The Way of the Entrepreneur: Lessons from the Journey to Build a Family-Owned Business Empire

Young men and women entering the business world today face competing impulses—the desire to be entrepreneurial and a fear of taking risks. Not surprisingly, many business owners and corporate executives are confronted with the same dilemma. But as William M. Raveis, Jr. illustrates in The Way of the Entrepreneur, if the global marketplace is fraught with risk, it is also brimming with opportunities.
One of the most daring, innovative and successful residential real estate visionaries of the last half century, Raveis revolutionized the industry by adapting technology early on and by constantly refreshing his business model in order to stay ahead of the competition. More importantly, he has stayed true to his values, vision and goals.
From blue-collar beginnings in a tight-knit Hungarian immigrant community in the East End of a gritty city not known for producing success stories, the young Raveis realized at an early age that if he could change his mindset, he could change his destiny. At 27, he left a promising if stifling corporate career at Westinghouse to pursue his vision to build a family-owned business for his children and their children. Over the past forty years, the company has grown from one office with five women no one else would hire, to over 112 offices with 3,500 agents, over $8 billion in annual real estate sales, $9 billion in mortgages, and over 6,000 insurance customers.
Bill Raveis’ journey is one of the great success stories of modern entrepreneurism. The Way of the Entrepreneur takes readers on a roller-coaster ride through recessions, drastic downturns in the industry, near bankruptcy, bank workouts and personal crises to unprecedented accomplishments and success.
In The Way of the Entrepreneurs, he offers an up-close, clear-eyed understanding of what it takes to succeed in business in spite of naysayers, economic turmoil, and enormous odds.