International Women's Day | 2022

COLLABORATION OVER COMPETITION

By Wendy King

Making the moves that lead to professional growth is risky. It’s like walking a tightrope. Anita Sharma Turner, 46, a brokerage co- owner and the No. 1 RE/MAX Realtor in Manitoba (anitasharmaturner.com), knows firsthand how critical it is for women to also have the right structure, professionally and personally, to take that risk. So instead of stringing up a tightrope, she wove a web of support. “When I started, I worked alongside a wonderful top producing Realtor who offered me guidance and mentorship,” she says. “And I was a new mom, but I had the support of my family including my parents and my husband’s parents. I couldn’t have done it without them.” For Sharma Turner, being a Realtor is more than making sales. It’s about connecting to the people the business brings to her. She carries on the tradition of mentorship and training at her brokerage. “I love to try to help people to be the best they can be,” she says. That desire to inspire others led to The Essential Platform, (theessentialplatform.com) the hub that carries the threads of a new and bigger web. Sharma Turner had met Jillian Harris (founder and creative director of Jillian Harris Design) and Manjit Minhas (Canadian entrepreneur, Dragons’ Den personality), and those conversations inspired her. She and her dear friend, Gabriela Klimes, came up with an idea. “We asked: How amazing would it be to have an event where we invite the women we look up to and bring them to Winnipeg to inspire others?” she says. In January 2020, the two women successfully mounted a sold-out event. The Essential Conference bills itself as “the only work and lifestyle conference that provides a distinctly female experience for ambitious women from the prairies who want to re-imagine what their life’s work can be.” The website also offers a blog and links to social media and future conference plans. “There’s just nothing like an in-person event where you can really feel the energy and connect to network with like-minded women. It was amazing.” Sharma Turner says women have reached out to her to say the event was the impetus they needed to move upward. And she herself is working with an attendee who has since grown her Airbnb portfolio three times over. Webs are built by joining the threads together. “I’m a big believer in collaboration over competition, and I encourage this in my office as well,” says Sharma Turner. “With The Essential Platform, that’s what we saw: a room full of women finding similarities and connecting.” ◗

Submitted photo

"I’m a big believer in collaboration over competition, and I encourage this in my office as well.”

- Anita Sharma Turner, brokerage co-owner and the No. 1 RE/MAX Realtor in Manitoba

CELEBRATING INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY 5

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