I first met John when he started J. Williams, a real estate software company in the 1990s. John had one of the first CMAs in the business. He branded his tools as the System for Success Suite. Part of that suite included Sellmore CMA, Showpro, and EasyFlyer.
At the time, my company, IRIS, partnered with John on an integration with our Lightning-Easy MLS Access, that added MLS photos into Sellmore CMA. It was the first CMA in the industry with MLS photos. John and I traveled the country doing joint presentations. He was a huge mentor and taught me everything I know about selling in front of a live audience.
Eventually, IRIS acquired the assets of J. Williams, and we rebranded the System for Success Suite as Lightning CMA Plus. But John was just getting started.
He went on to found Advanced Access. Seeing the internet as an opportunity, Advanced Access became one of the first vendors to provide real estate agent websites. It’s hard to describe now just how impactful and pioneering Advanced Access was in getting agents “on the web.”
As fate would have it, Advanced Access was acquired by Dominion Enterprises—coincidentally, the same company that acquired eNeighborhoods, where I was working at the time. So what did John do next? Did he start another real estate software company?
Nope. He opened a race track.
In my book, The Art of the CMA, on page 125 I describe John as “The Evel Knievel of Real Estate”:
“One of my mentors is a very interesting guy named John Morris. He’s been a real estate agent, developer, restaurant owner, started and sold two successful real estate software companies (one of which I bought from him), and flown hang gliders, helicopters, and airplanes.”
You may have already seen John and not realized it—he had a bit of internet fame, too. After buying a water jet company, he appeared on a news broadcast where, during the demo, his jetpack accidentally hit the reporter and triggered the safety switch and sent John crashing in to the water.
A couple of years ago, John reached out to me. Apparently, a friend of his, still in real estate, had picked up a copy of my book and told John he was mentioned in it. John loved it and called me. We spent 30 minutes on the phone laughing and telling old stories. I promised to visit him at his race track.
Earlier this year, we got in contact again. He told me he had cancer but was fighting it. I visited him this past February, and he showed me around the property, excitedly telling me all his plans for the future. Same old John—larger than life, with that impish twinkle in his eye.
There are many people still in the industry who were impacted by John. And without a doubt, there would be no Cloud CMA without Sellmore CMA.
I just wanted to make sure his family knows how much of an impact he had on me—and on this entire industry. RIP John.
Beautiful sentiments, beautifully written.
Well said, Greg! I worked with John selling those products a million years ago, and we stayed connected when he created Advanced Access. He was a larger than life kind of guy – even to the vehicle he drove around the country when he came East with the System for Success Suite – it was like magic watching the CMA populate with information from the MLS – and a pleasure hanging out with John (and frankly the whole team there) – I didn’t know your connection with him, but it doesn’t surprise me –
Sad news. Great tribute Greg. John was a legend. My career wouldn’t be the same without the lessons John taught us in those early days traveling around to broker demos in his RV. John was always prepared. An order form and pen at every seat, thermal bound CMA’s printed with the brokerage logo to pass around the room, local MLS search tested and perfected in advance of each demo. The man held a doctorate in closing, nobody walked out of that room without a box of software. “Everyone pick up your pen, write down your credit card number, press firmly, you keep the bottom copy and hand the top copy to me.” Best of all, he truly understood what it meant to be an agent, and always made products to help agent’s succeed. If there is a coaching tree for our industry like there is in professional sports, I am proud to be a branch of John Morris. Hopefully I can pass along the preparedness and knowledge I learned from John to others. All my best to his family. He lived his life to the fullest and will certainly be missed.