Mike Sloan's* Journey to Grand Bend Real Estate

Born and raised in the Detroit, Michigan metropolitan area, I picked up and moved to Grand Bend, Ontario in my mid twenties to pursue a career in higher education. Now a citizen of both The United States and Canada, my background and experiences are very diverse. Growing up in a family full of salespeople, the business of friendly relationship marketing has been in my blood for as long as I can remember. With grandparents entering into successful sales careers following noteworthy military service during World War II, I was taught to conduct business with respect and honor. Then, living in a home with an extremely successful salesman father and a teacher mother highly praised for her contributions to childhood education, my path toward becoming a sales and marketing professional of remarkable qualities was permanently etched into my future.

While strong guidance was present in my life, I traveled many roads before arriving at my current destination as your marketing professor sales representative. Upon successful graduation from Michigan State University from two separate programs, I entered into the real world with a Bachelor of Arts in Business Marketing and a Bachelor of Science in Park, Recreation and Tourism Resources. My experience at Michigan State was both eclectic and humbling. I involved myself in a myriad of activities, some of which dealt with web marketing and Internet business, sparking an interest in a field very applicable to modern real estate marketing. With excellent university transcripts and glowing recommendations from professors and previous employers, I hit the ground running in a sales career at one of North America’s largest telecommunication companies. Rapid advancement was a no brainer, as I outsold everyone in my branch within my first month of employment. Within four months, I was a district sales manager, a position that dramatically contributed to the commendable business sense that I utilize as a Realtor every day.

Eventually though, the itch for me to be my own boss could no longer be ignored. Since I was young, I was participating in a variety of watersports at semi-competitive levels including windsurfing, waterskiing, and wakeboarding. I also started surfing the Great Lakes in my teens. Subsequently, I am no stranger to the beach, especially the beach properties lining the Canadian shores of Lake Huron. Using the Internet as my backdrop, I pursued this passion for watersports in a business setting. I left my position as a sales manager and put my web marketing skills to the test selling watersports equipment via an online e-commerce retail store. Within a year, I had partnered up with a Canadian colleague opening a brick and mortar location in Grand Bend to compliment our web presence.

As the co-owner of Wind and Wake Boardshop, just a stone’s throw away from Grand Bend’s main beach, I was fine-tuning my customer service skills while also enhancing my ability to create successful online / e-commerce marketing campaigns. Through the ups-and-downs of being a small town entrepreneur, I learned about the importance of creating and maintaining strong community connections. Introducing the very progressive and brand new sport of kiteboarding to one of Ontario’s most visited public beaches was a daunting task, but something that my partner and I were able to do as a result of building positive rapports with local citizens and businesses. Still, to this day, as a prominent area kiteboarder holding numerous professional sponsorships, I am the ‘go-to’ Grand Bend resident for anything to do with our local beaches. This is yet another aspect of my life that translates into a valuable means of generating links in my real estate career.

My lifelong infatuation with the water didn’t end with the closing of my retail store. I was very fortunate to grow up with parents that took us traveling. Whenever vacation time and finances were conducive to a family trip, we were off with our windsurfing gear to variety of exotic and culture-rich destinations. As soon as I was able to start working and saving money, I was spending it travelling the world on my own. Now, after years of globe-trotting, my general life methods for communicating and planning have become not only more effective and efficient trip after trip, but also more user-friendly for those with whom I am working. Even the ‘road trips’ that I took with my musical act (to be detailed later in my personal biography), taught me a great deal about organizing large amounts of information under enormous stress and pressure. Through this travelling, I learned valuable lessons and created personal rules that can be pro-actively applied to the actions I take as a real estate agent.

All along the way, as I was perfecting my marketing and customer service skills, I knew I was meant to be a teacher. Ultimately, in 2001, I closed the store and went back to school to earn a third university degree: a Bachelor of Education from the University of Western Ontario. My education at UWO revealed to me that my true calling was to teach at the post-secondary level. Instead of returning to the States where opportunities in post-secondary education are quite limited, I decided to remain in Canada. I quickly landed a teaching job as a marketing professor at an extremely reputable Ontario college. Once I knew I was never going to leave Canada, I applied for full-time work at my college and immigrated to this wonderful country. As a college professor, I have constant access to the most contemporary and often, up-to-the-minute marketing techniques. With this forever evolving knowledge in my side-pocket, I am beyond a doubt your stand-out choice when it comes to real estate in Grand Bend.

Finally, concurrent to my earning three University degrees and fundamentally mastering my responsibilities as a sales manager, entrepreneur, and professor, I was also perfecting my communicational flair as a musician. Music has been an essential interest in my life since my early teens. As an amateur drummer and guitar player, I quickly took to writing my own material. In my late teens, after composing a diverse collection of pop rock songs, I began singing for a rock band with members based in London and Detroit. As an independent artist, the band experienced moderate success in North America, Europe, and Japan. After two international tours, three full-length albums, and countless EP length records and singles, my music career has now evolved from a professional endeavor into a fervent hobby.

During my years in the band, I was not only the lead singer, but also the manager, promoter and driving force behind all of the marketing for and business of the group. The music industry, while often a source of immense frustration for me, is a great learning platform for the business-minded professional as it breads some of the most sophisticated advertising and promotional practices in today’s world of new media technology. This avant-garde marketing environment, just like the forward-thinking environments associated with my other vocational callings, has again contributed to my custom design of winning marketing methods that are nothing less than untouchable in the real estate industry. Also, in a similar manner to other activities in which I’m involved, my involvement in music cultivates healthy connections in the local community. Once again, my personal experiences and hobbies positively contribute to my ability to network as a real estate agent.

As much as kiteboarding and music have helped me to establish myself as a trusted and well-known member of the Lambton Shores community, it really all began with my family cottage. My mother and father found an ideal piece of property in Grand Bend in 1979. By 1980, the Sloan’s were the proud owners of a cottage in Beach O’ Pines subdivision, an exclusive Grand Bend location in which, to this day, I still have extremely strong connections. Since 1980, I have spent every day of every summer on the beach in Grand Bend. After I left my career as a sales manager in June of 2000 to open up Wind and Wake Boardshop, Grand Bend became my place of primary residence. Growing up in the big city but always gravitating toward the culture of small towns definitely plays a role in how I perform as a real estate agent: going for big results but without sacrificing small town personal service. This is a philosophy to which the entire team at 1-2-3 My Property prescribes.

While the aforementioned experiences did not directly involve me with the business of real estate, I did take an active interest in the industry well before I received my license in 2010. Back in 2006, after I purchased my first rental property in London, ON, a light-bulb went off in my head. I contemplated that with my all-embracing marketing background, I would surely have a lot to offer if I were to become a licensed real estate agent in Ontario. Instead of rushing into this career, I chose to explore the industry by involving myself in the rental property business while simultaneously studying for and earning my real estate license. In 2007, I purchased a second house, another rental property specifically set up for students. Within a year, in addition to managing my duplex and student rental house properties, I was also renting and managing several cottages in the Grand Bend area. My extensive experience as a rental property manager has given me the ability to accurately assess the ‘rentability’ of vacation and long-term rental type properties, something to which Grand Bend area buyers should be paying close attention. From Kijiji to effective local signage, I am your rentability expert in Grand Bend. Also related to my real estate experiences prior to my obtaining my license, I have been the marketing director for Prudential Family Really of Grand Bend since the summer of 2009.

Today, I focus on two major activities in my life; teaching and real estate. Since I became a college professor, I have proudly made the statement that I am following in the footsteps of the most brilliant teacher ever, my mother. As a real estate agent of the highest caliber, I am now proud to say that I am also following in the footsteps of the greatest salesperson ever, my father.

Now, living with my loving wife in our Grand Bend dream home, I can look back at the roads and avenues that have led me to where I am today. The circumstances of my professional experiences have helped me to evolve into an ideal choice for your Grand Bend real estate needs. Furthermore, my education and the events of my personal life have taught me to adapt and commit my personality to different situations and different types of people. I couldn’t be more equipped for a fruitful real estate career. Whether you know exactly what you want or have no idea what you need, in the Grand Bend real estate market, Mike Sloan* will make it as easy as 1-2-3.