their own real estate company, Crye-Leike,
Realtors.
"After first hearing the telephone company call our
new business by name, we decided it had 'a nice ring to it,' and kept
it because Crye-Leike sounded better than Leike-Crye,"
said Dick.
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Company Colors Selected.
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The philosophy behind branding the company with it's recognizable "big red"
logo and signage was influenced largely by Dick Leike. Before his career in real estate
he worked for International Dairy Queen, Inc. which used red and white in
it's signage and marketing. Dick has also previously lived in Atlanta,
Georgia, world headquarters for Coca-Cola, another widely recognized brand
with red and white in its corporate logo.
"We decided that since two successful companies were
using red and white in their company logos, then we should, too,"
said Harold.
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First year in business.
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Operations began in December 1977 in leased office space in the
Poplar Towers office building in Memphis, Tennessee, along with the
opening of Crye-Leike's first branch office in Bartlett, Tennessee.
"We signed a contract to lease 3,500 sq. ft. of office space,
wondering how the two
of us would make ends meet," said Dick. "We even joked that
if other agents didn't come to work for us, we might have to move our
families into the office space. Having had a good rapport with fellow
agents, luckily it wasn't long before folks came to work with
us."
"We both lived off of our sales commissions for a number of
years, and plowed profits back into the company to continue
growth and success," said Harold. The company generated $19 million
in sales that first year and "today we have individual sales associates
who make that much in one year."
In three years, largest firm in Memphis.
Crye-Leike's success has been sudden and non-stop. By 1980, Harold
and Dick found themselves managing the largest real estate company
in Memphis. As new branch offices were added and over 600 sales
associates joined the company, Crye-Leike became the largest real
estate firm in Memphis within three years, with operations expanding
into West Memphis, Arkansas and North Mississippi.
"I can recall, early on, how one of our first agents and top
sales producers, Stanley Mills, encouraged Harold and I, to keep
recruiting; that we could and should recruit up to 300 agents, at a
time when we were at the 150 agent mark," said Leike.
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Innovations - Bringing order and consolidation to an unstructured
industry.
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Harold and Dick took the company to new heights by utilizing the
one-stop shopping concept that has set Crye-Leike apart from other
firms. With their full service approach to real estate, they opened a
relocation division, a commercial property division, a property
leasing and management company, an insurance company, a home
improvement division and an auction division.
Harold and Dick further became known as innovators in commission
structure and marketing, credited for bringing order and
consolidation to an unstructured industry.
During the company's early beginnings:
- They instituted a highly competitive sales associate commission
plan where all Crye-Leike associates receive the highest and best
graduated commission splits in the business. Top producing agents
have the opportunity to start each year as high as 80 percent on
their splits and increase from there. Credit is also extended for
what they've earned elsewhere (year-to-date) so they remain at a
higher split until the end of the year. Further, Crye-Leike does
not charge its sales associates franchise or monthly agent
desk fees.
- They established a fully automated and staffed
appointment center to capture every sales moment.
The first of its kind in
the South, Crye-Leike's appointment center makes it easy for
sales associates from all real estate companies to coordinate
showings 13 hours a day, seven days a week. Crye-Leike's
centralized appointment center receives an average of 1,000
calls daily from diverse real estate agents, throughout the South,
who want to show a Crye-Leike
property.
- They also organized Crye-Leike's
full service marketing
department to put the power of its exclusive marketing services
and high impact marketing programs at the fingertips of each
Crye-Leike sales associate. Crye-Leike associates can choose from
the many different tools, techniques and services available from
its in-house marketing department. Harold and Dick's goal is to
help their sales associates sell a home for the highest possible
price in the least amount of time.
- Harold and Dick also saw the importance of being
vested in
technology. They organized an in-house team of Information Technology (IT)
specialists who harnessed the technical and global power of the
Internet to reach homebuyers. They made substantial capital
investments to provide their sales associates with the latest
and the most advanced technological tools, giving their agents a
competitive advantage when serving buyers and sellers.
- Crye-Leike's founders recognized that real estate is constantly
changing, so state-of-the art in-house training programs were organized to
help sales associates to keep their
professional edge.
Crye-Leike College was founded in
September 1988 and continues to offer new Crye-Leike sales
associates free comprehensive real estate training as well as
continuing education for experienced associates.
In later years, Harold and Dick went a step further by acquiring a
title company (Realty Title)
and becoming primary stockholders in
Magna Bank (formerly 1st Trust Bank),
to offer mortgage banking facilities and
title services within
Crye-Leike. It's one-stop shopping for real estate.
If customers want, they can buy, finance and insure their
home in one visit at Crye-Leike.
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Landmark year in 1988: Crye-Leike becomes nationally ranked.
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The year 1988 marked the beginning of Crye-Leike, Realtors
achieving a national ranking in the real estate industry. REALTrends ranked Crye-Leike
No. 34 among the Top 500 real estate companies in the nation.
Expansion efforts grew company to No. 1 in Middle Tennessee.
In the early 90's, Harold and Dick both decided that it was more cost
efficient to move into new markets rather than continue seeking a
bigger share of the hometown business.
"We decided to expand beyond the Memphis market when sales
were stuck at $1 billion," Harold recalled. "Once you get to a
certain level, it gets incrementally harder to get another percentage
point of the market share."
Harold Crye launched the company's first expansion efforts in 1992 establishing
a new regional hub office in Nashville. Crye-Leike became the
#1 provider of real estate services in Middle Tennessee within
one year. Operations in the region has since grown to include more than
26 branch offices and more than 1,000 sales associates.
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Pivotal year in 1995: $1 billion mark.
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In 1993, Crye-Leike surpassed the $1 billion mark in sales over a one-year
period, achieving a $1.01 billion annual sales volume. The year 1995 was a pivotal
year for Crye-Leike when it moved up in national rankings from #31 to the
15th largest among the Top 500 real estate companies. The sales volume
that year was $1.58 billion and 14,356 transaction sides.
"It was only after coming to Nashville that we dramatically
began to increase our sales numbers," said Crye. "Once we saw
our program had legs and could grow, then we saw that expanding into
the Chattanooga market was doable. Then Johnson City became
doable."
Crye, an Osceola, Arkansas native, set his sights on Little Rock,
Arkansas in 1997. He approached several existing real estate agencies as
a means of entering the metro area. Finding no sellers, he and Leike shifted
their focus to the Chattanooga, TN market.
Crye-Leike opened its third regional hub office in Chattanooga in
1997, by acquiring the four offices owned and operated by Huffaker, Realtors.
Four years later,
Crye-Leike of Chattanooga became the #1 market leader in the
number of closed transactions. Agent agent growth and sales volume
more than tripled. Growth in
Nashville real estate and
Chattanooga real estate is attributed to the company's natural expansion of its
tools, systems and services.
Surpassed $2 billion mark.
In 1998, Crye-Leike surpassed the $2 billion dollar mark in sales over
a period of one
year hitting $2.5 billion in sales volume, and moving it's national
ranking to becoming the 10th largest
real estate company in the nation. One year later the company
reached the $3 billion milestone at $3.02 billion in annual sales volume.
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In pursuit of growth.
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Crye-Leike expanded its regional presence in East Tennessee by opening a
branch office in Johnson City in 1999. In 2000, Crye-Leike opened its
first Georgia office. The company's
fourth regional hub office was established in Little Rock, Arkansas in June
2002, with Harold having ambitions of making Crye-Leike the largest
in central Arkansas in three years.
Being more aggressive in their pursuit of growth, Harold and Dick
included as part of their expansion strategy the buy out of major
competitors, like Folk-Jordan in Nashville; Huffaker Inc. in
Chattanooga; and Pyramid Realty in Memphis.
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Franchising the Crye-Leike brand.
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The other component of Crye-Leike's expansion strategy is
real estate franchising which began operations
in 1999 under the name of
Crye*Leike Franchises Inc., a subsidiary of
Crye-Leike, Realtors. The division focuses its marketing efforts on
establishing franchise territories in smaller populated areas within
Tennessee and those states surrounding Tennessee.
31 franchise operators have
joined the Crye-Leike network,
creating awareness of the Crye-Leike brand in territories where it
would not normally open a company office because of market size and
location. Introduction of the franchise concept has allowed Crye-Leike
to broaden its market presence into the eight-state southern region of
Tennessee, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, and
North Carolina.
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One-stop shopping concept expanded.
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In 2001, Crye-Leike established its Home Services Division, a
concierge service that further illustrates Crye-Leike's one-stop
shopping concept. Crye-Leike customers can access, free of charge, a
network of home services that provide home buyers
and sellers personalized service, convenience and savings for all of
the activities and transactions associated with home purchases,
sales and homeownership.
Crye-Leike Home Services puts homeowners together with various
companies such as moving and storage exterminating, painting and housekeeping services.
Home Services can arrange for such services as moving assistance,
coordinating home repairs, and even switching on electricity, telephones
and cable TV.
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Perspectives from our founders 25 years later.
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Crye-Leike Home Services is but one example of how the company founders
seek to always keep Crye-Leike on top in
terms of customer service, providing the most variety as well as the
best and most innovative services available in today's marketplace.
Through the vision and leadership of Harold Crye and Dick Leike,
Crye-Leike, Realtors grew in 2007 to become the 4th largest real estate
company in the nation and No. 1 in the Mid-South. With no plans to
slow down, the founders continue to focus on growth with a focus on
customer service and a
commitment to providing the highest quality of real estate services.
"Looking back, our company was built upon a mutual
respect for each other's talents, coupled with our desire to
succeed," said Dick.
"There are a lot of people who become successful and
then stop. They're happy with their level of success," said
Harold. "If it came down to just working for money, then Dick and
I would have quit a long time ago. We work now because we enjoy what
we're doing. We see all this potential and we just can't get to it
fast enough. We understand how this business works."
"When Harold and I first decided to start a real
estate company, I don't think that we wanted to be the biggest
company, but we did have a sincere desire to provide the best real
estate sale services around," said Dick. "Our growth was a
result of just that. "Since ours was a true service business,
providing the best service caused our company growth."
"With 25 years of service behind us, we have
developed a customer base that has come to know and trust the name
'Crye-Leike,'" said Harold. "Our loyal customers and the
strength of our dedicated sales associates and staff have made
Crye-Leike No. 1 and we are eternally
grateful."
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Next 25 Years of Growth.
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After establishing its presence in Jonesboro and Blytheville, Arkansas,
Crye-Leike directed its attention again on the Little Rock market, trying
in early 2002 to buy one of the city's larger real estate companies. But
a near-deal with an unidentified company fell through, forcing Crye-Leike
to either continue seeking a seller or build its presence from the ground up.
Still, no existing real estate agency would sell.
"Since it didn't happen that we could buy someone, we decided to go
in and open up one on our own," Crye said. "We don't necessarily
have a preference, but sometimes I think we come out better not buying
anybody."
Crye-Leike was able to buy into the Hot Springs market in November of 2002,
acquiring Lakefront Real Estate and adopting its 13-person staff. In less than
one year, they grew to six offices and a sales force of over 200. Experiencing
phenomenal sales growth during 2003, Crye-Leike of Arkansas was ranked by
Arkansas Business as the fourth largest residential real estate firm
in Arkansas in 2003. Today, the company is #1 in Central Arkansas with a sales
force of more than 500 Realtors and 12 offices across the region.
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In Business for 30 Years...
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In 2006 Crye-Leike achieved a record $6.1 Billion in sales. In 2007 Crye-Leike
is continuing its expansion. Crye-Leike now has regional branch offices located
in Northwest Arkansas, Atlanta Georgia and Jackson Mississippi.
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