Heart and Sold: How to Survive and Build a Recession-Proof Business »

Before Valerie Fitzgerald began her real estate career, she was an unemployed single parent. Yet over the last fifteen years, Valerie Fitzgerald has single-handedly managed to build a multi-million dollar real estate business, establish her own charity foundation, speak around the country at numerous business conventions, appear on television shows like "Entertainment Tonight" and MTV's "Cribs," rank among Coldwell Banker's Top 10 agents nationwide, and earn the attention of the Los Angeles Business Journal for the highest sales volume in L.A. County for residential real estate in 2000 (she was also recently nominated for the publication's 13th annual "Women Making a Difference").

Heart and Sold is an insightful journey through the emotional and tangible challenges of regaining one's personal power while building and maintaining a successful business — regardless of the country's economic situation. Valerie Fitzgerald, one of the country's leading real estate agents, candidly recounts her personal journey from unemployed single parent to entrepreneur, philanthropist, and renowned corporate executive.

From beginners just getting started in residential real estate to seasoned agents — or anyone in business looking to take their game to the next level — this step-by-step guide teaches readers the art of selling. With her personal touch, Fitzgerald shows readers how to manage clients with style, choose the right company and the best mentor, establish a stellar reputation in their field, develop a daily schedule for running a home office, and maintain a successful attitude every day. With all of her tools at their fingertips, readers will also soon be shooting for the stars. Heart and Sold shares the mind-set of a respected businesswoman who gracefully balances the demands of an empire with the intimacy of her family, and is a model for working and living that can be applied to any desire or discipline.

Publishers Weekly

Tales from the residential real estate trenches are complete with attempted tear-jerking from former model Fitzgerald. The author took a running start at selling real estate after leaving behind a violent ex-husband in New York and arriving in L.A. with her infant daughter in tow, with few belongings, no education and no job prospects. After a rocky start, she's grown to be one of the most successful agents for Coldwell Banker. Fitzgerald runs through frustratingly general advice on ambition, leadership, building rapport among would-be clients, navigating a bewildering industry and looking the part of a successful businesswoman. Though Fitzgerald strives for practical advice with cheerful chapter wrapup lessons, interviews with inspirational professionals and practice sales scripts, the advice is disorganized and vague, and the personal-story prose off-putting and melodramatic ("My fairy-tale husband and life had shattered on the marble floor like a fallen mirror-razor-sharp shards of glass lacerating my hopes, my dreams, and my heart"). Would-be realtors seeking advice would be best off looking elsewhere, as this book tries too hard to be both a memoir and a how-to guide, and thus falls short at both. (Mar.)

Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Author's Note xi

Introduction xiii

Chapter 1 My Story: The Will to Survive 1

Chapter 2 Quitting Is Not an Option 23

Chapter 3 What I Needed to Know 45

Chapter 4 You Become What You Believe 77

Chapter 5 Finding Your Way 105

Chapter 6 Doing It! 143

Chapter 7 Using Your Time and Money 191

Chapter 8 Your Worth 231

Chapter 9 Lessons Learned 259

Acknowledgments 291

Recommended Reading 295