WorkWild Geese

Medical debt kickstarted a new life after a working holiday gone wrong

Wild Geese: Brian Buffini, San Diego

Brian Buffini: "My dad had a phrase ‘can you put your name to that’ and it always stuck with me.”

Frank Dillon
Wed Aug 23 2023 - 05:00

A near tragic event on a working holiday in the San Diego area of California in the summer of 1986 was to prove a life changing event for Brian Buffini and one that led to a classic rags-to-riches story.

The 19-year-old Dubliner had spent an idyllic summer in a variety of casual jobs, including selling T-shirts on Laguna Beach and was preparing to head home to start a job in Dublin when he was involved in a serious motorcycle accident, resulting in compound fractures of his legs and months in hospital and rehabilitation.

When he arrived in the emergency department of the local hospital, he was asked if he had insurance. “What’s insurance?” he replied. The experience left him with almost a quarter of a million dollars of debt.

The accident was scarring in more ways than one. Buffini recalls that he used to get telephone calls from debt collectors at all hours of day and night at the time. For many years later, he was reluctant to pick up a telephone, long after the debts were cleared.

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Determined to change his fortune, Buffini studied for a property licence and found his forte. “One of the leading real estate agents at that time had a phrase, `find ‘em, flog ‘em and forget ‘em’. This was the attitude of many in the business. I’d grown up the son of a house painter in Dundrum and was exposed to a different approach to looking after customers. My dad had a phrase ‘can you put your name to that’ and it always stuck with me.”

Buffini became an avid reader of self-help business books and credits many of the authors for inspiration. He became a popular and successful estate agent, employing novel tactics such as publishing free directories of local trade contacts that clients might find useful.

By 22, the debts were cleared and by 24, Buffini had made his first million and was selling more than 100 properties a year.

Now operating his own agency with a handful of staff, Buffini’s reputation was growing. He was asked to speak at national property conventions and his ethical customer-centred approach proved refreshing to many in an industry often characterised by short-termism. “I would get guys queuing up to see me afterwards and saying that my ideas fitted with their philosophy of life and asking if I could train and mentor them.”

With 1.5 million estate agents in the US, where they are called realtors, Buffini realised there was a market in training them in his methods and developed a suite of programmes and training materials. Today, Buffini & Company, based in Carlsbad, California, employs 250 people, operates in 45 countries and has put more than three million people through its programmes.

The average estate agent in the US makes $37,000 (€33,950) a year, whereas clients of his training company command an average salary of $460,000 (€422,140), he says.

The US housing market remains strong, despite recent interest rate increases. Sales volumes have slowed a little but values remain high and good estate agents can still make excellent salaries, he notes.

“If you are in the real estate business, the question you have to ask is are you in it to serve people or do you just want to turn a quick buck. You are in a service business first and foremost, but you also have to be good at promoting yourself. You need to balance those two.”

He is also a big believer in setting down goals and writing them down, ranging across personal, spiritual and family areas as well as business and financial goals. He has a strong Christian-based faith and worships at a non-denominational church but says he is not a proselytiser.

Building his business over the years involved criss-crossing the country and has provided him with a position where he does not need to work, although he says he remains as busy as ever and remains a popular keynote speaker and podcast host, among other things.

Buffini has enjoyed the fruits of his success with a beautiful home, marriage to Beverley and six children but has never forgotten his roots.

“I come home to Ireland several times a year. I miss the craic, the food and getting a cup of tea without it being a major act of congress. I also miss not having to qualify a tongue-in-cheek remark by saying, ‘I was just kiddin’. My sensibilities are very much Irish.”

Given his own journey, he is fascinated with the story of emigrants and their challenges in making it in a new country. His 2017 book, The Emigrant Edge, notes that for those who have ambition and discipline, the lack of foundation and a willingness to do things that others are not prepared to do can act as drivers for success.

“When an immigrant encounters opportunity that has so long been denied, it feels as if the sky is the limit. Suddenly there is no cap on what you can achieve. Yes, there is hard work ahead, but the pay-off is tremendous – the world is your oyster.”

He points to the success of so many immigrants in US business, noting, “Sometimes not having a Plan B is a cool thing. The mindset then becomes finding a way to win, no matter what.”

Thirty-seven years on, Buffini says he feels he has a mixed Irish American identity that means he feels most at home “in the middle of the Atlantic”, but he is happy to live out his days in his adopted country.

“America is an amazing place. I have been to hundreds of cities here, more than most Americans get to see. While at one level, the country may be eating itself up with culture wars, at grass roots level, people are fundamentally the same – decent hard-working types.”

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