Candess Correll, Realtor

[00:00:00] Sanjay Parekh: Welcome to the Side Hustle to Small Business podcast powered by Hiscox. I'm your host, Sanjay Parekh. Throughout my career, I've had side hustles, some of which have turned into real businesses. But first and foremost, I'm a serial technology entrepreneur. In the Creator Space, we hear plenty of advice on how to hustle harder and why you can sleep when you're dead.

On this show, we ask new questions in hopes of getting new answers. Questions like, how can small businesses work smarter? How do you achieve balance between work and family? How can we redefine success in our businesses so that we don't burn out after year three? Every week, I sit down with business founders at various stages of their side hustle to small business journey.

These entrepreneurs are pushing the envelope while keeping their values. Keep listening for conversation, context, and camaraderie.

Today's guest is Candess Correll, a licensed residential sales realtor in the Washington DC, Maryland, and Virginia areas. Before going into real estate, Candess was an NFL cheerleader and software engineer. Candess, welcome to the show.

[00:01:10] Candess Correll: Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to share my story.

[00:01:14] Sanjay Parekh: I think you are very likely, I think most definitely the first ever former NFL cheerleader that we've ever had on this show and I think that just goes to show you that people have so many different interesting career paths they get them to where they are. And so speaking of that, why don't you give us a couple of minutes about your background and what got you to where you are today?

[00:01:35] Candess Correll: Totally. Totally. I started my professional career actually as a software engineer.

I went to the University of Maryland and studied computer science. While I was getting my degree, I was actually on the Maryland dance team where I cheered for all of the home football and basketball games for four years. After I graduated and got my degree, I was offered a good amount of offers before I graduated, but ended up working almost immediately full time at Booz Allen Hamilton.

And at the same time, I also auditioned to become a then Washington Redskins cheerleader and made the team on my first try. So within two months, I went from being a college student and a peppy UMD dancer to now being a working, living, breathing software engineer and NFL cheerleader at the same time. It was a big transition.

I worked as a software developer for about eight years, working my way up to lead technologists, did the same thing in the NFL cheerleading background. I cheered for the Redskins for five seasons. I was able to be a captain for two of them, be a back swimsuit cover model, and I had the highest honor of being recognized by the NFL in 2019 as being the sole representative from the Redskins for the Pro Bowl games.

[00:02:55] Sanjay Parekh: Oh, that's awesome. Okay, so I gotta ask you about that and then we'll dig into some of the other stuff, but how do you balance being a cheerleader and being a software engineer? Because how the games are all over the place. You're traveling for the games and then you got to show up for work too.

Like, how did you manage that? Did, work obviously work knew that you were a cheerleader. Like how, did you manage that balance?

[00:03:20] Candess Correll: Yeah, I was extremely transparent with everyone in my life before I even made the choice to audition for the team, because I knew even though it was considered a part time job, it was just as much of a full time commitment as my software engineering job.

And this was a pre COVID. So we did not have remote work. So just to give you a full day in the life of Candess back then, I would, I live in Southern Maryland now. I would drive my little Camry to Herndon, Virginia, do my eight to four. And I did have an adjusted schedule with permission because they knew that I was a cheerleader.

I Landover, Maryland and start rehearsals from six. They ended around 11pm. Then I would go home and do that over again, five times a week for five years straight. And I was only able to keep my sanity because of my support system. I had a great amount of people that were able to pick me up some lunch or some dinner and meet me for practice so that I don't have to go out of my way or take that extra step.

Sometimes if my rehearsals went a little bit longer, I actually live in the same neighborhood that I grew up in. So my mom was able to come in and walk my dog. I absolutely had so many resources at my disposal. So I'm so thankful that I had people that believed in me and my dreams and supported me because I definitely needed it.

I wouldn't have done it otherwise.

[00:04:44] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah this, is the quintessential, side hustle type of thing, because man, that is a lot of time. So how did that work when you had to go to games? Because local games, okay, I get it. You can figure that out. But when you had to travel, it's not like it's just a one day thing.

It's multiple days. How did you manage that with work then?

[00:05:05] Candess Correll: Yeah, fortunately, NFL cheerleaders actually only cheer at home games. So if you go to a game, the away team doesn't, usually, not always, but of course for the Super Bowl, we're going to see both teams on the sidelines. But typically, the home team has their cheerleaders.

And the good thing about the NFL is that it's a little bit more predictive than the NBA. Game days are Sundays, maybe Thursdays, maybe a Friday. But it's good because obviously I'm not working on Sundays. Now Monday, I strolled into that office, I remember feeling like I got hit by a bus, but I used my, pseudo celebrity fame because I would come into the office on Monday and my coworkers be like, I saw you on TV.

And I'm like, I look nothing like how I looked like on TV the day before. And I was just like, yes, that's why I'm a little late. That's why I have bags under my eyes. Please don't let it be a Sunday night football game.

[00:05:58] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:05:59] Candess Correll: Sometimes I have to call my boss and be like, can I please be remote today?

And usually it worked because she was a Washington fan and she saw that I wasn't, you know what I mean? I was a little busy last night.

[00:06:12] Sanjay Parekh: You saw me, right? I was there. And this is one of those, one of those gigs where it's like, everybody can check up on you because they'll all see you on TV. Like Candess, you were not cheering. Where were you? What's going on there, Sam?

[00:06:25] Candess Correll: And so that's why I could never lie. If the games and the pre, the pregame, the preseason games are typically on a Friday evening. So I would, have to leave the office maybe sometimes a little earlier, let's say two, because we typically have to get to the stadium about four hours before kickoff.

So the preseason games is when I realize, not that I realized, but I saw the importance of just being honest with my employer. And they were always very accommodating because work life balance is very important and also. Who wants to tell a Redskins cheerleader that she's not allowed to go work here? If anything, they were like, yes, please go.

[00:07:00] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah, exactly. That would be, that would be scandalous, I think, in the local press there. I think you, you picked a really good side hustle based on where you were and then got lucky with having a bunch of, football fans totally worked as well.

So you're hustling and doing this. You did it for five years. What was the motivation to be like, okay, I'm done with that part of it and then go just straight into working.

[00:07:29] Candess Correll: Yeah. Being an NFL cheerleader is intense. It's intense on the body. It's intense on the schedule. We have very, strict requirements.

And despite that. Even after five years, I felt myself telling, asking myself is, what is your level of fulfillment? What is your definition of done? And after five years, I found myself very proud that I was able to accumulate many, awards. I was the first NFL cheerleader to be verified on Instagram.

I was one of the NFL cheerleaders that had the most amount of Twitter followers. I was voted the rookie fan favorite. I got the Pro Bowl vote. I was able to be a captain. I was, I traveled a lot all over the world for our swimsuit calendars and military tours. I volunteered for our youth space clinics.

I've been in many, publications, including Washington Post and USA Today. And I realized around 2020 when, the football games went virtual at the time that I felt accomplished. There was nothing left that I felt that I yearned to pursue, give back or accomplish within the organization. So I found that it was time to let another young lady have her moment.

[00:08:39] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. Okay. So that point you moved into kind of full time software development and then at some point you decided hey, let's try this real estate thing. When did that happen?

[00:08:53] Candess Correll: Yes. Yes. So as I'm sitting at home in quarantine, no longer cheering, devoting all of my time to engineering, which trust me, I thoroughly enjoyed.

I'm not sure if you've heard of it. I'm sure you did. Selling sunset at the time was a really popular show. And, my boyfriend at the time, we were hanging out on the couch and we were watching the show and I'm loving it. I'm eating it up and he's there secretly eating it up too. But he says to me, he like nudges, You can do this. He was like, you're beautiful. You're charismatic. You have a great net worth and people do what you say. People listen to you. He was like, you can do this. And I saw that commission at the bottom bar of the screen. And I was like, Maybe you're right. Maybe you're right. And one thing that I also missed, earlier is that same year that I, my life changed and I became a software developer.

I became a residence cheerleader. I actually purchased the home that same year as well. I purchased my first home at 22, about nine months after graduating, completely by myself to this day. No one has given me a dime for this property. And so all that is going in my head. I like the show. I like the money.

I like the outfits. I've been through this process before. I know the value of real estate. I was raised by parents who only invested in real estate and they were landlords themselves. I said, why not just go for the classes and see what it's all about? It's a good side hustle. Definitely is not a bad side hustle at all.

I can do this. Sell a property to my family, sell a property to my friends, have it be chill and nothing super crazy and still keep my full time job. So that's how my interest in just the real estate industry started. I took the classes for a month and I actually passed the exam four weeks later on the first try.

[00:10:47] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. Is this the first time that you've done something entrepreneurial? Like the cheerleader thing, really a side hustle. You were working for somebody. But this is like your own thing. Did you do anything entrepreneurial when you were a kid or anything else like that?

[00:11:03] Candess Correll: This is my very first entrepreneurial venture.

And in fact, I'm eating my own words. Because I remember many times telling myself, I will never be an entrepreneur. I will always be a corporate girly. I love the structure and the confidence of corporate. And here I am now.

[00:11:22] Sanjay Parekh: And you know what, it's, there, there is no right answer between these two things.

Some people are very well suited for corporate and working for somebody, just turn it off when you go home. Entrepreneurs were a different breed. You never turned it off almost, like it's always going, it's not for everybody. And the glitz and the glamour that everybody sees is not actually the reality of what it is.

Let's talk about that. So when you were starting this. Is there something that made you nervous about doing this? Taking the plunge?

[00:11:54] Candess Correll: When I took the plunge to go full time, I was extremely nervous. I think it's no surprise that the software development industry is extremely robust and it gives a lot of opportunity, especially for people of color like me, but especially in the DMV area where government contracting, government engineering is so it's so in demand and because I have a really, impressive skill set, I knew that I would always have that opportunity if I chose.

But the scary part about it was listening to my heart and figuring out If that's the direction I want it to go stability and finances and surety of my future and protection where I want to go, or do I believe in myself enough, my skillset, my God, to take the leap and do what means the most to me in my heart.

I feel like the hard part was choosing what's comfortable and secure and something that's uncharted territory, wavering income, wavering support. But I made the leap. I did it. I actually had told myself to have a three months sabbatical and give me three months. And if after month three, I was broke, then I would go back on LinkedIn because we've joked before back on LinkedIn; so it was a risk that I was, I cried for a little bit, but I was willing to take and be a big girl.

[00:13:25] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. I want to make sure our listeners know what you're talking about. You mentioned something DMV area. What is DMV?

[00:13:31] Candess Correll: Yeah, the DMV area stands for DC, Maryland, and Virginia. A lot of people think it's Department of Motor Vehicles, but it is DC, Maryland, and Virginia. More so the metropolitan area, so not exactly like Richmond, Virginia, but more so like Northern Virginia.

[00:13:47] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. I wanted to make sure people aren't like. And why is she working at the DMV?

That's a different DMV there. I imagine too, with the places that you're working at, you probably had to have security clearances and things like that. So that's all in your pocket because even though you're not there, you still have those

[00:14:05] Candess Correll: Clearances. I still have my security clearance.

So it's if worse comes to worse, I'll go ahead and fix up that LinkedIn profile.

[00:14:14] Sanjay Parekh: And I think that's something that, we hear often from entrepreneurs. And, what I've also often said as an entrepreneur myself is that, look, what's the worst thing that's going to happen here. I'll go get a job, right?

It's not like somebody's not going to hire me. Yeah, it might take some time, but somebody eventually will. And you've seen that, I think, through your career, you, job hunt, hopped from job to job as a software engineer. How hard has it been for you moving jobs? Has it been pretty straightforward?

[00:14:44] Candess Correll: Extremely easy. In fact, I still get job offers today. I just had a company reach out maybe about two weeks ago asking if I still have my engineering efforts on pause. Yeah, and that's the thing about being in this area and having that skillset that's so in demand with a bunch of different industries, I have never struggled with employment.

In fact, I got my first offer letter when I was a junior in college. So I was always pretty, pretty prepared on the employment end and which was easy for me when I was going through those fears to actually bring those fears to reality and be like, hey, you've never struggled with this and you probably never will. So this fear is not even valid.

[00:15:29] Adam Walker: Support for this podcast comes from Hiscox, committed to helping small businesses protect their dreams since 1901. Quotes and information on customized insurance for specific risks are available at Hiscox.com. Hiscox, business insurance experts.

[00:15:50] Sanjay Parekh: So let's, change, topics a little bit and talk about then the real estate side of it. There's a lot of things there. Like in any job, there's a lot of things you can't control, right? Market downturns, interest rates, like all those kinds of things. How do you think about those things?

Because all of those things implicitly impact your ability to do your job. How do you think about those things and how do you prepare yourself for the things that are, it's easy to deal with the things that are going to make things easier. What about the things that make things harder?

[00:16:21] Candess Correll: Yeah, that really caught me up the first, I would say year of ownership in real estate because, there's so many things that I don't have control over, and there's so many things that can go wrong, especially when dealing with someone's finances, dealing with someone's address, dealing with banks, dealing with home sellers, dealing with very, personal items.

I realized very quickly that I have a very intimate role with people, and the biggest thing that can help not only secure my sanity and my peace of mind, but also my client's sanity and peace of mind is encouraging us to control what we can control. We cannot control the interest rates. However, we can control our budget.

We can control our expectation. We can't control inventory. However, again, we can control our budget. We can control our expectations. So I like to really Settle myself and my business partners and my clients by really, finding creative and unique strategies to control the avenues that we have the power to do.

[00:17:26] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. Okay. So let's talk about how do you find, those clients, right? So you're moving from Software engineering, where you don't really need to talk to people about their homes and stuff into real estate, residential real estate. How do you build that book of business? How do you get people to know about you? How do you get people to find you and call you?

[00:17:46] Candess Correll: Yeah, that's a really good question. And that's the thing about life is that life prepares you maybe for a venture that comes into fruition. 10 years later, I found that in the beginning of my career, I was especially thankful for the platform and opportunities and skill set that NFL cheerleading provided for me.

When I was an NFL cheerleader, of course I was in a, I was, a public figure in a sense. You know what I mean? I was very much in front of at least 40 to 60,000 people every Sunday. My name was on this very public website. I was in the calendars that were sold out year after year. So the name Candess wasn't unfamiliar to people in this area. And I use that same platform to really profit and earn their trust as not just a now a neighborhood celebrity, if you will, but now a neighborhood specialists. And with that, I was able to use my social media capital to really spin up some interest about my new career as a real estate agent.

My first clients came from, I think my very first client was actually a college friend. So of course, just maintaining good relationships from the beginning of time. But a good amount of my clients actually came from either young ladies that cheered with me. A young ladies that saw me on the field, now a good amount of my clients come from my social media.

[00:19:14] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. So you've been doing this for a little while now at this point. Is there something that stands out to you as this experience or event that was to date the most rewarding thing that you've experienced so far?

[00:19:34] Candess Correll: I have a lot of rewarding moments. I think the biggest ones that stand out to me is when I have young women and just to put it in context, like I said, I purchased my first home when I was 22, which was really, young. And I have a lot of women after hearing my story of going into real estate straight out of college, never renting a luxury apartment, never doing anything.

And they come to me and they trust me to do, to make the same smart financial investments really early in life. And I see these bad ass killer young ladies who do what they're supposed to do. They work hard, they trust someone, and then 30 to 45 days later, they are owners. They own property. I've had a young lady purchase a building and I actually just talked to her yesterday and now she's out.

She has tenants that pay her rent every month and take care of the mortgage even over and her property value has grown over 40,000 in just one year. And she's about 26 years old. That's the reward for me because yes, I get a commission. Yes of course I get paid for my services, but not only am I putting value into neighborhoods that I literally grew up in, but I'm helping other young women make good, healthy choices that they will thank themselves, the generations will thank them for because of the hard work that they've done very early in life.

[00:20:59] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah, you've got, as I'm thinking about it, as you're talking, you've got an interesting background because you have experience and know how to write software and you've done all that. Whereas, a lot of founders made necessarily not, and are in industries that maybe it doesn't matter so much.

But has there been opportunities where you've seen oh, real, the real estate industry stinks in this area. And I could write a piece of software that would make this better. Have you seen that for yourself?

[00:21:30] Candess Correll: Yeah. All the time. Now, am I going to do it? Probably no. The reality about it is that a successful real estate agent needs systems.

You're not going to be able to sell 30 to 50 to 80 homes a year if you're not automating things. So even something as simple as, I have different software that I haven't wrote, but I've of course, consulted out to where I, if someone goes on my website and submits their first name, email, phone number for my newsletter, it automatically gets added to my CRM.

And then I push a welcome email. Not only does that save me 20 minutes of my time, I'm ensuring that every single person that wants to get in contact with me at least has that first initial touch right after they register. It's a very small and simple example, but we need systems and technology to be able to detect that trigger and then do what we wanted to do in the logic.

[00:22:24] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. So I find it interesting. You say that you've seen opportunities where you could have a piece of software you wrote to make the real estate industry better, but you're like, I'm not doing that. Why is, are those not opportunities that you want to chase as well?

[00:22:40] Candess Correll: I have a full breadth of the capacity of the work that it'll take. The dedication of time that it'll take, and I'm just not passionate about it right now. And that's one of the reasons why I left the software engineering industry. I'm very talented. I scored really, well when I was in school and I have a lot of good rapport with the employers that I worked for.

So it wasn't a case of, I was feeling inadequate or I felt like I wasn't qualified, but my heart wasn't there. So I was you know, now I'm like, get somebody else to do it. Get somebody that cares. Get somebody that cares. I don't care anymore. I don't.

[00:23:18] Sanjay Parekh: And that's a good skill, right? Knowing when it's okay, somebody else can do this better than me or will love it more than me.

And by an extension of that, they're going to do a better job than you are because they are so passionate about it. So you should always focus on the thing that you're passionate about even if you're good at some other things along the way. Let's talk about, and we talked about this a little bit, but I want to talk about it in the here and now. How do you balance the stress and demands of doing these things? So already we talked about the stress and demands of being a cheerleader and a software engineer how about now of having a business and then life and all of these other things? That inevitably go up, you're still living in the same neighborhood that you grew up in.

So there's a lot of people that, there's always probably things that you can go to and have fun with, but how do you balance all of these things for yourself?

[00:24:12] Candess Correll: I think the biggest thing is just managing expectations, managing self expectations, managing expectations of my time and also managing expectations of my clients, which are external factors that I cannot control.

So I think when I have a good foundation of this is what I expect, this is not what I expect and why what I, why I expect these things, this timeline, this mentality, this compensation, I think it's easier to just dust things off and be aggressive and moving on to the next. One thing that I'm pretty good at is that I'm moving.

I'm good at moving on. I'm good at moving on to the next win. I'm good at moving on and finding the next deal. So I think just handling my expectations that every single client is maybe not for me, every single deal that we call is maybe not the perfect deal for that buyer. Every single offer that we see may not be the perfect offer for that seller for whatever their circumstances, because we all have our own life.

And so really what you can control is just your expectations. And once I got to that period, I was able to be present and just show up for people however they needed me.

[00:25:22] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. Yeah. Great response to that. Okay. I got two last questions for you. If you could go back in time and do something differently, what is that and why?

[00:25:36] Candess Correll: Yes, I think I would have planned my exit out of corporate a little bit more strategically. If I'm being transparent, my exit was an emotional move. And while I would not say that it, worked out in failure or resulted in failure. In fact, I think it gave me the grit of a tiger to be here in February and not be back on LinkedIn.

But if I'm just being mature and looking back on the decisions that I made, I would have been more organized in how I planned that exit. And had a strategy and have a strategy. And I don't advise that I serve a good God and I'm protected, but I would recommend having an exit strategy for sure.

[00:26:26] Sanjay Parekh: Last question for you.

If somebody is thinking about taking the leap and going like you did from a side hustle to a full time business, what advice would you give them?

[00:26:36] Candess Correll: Yeah. Define your, why, what's your, why are you doing this? You need to have a very clear mission statement and define goal, or else you're just going to be wandering.

You're just going to be fumbling and you're going to waste time, productivity, resources, maybe even your mental and financial and physical health. So if this is something, whether you want to take a leap into anything, you need to know why you're, jumping. You're quite literally leaping from one mountain to another.

So having your definition of why, and clearly defining your goals so that when, especially in entrepreneurship, when things get a little cloudy, get a little gray, you know exactly why you started this journey.

[00:27:19] Sanjay Parekh: Candess, this has been fantastic. Where can our listeners find and connect with you online?

[00:27:24] Candess Correll: Yes, I am most accessible on TikTok and Instagram @CandessC. However, I do have a website. It is Candesscorrell.com. I have a free first time home buyer's guide. I have a free seller's guide. If you ever wanted to talk to me one on one about your situation, you can schedule a free Zoom, 30 minute Zoom call on me on my website.

Again, that's Candesscorrell.com. I'm also on LinkedIn at Candess Carell. I am on Twitter at CandessC, and I'm also at Go on Google at Candess Correll realtor where I have over 25 5-star reviews. So please check me out if you're interested in real estate, whether you want to buy, sell, or invest, or if you want to be a real estate agent yourself.

I mentor real estate agents as well.

[00:28:10] Sanjay Parekh: Awesome. Thanks so much for being on the show today.

[00:28:13] Candess Correll: Thank you.

[00:28:16] Sanjay Parekh: Thanks for listening to this week's episode of the Side Hustle to Small Business podcast, powered by Hiscox. To learn more about how Hiscox can help protect your small business through intelligent insurance solutions, visit Hiscox.com. And to hear more Side Hustle to Small Business stories, or share your own story, please visit Hiscox.com/side-hustle-to-small-business. I'm your host, Sanjay Parekh. You can find out more about me at my website, SanjayParekh.com.