Introducing Cathy Sweet
Cathy Sweet has had the entrepreneurial spirit since she was a child. She would collect and trade frogs with the kid up the street. She came from a family business people in commercial real estate. Cathy learned a lot of her lessons in business around the kitchen table. Cathy started in the business in university by managing a few properties and continued to do so even while working for a few Fortune 500 companies. Eventually, Cathy decided that she was going to focus on her entrepreneurial dreams instead of the corporate route and started Comztar Commercial Properties.
Comztar is a client centric company that finds unique industrial, commercial, and office properties for its customers. “If you can’t find your Prince Charming, build him,” is Cathy’s motto. Cathy specializes in creating spec buildings for companies from 4,000 to 60,000 square feet. She is also a trailblazer for her region as a female in the commercial real estate industry dominated by men.
Cathy’s business has her bidding on projects, and then constructing massive buildings. This includes a three building project in 6.3 acres of Moncton, New Brunswick’s industrial Park. Outside, she has a huge billboard that includes a large picture of her face; this is very untraditional for commercial real estate. Taking a page out of Jake Palmer’s book, she plans to put a huge top hat and mustache on the face when it’s time for Halloween.
Cathy says that, “people with integrity let time prove themselves.” Cathy’s persistence and integrity were recently recognized as she won the Phenomenal Woman of the Year award in Southeast New Brunswick. The award was based on business growth and impact to her community.
In this episode
Cathy expels the importance of persistence. She knows she is going to win sometimes, and lose sometimes, but she has to keep going and looking for opportunities. Cathy also tells us the importance of having people be real with you and listening to what you NEED to hear. We discuss the extracurricular activities people have to help focus their business life. Greg is inspired by what Cathy has to say about integrity. Dave notes that most times there isn’t such a thing as overnight success.