Orlando: OBJ Businesswoman of the Year Beth Hobart Shares Her Career Journey

Beth Hobart with Mainframe Real Estate has been in the realty game since 2005, and she could tell you some stories of what it was like entering the industry during the economic recession.

Yet through that time, she persisted in building her brand and business to become one of the region's most recognizable realtors.

Besides helping people find their forever homes, she also gives much to the community, serving in roles for the Women's Council of Realtors, Orlando City Soccer Foundation, the Historic Preservation Board, and volunteering with Crest Inc., helping those with developmental disabilities.

This year, she was named Orlando Business Journal's Businesswoman of the Year, and she joins us on the Florida Business Minds podcast.

Beth, thanks for joining us.

Thank you so much for having me.

It's an honor.

So Beth, I always like to start a little bit with kind of the history of the folks we have on our show.

So can you talk a little bit about how you found yourself in the real estate industry?

Sure.

I was...

I'll go way back to when I was in college at UCF.

I'm a UCF grad, and when I was, uh, putting myself through college, I was working at Cafe Tu Tu Tango on I Drive.

If you're familiar, it's still there.

And I would hand out business cards with every check because I was trying to get an internship that would lead to a job, and these were the days when there was no email, no cell phones at the time.

I think cell phones were just, like, starting out, so that tells you how old I am.

So I did get an advertising job.

I was a creative director at an ad agency for many years, and one of the jobs that we had, we were working with a company that was marketing properties overseas.

That was 2004, actually, when that was, like, a big thing.

People were buying properties in, like, Cyprus and Bulgaria and Spain.

I remember they even had shows that were on that were marketing to people, trying to get people to buy overseas.

But anyway, by the time, like, 2005 rolled around, the owner of the company was like, "You know, you'd be really good at real estate." He's like, "Maybe you should consider getting your license." And I loved being a creative director, but I also didn't at the same time.

I was very fast.

I would get things done really quickly, and I think the account execs appreciated that, but I wasn't, like, super passionate.

I felt like, uh, I should have gone on the account side and been more with people, 'cause that would've been a better fit.