For Douglas Elliman’s Enzo Morabito Team — It’s All About Teamwork

As the top producers for Douglas Elliman 16 out of the last 20 years, the Enzo Morabito Team prides itself on its perennially toprate performance and overall success.

“As far as volume goes, for the last 13 years, we’ve been number one in the Hamptons,” says Morabito, adding that in the Wall Street Journal’s annual rankings of nearly 2 million agents nationwide, the Enzo Morabito Team is always in the top hundreds.

The key to its success can be summed up in one word: teamwork, a concept Morabito started about 30 years ago — way before it was in vogue.

“Now, basically everybody in the real estate business is on a team,” says Morabito, who heads the team. “You really can’t do what you do in a competitive field such as ours mano a mano. That just doesn’t work.”

Looks Like Team Spirit

No matter how gifted any of the agents are, they simply can’t do it all.

“The skills that you need, starting from PR, marketing, taking care of clients, getting paperwork: everything that you need to do is impossible for one person to do,” Morabito says.

Quoting Gisele Bündchen, who after a loss by Tom Brady’s team, said, “’He can’t throw the ball and catch it, too,’” Morabito says, “No matter your abilities, it’s impossible to have all the talents that you really need to succeed.”

Crediting his own wife for the first team they started together, Morabito notes that she helped add structure to his business, focusing on the back office work.

“It was basically preparing me to go out there and do what I do best — and that’s what the team does now,” he says.

Currently, the Enzo Morabito Team consists of Cathy Morabito, Greg Geuer, Meghan Bozek, Christopher Furchert, Erica Smitheman, Sean Gray and Danielle Baker, who divide their time between Westhampton Beach and Sag Harbor offices.

When communication — an essential element

of teamwork — proved challenging during CO- VID-19, the team began a system they’ve kept in place, where everyone reads Morabito’s emails, so the entire team knows what’s going on and there’s no delay in answering anyone.

Another key to their success is longevity. The newest member of the team, Sean Gray, who specializes in social media, has been with the team for approximately four years; another member, Greg Geuer clocks in at approximately 20 years.

Morabito ensures loyalty by compensating everyone well: no matter the sale, monies are distributed throughout the team. This year, they transacted close to 50 deals; most years, they complete between 50 and 70.

“We constantly have money coming in that we can distribute out — and everybody gets paid,” he says.

Morabito only hires neophytes — people from other industries who can be molded.

“We’ve tried to get people who had experience: It doesn’t work, because they already have some bad habits,” he says. “And the last thing I want to work on is breaking people’s habits. So, everybody comes in and it’s almost like an apprenticeship.”

Marketing — and More Marketing

Every Monday morning, everyone comes together to work on marketing.

“The strength of my team is the marketing — the amount of advertising we do,” Morabito says.

Rather than advertise in the real estate section, where people are bombarded by a dizzying array of ads, the team opts for alternate positions where its ads stand out, such as a recurring Saturday ad in the New York Post, directly across from its highly visible “Page Six,” and on the inside cover of Dan’s Papers.