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Friendship, culture, and 1,800 loyal agents — Kathy Viard and Peter Morris share what it really takes to build an independent brokerage that lasts. 

There’s a moment in every real estate leader’s journey when the business stops being about transactions and starts being about something much bigger. For Kathy Viard and Peter Morris of Signature Premier Properties on Long Island, New York, that moment may have arrived quietly — but what they’ve built since is anything but quiet. 

From a small house in Huntington Village in 2007, launched at the height of the housing crisis, Signature Premier has grown to over 1,800 agents across 23 offices. No franchise. No outside investor. Just two people, a deep friendship, and a commitment to doing things the right way. 

I recently sat down with Kathy and Peter on Real Estate Unscripted, and what came out was one of the richest masterclasses in real estate leadership I’ve had in a long time. If you lead a team or run a brokerage — take notes. 

Friendship First. Always. 

Most business partnerships fail. Two driven people, a shared vision, and then — slowly or suddenly — it unravels. Ego. Money. Competing priorities. So, how have Kathy and Peter thrived as partners for nearly two decades? 

“Friendship first,” Peter said, without hesitation. “From day one, we’ve said friendship first.” 

But friendship alone isn’t enough. What holds their partnership together is equal parts respect. Kathy manages the day-to-day. Peter drives vision and growth. They know their lanes and trust each other in them. 

“If I made all the decisions,” Peter admitted with a laugh, “we’d probably be a bigger company — but we’d be broke.” Kathy reins him in. He pushes her forward. That yin and yang isn’t a weakness. It’s the engine. 

The lesson? Find your counterbalance. The best partnerships aren’t between two people who think alike — they’re between two people who want the same things but approach them differently and are honest enough to know who should be driving on any given road. 

Culture Isn’t a Tagline. It’s a Decision You Make Every Day. 

Ask Kathy and Peter about retention, recruiting, or surviving the NAR settlement — and every answer circles back to the same word: culture. What separates Signature from brokerages that merely say culture matters is that they act on it consistently, even when it’s inconvenient. 

Every Wednesday night, they take a group of agents out. Two hours, cocktails, appetizers, real conversation. They call it date night — and they do it every week across 23 offices worth of relationships. 

They run charity events — autism walks, veterans’ fundraisers, breast cancer awareness. They rent out Adventureland for agent families. They built a pickleball court. “Happy people sell more houses,” Kathy said. But more than that — happy people stay. They refer. They recruit. They tell colleagues at other companies what it feels like to work somewhere that genuinely cares. 

When the NAR settlement hit and Signature took a financial blow, the agents didn’t wait to be asked for help. They came forward and suggested canceling the holiday party and giving up the annual Montauk trip. They circled the wagons — because that’s what family does. 

“There are simply no words,” Kathy said, “for how wonderful our agents were to us at our lowest, when we were scared.” That kind of loyalty isn’t bought. It’s built.  

Related reading: The Power of Language in Shaping Company Culture  

Transparency Builds Trust at Scale 

One of the most underrated things Kathy and Peter do is communicate with radical honesty. Peter writes a “State of the Union” when challenges arise. Their regular emails don’t sugarcoat reality. “The good, the bad, the ugly,” Kathy explained. “This is how we screwed up. This is what we’re doing next.” 

Leaders often think shielding their team from bad news is protective. It isn’t — it’s distancing. When you tell your agents the truth, you’re not showing weakness. You’re showing respect. And respect, more than any split or signing bonus, is what keeps people loyal. 

When There’s No Plan, There’s Still a North Star 

Here’s something that might surprise you: Kathy and Peter have never had a formal business plan. 

When someone asked early on what their plan was, Kathy went back to Peter and asked, “Are we supposed to have one?” Their 23 offices weren’t the result of a strategic expansion roadmap. They were the result of relationships forming and opportunities appearing. “The offices found us,” Kathy said. 

A business plan is only as good as the values underneath it. Kathy and Peter didn’t need a plan because they had something more powerful — a clear, unwavering commitment to who they are. When their expansion into Florida didn’t fit, pulling them away from their agents and their market, they made the painful decision to walk away. 

“I’d rather try and fail than never have tried at all,” Peter said. “And we learned so much.” That’s leadership maturity. Not the absence of mistakes — but the wisdom to mine them for everything they’re worth. 

Related reading:  9 Steps to Recruiting and Keeping High-Caliber Agents 

What You Can Take Into Your Business Tomorrow 

You don’t need 1,800 agents to apply what Kathy and Peter have learned. These principles scale in any direction: 

• Put the relationship before the revenue. People do their best work when they feel seen and cared for. 

• Know your counterpart. Visionary or operator — find the one who balances you and give each other permission to push back. 

• Be ruthlessly transparent. Your team can handle the truth. They’ll trust you more for it. 

• Build culture through action, not slogans. Culture lives in the small, consistent moments — not the big speeches. 

• Let your north star guide your decisions. When you’re clear about who you are, the right moves become obvious — even without a plan. 

Kathy said it best: “Sell with your heart, not your wallet, and you’ll have success.” 

That’s not just advice for agents. That’s advice for every leader in this industry who’s trying to build something that actually matters. 

Related reading: Culture Wise  – The Role of Company Culture in Sustaining a Family Business 

For Your Agents… 

It’s easy to get focused on targets and timelines. Today I want to step back and recognize the people driving them. What we’ve built here didn’t come from a business plan. It came from relationships. From trust built over small, consistent moments where someone chose to show up — not because they had to, but because they wanted to.  

What sets a strong team apart isn’t just performance — it’s consistency. It’s showing up when things are uncertain, adapting when the rules change, and continuing to do right by the people you serve even when it’s hard. That’s what this team does. 

Culture isn’t built in a single moment. It’s built in the small decisions — how we treat each other, how we communicate, and how we respond to challenges. You’ve demonstrated that repeatedly, and it’s the foundation everything else is built on.

Darryl Davis is an award-winning international speaker, real estate and business coach, and best-selling author of three books, all published by McGraw Hill Publishers.        

For more than 35 years, Darryl has spoken to and trained more than 600,000 sales professionals around the globe to more than double their production year after year. His book,  How to Become a Power Agent in Real Estate, tops Amazon’s charts for one of the most sold books to real estate agents.        

He was awarded the Certified Speaking Professional (CSP) designation by the National Speaker’s Association, which is given to less than 2% of all speakers worldwide.        

Whether from a stage or Zooming into a virtual room, Darryl’s extraordinary humor, relatability, and natural gift for teaching real-world, results-producing skills and mindsets to audiences have made him a client favorite throughout his career.        

Audiences will laugh, learn, and ultimately walk away better prepared for a changing world, with the tools, skills, and training they need to build their businesses with more ease and less stress and to design lives and careers worth smiling about. 

Bring One of Darryl’s W.O.R.K. Topics to Your Organization!       

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