8 | About Sales
To put that story in proper perspective
requires some insight into Shirley Gary, the
founder of About Sales who was born and
raised in Atlanta. As the child of a dedicat-
ed, single, working mother, Gary likens her
youth to that of a latch-key kid. She explains
that with her mother’s busy schedule as an
executive secretary, after-school activities of-
tenmeant returning home to an empty apart-
ment and being left to her own devices for
entertainment or enrichment or whatever it
is that kids do to kill time after school. On
many afternoons, Gary would venture to the
offices of the leasing center that managed the
apartment complex where she found a friend
and mentor in the property manager. From
a very early age, she became fascinated with
the customer interactions, lease negotiations
and operational aspects of that office center,
but she also saw how those processes benefit-
ted families living within the complex and
required services from teams of profession-
als with clerical, residential development,
management and construction skills. Gary
was thoroughly enamored. There was sim-
ply something about the creation of proper-
ties and how this benefitted people that so
resonated in her impressionable young mind
Mabry Manor com-
munity by Edward
Andrews Homes.
