Carey Receives UCF’s 2017 Young Alumni Award
Carey received UCF’s 2017 Young Alumni Award, and was honored at the Shining Knights Award Ceremony which took place the Friday of UCF’s Homecoming Weekend.
The UCF Alumni website featured an Alumni Spotlight titled ‘Noble Sobel‘, which talks on Carey’s story and accomplishments.
Here are a few excerpts from the feature:
ORLANDO, Fla. (Oct. 17, 2017) – UCF College of Business alumnus Carey Sobel ’09 has made it a priority to conduct himself and his businesses with integrity. It’s what he hopes he will always be remembered for.
Now a partner at both Three21 and Boss Group International, he has been growing his reputation as an entrepreneur in the Orlando community since he arrived on UCF’s campus in 2004. It’s his success in the business industry, along with his commitment to excellence, service and philanthropy, that garnered him the honor as UCF Alumni’s first recipient of the Young Alumni Award, which he received at a ceremony Oct. 13 at the UCF FAIRWINDS Alumni Center.
If you take a look at his life away from the office and the community, the bigger picture comes into focus – there’s more to his story….
….CONTINUE READING THE FULL STORY HERE.
“Carey truly holds himself to a certain standard that he wants to meet each year – setting personal goals and devising a game plan to achieve them,” Lauren said. “If Carey assumes a role in life, be it business broker, marketing director, chief strategy officer, husband, son, and now father, he ensures that his whole heart goes into fulfilling that role. I truly believe it’s that quality that separates the dreamers from the doers, and Carey is a doer.”
Boss Group International Launches New Website
Very overdue, but better late than never…. Boss Group International has launched their new website.
The old website was not responsive, comprised of outdated design, and the overall user experience was dismal. It is stated that websites should get a ‘face-lift’ at least every 3 years, and so the process began. Boss Group updated the logo, and is the process of updating all of the corresponding on and offline collateral as well. The new logo design served as the inspiration for the User Interface of the new site.
The new website has an outstanding responsive design, which currently accounts for the largest percentage of all traffic on BossGI.com. For Mobile, the User Experienced is enhanced immensely, removing items that would typically not be useful for mobile users, versus desktop users.
Other features include individual pages for in-office (featured) listings, responsive IDX capabilities for BBF MLS listings, digital signing and electronic completion of forms (such as NDA and Personal Financial Statements). Boss Group intends on launching several other features that seek to ease the Buyer’s Search Process, as well as the contract-to-close process. There will be several instances that the Boss Group internal CRM incorporates aspects of the website to integrate with the front-end users that use Boss Group services.
As the industry still remains a bit archaic with technologies and marketing/advertising, Boss Group promises to continue to work to stay ahead of the curve. With a new team-dynamic, Boss Group will also leverage technology to provide unsurpassed and incomparable customer service to those that work with us.
Orlando Business Journal Feature | December 11th, 2015
Taken from the Orlando Business Journal on December 11th, 2015.
How I … Found entrepreneurial success via my social network — without a computer
In-person social networking is essential to business success for Carey Sobel.
The 28-year-old Philadelphia native and entrepreneur owns the Orlando-based marketing agency Three21 Creative and is a partner at business brokerage firm Boss Group International.
Carey Sobel (center) brokered the sale of the former Friendly Confines location in Waterford Lakes fellow UCF alumni Jamie Feldman (left) and Eric Isolica of Orlando Hospitality Partnership.
Both companies benefit from Sobel’s expansive connections, many of which he made during his time as a business management major at UCF.
When Sobel was not studying for exams, he was disc jockeying at several UCF-area nightlife venues. He then evolved from deejaying on the weekend to creating KnightLyfe LLC, a company that photographed students in bars around campus and posted them online. He then sold that and started social networking firm UniversityLyfe LLC, which was accepted into the UCF Business Incubation Program. After two years, UniversityLyfe folded, but not before Sobel had made hundreds of long-lasting professional relationships, which ultimately led Three21 Creative to increase its annual revenue by more than 1,350 percent since he partnered with founder Joe Boutin in late 2013.
In addition, he’s a partner at business brokerage firm Boss Group International, where he represented the seller of Friendly Confines at Waterford Lakes and the buyer of Orlando Hospitality Partnership, crediting his UCF connections with helping him close such deals.
Here, he shares how he and his professional ventures have benefited from networking:
How did you end up in Orlando? My family relocated to South Florida in 2004, where I finished my senior year of high school and then moved to Orlando to attend UCF. I graduated in 2009 with a degree in business management with a concentration on entrepreneurship.
How did you get into the marketing and business brokerage industry? I have been in marketing my whole life. I have a mix of experience with business ownership and operations in marketing, advertising, hospitality, food and beverage, and entertainment. I’ve owned my own entertainment business since I was 15.
When did you form most of your business relationships? I started deejaying in 2005 at UCF at all of the local bars. I met just about everyone who had a social life from 2005-2010, primarily through my deejaying and the business I ran through my tenure at UCF, KnightLyfe. I participated in many on-campus activities, like the Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation and the UCF Joust New Venture Competition.
How did KnightLyfe evolve to UniversityLyfe? For KnightLyfe, we had a website that posted photography of people in nightlife venues and drew 18,000-24,000 unique visitors per month around the UCF area, generating 20 million-plus page views. We then raised $500,000 in venture capital for UniversityLyfe, and grew the business in the UCF incubator for over two years before folding the company due to a lack of completed software.
Did the marketing agency present any unique opportunities? My marketing firm wrote a business plan for a restaurant I became a managing partner of, Terrace 390, in downtown Orlando. After selling that business, I joined Three21 and Boss Group.
What benefits do you reap from your current business relationships? On the marketing side, I love the diversity in creative and strategic thinking from all of our clients. On the brokerage side, I get to hear so many stories of how each business came to be, the driving forces of success and, again, ways to be innovative.
How have your business ventures benefited from your business relationships? In my first year of Three21 Creative, as a team, we went from $110,000 in annual revenue to $1.6 million, and 2015 is projected at $2.5 million in revenue. In my first year of business brokerage at Boss Group, I achieved $1 million in sales volume. Without UCF networking advantages, I would be with a much smaller network of friends and professionals.
To what do you credit your success? My hands-on experience and commitment to always network
What is your advice for other entrepreneurs? Do not let failures bring you down. Always take someone up on an invite to connect, meet or talk, as you never know what will come of one conversation or connection.
Three21 Creative
Description: Digital marketing agency
Owner: Carey Sobel
Contact: (407) 734-5215; Three21Creative.com
Twitter: @CareySobel
Boss Group International
Description: Business brokerage firm
Partner: Carey Sobel
Contact: (407) 329-3273; BossGI.com
A Truly Memorable Sale.
….and the best part was getting my autographed Brian Dawkins jersey.
As a student at the University of Central Florida, I often frequented Friendly Confines– a neighborhood sports bar in the Waterford Lakes Plaza / Outdoor Shopping Mall. Their specials were outstanding, including the original ‘Nickel Beer Night’. Friendly Confines was practically a monument for UCF Alumni, as was one of the original bars that didn’t fall into the category of typical ‘UCF College Bars’ with sticky floors, vomit in the trashcans, and the smell of rotten wood soaked in beer. This was a class-act establishment that had a great reputation, and solid food.
In September of 2015, my partner Tony Blair and myself sold the business to a new group. We represented both sides of the transaction, and worked with the Washington Prime Group, a subsidiary of Simon Property Group, in one of the most challenging deals that I have worked on yet. The deal was signed in April and closed 5 months later after numerous obstacles and curve balls, however the deal fared well for both sides. Carmen Jordan, president of C. Jordan Enterprises (which owns all 4, now 3, locations of Friendly Confines) will continue his plan to expand the franchise into a large blueprint with new stores coming soon. Jamie Feldman and Eric Isolica, partners in the Orlando Hospitality Partnership, the Buyers in this deal- will be bringing an upscale sports bar and social environment to the old Confines Space. They are bringing a new concept called “The Social House”, and I’m excited to see what it evolves into.
It was an honor to represent both groups, in truly what was my most memorable sale in business brokerage to date. I will keep this blog updated on developments on both sides.
As a side note, Carmen owns a sports memorabilia business, and as an expression of gratitude, he offered Tony and I a signed autograph jersey from our favorite athletes. I obviously chose Brian Dawkins.
