Ask Terri Murphy what she does for a living, and she’ll most likely say, “I’m in sales. I do some writing and some speaking.”
What she actually does is generate personal energy, not just for herself but for others through motivational speaking.
She is an active real estate broker averaging $15 million in annual sales volume, placing her in the elite top 1 percent of real estate agents in the country. She has served as chairwoman of the Illinois Association of Realtors’ education and productivity task force committee, and six years ago she founded the Lake County chapter of the Women’s Council of Realtors.
She also is working on three books, writes a syndicated weekly column for Copley News Service, called “Murphy on Real Estate,” and co-hosts the weekly cable television show “Women in Business,” which airs weekly at various times on Lake County cable systems.
She has written countless articles for real estate trade journals and is 1993 chairwoman of the National Association of Realtors publications committee.
But the job that has given her the most visibility nationally is as a speaker for real estate organizations across the country, making 30 to 40 appearances a year, and as trainer for Power Connection, a motivational and training video and audio series developed by John Sauer, CEO of International Business Consultants in Irving, Texas. Murphy recently produced a Power Connection video and audiotapes along with Sauer, who acts as moderator for the tapes.
“I like to work with aspiring stars who are destined to be great speakers,” Sauer said of Murphy. “I saw her do her stuff and knew that she’s a natural. Terri’s a super saleswoman and a true achiever with class. She’s a speaker with a true story to tell, and she’s as tough as a tiger, sweet as a kitten and generous as Santa Claus.”
Sauer has been involved in the motivational-speaking industry for 20 years, he said, and markets videos using several speakers, including Murphy.
As the common thread weaving together her multifaceted business ventures, Power Connection focuses on positive thinking that fosters positive action.
“Actually, my business is making people feel less vulnerable,” Murphy said. “People want the same things. They want to know that the acceptance, recognition, appreciation is there. They need to know that they’re important.”
When Murphy picks up her Libertyville office phone-and that’s every few minutes-she glances at a piece of paper taped near the receiver with the words “You name it, you claim it, you get it.” That reinforces the credo of positive thinking that propels her throughout her day.
“Pretend whatever you think or say would happen in seven seconds. What would you not say? `My feet are killing me?’ `My heart is broken?’ I mean, that’s a heart attack!” she exclaimed.
“Switch from negative to positive thoughts! It sounds far-fetched, but I keep testing it on myself: Positive things will happen,” she said. “You create your own reality.”
Her manner of business goes way beyond the superficial trading of business cards.
“The issue of power connecting means I have a sphere of influence, a sphere of connecting, that is well established,” she explained. “For you to have to re-invent the wheel is not the most efficient use of your time, is it? So I plug you into my group, and it’s instant results, instant benefits. Power connecting is working smarter, not working harder.”
She tries to help people find their “greatness . . . just what is special about themselves, unique, makes them stand out from the others. I try to help them understand that it’s up to them to take those talents and abilities and use them. You have no idea how unique or special your life, your sphere of influence is. You could be the one to make a significant difference, impacting positively upon other lives. It’s up to you to reach out.”
She’s just the super-positive type that cynics love to hate, yet there is depth and even vulnerability behind her bulldozer momentum, and she’s not afraid to admit it. In fact, it’s that vulnerability that launched her into this positive drive even as a teenager.
“I was always afraid of my own shadow. I was scared to death,” she said. “I think I know what it feels like to not be wanted. I’m driven by security.”
Though her father was a loving and nurturing sort, she said he also startled her at age 14, when she began thinking about jobs. He said, ” `I’ve been feeding you all these years; you owe me.’ “
“It hit me like a ton of bricks,” she said, feeling for the first time that she had been a burden. From that point, she added, “I was always scared that I wouldn’t be able to make it, that my dad would be right.”
Yet Murphy has always seemed to be in charge, an attitude honed from being the oldest of four boys and five girls in a tight-knit Italian Catholic family. When she was a teenager, her parents, Florence and Joseph, a chef, moved their brood from Melrose Park to a 30-acre farm in Lake Villa with vineyards, orchards and ponds.
Florence Murphy knew early on that “Terri sets out to do what she wants to do and does it. When she was in 4-H, she won the Grand Champion ribbon at the Lake County Fair for her litter of pigs. She’s not afraid to get dirty, because she usually comes out smelling like a rose.”
Added Murphy’s youngest sister, Florence “Chicky” Johnson, 27, of Lake Villa and also a Re/Max Realtor, “Terri’s always strived to do better and get more. She creates her own environment, and people have to adapt to it. Every time I think she’s reached a plateau, she just bursts through. She takes one look and just keeps going.”
Joan Routlege, a fellow Realtor in the Re/Max office where Murphy works, said, “I suppose she could be intimidating to people until they get to know her, but she’s actually a considerate, caring person.”
Though firmly planted in real estate now, Murphy’s professional life had a very different beginning.
After attending the University of Wisconsin at Madison for two years, she got married, left school and dabbled in recreational vehicle sales, recreational parks development and children’s theater in the Madison area. When the marriage ended amicably after seven years, she came home to the Chicago area and started looking for a new career.
“Friends suggested real estate, because I always put in more than 100 hours a week on everything, so they said, why not do it and get paid?”
Yet Murphy has always maintained that real estate was an unlikely profession for her. “In the early days I didn’t have enough confidence to drive a car down Milwaukee Avenue . . . pretty hard for a Realtor, huh?” she said with a laugh.
But, though she didn’t have a driver’s license, Murphy built up her confidence by walking the neighborhoods, knocking on doors and racking up the business. “I put my picture on my cards and called myself Terri Murphy, the Deerpath specialist,” referring to the Deerpath area of Lake Forest.
That was in 1975, when she took a job with Coldwell Banker, where she remained until 1987, then going to Re/Max because that company’s Realtors are independent brokers, rather than being employees. In 1984 she was named Top Listing Associate of the year, when she had 100 sales. Coldwell sent her out on speaking engagements to tell others how she had done it, and thus began her speaking career.
Though these days she drives her clients around in a Mercedes, she reminds people that “I wasn’t born a Realtor. I set goals, took small steps, then set new goals. Anything’s possible if you believe it. I made that commitment to be the best that I could be.”
Murphy poured herself into building her real estate business. Meanwhile, her enthusiastic, humorous approach to promoting herself and her services led to invitations for her to make motivational speeches to real estate agents. She launched her own real estate column and cable television show in 1990 and started a business for her father, My Personal Chef, to cater at her Wednesday open houses.
And she got married again. Then came a defining moment in her life. In August 1991, her father died of a heart attack at age 64, just after she’d visited him at their farm.
“He didn’t drink or smoke or eat junk. It was so out of left field that he would die. It takes life and it shifts your perspective in a heartbeat. You can always get more money, but you can never get more time. I missed a lot of sunsets. I missed a lot of joy,” she said in a low voice, the pain still flickering across her face.
“It took his death to make me realize that I had been marching through life with a machete, stuffing 20 hours in a 5-pound bag, always assuming that (time) was a free entity. You can live life with incredible intensity and passion and commitment and still enjoy looking for a moment.”
The revelation came too late to save her second marriage of 18 months, which crumbled under the demands of her work schedule. While sitting in divorce court, she wrote her column on a laptop computer, and she also listened to other divorce cases there.
“I couldn’t believe that women who had been married for 15, 20 years had no money of their own. I’d ask them if they’d ever had any money left over from grocery money. And they’d say, `Of course.’ And then I’d explain how they could have saved up $10 a week, times 52 weeks, times 17 years. They were amazed at the power of compounding,” she recalled.
Determined to help enlighten women, Murphy developed a seminar to help women value themselves, called “Where Did the Time Go?” which she presents to various Lake County women’s groups, usually free of charge.
She now lives by herself in a Libertyville townhouse, visiting her mother’s farm as often as possible.
Though she comes from a large family, she said she doesn’t miss having her own kids.
“Not at all. I have 10 gorgeous nieces and nephews, and I just adore them,” she said. “I rent them for a few hours, then I give them back.”
Although 5 foot 1, Murphy’s commanding voice and striking good looks make her seem taller and younger than her 43 years. She’s been told that she comes on like the Terminator, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s fierce film character, but she protested that she’s really a marshmallow in disguise.
No way, asserted Wendy Jacobson of Northbrook. The minute Jacobson and husband Mark saw Murphy, they knew they’d hired a dynamo to sell their condominium. “Terri knows we get an early start, like her. So at 5:30 in the morning she’d call to update us on the status,” Jacobson recalled. “And the first time she walked into our condo, she shook her head and said, `Get a box! This place definitely needs to be thinned out!’ “
So, did she sell the condo? “Oh, my God, of course,” Jacobson said with a laugh. “She’s so dynamic, so successful because she goes out and does what she says she’s going to do.”
Murphy’s 15- to 18-hour workdays start at 4:30 to 5 a.m. with a workout at Libertyville’s Centre Club, using weights, Nordic Track and a Stairmaster. She grabs a cup of fresh fruit for breakfast and arrives at her office at 7:30 to set up her day.
Every appointment is recorded in her organizer. Everything else is on computer, including her wardrobe. Not surprisingly, she’s the model of efficiency. If she says she’ll call at 8:30, she calls exactly at 8:30. Her phone conversations, while not quite as rapid-fire as the Federal Express man, are lightning fast-no long, lingering lunches.
Alongside her real estate business, women’s issues continue to interest Murphy “but not in a militant way. I just want to help other women. Sometimes women need a nudge to see that things can happen if they believe in themselves.”
Her weekly cable TV show, “Women in Business,” features women who succeeded, often with no college degree or startup funds, and with a family to support.
Her newest project involves fundraising for Medical Renaissance Foundation in Libertyville, an organization hoping to raise funds for alternative methods to fight breast cancer. Just for the record, she is not a victim, which makes her just a little uneasy in trying to talk about it with women who are.
“What are some words to describe Terri? Creativity. Balance. Abundance,” said Steven Ayre, an Antioch family practice physician affiliated with the foundation. “She’s an absolutely delightful person who’s a perfect example of getting to your own power by empowering others.”
Tom Schwartz, CEO and president of First Midwest Bank in Waukegan, recalled that he heard so much about Murphy that he finally asked to tag along with one of the bank’s mortgage officers to meet her. “I can’t say enough about her,” he said. “She’s very professional and knowledgeable. She has terrific ideas about marketing really difficult-to-move properties. Plus, she’s a lot of fun. She’s sort of like Joan Rivers, her ideas come so quick. But Terri does everything out of kindness.”
Florence Murphy agreed that her daughter has a big heart. “We’re a silly family. We laugh a lot, but sharing was something we were all brought up with. If you have more than you can use, why not share it? I remember one time when Terri sold the house for a family where the father was sick, but she refused to take a commission because she knew they couldn’t afford it.”
Several times a month she travels across the country, speaking to real estate and women’s groups about cooperation, time management and power connecting.
Her files are jammed with enthusiastic letters from Realtors from Kankakee to Honolulu, Vermont to Alaska, raving about her presentations.
“Thanks to people like you, this year’s convention was a great success. I have heard nothing but positive comments,” wrote Chris McElroy, chairman of the 1992 state convention education sessions of the Colorado Association of Realtors.
“The reviews are in and you were a big hit with everyone! We heard nothing but great things about your presentation. Everyone was impressed with your extensive knowledge of the real estate industry and by your dynamic personality,” said Jim Mayer, executive vice president of the Kansas Association of Realtors.
“Repeatedly, I hear Vermont Realtors refer to you in their conversations-to something you said that sparked them and motivated changes in their workplace. You had a particular impact on Realtors who are already among our leadership,” wrote Mickey Myers, educational director of the Vermont Association of Realtors.
Terry Penza, executive officer for the North Shore Board of Realtors in Northbrook, said, “Terri has a very good message, and people walk away with that message. I’ve recommended her to lots of national Realtor groups around the country.”
Next year she’ll release a book called “Homeowner’s Notebook,” a compilation of 100 columns she originally published in the News-Sun of Waukegan that help people ask the right questions when buying or selling a house. The book will be self-published and priced at $10.99. A book on the Power Connection also is in the works, as well as one about how to list a home for sale.
“Life is a banquet, so full of wonderful things. But most of us are walking around the table starving. I say: Enjoy life to the fullest. Look for the positives. Don’t stampede through life. You’re entitled to one bad day, not an entire month of bad days!” Murphy said. “The people who are the most powerful, and the happiest, are the people who look inside themselves to their potential and say, `What can I do to be the very best I can be?’ They wish they had believed in themselves earlier in their lives so that they could have done more. I help people believe in themselves so they can make a difference.”
