In Washington, D.C., it can seem as if every other person you meet is a lawyer. In San Francisco, half the people seem to work for an obscure nonprofit organization. In New York, they're bankers. And in Southwest Florida, attend a cocktail party or cookout, chat while in line at the grocery store or the post office, and what do you hear? "I'm a realtor." "I'm in real estate." "I'm getting my broker's license."

No wonder it's tempting to jump on the real estate bandwagon. You get to be your own boss, perhaps work fewer-or at least different-hours than 9 to 5, and help people buy or sell a dream home. Plus, take one glance at million-dollar listings, do some quick multiplication, and a six-percent commission starts to look pretty good. But with more than 10,000 licensed real estate agents in Lee and Collier counties, surely not everyone is making six- and seven-figure incomes from real estate.

They're not. The national average income for a realtor in his or her first five years of business is around $28,000.hardly enough to buy a mobile home in Southwest Florida. But there are those for whom real estate has paid off-big time. You've seen their newspaper ads, their televised home tours, their faces and their fliers. They are the kings and queens of real estate in a state where real estate is king. We asked three of these heavy hitters just why and how real estate works for them, and got them to dust off their crystal balls and give us their predictions for the future.

Brand Recognition

We reached Denny Grimes in San Antonio, where he was attending a meeting of the country's top 250 agents. What had he learned so far? "There's no market as hot as ours," says Grimes, an agent with VIP Realty Group who has been selling real estate in Fort Myers for 21 years. He's lived here since 1962, so his roots run deep. He got his license just a couple of years out of college after meeting a family friend who was closing a big commercial real estate transaction. Prior to that, he says, "I had no understanding of what real estate was all about, and I had no idea that you could make money in real estate."

He's learned a bit since then. Grimes is already having a very good year, he says: "We have a goal of $80 million in closings, but we're currently on track to make $110 million

by the end of the year." In 2003, the agency sold 250 residences; this year, the goal is 350. "Every year of the past five years was better than the previous year," says Grimes. "At the end of June, we'd already matched our 2003 sales."

But it's not just a hot market that has made Grimes one of the region's top producers. For Grimes, the secret has been branding. "You need to differentiate yourself," he says. "I can walk into Publix and bump into 15 realtors, and half of them are working there. I work with a marketing company, and we do a lot of different media to make us stand out."

As part of the differentiation effort, Grimes was the first to offer free use of a moving truck to his clients. He now has two of these mobile billboards cruising around town. He also organized a kids' reading club. Children of new buyers get a gift certificate to a local bookstore. If they read a book, give the book away to another young person, and send Grimes a short book report via e-mail, they'll get another gift card. "You have to try to be innovative with customer service," he says.

Beyond name recognition, says Grimes, "We deliver a personal, high level of service." He acknowledges that was easier to do when he sold 15 to 20 homes a year. To maintain what he calls "high-touch" service, Grimes now has a staff of about 20, including 13 agents, a listing manager, a closing concierge and a marketing manager.

Grimes himself sticks to selling homes. If new clients call wanting to find a home, they probably won't work with him. "I can't do it all," he says. "If you go on an airplane, you're not going to see the pilot checking the air in the tires or making sure there's coffee."

But if you call the office and want Grimes and only Grimes to list your home, that's who you'll get. "Our number-one goal is to help list sellers' property. I'm not marketing their home for a buyer; I'm marketing for more than one. To create the environment where there's competition for buyers-that's my job." He accomplishes that in a number of ways. "Finding the buyer is only 20 percent of the job," he says. "Establishing the right price can put thousands of dollars in the seller's pocket. Doing the back end of the deal, watching the contract contingencies, the negotiations; I don't delegate these things."

Grimes sees the trend in Lee County moving north and east. "I've been predicting the Buckingham boom for the last couple of years," he says, referring to the small community in the northeastern part of the county. "Bucking-ham is not as crowded, and buyers can find something other than cookie-cutter homes." He also sees great things for downtown Fort Myers, as more and more residential development takes place there. "With new high-rises and commercial conveniences, and the city investing in infrastructure, the next five years are going to be golden for downtown Fort Myers."

A Personal Touch

You'd probably recognize Robyn Pfister Griffin if you spotted her in Publix. She's an institution in Naples. Griffin's ads are everywhere, and in every ad, there's Griffin, with her warm smile and trademark hat. In her 15 years of selling homes in Naples, Griffin, who's now with John R. Wood Realtors, has established herself as one of the leading agents for luxury homes, especially in the high-priced Port Royal market. "I live in Port Royal, so that's one of the areas I specialize in," she says. But her other listing neighborhoods include some of Collier's best addresses: Old Naples, The Moorings, Coquina Sands, Aqualane Shores, Grey Oaks, Bay Colony, Collier's Reserve and Quail West.

Griffin concentrates on value rather than volume. Though she'll take the occasional lower-end listings for a friend or family member, Griffin mainly limits her business to the high-end luxury market. She rattles off her current listings, almost all more than $1 million-her most expensive is an $11.5 million listing in Port Royal. Homes in that price bracket take longer to sell than, say, a $350,000 listing, and it takes a lot of work to sell them. But the work is paying off: In a 2003 Realtor magazine, Griffin ranked 13th among the top 50 solo performers nationwide.

Credit that success to the Griffin touch. She pays for an appraisal on new listings, has floor plans and photos taken, sets up virtual tours on the Internet and gets color brochures printed. She takes out full-page ads in local magazines-oftentimes the ads feature just one property-and lists homes in national publications like the duPont Registry and the Wall Street Journal. "I market their properties," says Griffin. "I believe that the properties I have should be advertised that way."

Griffin says that she sells herself along with a listing. Her thank-you notes come on engraved, two-color stationery with a script monogram. "When you get a note from me, you feel like you've been invited to a ball," she says. She always sends flowers or an orchid after she meets with a potential new seller. "They're little things," she says. "I don't know if that makes me better than anyone else, but it's my style. It's just me. Most realtors won't spend the money, and I will."

Whether showing a home for a seller, or touring homes with prospective buyers, Griffin gives clients her undivided attention. "I am there for each and every showing. I don't carry a cell phone, so I don't answer phone calls when I'm with people, and I don't take pager or purse into a showing. When I'm with that client, they are the most important person in the world. I'm not a hard-sell person; I never have been and never will be. I'm simply giving them the best advice that I know."

Griffin says that the Naples market, after resting in 2002 and 2003, "is moving faster and faster as we speak." And she predicts it will keep climbing. "There'll never be another Naples, Florida," says Griffin. "With little houses so close to the beach and a town right on the beach.people can never go wrong with property in Naples."

Building Image, Building Sales

Michael Schneider-Christians traveled a long way to make a life in Cape Coral. Originally from Germany, Schneider-Christians inherited five vacant lots in Cape Coral that his uncle had bought sight unseen from the doomed Gulf American Corporation. The off-water, north Cape lots, for which his uncle had overpaid, were worth less than what was still owed on them. Schneider-Christians and his wife paid them off and sold them-a move that he regretted.

One move he doesn't regret was the move to Cape Coral in 1985. Though he originally came here with plans to develop an alpine village-themed shopping center, those plans fell through and he soon got his realtor's license. He's now an agent with Century 21 and has a staff of five. By the end of June, Schneider-Christians and his team had $18 million in closings, which represents 58 transactions. Nearly all of those were in Cape Coral, and nearly half were to German and Austrian buyers.

Schneider-Christians, who often gives motivational speeches to other realtors and area business leaders, credits his success to three qualities: persistence, honesty and integrity. "It is about doing what you promise to do, and being available for your clients," he says. "It's a service industry. Provide a good service with all these traits, and you'll be successful. Be on time-Germans love that. If you say you'll do something at 8 p.m., do it at 8 p.m. Do what you promise, or maybe do it even better than you promise."

Years ago, Schneider-Christians attended someone else's motivational seminar for realtors, and picked up a pointer that he's used ever since. "The seminar promoted image and image-building for realtors," he says. "I did a lot more personal marketing afterwards, and developed my own letterhead, brochure and logo, which I've used ever since."

But image building alone won't make the difference, he says. "If you are successful, you need to give back to the community," he says. Schneider-Christians serves on the boards of several foundations, the chamber of commerce, and nonprofits. "Your name spreads around, and people want you involved in their organization," he explains. "They see that you do good things for the community. I'm not always the top realtor, but I am one who is known as a community person as well as a realtor. Both are important."

Schneider-Christians predicts the real estate market in the region will stay rosy. But, he's concerned about the infrastructure-how the county will handle the need for new schools, roads, hospitals and even jails to provide for the booming population. "The future is shining at the moment," he says. "It's great for builders, realtors, brokers, bankers, even lawn-care companies-everybody makes money in Cape Coral. But the more people move here, can we solve these issues? Three, five, 10 years down the road, can we match the demands of the people coming?"