Myles Newell

Myles started his career with The Bluegreen Corporation at Winding River Plantation in Southport, NC where he was consistently Sales Executive of the Year. In 1999 Newell joined Ginn Real Estate Company as VP of Sales for its first project in Florida — Hammock Beach. Hammock Beach went from an upstart to selling hundreds of millions of dollars of real estate annually under Newell’s leadership. While there he oversaw traditional sales and also orchestrated 2 highly successful product launches.

In 2002 Newell left Hammock Beach to perform due-diligence on Ginn’s proposed community on Grand Bahama Island. This joint venture with The Grand Bahama Port Authority never materialized so Newell was tasked with turning around an under-performing sales team at Ginn’s Reunion Resort and Club in 2003. When he arrived in April the community was already 49 sales behind for the year. By the end of that year the community was completely turned around and greatly exceeded its annual sales goals for that year. Shortly thereafter, in the 1st quarter of 2004, Newell orchestrated the largest launch in Ginn Real Estate Company history where 790 properties were sold in one day for over $170 million dollars.

In April of 2004 Newell began due diligence on additional sites in The Bahamas. In July 2004 Newell was promoted to Executive Vice President of Ginn Real Estate Company where he oversaw multiple communities and helped generate over $4 billion dollars in sales for the company. Newell eventually took over sole sales and marketing responsibility for all Ginn’s resort communities (Reunion in Orlando, FL;Ginn Sur Mer on Grand Bahama Island; Laurelmor in Boone, NC; Hammock Beach in Palm Coast, FL) until his resignation from the company in June of 2007.

Newell started Waypoint Real Estate Consulting in 2007 to provide a service to Developers, Builders, and Sales Managers to help them chart their course through today’s challenging real estate market.  www.wptrealestate.com

Kristy Peters

For the past fifteen years Kristy has helped many of the industry’s leading development companies integrate, automate and analyze their sales and marketing operations with a new generation of web-based technology solutions. For the past 15 years, Krsity Peters has been helping the real estate industry deploy advanced communications technology to maximize lead generation, increase efficiency and accelerate sales.  She has helped develop mamy of the industry’s most innovative programs, including the first web-based sales and marketing support systems and real-time property launch events.  As a consultant to the amenity community industry, she specializes in helping clients implement successful sales and CRM processes.  Kristy is also co-founder of Focus3, which helps real estate professionals, home builders and property developers integrate, automate and analyze their sales and marketing programs with a new generation of web-based technology solutions, and ROI-inspired professional services.  Kristy holds a BA in Management/Applied Management from Kaplan University and resides in Cary, NC. www.focus-3.com

Jim Ellis

Jim Ellis is VP Sales and Partner of Focus 3, heading up new business development.  Jim also brings nearly 10 years of experience in developing successful marketing and creative communications programs for leading real estate development companies through Signal, a North Carolina based design, marketing and technology firm. Jim lends particular expertise in creating integrated print/web campaigns and innovative technology solutions, including the first web-based sales and marketing support application for property launch events. Jim holds a B.S. in Business Administration from the University of Richmond and currently lives in Wilmington, NC.

Chris Hill

Chris received both his undergraduate and JD degrees at the University of South Carolina. After 10 years of practicing real estate law, Chris began an acclaimed sales career with one of the country’s largest and most successful developers. It’s here that Chris discovered a passion for real estate sales and marketing. He also found he had an uncanny knack for uncovering the latest trends in real estate. After several years with leading resort real estate sales and marketing organizations, Chris utilized his extensive national network of real estate professionals and created Hill Mullikin Marketing. Chris is a past member of the Urban Land Institute’s Recreational Real Estate Council and has also shared his experiences as a panelist at several ULI forums. When Chris can be pried away from his phone, he can be found with wife, Ali, and two sons often playing with Thomas the Tank Engine or watching college football. www.hillmullikin.com

Bob McLaughlin 

Bob is the programming and technical force behind Focus3.  He was one of the first programmers to tap the power of the Internet in the real estate industry.  In 1997 he collaborated with Kristy Peters and developed and launched WEBlicators, a precursor program to Focus3.  Six years later he teamed with Wilson Greene, Jim Matoska and Kristy to form Focus3.  Prior to WEBlicators Bob served as a Business Systems Analyst with Physio-Control Corporation, where he designed data systems, remote sales applications and financial reporting capacities.  Bob is a 1978 graduate of Schoolcraft College with a degree in Bio-Medical Engineering and resides outside Seattle, WA.  www.focus-3.com

Scott Barfield

Scott Barfield has been in planned community sales for more than 12 years. He has worked with some of the best in the industry including The Ginn Company, Land Resource Companies and St. James Plantation.He and his wife Leslie live in Asheville NC where they are raising their four children. Scott specializes in the start up, staffing, and management of new communities. His most recent completed assignment Queens Gap in Rutherfordton NC is off to a great start with more than 85 sales closed in 2007.Other notable accolades include the Ginn Company’s Rising Star Award in 2002, Shelter and Resale Sales Executive of the Year Awards at St. James Plantation. He also managed the Home and Garden Dream Home campaigns for 2004 and 2006 that produced more than 100 million in closed real estate transactions while helping Land Resource Companies give more than $400,000 back to local charities.Scott is very positive on the market outlook for 2008 and especially western NC communities. “Buyers love Western NC. We have great views, great lake access, tons of history and that special feeling that they are searching for without the worries of high insurance and taxes other locations are battling.” Scott currently is assisting a few new companies in Western NC with initial start up.

Larry R. Smith

Larry has over 30 years of Sales and Marketing Management experience with expertise in the high-end real estate industry, specializing in amenitized communities, with a proven track record of success with managing both sales and marketing teams at resort communities. Larry has taught the entire sales process to several hundred sales executives over the last 30+ years, with a focus on the most important part of the process – closing. Larry and his wife of 31+ years have 6 children. He loves all sports and is an avid runner.

John Pinter

John began his selling career with the Bluegreen Corporation in 1995. He was a top performer at Winding River Plantation, a waterfront and golf community in Southport, North Carolina, where he sold over 200 homesites in his five-year tenure. John was promoted to Assistant Sales Manager, where he took on the responsibility of in-house training. He became a regular sales trainer and session leader at industry conferences including The Amenity Community Excellence Symposium (ACES), which hosts over 500 sales executives from around the country each year.

In 2001, John was hired by The Ginn Company as the Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Tesoro, a private golf community in Port St. Lucie, Florida. He was responsible for the inaugural launch of the community and the traditional sales programs that followed, yielding 455 homesite sales for $220 million in net volume. In 2006 John was promoted to National Sales Director of the Ginn Company, where he helped define, train and manage the sales process for all 13 Ginn communities. His primary focus was to ensure that all 200 Ginn Company sales executives were fully utilizing the proprietary sales system created by the Echelon Principals — a system that was the cornerstone of the success in each of the Ginn communities. He served in that role until 2007, when he left the Ginn Company and co-founded Echelon, where he currently serves as President of Sales.  John has just authored a book on the sales process which is scheduled for print in February 2008. He is a 1991 graduate of the University of North Carolina at Wilmington and currently resides in Wilmington with his wife and two children. www.echelonsales.com