How Melanie Kishk Built New York’s #1 Real Estate Team

Melanie Kishk runs Century 21’s top-grossing team in New York. With 20 agents and over $1 billion in volume, Melanie shares her incredible story.

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Transcript

Victor M. Braca: You guys have consistently been named the number one team in New York.

Melanie Kishk: I remember sitting for maybe four hours in 100 degrees negotiating on maybe 10 cents.

Victor M. Braca: You’ve done over a billion dollars in residential transactions.

Melanie Kishk: Took me nine months to sell my first house. Nine months of zero sales. I was seven months pregnant. I sold my first house by accident. I couldn’t believe it. Like I was in complete shock and I just kept saying, “I can’t believe I sold the house. I can’t believe I sold the house. I can’t believe I sold the house.”

Victor M. Braca: You did 77 transactions last year, which is over six times the national average and almost $100 million in transactions. You went from a shy little girl to a real estate broker. Polar opposites.

Melanie Kishk: Now, if I tell you, I think that was like the scariest moment of my life.

Victor M. Braca: You know what’s funny? Melanie Kishk never planned on being in real estate. She actually originally wanted to be a fashion designer, but after stumbling into a college course on sales and unexpectedly stealing the show with a pitch about a lipstick case, she realized she had a knack for selling. And fast forward to today, Melanie runs the top Century 21 team in all of New York State. Her team has transacted close to a billion dollars worth of real estate. I mean, unbelievable achievements out of Melanie and her team.

In this episode, we talk about how she built that from scratch. Why she went nine months without a single deal while seven months pregnant and what it takes to grow a team past 20 people when most agents can’t even surpass five team members. We also get into how COVID almost shut it all down and how she pushed through. Plus, how she accidentally became one of the top community matchmakers and what she’s learned from helping people not just find the right house, but the right spouse. I’m Victor Braca and Momentum is where I dive deep with exceptional leaders to uncover the key decisions, defining moments, and lessons that propel them to success and how those insights can inspire your journey forward. Melany’s story is one of grit, reinvention, and never waiting for permission. You guys are going to love it. Let’s get into it.

You’ve been in the real estate business since 1999. You have a team of 20 agents and you’ve done over a billion dollars in residential transactions. Melanie, I just want to ask you when you meet somebody for the first time, how do you explain to them what you do?

Melanie Kishk: That I’m a real estate broker for over 25 years and that I manage a team in Brooklyn, New York and we service the entire New York area and a worldwide referral team that can just get you basically to anywhere you want to go around the world.

Victor M. Braca: Amazing. I love it. And you said humbly, “I run a team,” but I want to correct that to that you run one of the top teams in New York City. I think the top team in Brooklyn if I’m not mistaken. So I just want to use that as a starting point for your career as a whole. Did you always know that you wanted to get into real estate?

Melanie Kishk: Oh, no. I don’t even think I knew what real estate was. Had a long path before I got to real estate. I actually originally wanted to—I always liked fashion and I used to want to be a fashion designer. I used to doodle all day long. I used to want to draw wedding gowns and gowns and that’s what I really liked. And I actually joined FIT summer program one summer and I decided, “Oh, I’m going to take fashion design. I’m going to be a fashion designer.”

So, I took the class and we’re learning each sleeve, each blouse, and it’s taking me hours to do them as opposed to I’m seeing everybody else already has these looks like they’ve been drawing for 30 years already. And I said, “Wow, this is like I’m deciding I want to be a poet, but I want to write poetry in French and I have to first learn French.”

So, I quickly realized this is not working out for me. I went to talk to my teacher and I said, “You know, I really like fashion design, but I’m really not that good at it.” So, he was laughing a little and I explained to him my situation and in the long run when I applied to FIT to go for college, I ended up deciding to switch my major to fashion business, fashion buying and merchandising. That’s another major over there.

And with a minor—I still kept taking fashion design as a class and illustration as a class. I kind of minored in all the arts because I still always wanted to keep a foot into it. And I ended up—I really went through the entire school not really knowing where I want to be. You know, some people say, “I want to be a buyer. I want to be a designer.” People knew what they wanted to do. I really didn’t know what I wanted to do.

Victor M. Braca: But did you know like fashion was your thing?

Melanie Kishk: I really was interested in fashion. Yes.

Victor M. Braca: Nice. And it ended up in the last semester of the last class, you took salesmanship. That was one of your last credits to fill—right before you left college.

Melanie Kishk: Yeah, that was one of the last and a funny story happened the first day of school. The teacher says, “I need a volunteer to come to the front of the room.” So the whole room of course is silent and me, I was very shy. I used to sit in the—I sat in the last seat of the last row.

Victor M. Braca: So you would never raise your hand.

Melanie Kishk: Never raise my hand ever in school ever. I don’t think in 12 years, that’s how shy I was. So just, “Anyone volunteer? Anyone? Anyone?” So she goes like this: “You in the back in the corner.”

I look and of course I see a wall because there’s no one behind me. I was the last row of the last row. And she goes, “No, you with the curly hair, come up to the front.” Now, if I tell you, I think that was like the scariest moment of my life. I even remember what I was wearing. I remember what the pocketbook looked like. That’s how scared I was. She said, “Come up to the front of the room with your pocketbook. I don’t bite, but come up.”

So, I’m walking as slow as I can and I’m shaking. And I’m just standing there. So, she said, “I’d like you to sell me something from your pocketbook.” Now, in those days, our pocketbooks were not that interesting. This is in the 80s or maybe it was 90s. I don’t even know. Anyway, open my pocketbook. What do I have? I have a wallet. I have a quarter for the pay phone and maybe a pen and then I had a lipstick case. A little lipstick case. I think I still have it somewhere. I meant to bring it.

So, a little lipstick case. All right, the most interesting is this lipstick case. So I pull out the lipstick case and it was very, very cute. It was like green silk with a—you could put the lipstick in. It had a little mirror. It was very cute. So, I end up pulling out the lipstick case and I said, “Okay, here I have this lipstick case and I take this with me everywhere. It has a mirror. It has a spot on the side for a quarter for the pay phone. I could roll a $20 bill around it. I once actually got caught somewhere and I had to pull out the money. It fits in my pocket. It fits in my shoe. It fits in my blazer. Fits in my jacket. Fits in my back pocket. I don’t leave home without it, you know?”

So, I’m looking at the whole class. The whole class was staring at me with their mouths open like they’re liking this. Let me just go for broke over here. I said, “It comes in six colors. You could buy a pack of two, a pack of four. There’s even one that holds two lipsticks.” And I’m just going on and on. I said, “You could leave a bucket of them at the register and you could sell hundreds of them a day.” And I just kept going on and on.

And even the teacher was loving this. So, originally the teacher was bringing up someone to make an example out of them, right? But she ended up loving the presentation so much that she was now obsessed with me. Oh wow. So that’s it. There was no more being shy. So every day she was like, “Melanie, sell me an oat bran muffin.”

I said, “Oat bran muffin? You’re going to reduce your cholesterol. You’re going to stay regular. You’re going to lose weight.” And I would go on and on.

And the next day, “Sell me a Murphy bed.”

“A Murphy bed? Oh my gosh. A Murphy bed is the best invention ever. You’re going to save money. You’re going to get a roommate. You’re going to save space in your apartment. You’re going to have this sleek look.” And I would just go on and on.

And I realized that if you could sell a muffin, you could sell a car. It’s all the same thing. I liked sales. I happened to have liked it, you know? I liked talking to the people. I liked connecting to the people. I liked the fact I didn’t have to draw and measure all day long anymore in any of the other majors. And I happened to have liked it.

Victor M. Braca: Nice. It sounds like your professor really proved to you your love for salesmanship. You didn’t know it from before, did you?

Melanie Kishk: Not really.

Victor M. Braca: You were always shy. You never really came out of your shell. And it’s like your professor proved to you how much you love sales. For people who haven’t had that moment where somebody is showing them a skill that they have or a skill that they can develop, how do you think you could find your inner talents?

Melanie Kishk: I always say if you don’t know where to go, start somewhere. Start anywhere. So I started with going to FIT summer program and that led me to opening up a barrette business and that ended up leading me to work for my father and continue working there. And in between school and work and summers and after school and you know, all throughout. I always say start off somewhere and you never know where you’re going to end up from that path. So I started off thinking I wanted to be in fashion and I ended up in sales and I ended up working for my father selling baby clothes for 10 years and then after that I—it is you think it’s not the same thing and I ended up selling real estate. It’s just if you like sales and you have experience in sales you can really sell anything. It’s just about knowing your product, understanding the features of your product, and being able to explain the benefits of those features to people who might want to buy your product.

Victor M. Braca: Right. It sounds like you were always entrepreneurial. You mentioned a barrette business. Can you tell me a little bit about that?

Melanie Kishk: Oh, that was funny. So, again, I was going with my friend to FIT on the summer program on the bus and we were walking on 32nd Street, 30th Street and we used to see all the Koreans selling barrettes for wholesale and they were so cheap. We said, “Wow, we can sell this. we can sell this to the community.”

And I think we started with about maybe six dozen pieces. We brought them home and on a Friday we ran a sale in my mother’s garage in Deal and we sold them out in the first week. We sold them all, plus we already had orders for the next week. Really big hit. Everybody loved it. Go to Camp David and the entire Camp David lineup was all the same barrettes in every color. The whole lineup had them.

Victor M. Braca: Wow.

Melanie Kishk: Yeah, so the barrettes was a big hit and I actually liked wearing barrettes. I liked getting my barrettes on sale and all the costume earrings. It mushroomed a little bit. We had it for about two or three years, me with two of my friends and it was a fun experience. It was a great experience and yeah, we liked that.

Victor M. Braca: That was the first business that you really built.

Melanie Kishk: Yeah.

Victor M. Braca: Nice. I want to go back to like your elementary and maybe grade school days for a little bit. Were you always good in school?

Melanie Kishk: Not really. I think I was average.

Victor M. Braca: You were average? Like, was school something that you struggled with? Because I know a lot of people—a lot of business people also—they look back at their school years and they feel like the school system is designed to make people fail in a way. If you don’t fit exactly, if you don’t conform exactly to the way the system is structured, then people think they’re a failure. Was that something that you experienced or not so much?

Melanie Kishk: Not so much but I don’t think a lot of the stuff I learned in school really got me where I was. I think it was more the life experience. My best schooling that I ever had was Allora University. My father’s company was Allora, Allora Imports. And he was not happy about the whole college idea. He said, “We don’t believe in college. The only college we believe in is Allora University.”

Victor M. Braca: So he wanted you to learn on the job.

Melanie Kishk: Yep. Learn everything you need by learning. He said he learned from his uncles and he learned from his father and he learned from his elders. He always believed in asking your elders and learning from your elders. So I did work for him for many years.

Victor M. Braca: What made you want to go to college—and want to go so bad that you felt the need to convince your dad to let you go?

Melanie Kishk: I liked fashion. My friends were going. I actually didn’t want to go to college, but in Flatbush they all made you apply to college.

Victor M. Braca: Interesting.

Melanie Kishk: And they had the college meeting and she says, “Oh, come. Which colleges are you applying to?”

I said, “I don’t know if I want to really apply to college or if I’m really going to go or if I’m going to get in.” I made every excuse.

She’s like, “Listen, sit down. We’re just going to write an essay.” So she said, “All right, we’re going to write an essay for FIT. What do you want to write about?”

I said, “I want to write about the barrette business.” So I wrote about the barrette business and got in.

Victor M. Braca: That’s great.

Melanie Kishk: So I go, “Okay, I’m going to college. I got into college.” So he was still able to keep me on summers, on winter rooms. He always found me whenever he needed me to work. I was always available for him.

Victor M. Braca: Right. And I could tell from you that your early working experiences from your dad’s company, at Orva—which you’ll tell me about—and at the Gap—which you’ll tell me about—it sounds like they really shaped who you were and your business now decades later. So tell me a little bit about your earlier work experiences at Orva and the Gap.

Melanie Kishk: Okay, so for FIT, it was required credits to work in the field, the retail field. I ended up working for Orva department store which are the Azraks and used—at the time it was a department store that had every department: clothing, shoes, accessories.

I got there—I walked there—it’s a huge store the first day and I see tons of people working in the clothing department. They’re dancing. They’re jumping. They’re trying everything. They’re having the best time. And I said, “Oh, this looks like the greatest job.”

So all of a sudden they said, “Oh, we’re going to put you in the accessory department.” And the accessory department was like one step up and it’s a little bit sectioned off. And I was like, “Oh, this doesn’t look so fun.” I said, “All right, I got to make something happen over here.” It was like me and one old lady in the accessory department.

So I said, “All right, I’m going to make this fun.” So all of a sudden, “Do you have mannequins?” We started putting things on mannequins. We accessorized the whole store. I started—I bought a book, How to Tie a Scarf. I was tying up scarves on everything. I was selling anything people needed. They were coming in for Christmas gifts and we came in and, “Hi, you want gloves, you want this.”

I became myself a pro. Like, they came in for one gift, I would sell them six gifts. All of a sudden at the end of the internship, it was like the last day and the buyer starts to—she was hysterical crying. She didn’t realize she had 800 scarves that she didn’t know about and she missed the Christmas season.

And I go, “Don’t worry, I got this. Mannequins, my scarf book.” We put scarves everywhere. We put an ad in the paper: “Scarf day, buy one, get one free.” And we totally rocked it and we got rid of all the scarves. I was just whatever it is, I would make it, “Oh, sell two, sell six, buy one, take another one.” And I got rid of everything.

Victor M. Braca: They didn’t put you in charge of the company at that point.

Melanie Kishk: They actually offered me a job to be the assistant manager of the accessory department.

Victor M. Braca: Really?

Melanie Kishk: And then my father heard about them. He was not happy. “What are you hiring my daughter for? I need my daughter.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” That’s funny.

And then for another short semester, maybe just a month or two, I actually worked in the Gap for two days a week. And I learned a lot there. My father was really making fun of that. He liked hearing all the stories about that. He actually went to his card game and told his friends about it and his friends said, “Oh wow, the Gap, this sounds so interesting.” And he sent his son to work in the Gap so he could learn all the systems and rules and regulations of the Gap and it helped them in their retail stores. You know, sometimes you learn different things that can apply in different areas and it’s really interesting.

Victor M. Braca: Nice. So, like these early working experiences for you really shaped your skill set today?

Melanie Kishk: I think so.

Victor M. Braca: What did it look like for you after college? Did you go straight into real estate?

Melanie Kishk: No. College was only a two-year program and then right after that I was enrolled in Allora University and I did everything in my father’s office. I mean, he started me off with: first you’re going to be sample shopping, then you’re going to be designing. And before I knew it, I was in the showroom in sales. I actually liked working with the people, and I didn’t mind if they were buying—I mean, he was very into “treat everybody the same.” A lot of people are only about the big chains and if the small people used to come into the office, he was always telling me to service them just the same way. And that’s a great philosophy.

Victor M. Braca: Yeah. How long were you working for your father for?

Melanie Kishk: I worked for him for 10 years.

Victor M. Braca: Oh wow. So what else did you learn during those 10 years?

Melanie Kishk: My father really always told me to be creative. So everything was an opportunity. Like one time it was pouring rain for two weeks straight. He goes, “Melanie, get on the phone and sell raincoats.” Like, everything was an opportunity. Instead of getting down, it was just an opportunity to do business.

And if something wasn’t working, he always said, “Try this way, try that way.” He says, “If the front door is closed, try the back door. If the back door is closed, try the side door. If the side door is closed, break the window.” So, I think of that a lot when he says it. I still hear him telling me all these kind of things. And a lot of the things that he taught me then are still with me today.

Victor M. Braca: And do you find yourself maybe structuring a deal creatively based on what your father taught you?

Melanie Kishk: All the time. All the time. Probably one of the highlights is when he took me with him to the Orient. I went with him a few times actually and I learned the art of negotiation just by watching him. Sometimes it’s not even like what you say, it’s also what you don’t say.

I remember sitting for maybe four hours in 100 degrees negotiating on maybe 10 cents and I just couldn’t believe what was going on and I was dripping sweat. And then after I said, “Dad, did it really 10 cents for four hours?”

He tells me, “Melanie, the money you save is the money you make.” He said, “10 cents? We’re buying 20,000 dozen?” He goes, “That’s a lot of money.”

And I didn’t realize how hard it is to make a living. Like, you really have to take every factor into account.

Victor M. Braca: What you saw was 10 cents. What your father saw, zooming out into the big picture, was 10 cents times 20,000 dozen, which is in reality thousands of dollars. Before we move on, I’m liking the advice from your father. Was there anything else that he taught you that is still with you today?

Melanie Kishk: Oh, a lot of things. First lesson in life he taught me is: “Melanie, I just want to tell you everything in life is takdir.” So, he taught me negotiation from a young age. We were negotiating on everything over there. So that was really one of his first lessons that he taught me.

He was big into his emunah and his belief and he had all these Hebrew quotes on his wall and his favorite ones he would always—he would point to them all day long. Like he would tell us, “Always watch what you’re saying, watch your words and keep your word.” And in real estate, that’s really big and I hear it all the time. And you know when someone doesn’t keep their word I’m like, “You know that doesn’t sit so well with me.” So that was one of the first lessons.

And another one he always said was about asking your elders. He always asked his elders; he always looked to his elders for advice. And I do think that the next generation should listen to advice. I know they think they know better but I still like to ask my elders for advice.

Victor M. Braca: And that is one of the things that really still sits with me and that’s part of the reason why you’re here sitting in this chair today because what you’re doing really is giving advice and sharing your story and your experiences with the younger generation in an attempt to inspire them. So thank you for coming. So you worked for your father for 10 years and is it after that when you started to get into real estate?

Melanie Kishk: I actually got into real estate by accident. I was never interested in real estate. I didn’t even know what real estate was until I got married and I wanted to buy a house and I couldn’t find the house to buy and I couldn’t find a real estate agent who would call me back.

So, I had a friend that was also looking for a house and we decided together that we’re going to go to real estate school to find out how real estate agents find out about houses for sale.

Victor M. Braca: Why?

Melanie Kishk: Because we just couldn’t find a house.

Victor M. Braca: No, but when most people can’t find a house, they don’t go to school to learn how to become the person to help people find their homes.

Melanie Kishk: I don’t know. It was just a spur-of-a-moment thing. We found a real estate school. We joined and we went. I don’t think we thought we were really going to stick with it.

Victor M. Braca: “Let’s go to real estate school.”

Melanie Kishk: Yeah. So, that’s how we got licensed. And it turned out I was really looking for something closer to home because I didn’t want to commute to the city anymore. So, we went to the real estate school. We got our licenses. We went interviewing around and we ended up starting out at Fillmore Real Estate on Avenue J.

It was a great experience but my friend ended up not sticking with it because she wanted a real job with a real salary, not just an intern. I call all real estate agents interns because everyone’s working for free until you make a sale. Commission. There was no salary. It’s a challenge.

So again, I was an intern for nine months. It took me nine months till I made my first sale and I was working for free as an intern. And real estate business was very different then. We had no social media, no computers at home, no cell phones, everything was just on a much slower pace and everything had 40 steps till you got to where you are today.

Like for example, when we first started out, we had three computers in the office and about 30-something agents. And I used to drive 15 minutes to the office to stand in line to use the computer to see what the new listings were. How else would you know the new listings? There wasn’t anything like Zillow.

Anyway, that’s what I used to do. And I used to walk around with a camera and oh, sometimes you run out of film, run to buy film.

Victor M. Braca: Oh, you took pictures of the properties?

Melanie Kishk: Yeah. You’ve heard about a house for sale. You run there, you take a picture, then you have to go to the one-hour photo guy and get it developed and you go pick it up and then you have to drop it to the person’s house. “This is the picture of the house. Do you want to take a look at it?” And even if you want to go hand it in to the office headquarters, they have you drive there to drop off the picture. You need the picture for the ad.

Victor M. Braca: How’d you advertise the listings?

Melanie Kishk: Advertising was a challenge, too. In those days, again, there wasn’t any of this Kosher Media and Syrian Alerts. We didn’t have any of that.

Victor M. Braca: Shout out to those.

Melanie Kishk: They’re great. So, we didn’t have anything like that. And I used to have to wait. I was dependent very much on the Jewish Press. Comes out every Wednesday. It’s closed by Tuesday midday and you can’t get your ad in. And if you don’t get your ad by Tuesday midday, your ad’s not going to hit for two more weeks.

So it was hard. And I used to actually have my husband drive me at midnight on Tuesday night to get the copy of the Jewish Press. I would stay up all night circling any new listings that would come out so I’d be ready to roll early Wednesday morning when I woke up. And I would sit by my phone waiting for it to ring in my house.

Victor M. Braca: Why were you so dedicated? You didn’t have to be.

Melanie Kishk: I don’t know. I just—I think I wanted to prove something to myself that I could sell a house and then after I sold one house, I wanted to sell another house.

Victor M. Braca: How long did it take you to make your first sale?

Melanie Kishk: It took me nine months to sell my first house. Nine months of zero sales.

Victor M. Braca: Nine months of zero sales. I tried.

Melanie Kishk: I was showing and I think I was seven months pregnant.

Victor M. Braca: You’re pregnant and you had no sales for nine months? Wow. Why?

Melanie Kishk: I don’t know. I was motivated. I feel like it was a puzzle that I just wanted to get all the pieces. I wanted to solve it.

Victor M. Braca: You wanted to show yourself you could do it.

Melanie Kishk: Yeah. And I just—I sold my first house by accident. It was just a house I was first going after to get the listing. And I was asking around, “Do you know anybody who would want a house on this block? Do you know anyone who would know anyone on this block?”

So, my cousin told me, “Call my mother-in-law and ask her. She might know someone.” So, I called her up and I told her about this house. I said, “Do you know anyone who’d want to buy this house?”

So, she said, “I’ll buy it.”

I said, “Oh, okay.”

She goes, “Pick me up 7:00 in the morning.” Picked her up 7:00 in the morning. She looked through the house. No problem. She’ll take it. And then the whole day I was like, “I can’t believe it. I think I just sold a house. I think I sold a house.”

And I couldn’t believe—it was like a crossover. It was the moment from I wasn’t just that intern anymore. I think I was actually a real estate agent. And I mean, big thanks to Joyce Shahibar. She was my first customer. Bought the house. The house came out gorgeous. And we ended up getting her another house. And it was just one of those moments when you feel like, you know, kind of like this is what you were waiting for.

So after I sold the house, I—unbeknownst to me—I ended up becoming agent of the month and it was on the Fillmore website.

Victor M. Braca: On your first sale.

Melanie Kishk: Yeah. Oh wow. Because I guess that was the biggest sale of that month or whatever it was, right? Anyway, I ended up being agent of the month and somebody else saw me as agent of the month and they called me up and then I sold them a house. So by then, I was already in business.

Then after that, I had somebody else call me, “Oh, could you help me sell my house?” And I ended up co-broking a house with another agent from another company. And before you know it, one house leads to another and everything becomes referrals and word of mouth. Somebody has a friend and somebody has a brother and somebody has a cousin and somebody has a neighbor or a daughter who wants to buy a house, somebody wants to sell a house and each thing ended up leading from one thing to the next.

Victor M. Braca: Did you feel like you were ready for these people to be calling you up asking you to help them find a house? Were you ready or did you feel like, “I’m not ready for this. I need to learn more”?

Melanie Kishk: I was actually ready. And you know what? You never can know enough about real estate. There’s always new things coming out, always new laws coming out. There’s new ways to market coming out. There’s just so much to keep learning and you have to keep learning and stay in the game. And we actually just had a seminar today in my office. There’s always something going on.

Victor M. Braca: Nice. And it’s like always about continuing your education.

Melanie Kishk: Yeah.

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Let’s get back into it.

For you as an agent, as a new agent, how did your mindset shift after closing your first deal and that being the biggest deal of the month? I mean, what did that make you—what kind of confidence did that give you in yourself and in your abilities? And what did you see for yourself in the future at that point?

Melanie Kishk: I couldn’t believe it. Like, I was in complete shock and I just kept saying, “I can’t believe I sold the house. I can’t believe I sold the house. I can’t believe I sold the house.”

And I told the accountant, he’s like, “Wow, that’s really good.” You know, it was just—I really sold the house. And I couldn’t believe it. And once I did, I was in business. It wasn’t like just “I’m a real estate agent.” I’m like, “I’m really a real estate agent.” And I said it with more confidence and I was able to sell another house and another house. And before I knew it, everyone just was calling me. I didn’t even have to call them anymore.

Victor M. Braca: And how long were you at Fillmore Real Estate for?

Melanie Kishk: I was at Fillmore for 11 years.

Victor M. Braca: 11 years. Got it. And then you went on your own.

Melanie Kishk: I started my own company, MK Realty. Started with one or two agents.

Victor M. Braca: Why’d you go on your own? Like, was it just like an entrepreneurial itch to have your own thing?

Melanie Kishk: I think so. I did have a good thing, but I did want something of my own, closer to home, more geared towards the community and something where you ran the show.

Victor M. Braca: Yeah. Right. Like you wanted more. Tell me about like the early days of MK Realty. You said one or two agents to start with?

Melanie Kishk: I started with one or two agents. Yes, I did. It ended up growing. I think we were about five or six agents.

Victor M. Braca: What was the time span for that?

Melanie Kishk: It took about maybe four or five years as we grew.

Victor M. Braca: So steady progression.

Melanie Kishk: Yeah. And then all of a sudden my husband decided to sell his business and all of a sudden he was available. So my husband was all about—he’s very meticulous, very into all the operating procedures and a whole back-end office and having all these layers of management. It really took us to another level in terms of being able to service people in a much deeper way.

Victor M. Braca: Sounds like your husband really turned it into a business operation.

Melanie Kishk: He did. He took it—he came home one day actually and he says, “You know what? I think I want to go franchise.”

“Franchise? I’m not going franchise. I’m not doing this.”

“Please, please, please just interview one person.” So, I interviewed one person. Went through all the interviews. They go through everything about you. “Don’t like it. It’s not for me.”

All of a sudden, I guess they hear you’re interviewing and all of a sudden everybody’s at your door. So I come home one day and Keller Williams is at the door. The next day I walk in and ERA is at the door. They all had my number and they were all calling me up.

Victor M. Braca: And they wanted you to build a team at their company. Is that what it is?

Melanie Kishk: So a lot of the franchises are all owned by one main parent company. So, I guess once they hear, they all try to get you to sign on with their franchise. And the goal for them is to say, “The Melanie Kishk team at [Franchise Name].” The goal for them is to open as many offices as possible.

I guess the franchise we ended up choosing was Century 21. We ended up going there because we liked the people best. The team was great. We had a good, warm, family feeling. I could reach out to my CEO, Mike Miedler, on his cell phone at any time and I know he’ll pick up the phone. And our brand ambassador, same thing. I can email her in the middle of the night. She’ll have an answer for me.

So, I kind of liked the support that I was going to be able to get from them. I mean, they were wining and dining us. They flew us out to Florida. They brought us to their headquarters. They taught us everything about their systems until we finally said that okay, we’ll end up joining.

And then all of a sudden, they hit me with like a 360-page manual of things that I had to learn. “What is this? I’m back in school.” I was like, “Not for me. Can’t do this.”

My husband again is like, “Don’t worry, calm down. We’re going to tackle this one by one.” And we walked in with a team of like five lawyers and we got it all done. And all of a sudden, we were no longer MK Realty, we were Century 21 Melanie Kishk.

Victor M. Braca: So you started at Century 21 Melanie Kishk with six people almost 10 years ago. You have 20 people now. So I mean, tell me a little bit about that, about growing your team. Did you find it difficult to manage such a large team?

Melanie Kishk: It’s actually not difficult because we like to choose people who we think would be a good fit for our company. And we really believe in building like a nice culture and a nice collaborative energy throughout the company. So if I see people that I think could fit and could get along from different environments, different schools, different ages, different types of personalities… I do think that it’s nice to grow when you can and sometimes you’re happy with who you have.

Victor M. Braca: Nice. I want to point out that I think the national average for the size of a real estate team is between four to six people and most real estate teams can’t even surpass five people. So, I mean, I think the fact that you 4x-ed the national average in terms of your team size is remarkable considering that most people can’t even get past a fraction of what you have.

And just to list some of your accomplishments, you guys are among the top 21 teams nationwide within Century 21, which is just an unbelievable accomplishment. I think it’s like the top 1% or something crazy. You guys have consistently been named the number one team in New York, which is unbelievable. All very impressive. Congratulations, by the way.

Melanie Kishk: Thank you.

Victor M. Braca: Huge, huge accomplishments. These have been some of the highlights of your career, the awards that you and your team have won, but I want to ask about some of the lowlights. Was there—like, what was your biggest challenge and how did you overcome it and what did you take from that challenge into your business today?

Melanie Kishk: Oh, we have a lot of challenges every day. I’ll tell you that. One of the biggest challenges I would say was COVID. We had just recently moved from our office on McDonald Avenue to an office on Avenue P. We gutted out the whole store. We built ourselves a beautiful store. We had a nice grand opening and all of a sudden COVID hit and that was it.

Shut down. “What are we going to do?” We had people dropping out of contracts because they were scared they had no money. They were scared they were going to die. They were scared the world was going to end and we didn’t know how to keep the stamina up. And I was just trying to switch to like Zoom just to keep the stamina up with the agents, trying to keep in touch with them, trying to keep everyone’s morale up, trying to maintain home life, family life, business. I was like, “Oh, do I work at home or do I live at work?” I wasn’t really sure what was going on over there, but it’s a little bit of both.

And it was a challenge. We rode out the wave. You know, you’re always climbing a mountain and sometimes you plummet—that was one of the plummeting times—until you could get back up and start climbing again.

Victor M. Braca: That sounds like a big challenge. I mean, the real estate industry is probably one of the most affected industries by COVID, right? Because people are holding their cash as opposed to putting it into property.

Melanie Kishk: Yeah, it was challenging. Another challenge has been the mortgage rates. They have been unusually high for the past few years and it has been very difficult for a lot of our buyers to be able to buy a home.

Victor M. Braca: How do you deal with that?

Melanie Kishk: I do try very—I believe in home ownership and I do believe everyone deserves to buy a home and should be able to buy a home however they can. And I try to connect with my buyers to see where they are in life.

Also, if they’re paying an inexpensive rent, I tell them, “You know what? Stay where you are for now.” If they’re paying such a high rent, I say, “You know what? You should be buying a house.”

One of my renters, I actually said, “No, no, no. You can’t—you have that much money in the bank right now. No, no, you’re not renting this. I have something you could buy for this price.” And he wasn’t even a buyer. And I quickly switched his rental into a purchase because once he was spending that much money per month on rent, I said, “Oh, you can afford to buy something.”

And we do feel that yes, some people it’s not always the right time and we can keep checking back with them. If somebody cannot afford their dream home right now, I would tell them: start with a starter home. Start somewhere or start with a property that you can rent out, but own something that you can build equity with.

And the more you—nobody’s ever lost money on any of our real estate properties. Everything has always been going up, especially around here. So, I tell people: buy something. So, it’s not exactly the lot size that you wanted or the block that you wanted, but this is what you found. Start with something because you never know where it’s going to lead you. You can always sell it. You don’t have to pay rent. You’re building equity and it’s really a stepping stone.

Victor M. Braca: Nice. I like that. I could see your salesmanship coming through. What do you say to people in their early 20s who feel overwhelmed about their future?

Melanie Kishk: I tell the next generation: set your goal. Start with a goal and then follow that goal. And then maybe you might not exactly hit that goal but maybe on the way towards that goal your journey will take you somewhere else, and then follow that goal and enjoy the journey.

It’s not only about the destination. I know we’ve heard it many times—it’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey. It really is about the journey because on the journey you’re going to learn so much and it might lead you to something else on a completely different path. And once you find a path or once you find a direction that you’re good at, there is so much you can do to just keep staying committed, to keep pushing yourself past your comfort zone, to keep trying to stay motivated. You have to always stay focused and be able to just keep going and keep climbing up the mountain. And there are going to be times where maybe you hit a peak and then you plummet again. Sometimes you just have to keep up your stamina and keep going.

Victor M. Braca: Listen, you’re saying a lot of clichés, but like a saying that I like to say is that they’re clichés for a reason. These are clearly things that work for so many people. And we could see them in your story. You went nine months without making a single sale. You were seven months pregnant working as a real estate agent. I mean, like, dedication.

And like you said, you didn’t always think that you’d be in real estate. You wanted to be a fashion designer and then you went into fashion business. Are you in fashion business now? No. So, I love how you gave us good advice, but your story really exemplifies the best use of that advice. How do you think people could inspire themselves? Where do you take inspiration from? Is it people ahead of you, three, four, five steps ahead of you who are maybe in the same industry? Is it people of older generations?

Melanie Kishk: I’m always trying to continue to learn and grow and learn the new methods of what’s going on and learn going along with the future. Again, in the beginning, I was really very hesitant towards all this social media. One of my kids at 12 years old came to me: “Ma, you got to get on Instagram.”

I go, “Instagram? What’s that? Not doing that.”

And all of a sudden, I came home one day with—I think I sold a house from Instagram. And I realized that we have to mix old talent with new talent. And I think as long as you just keep learning and growing and using the best of what the past generation has taught you and mix it with the best of what the new generation is learning… to just keep going and to keep growing and to keep learning and to keep implementing and to keep moving forward at all times.

Victor M. Braca: Given that you work with a lot of people—I mean, you’ve hired a lot of people and you work with people young and old—are there any specific things that you would advise for young people to do to either get ahead or set themselves up for a good future? Anybody who wants to be successful, what should they do now?

Melanie Kishk: It’s never too early to start building yourself. And I believe in the sphere of influence that’s going to follow you throughout your life. And what is your sphere of influence? Your sphere, your inner sphere—all the people that you know, all the people close to you. Those are your bread and butter: your friends, your relatives, your neighbors, your teachers, your rabbis, your doctor. These are all people that you know and you can leverage those relationships. No matter what business you go into, you don’t realize how many people you start with already in your phone that you can call as customers and they can become an asset to you as you move forward in life.

Victor M. Braca: There are a lot of real estate agents out there. I mean just within Century 21 alone there are, like you said, 150,000 of them and there are millions across the country, across the world. And you’ve hired many of them. What are some rookie mistakes that you see beginners make often?

Melanie Kishk: Very often I see people quit too early. If I had just quit one month before… like, I was already in there for nine months. What if I said at month six or seven or eight, “You know what? This is not for me.” You can’t quit too early. And you don’t know how many times people have told me no or slammed the door in my face. And people have to realize that the word “no” doesn’t really mean no. It just means “not right now” or “come up with another creative way to get me to say yes.” And sometimes it’s just a matter of the price or the terms or the timing or the people or the wording. It’s just an invitation for a further conversation.

Victor M. Braca: How’d you learn these negotiation tactics?

Melanie Kishk: Ah, my favorite book: Never Split the Difference.

Victor M. Braca: I read that book.

Melanie Kishk: You did?

Victor M. Braca: Yeah. Chris Voss, he’s the man.

Melanie Kishk: It’s a good one.

Victor M. Braca: Yeah. It was actually had a mention in a previous Momentum masterclass but it was great. He was a hostage negotiator, which I think is very interesting because he wasn’t a dealmaker in terms of—I mean, he worked for the FBI—but I happened to like that book a lot. We’ll link that book in the description because I think everyone should check it out. I read it, was very good.

You did 77 transactions last year which is over six times the national average and almost $100 million in transactions. What I want to ask you is: do you ever feel like you have to divorce yourself and your emotion from the deal and just treat it like a structured operation?

Melanie Kishk: Yes and no. Yes, I feel that way. However, I never truly divorce myself from the situation. I do feel like I am married to my clients for the period of our agreement and I do really believe in seeing them all the way to the finish line.

Victor M. Braca: Melanie, you went from a shy little girl to a real estate broker, which is polar opposites, right? What would 15-year-old Melanie tell me if I told her that in 20, 30 years she would run a team of real estate brokers?

Melanie Kishk: “No way. Unbelievable. Unbelievable.” Say no way. I don’t even think I knew what real estate was.

Victor M. Braca: I want to shift gears a bit towards focusing on giving back and getting involved in community activism. And I know that you’re a community matchmaker and I want to hear about how you got into that.

Melanie Kishk: That’s another thing I never planned on getting into. It also happened by accident. I used to volunteer at New Directions where we used to have the ski trips and the tennis tournaments and singles events. I used to help organize the singles events and I used to help run the tennis tournament and I would start putting people together on the tennis teams and they actually got married.

Victor M. Braca: Oh, wow.

Melanie Kishk: And then all of a sudden, the same thing with ski trips. I would keep bringing people in and recruiting people and they would get married. I ended up on the phone sometimes with them advising them who to go out with. They would tell me, “Oh, could you get this girl to come on the ski trip and could you put me with this person in the tennis tournament?” And before you knew it, by accident, I started making matches.

And that’s how it happened. Then I actually made a few matches when I was single. And when I got married, I got called up to be on one of the matchmaking teams at Shaare Zion. And then later on, we were recruited by Charles Mizrahi and Kelly Sabag when they started the Sephardic Link. Now the Sephardic Link got taken over by Shaare Zion Connect. And I’m also a member of Mikuet. There’s a lot of—what’s the beauty of this now is that all the community matchmakers are working together and it became our obligation to help the singles.

Victor M. Braca: That’s amazing. Like, you’re matching sellers with buyers, you’re matching husbands with wives. It’s the same thing. They’re so related. Did they ever cross paths?

Melanie Kishk: All the time. I’ll tell you a cute story. So once I was interviewing somebody—another matchmaker called me up and said, “Could you meet one of my guys? He’s going to be in Brooklyn tomorrow.”

I said, “Okay, I’ll meet him.” She was telling me for a while, “Can you meet this guy?”

So I said, “Okay, meet me at this day at this time.” And I actually met him with Kelly. And we interviewed him and great guy. He said, “Wow, I have to have tons of people for him.”

And 10 minutes into the interview, he says, “Oh, you know, I got to run. I go somewhere.”

I go, “No, you can’t go anywhere.”

He goes, “Why not?”

I said, “Because you’re fabulous. I have girls for you.”

I said, “No, no, I really have to go.”

I go, “Where do you have to go?”

He goes, “I have a house. I’m trying to sell it.”

I said, “Where’s the house?” He tells me the name of the house. I go, “Oh, that’s fabulous.” Had no clue where the house was. Anyway, he tells me where the house is. I said, “Okay, great. I’ll meet you there in 10 minutes.”

So, he leaves. I quickly go on Kelly’s computer—MapQuest we used at the time—and I printed out how to get there. It wasn’t so far, but one of those blocks inside another block. And I meet him at the house and sold the house within a month and six months later he was engaged.

Victor M. Braca: Oh, wow.

Melanie Kishk: Yeah. So I built a relationship from that and I was on the phone with him every day. I would have tried this girl, that girl, and we’re still friendly. It does lead to one day I’ll be matching his kids, you know?

Victor M. Braca: The professional life and the charity giving back life cross paths. I love that. Why is giving back so important to you? Do you have like a personal story maybe to share of why you wanted to get involved and to help other people?

Melanie Kishk: I didn’t get married so young. So I think that was like the springboard for me to try to help other people. I remember saying when I was single that if I do get married—because singles do worry about not getting married—I did say, “If I do get married, I will make myself available for other singles and help them get married.”

So that was where—I mean, everybody has their skill set. I might not be good at delivering turkeys every week or delivering chickens every Friday or giving lashon hara classes. Everyone has their own skill set and I felt like because I already had made some matches, it’s something I could do. And because I could do it, I felt like maybe I was obligated to do it to help the people who might be waiting. And I feel bad because you wish you could do more, you know? But it’s a big puzzle and we don’t have all the pieces to the puzzle.

Victor M. Braca: You know, Melanie, I’m noticing something about you, which is that you take a negative experience that you have, whether it’s not getting married as early as you would have wanted to or not being able to find a home when you were shopping with your husband, and you turn that into helping other people. One of them being your entire career and your whole team, and one of them being your volunteer work. I think it’s just an amazing mindset for ambitious people and entrepreneurs to have: if you have a negative experience in something, then it’s safe to assume others might have had that same experience and if you can help them solve that, then you’re filling a gap in the market.

Melanie Kishk: Yeah. I don’t believe in negative experiences. I think everything is an opportunity to create an opportunity and weaknesses are just a way to motivate yourself to grow.

Victor M. Braca: I want to ask you, how can people leverage their community while also giving back?

Melanie Kishk: If you leverage all your contacts and all the people you know, it will lead you to business, it will lead to—it will lead to come to you. It will lead to all kinds of opportunities in life. It could just follow the path that it takes you on.

Victor M. Braca: We mentioned the book Never Split the Difference. Do you have any other favorite books or recommendations for people who are ambitious?

Melanie Kishk: I always say start with the basics and stick with the basics and build on your basics and keep focusing on the simple ABCs. I would say How to Win Friends and Influence People.

Victor M. Braca: I was waiting for it! One of my favorites. We like the same books. I don’t know, we should go book shopping together. We should start a book club.

Melanie Kishk: Yeah. Right. So, it’s the simple basics, but I think everyone should master that even from high school and on because you know they say everything I need to learn I learned in kindergarten. That’s what I mean. It’s just that’s the kind of thing—just learning the basics: calling people by their name, looking people in the eye, just things that people don’t realize really help, especially as a salesperson.

Victor M. Braca: I want to point out one of my favorite ideas from that book that is still with me until today. Dale Carnegie, the author, says that when you’re walking around and you’re meeting people, you should look at everyone as if they’re wearing a chain and a sign on the chain that says, “I want to feel special” or “I want to be recognized.” And so that’s at the end of the day in our interpersonal interactions—that’s all we want, is to be recognized and to feel special. So looking people in the eye, calling people by their name, and all of the other tips in the book—so much of which has shaped the way I interact with people. Great, great book. It was written a while ago and everything about it still rings true. I think I would actually argue that it’s even more true today than it was whenever he wrote the book.

Melanie Kishk: I agree.

Victor M. Braca: Because nowadays in the digital age when everyone’s separated by a screen or people are in their phones 24/7, if you know how to connect with people, you’re 10 times more valuable than somebody who knew how to connect with people 20 years ago even. So, great book. We’ll also link that in the description.

And when we’re on the topic of books and recommendations, tell me some of your favorite quotes, some quotes that you live by that really get you going, whether it be motivating you or helping you get unstuck in your business.

Melanie Kishk: And I said this before: “No” is not the end. Everyone thinks “no” is the end. It’s not. And just keep saying that in your head and the more you say it to yourself, you’ll realize that “no” was not the end—sometimes the beginning.

My father had this quote every time a new buyer would come into the chain or a new president would be elected to the bank, he would say, “And a new pharaoh came that did not know Joseph.” And it was like, “Oh my gosh, start all over again.”

We always had to realize—I always think of that because there’s always going to be a newer tougher seller, a tougher buyer, a tougher situation, a tougher set of mortgage rates and a tougher set of financial situations that we’re in. There’s always going to be the new pharaoh that is coming that we always have to overcome and work hard to bypass.

Victor M. Braca: Continually also. It’s not just a one-off thing.

Melanie Kishk: “It’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey.”

Victor M. Braca: That’s right. That’s right. Love another quote. How has your faith guided you in business?

Melanie Kishk: If you don’t have faith, you don’t have anything. In this business, the number one thing you need is faith because anything can turn in one minute. A deal could be going totally, totally south and Hashem could just save it in one second. And the other way around, if you don’t have faith, you think it’s going so smoothly and it could just backfire in one minute.

Victor M. Braca: I want to ask you, Melanie, for your Momentum Moment. I mean, from grinding for nine months with zero sales as a pregnant woman, seven months pregnant no less, to nowadays 20 team members, one of the top teams in New York. Can you pinpoint a specific moment where it all turned around for you? It doesn’t necessarily have to be in your real estate business, but it could be in your life—like a point of realization that you came to that gave you confidence in your abilities.

Melanie Kishk: I think one Momentum Moment was when I sold that lipstick case to the professor. I think that was really [it] and she was like, “I want to buy it.” She said, “I’d like to put a video of you in the library.”

In those days, we had a library. There was no YouTube to go watch. You’d have to go take a video on her iPhone—no, not iPhone, her video camera—and you’d have to go to the library and ask the librarian to get you into the sales department and then you’d play the video to watch how you sell something.

Victor M. Braca: Oh wow.

Melanie Kishk: So that’s what we did. So she said, “Oh, can I put a video of you in the library?” And in those days I wouldn’t even know if it was there because again, you can’t look it up. But that’s what she told me she was going to do. But it was a Momentum Moment when I actually sold the lipstick case and the whole class said, “Oh, where’d you get it from? Can I have one? Can you get me one?” So I thought that was a Momentum Moment.

Another Momentum Moment was when I sold my first house. When all of a sudden I went from being an intern to all of a sudden being, “Wow, I think I sold a house and I think I’m a real estate agent. I think I’m in business.” It all just came together at that moment.

Victor M. Braca: Love it. Love it. Two great moments that really sum up your career. Is there anything else you’d like to share with the audience?

Melanie Kishk: I think it’s important that everybody stays committed every single day because there are going to be so many times when you have to push yourself past your comfort zone and you have to really go through and push yourself. Because if somebody doesn’t want to do something, you will come up with a hundred reasons why it’s not going to work. And sometimes when you try, it does work and sometimes it doesn’t work, but if you don’t try it never works. I would rather try and fail than never try because when I’m on my deathbed looking back at my life, am I going to say I wish I tried less? Am I going to regret the times that I didn’t try? That’s a good way of thinking.

Victor M. Braca: It’s like—I’m reading a book about Amazon and Jeff Bezos. Jeff Bezos calls it the “regret minimization framework.” Pretty nerdy, but essentially what it is is like if you’re making a decision, which decision will you regret the least? So, if you have a high-paying job, steady salary, and you have an opportunity to start your own company, yes, you might regret in the moment giving up that high-paying salary, that very cushy, comfortable job, but when you’re dying, which option will will you regret the least at the end of the day? And I think that’s always the more bold option. So, like you said, you’ll always find a way if you don’t want to do something; you’ll find a hundred ways not to do it. But at least you tried. And who knows, you might eventually succeed and you might eventually turn into an aspiring fashion designer turned fashion business student turned retail worker turned real estate agent.

So, Melanie Kishk, with that we’ll close. Thank you so much for coming.

Melanie Kishk: Thank you for having me.

Victor M. Braca: It was a pleasure and I’m confident this is going to reach a lot of people, young and old, people in the industry and people not in the industry, just to inspire people. So, thank you so much.

Melanie Kishk: Thank you.

Victor M. Braca: Thank you guys so much for listening until the end. I really enjoyed this episode and I hope you did as well. Here are my top three takeaways from my conversation with Melanie.

Number one: don’t wait until you’re ready. I mean, Melanie went nine months without a single sale while pregnant, and she still showed up every day. You’re never just gonna be ready. You think Steve Jobs was ready to start Apple, to launch the iPhone? Of course not. You’re going to have to push yourself to start. But once you do, you’ll never regret it, even if you fail. And there’s a quote that I love: “Everything you’ve ever wanted is on the other side of fear.” The actions you take that challenge you and force you to grow—they’re scary at first, but I promise you, you won’t regret them.

Second: you never know what one moment can lead to. Melanie was the quietest kid in school. She never raised her hand. She never spoke a word until a single two-hour sales lecture changed her life. Quite literally changed her life. And that one pitch of a lipstick case woke up something in her. Sometimes the biggest shifts come from the most unexpected places. So be open to those moments that can change your life.

Third: obstacles can turn into your greatest leverage. Melanie never found a house when she was looking to buy, so she became a broker. She stayed single longer than expected, so she became a matchmaker. Over and over again, Melanie saw opportunity in her own challenges and turned them into ways to help other people. And that mindset is exactly what we see across every guest of our brand new podcast, Impact by Momentum.

Impact is a brand new show where our host Baruch Alman sits down with people who have dedicated their lives to helping others. We’re talking about nonprofit leaders, the founders of charity organizations, or just individuals who are dedicated to helping those around them. If you enjoyed this episode, you will love the first episode of Impact by Momentum. Our guest was Eva Shama. Eva is similar to Melanie in that she’s a real estate broker in Brooklyn who does insane volume—I’m talking hundreds of millions of dollars worth of real estate. And after sensing a need in the community, which was that people coming into town for medical treatments and operations couldn’t find places to stay for their time here, Eva started an organization called Habite, which fills that exact gap. Every year, Habite helps dozens of families by not only putting a roof over their head and providing them shelter, but also welcoming them into the community and comforting them during what is often one of the most challenging experiences of their lives.

Guys, Eva is amazing and the conversation was incredible. It was unbelievable. Baruch did a great job; it was his first episode. Check it out by searching “Impact by Momentum” anywhere or clicking the link in the show notes.

And with that said, guys, thank you so much for watching, for listening. Again, in case you’re not sure, we’re on Spotify, Apple Podcast, YouTube, Instagram. Please be sure to subscribe wherever you’re listening. Rate the show five stars and share with a friend who you think would enjoy. Thank you so much and we’ll see you next time. Thank you.