When Chris Knighton launched his real estate career three years ago, it wasn’t his first rodeo in the industry. He’d worked in commercial real estate in Houston for 10 years, but after moving back to his hometown of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, he made the leap to residential and found his perfect fit at Keller Williams. “In every company I’d had before, I really tried to build this culture of knowledge-based learning, this team atmosphere-type thing,” he says. “I didn’t even realize that Keller Williams had done that with 130,000 agents at that point.”
Three years later, Knighton’s team ranks number four in the country, with just under 200 transactions and $89 million in volume for 2017. He would never have gotten there without Keller Williams and, specifically, KW MAPS Coaching, he admits. “My coach asked me, ‘What would success look like to you?’ and I said, ‘Walking away with a few million bucks and not having to work too hard,’” he recalls. “‘That’s pretty selfish,’ she said.
“My big why in life is to help people create the biggest lives they can. It’s selfish of me to hold myself back. Not living life to the fullest doesn’t do anyone any good.”
‘You’re going to limit the people that help you get to where you want to be.’ Once I had that shift in mindset, that’s when we started building our team out and building something bigger than myself. It’s selfish of me to hold myself back. Not living life to the fullest doesn’t do anyone any good.”
Today, Knighton is out of production and instead focuses on helping his team leaders build big lives. “My life is centered on diving into leadership, coaching and training our people,” he says. “It’s not just my vision; it’s the visions of 14 or 15 people. None of that would’ve been possible without Keller Williams and my MAPS Coach, who pushes me every day.”