About Derek

I started in real estate as a No One, I wasn’t in a major city or even a hot market, I was nobody, no background in real estate, no inside advantage, no family connections, no mentor or person who got me in the business, no builder or investor ties, no name recognition or celebrity status, no following, and no network or database contacts… just a regular guy in a conservative market trying to get into real estate.

Flash forward to now and I’ve sold over 1,200+ homes including 179 in one year as an individual agent with no team. I’ve been ranked #1 in my city, #1 in my state, #1 in the entire Midwest, and published in the WSJ as a top 100 Realtor in the USA!

I’ve founded local upstart brokerages and owned national real estate franchises, all while still coaching agents and running mega-teams, without having to sell a single property myself unless I want to. I went from No One to No.1 in 5 years, and I can teach you how.

This is what sets me apart from the “Made-for-TV” million dollar listers or “Viral Overnight” coaching influencers with a million followers. I made my way to the TOP-100 in the nation from a low-priced conservative market in a small city with no insider advantage, by developing easy-to-use systems that any agent or team leader can understand and implement. I can show you how to get there. This is your opportunity to upgrade your future fast.”

“No.1 rankings and records look cool, but zeros and commas will change your life” – Derek

DEREK’S ROADMAP to SUCCESS:
Derek started his real estate agent career in early 2010 and unlike most overnight success stories, he didn’t really do that great in his first few years. Though he found a few minor successes (as many agents do), he more importantly was finding flaws in the current real estate systems and models that had been handed down from old eras before him. After suffering from low sales, Derek decided to give 100% focus to improving his sales career and instead of learning from the old-brand real estate coaches and gurus like most others did, he began applying basic business practices he learned in his University business classes to his real estate practice… and by the end of 2014 became the #1 ranked buyers agent in his city with over 70+ sold homes.

Following that success, Derek immediately detoured from the systems and teachings of mainstream brokerages where he got his start, so he could put his theories on agent systems and his brokerage/team building skills to the test by founding his first upstart real estate brokerage, trendily named at the time “The Brokerage”. Well those systems undeniably worked, Derek sold 120+ homes making it into the top 3 listing agents while retaining his ranking as the city’s #1 Buyer’s Agent… and more impressively, his upstart brokerage had become the fastest growing brokerage in his city with over 200% sales growth and landing multiple top agent recruits. With nearly overnight success, “The Brokerage” drew the attention of numerous large brand-name brokerages both local and national.

In early 2017, Derek merged “The Brokerage” with a Keller Williams Realty franchise in his city which was co-owned by the current Keller Williams Realty International Corporate President Mark King, as well as Keller Williams MAPS Coaching Founder Dianna Kokozka and Top-20 National Real Estate Coach Tony DiCello. It was an obvious fit and a decision that changed Derek’s career forever, as well as finally gave him a network worth leaning on.

That same year, Derek received three of his highest honors by setting an astonishing local sales record with 179 closed transactions in one year as an individual agent (which still stands as a local record until today). With that sales record, Derek was ranked as the #1 Keller Williams Agent for individual transactions closed in the entire Midwest region (KW Greater Heartland), and was ranked in the Wall Street Journal as a TOP-100 Realtor in the USA! Derek helped Keller Williams Realty International rank #1 in Dollar Volume Sold, #1 in Units Sold, and #1 in Agent Count making them the #1 ranked company in all top three categories used to evaluate real estate brokerages nationwide.

During that merger year, Derek encouraged all his independent agents at his upstart brokerage to form a new team with him at Keller Williams as he noticed the trend of team based real estate sweeping the nation. No longer was the Realtor’s value just knowing the available listings and having an e-key to get in, now the Realtor is expected to be a professional fiduciary with a staff around them to make them available at a moment’s notice to help navigate the transaction while making it easier on the client to accomplish their buying or selling goals.

With this demand in mind, along with Derek’s proven track record of growing and developing agents and brokerages, in 2018 Derek took a step out of sales and a step into a new yet familiar management, training, and recruitment role by founding a team at Keller William under his namesake, “Kats & Associates: Real Estate Group”. His first attempt at a team became a full blown mega-team overnight with 250+ sales, 15+ agents, and 4 full-time staff members in the first full year. In that year, Kats & Associates was ranked #1 in the city, and in the top 1% of teams nationwide for closed transactions.

Over the next few years Derek built his Keller Williams franchise to over 140+ realtors along with continuing his agent training and team building mastery. He also founded a title company for passive income based off of his sales volume alone. At this point, Derek had reached the 7th level, the final level where a team founder/leader could step away from the day-to-day operations and leave it up to an operations manager, giving the team founder time to focus on other businesses or ventures.

Derek used this opportunity to expand his license to other states, assist others realtor in setting up and growing mega-teams as their team’s coach and operations manager, as well as directly coaching and consulting independent mega-team leaders, brokerage owners, and Keller Williams Franchise CEO/Team Leaders within the areas he was licensed. Derek even helped coach some of the top Keller Williams productivity coaches such as Eva Garcia from KW Downtown Denver who has over 100+ realtors in her Brokerage’s local PC coaching program.

To date, unlike most coaches Derek still remains active in sales to never lose the understanding from the ground level and stay in front of the market trends. He has accumulated over 1,200+ home sales (actual homes, not easy to turn lot sales or condo building sales to pad the stats), and has a 30 days on market average with a 99% sale to list ratio which may sound normal based on the recent extreme seller market, but mind you these are cumulative career stats that date back to 2010 when homes sold drastically under list price after months on market… if they sold at all.

With all that sales history and national statistics/rankings, combined with the overwhelming local influence and proven track record of success with coaching and developing agents locally, one would think the story ends there… but in reality, as any mega-team leader would agree with, Derek became tired of training up agents only to see them become competition once successful, then having to constantly retrain a new batch of agents every year who will eventually compete against him locally as well. It was only natural that the next step was raising that local influence to a level equal to the national statistics and rankings by expanding his coaching program offerings nationwide.

Today in our current market when interest rates are high and sales are no longer easy, everyone agrees that getting back to the basics of proven business practices is more important than ever, so having the support of a coach who built it from the ground up in a down market, with those same proven business practices and systems is also now more important than ever.

This is your one-time opportunity to get in on the ground level of a proven-to-produce training system during its initial public offering, and to be coached directly by a TOP-100 realtor who got it out the mud building something from nothing who can show you exactly how to do it from the ground up:

Not some national guru who only stands on stages
Not an old-brand coach still riding the success of outdated systems from 20 years ago
Not million dollar listers who look good but are just made-for-TV
Not a viral trending influencer who’s funny but isn’t really in the streets selling
Not silver spoon realtors with family or insider advantages

Derek went from No One to No.1 in just 5 years with no inside advantage, and he can show you how to be next.