How To Avoid Costly Mistakes in Real Estate Team Expansion with Marissa Canario | Ep 089

Dec 2, 2025

Marissa Canario, a real estate leader and founder of Apex Realty Group, shares her journey from insurance to opening 168 markets. She emphasizes the importance of obsessing over agent and client experiences as drivers of success. Marissa unveils her segmented onboarding process, ensuring continuous engagement and communication. She discusses the signs for market expansion readiness and shares insights on leveraging mergers and acquisitions to streamline growth. With a keen focus on adapting coaching styles, she highlights the necessity of in-person connections while utilizing AI for efficiency.

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INSIGHT

Obsess Over Agent And Client Experience

Obsession with both agent experience and client experience drives scaled success.
Marissa says teams must wake up each day focused on solving problems for agents and clients.

ANECDOTE

Rapid Rise In An Expansion Team

Marissa joined an expansion team and rapidly moved from agent to national leader within about a year.
She scaled responsibilities from area leader to running the nation while learning to adapt leadership styles.

INSIGHT

Different Markets Demand Different Coaching

Expansion demands adapting coaching and recruiting to different selling styles and markets.
Marissa learned that techniques that work in one state often fail in another, requiring tailored approaches.

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What if your biggest mistakes became the blueprint for your next business?

That’s exactly what Marissa Canario is doing with Apex Realty Group, which she’s building from Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

After building a 7th-level insurance agency and after opening 168 markets (yes 168!) as a real estate leader on a national expansion team, Marissa’s now taking lessons learned to build again - with deeper obsession and a clearer value prop.

She shares the key to improving both agent experience and client experience. She details her segmented approach to onboarding (and re-onboarding) agents. She explains the pitfalls to avoid in market expansion and when to know if you’re ready. And she shares a vision of teams getting larger and larger in the years ahead through mergers and acquisitions.

Watch or listen for Marissa’s insights into:

Why obsession with agent experience and client experience drives success
What was required and what was learned by opening 168 markets in a real estate team expansion
How to improve communication and get more done by meeting people where they are
How to turn past mistakes into a tighter, more focused model with a clearer value proposition
How Marissa’s segmenting and improving “one of the most important factors of your entire foundation and one of the most difficult to get correct” … agent onboarding
Why to celebrate more (and more specific) agent milestones
AI and ISAs as new leverage points for real estate teams
Ways to make technology amplify rather than replace real estate agents (and what that means they should focus on)
How self-awareness, network strength, and sufficient capital set you up for market expansion success
Why mergers and acquisitions will drive larger teams and what your participation in that growth might look like

At the end, learn about the value of integrity, the ends of toilet paper rolls, the bottoms of shampoo and ketchup bottles, and fewer business books.

Episodes mentioned:
→ AI Voice and Texting with Kyle Draper and Tiffany Gelzinis
→ Redefining the Role of the Real Estate Team Leader with Keith Anderson
→The Roll-Up Strategy for Business Growth with Sam Khorramian

Connect with Marissa Canario:
→ https://www.instagram.com/marissacanario/

Connect with Real Estate Team OS:

→ https://www.realestateteamos.com

→ https://linktr.ee/realestateteamos

→ https://www.instagram.com/realestateteamos/