Sarah Bytyqi: Success From Within
These days, Sarah Bytyqi, founder and managing broker at her real estate company Verbode, is considering trying to give herself a little more down time. Time to think, reflect, plan and enjoy her children and her friends. She’s earned it. Her community-driven real estate company, now a decade old, was among the very first in Oklahoma to offer clients a boutique experience. “We will never be salesy,” she says. “We are in this business to help people, help the community and help ourselves. But we are small by design. We value our culture over production; that is just not our mentality. Our success is based on how happy our clients are, not how many sales we’ve closed.”
With about 25 agents at any given time, the Verbode team is constantly looking for ways to support one another. This truly collaborative culture is the secret sauce. “If our hearts are in the right place, the business will follow,” Bytyqi says. It’s a philosophy she believes whole-heartedly, but she’s also a naturally hard-working, competitive entrepreneur. “We are incredibly interested in dominating the market share in the urban core. We are not salesy, but we sell. We focus on service and happen to sell a lot of real estate in the process.”
Work has long been a coping mechanism for Bytyqi, but also a challenge and a joy. She comes by hard work naturally – her grandfather, Bill Gregory, owned concrete and chemical companies and was involved in cattle ranching, among other entrepreneurial pursuits.
When Bytyqi was 14, she took her first full-time job. After school, evenings and weekends, she worked 40 hours a week in the snack bar of a Boulevard Bowl in Edmond, unwittingly setting a pattern for herself that has taken her decades to unravel. While still driven and high-energy by most standards, Bytyqi is allowing herself to relax and reflect a bit these days. “I used work as a coping mechanism until this past year,” she says. “It’s what I did for years. I used to work from 6 a.m. to 1 a.m. No one could outwork me. But one day I woke up and realized that life doesn’t have to be that hard.”
After a decidedly rough patch that included a divorce, a move and a general regrouping, Bytyqi has reached a place of calm confidence. She loves her life. “I have amazing friends, I love my business and my team, and I have four amazing children. Now I have nothing to escape from. My biggest motivation is to help people.”
Bytyqi’s entrepreneurial spirit definitely sparked during her snack bar days; while a high school student at Edmond Memorial, she was also very active in the school’s DECA program, an organization with a 75-year track record in fostering entrepreneurialism among high school and college students. She founded her first company – a candle business – at 21, in the pre-internet days. From there, she worked as a loan officer and was recruited by JPMorgan Chase & Co., and transferred to the company’s office in Pismo, California, where she fell in love … with Pismo Beach. She returns to Cali every year for soul-soothing chill time with her kids. “I came to Pismo Beach in 2003 and camped on the beach. It’s the best place on Earth.”
Back home, Bytyqi certainly plans to continue gaining market share and sharing her team’s expertise in the urban core, but it goes much deeper than that. She wants to grow as a community resource, and to make her home city better, happier and healthier. The Verbode team is equally committed to fostering the arts and doing its part to end homelessness in Oklahoma City.
Her office doubles as an art gallery, where she’s showcased visual artists on a semi-monthly basis for years, celebrating their work with openings often drawing more than 200 people. “I want clients who may not otherwise have the chance to meet artists to interact with one another.”
Her dedication to serving Oklahoma City’s homeless population may be her biggest passion. “It would be incredibly hypocritical if we were in this business and were not focused on everyone having a home,” says Bytyqi. “We can end homelessness. It’s within our power. It will take money, advocacy, policy change and volunteering, but it’s not too far out of reach. We can end homelessness in our generation.”