In a way, the cover story in this issue of Chicago Agent magazine has been more than a decade in the making. It was sometime last summer when we recognized that real estate titan Tommy Choi and mortgage expert Amir Syed appeared on the cover of the July 2013 magazine for an article about business partnerships.

Knowing that we were planning to revisit that topic in 2024, our co-publisher, Marci Sepulveda, suggested we reach out to Choi and Syed for an update, 11 years later. Making a business partnership work over those many years takes some give and take and, sometimes, patience. You can see how Choi, Syed and others have done it — and flourished — in this month’s cover story.

Finding common ground and purpose between two business associates can be a challenge, so how does a team of 27 equal partners do it? See what Riverwalk Partners Co-Founder Elizabeth Hunt had to say about that and what makes her team unique.

In our Top Coach column, real estate coach and author Fred Wilson notes the high failure rate among new agents. To address that, he identifies three things that often hold back agents and explains how to avoid them.

Also, be sure to check out the Association News column from NAHREP President Nora Aguirre and the other news items in the July issue.

As always, please reach out to let me know how we’re doing and what topics we should explore next. Happy reading!