Article presented by Nick Kasmik
As Shirley Chisholm, the first African American woman in Congress, insightfully pointed out, “Tremendous amounts of talent are being lost to our society just because that talent wears a skirt.” Avid real estate entrepreneur and sales mentor Amela Smailbegovic has none of that wasteful paradigm. At just 37 years old, she has proven that hard work wears many hats, not just a skirt, and has become a top real estate producer as one way among many that she is rewriting the script for herself as well as for women in the workplace everywhere.
The steely willpower and unwavering drive of the true immigrant experience inform every aspect of Amela Smailbegovic’s approach to the multiple stress of her burgeoning businesses. Being of Croatian descent and growing up during the devastating civil war that affected her country in the 1990s, she believes holding fast to the core values of her native culture has not just helped her attain the business heights from which she is still trying to go higher but allowed her the freedom from approval that can limit others who wait around for permission. “In Croatia, there’s a big sense of knowing who you are without validation from everyone. I don’t need applause because I know what I am about. My happiness and self-worth are not contingent on anything I have or do not have as I am still the same person.”
Smailbegovic initially thought of using her double major in philosophy and political science from Elon University to follow in her father’s footsteps as an attorney. Making a move to Florida and simultaneously making a serendipitous connection with David Siegel, the reigning “timeshare king” of the time, she is now a registered Florida architect with an approach that has been greatly influenced by the modern architecture of Alvar Aalto’s ‘Total Design’ philosophy. Smailbegovic has built her directorship over Westgate Resorts on a foundation of creativity and force of will. With her team of 7-10 top agents in the timeshare industry selling for her, the real estate company she began now clears $30M-$40M per year.
Leveraging her personal and professional mantras around empowering women, Smailbegovic is an emphatic realist regarding the advice she offers her many mentees: “As a woman, you always have to work twice as hard to prove yourself for your voice to be heard.” She also freely acknowledges that the social expectations of women with her physical appearance are lower and that this provides another obstacle of perception to be hurdled within her business life. Listing “consistency, grit, passion, and resilience” as the key elements she has cultivated within herself to jump those barriers successfully and more, Smailbegovic wants to encourage women not to be daunted by the inevitable ups and downs.
“Mental toughness is 50% of the battle,” she says, “because you have to be mentally strong enough to take a lot of ‘nos.’ You will hear more ‘nos’ in this industry than anywhere, but you have to get through all those nos before you get that life-changing one ‘yes.’”
Smailbegovic credits her forward-thinking father, who also happens to be her best friend, with the most immensely positive influence over the success of her current life and the detailed, inclusive guidance that has allowed for her confident choices. “He’s always treated me like an adult,” she smiles, “even from when I was five and six years old, we have always talked about things, had dialogues, and I was always a part of the decision-making in our family.”
These are habits and lessons Smailbegovic has translated across her professional teams and the sense of alert accountability she institutes for herself and those who work for her. That admirable Eastern European emphasis on going the distance no matter what is the bedrock on which her businesses operate, the belief that whether you are ever the smartest or most accomplished person in the room, no one should be outworking you, and Smailbegovic certainly does not allow anyone to work harder or with more gusto than herself. With swiftly moving plans on the horizon to open her brokerage and expand to several locations throughout Orlando and on to Tampa in the next few years, Smailbegovic is, as ever, always training her discerning eye on the future.
“I’m always on to the next thing. I’m forever thinking about what I can do that is new and different, how to make new opportunities, and what’s next. I’m always looking for more.” It’s this ‘more’ factor that Shirley Chisholm meant in her expressed hope that all women would come to recognize the power within themselves and thus cease accepting less than their male counterparts in any area of life. Amela Smailbegovic was raised with a sense of ‘more’ that crossed oceans, and there is no telling how she may redefine that word next, only that she surely will and that no one else’s ideas about what her skirt does or doesn’t mean will even register, much less ever slow her down.
