If Carol Zingone is climbing a professional ladder, someone ought to tell her she just reached back a rung.
When Zingone became president of the Jacksonville chapter of Women’s Council of Realtors this year, she logged the credential into an arm’s-length list of leadership roles.
One of the roles includes being president of the Northeast Florida Association of Realtors.
“You don’t often go from being a NEFAR president to being WCR president,” admitted Rory Dubin, who preceded her as WCR president. “Usually, it’s the other way around.”
But Zingone, who Dubin describes as “intelligent and quirky,” has an original take on things.
Her divergent thinking jumps off her LinkedIn page, which lists her interests as:
• Antique cars. She was a two-year president of the North Florida Triumph Club and the proud owner of a 1974 Triumph TR6.
• Green living. Her beach home includes a backyard compost heap and she recycles everything she can. “I don’t even leave the water running when I brush my teeth.”
• Cat herding. She has four rescue cats. “It’s kind of like recycling. You don’t need to go to a breeder to get a good pet.”
• Obscure vocabulary usage. Her parents worked in book publishing and, as a child, Zingone was expected to have an outstanding vocabulary. “It’s funny to me. I just like to use underutilized vocabulary words.”
Such as underutilized.
Entering the leadership queue to rise to president of WCR after heading NEFAR was equally original.
“Yeah, everybody was like, ‘Why are you doing that?’” Zingone said. “But I told them ‘Every time I serve, I learn something.’”
That’s because leadership lets her be a hub of information. The person who listens to what others need and has a larger sense of the world because of it.
It’s a role she’s filled often.
Zingone earned a business degree with a specialization in marketing from Ramapo College of New Jersey.
She lived 45 minutes outside Manhattan and, following college, worked on Madison Avenue.
Which sounds wonderful.
But, she said, “It was not at all fun. I was at the bottom of the food chain.”
She was a group assistant to nine account executives at N.W. Ayer Direct, at the time, one of the largest names in advertising. It was a foot in the door that led to other jobs in direct marketing and radio and TV ad selling and purchasing.
She rounded out the two-decade career with jobs at Jacksonville ad agencies J.R. Hoffman and The Dalton Agency, where she created media campaigns and negotiated ad buys for clients like McDonalds, the Jacksonville Jaguars and Nimnicht Chevrolet.
In some ways, the work was like real estate.
“I was a hub for information. I attended client sales meetings and learned their goals so I could negotiate ad space for them,” she said.
Zingone became a Realtor in 2005.
It might seem a rung down from a high-powered marketing career.
But Zingone has known since she was 9 she would work in real estate one day.
She remembers admiring a neighbor who worked at the real estate company that had the gold jackets (Weichart Realty or Century 21, she can’t remember which).
“She was a fun and outgoing lady to me,” Zingone said. “Her personality was magnetic. I thought ‘OK, I could do that.’”
Zingone’s father didn’t share her vision. He patted her on the head and said, “No, you’re not going into real estate.”
“I think he just didn’t like the next-door neighbor,” Zingone said.
If her father’s decree fazed her at all, it doesn’t show.
Zingone rose quickly in the industry, gliding through six specialty certifications, Newcomer and Realtor of the year awards, and service on local, state and national Realtor association boards.
As WCR leader, and a hub of information once again, Zingone plans to sit down with every member to ask what the organization can do to better help them.
WCR’s value, she said, lies in its nationwide referral network. It’s one more layer of relationships Realtors enjoy beyond what their brokerage and membership in NEFAR offers.
A collaborative network is something Zingone believes in and uses.
Four referrals were passed between her and out-of-state WCR members last year.
She also believes in personal networks, as friend and fellow WCR member Kathy Karr-Garcia, will attest.
The two meet regularly to talk about business ideas, technology they’ve tried and customers who left them stumped.
“I have someone I can talk to,” Karr-Garcia said. “It’s very unusual with real estate agents in this town.”
It doesn’t have to be unusual.
“Those that are really competitive, in my opinion, shouldn’t be,” Zingone said. “If you’re smart and persistent, you’re each going to have enough of your own business.”
And there’s still so much more out there to know.
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