Real Stories Real People

From Corporate Sales to Real Estate!

Carl Battiste lives in San Ramon, California. Carl began his career in sales and marketing right after college in New York State. He worked for The Colgate Palmolive Company as an area sales rep. Landing this job was a great catch for him at only 24 years old. Carl had no idea what he really wanted to do or be, but this sure was a great place to start. He worked for Colgate for 11 years. Carl had relocated four times with Colgate, and finally decided that going to corporate office in New York City was not an option. At this point, he jumped ship to work for S.C. Johnson Wax—what a great company by Fortune Magazine Top 100 standards. Carl and his wife, Cindy, moved three more times with S.C. Johnson Wax. By the time he had reached the West Coast, Carl was 40 years old, and was becoming disgruntled; not so much with the company, but with himself and his career choice. While his heart was always in sales and marketing, he was always something of a maverick, and he wanted to enjoy the freedom and challenge of being his own CEO. He wanted to have the potential of unlimited income; he wanted to be able to pour his heart and soul into his own marketing plans rather than having to follow a confining company template that put his skills and talents in a box. So at age 41, Carl found himself in California, with a wife and two kids, a big mortgage, and his sense of self worth and satisfaction was declining EVERY DAY. Carl felt trapped, but this is all he knew how to do! He had done this for years and he was good at it. But he didn’t care if he was good at it, because he wasn’t challenged, excited or motivated to go to work anymore. But the catch 22 was that Carl felt enslaved to it, because it provided the income he needed.

One day, while sitting in his dentist’s waiting room, Carl read an article by Craig Nathanson in Diablo Magazine. Carl decided it was time to see if someone could help pull him out of where he was before he completely sank. Carl called Craig. When they met for the first time, Carl saw a complete picture of what was going on. But he had all the same concerns that everyone else does. How do you make a career change, to just quit your job and start all over? How do you make a career change at age 40+ with no new skill set?

Craig told Carl it was possible to change his life if he had the vision to do it. He needed to create his PERFECT VOCATIONAL DAY and to focus on what he really loved and what he really wanted to do. Craig gave Carl a motivational CD and he listened to while running.

Carl’s second appointment with Craig was their last appointment together. It wasn’t Carl’s last appointment because he didn’t like what he heard; it was his last appointment because what he was hearing was totally correct. Carl just wasn’t ready to embrace it. Craig’s words lingered in his head for two years.
“Until the pain in your current situation is greater than the unknown risk of jumping, you will never make the change.”
Craig was absolutely right. In fact, during their second appointment together, Carl was interviewing with Del Monte Foods—against Craig’s best advice and, of course, his own better judgment. He chose not to pursue the adventure. Instead, he decided to take the comfortable path, and accept a job offer that would keep his family in California, but would keep him miserable for two more years. And a miserable two years it was. In the end, however, this truly was the catalyst Carl needed. This final two years brought Carl to the pain point that caused him to jump in June of 2007.

That’s when Carl began a career in real estate sales with his wife, Cindy. They were both licensed the previous winter, and they slowly began work on a game plan that would get them to the full transition by June. They joined Keller Williams in Danville and have been feverishly working their business. The current real estate market has its challenges, to say the least. But overall, Carl now gets up in the morning happy, independent and with a goal called “MY BIG WHY”.

“My Big Why” is Carl’s focus point, and it keeps him working at being successful so that he never has to go back to a life that he found so unsatisfying.