Mike Vukovcan Getting someone to do advertising with you isn’t about just putting their advertisement on your website. I believe it’s your responsibility to get to know the owner of that business both personally and professionally.
Advertising on Vikings Sports Now is about creating a relationship/friendship that lasts longer than the terms of your advertising deal. That’s something that I pride myself on doing and believe it’s critical both in the short and long-term.
Last week, I had the pleasure of sitting down and having an in-depth conversation with Shanna Funwela from Shanna Funwela/Brock Hanna Team (Coldwell Banker Reality). At the end of our two-hour lunch conversation, I was able to find out about Funwela the person, the agent and ultimately what makes her one of the best real estate agents in Western Pennsylvania.
When I say that, it’s not BS, it’s the truth. At a recent Coldwell Bankers Award Gala in Pittsburgh, the Shanna Funwela/Brock Hanna Team (Coldwell Banker Reality) landed in the Top 25 (again) for Western Pennsylvania Multi-List where you’re compared against every Brokered/Licensed Real Estate agent in Western Pennsylvania.
Out of the thousands and thousands of licensed agents in Western Pennsylvania, Shanna and her team were in the Top 20.
That success is continuing into 2026 as after the 1Q of sales, the Funwela/Hanna Team is ranked #7 in the West Penn Multi List.
Other Recent Funwela/Hanna Team Accomplishments:
-No. 4 within entire company volume
-No. 3 in listings taken (company)
-Most improved for listing units from 2024 to 2025
– No. 4 in GCI (volume income)
The numbers and the results don’t lie and clearly show that the Shanna Funwela/Brock Hanna Team are one of the top real estate teams in Western Pennsylvania and we’re very proud that they’re a member of Vikings Sports Now.
So, how did all of this begin for Funwela, who is entering her 12th year in the real estate business?
Shanna tells me that she started out wanting and intending to get into the medical field as a nurse. During that process in which she took a year off of school, Funwela’s cousin, who was a real estate agent, thought it would be a good profession for her.
At first, Shanna was hesitant because of her upfront nature and pure honesty. However, despite her personal reservations, her cousin continued to recruit and pursue her to give it a try.
“I ended up doing it, figuring I had nothing to lose,” said Funwela. “My first year, I did extremely well and then had to make the decision when it came time for nursing school to start back up, whether I was going to give up a year of business that I built super quick doing it the unconventional way, and did incredible.”
“It was a hard decision. Do I take that gamble where you don’t know what the next year will bring you or do, I just jump back into nursing school and finish the extra year? My husband thought that this was something I would be better at and had more control over and the sky would be the limit for me, so I stuck with it and here I am.”
Which is a good thing for a lot of people!
Despite being new at it, Funwela had a ton of success in her first year, which is no small accomplishment, considering the competition that’s out there. I asked her about that and what her key was?
“I’ll talk to anyone. Anyone that knows me knows that Shanna doesn’t shut up and I have the gift to gab,” said Funwela. “Ultimately, I think that everything I do is genuine. There’s not a piece of me that isn’t real or that puts on a front in every aspect of my life.”
“And I think in this business, there’s a lot of sales, a lot of fake and people fronting in order to fit a certain mold of you what you think you need to be in order to be successful. So just my general personality and transparency and being able to connect with people, ultimately is the number one reason I was able to build a cliental as quickly as I did.”
The real estate business is a very competitive world, with a lot of talented people out there. One thing that I learned quickly about Funwela from our luncheon was that she’s a very competitive and driven person to be successful. The competitiveness of the real estate market combined with her personality was a perfect mix.
“I’m my biggest critic. Honestly, I don’t need to compete against others because I compete against myself every year. By having that internal drive, the result there is that you become the best. I won’t accept anything less than being the best at what I do.”
While talking and having Sushi for lunch, the thing I enjoyed most about our conversation, probably because we’re very similar in this regard, was Funwela’s straight forward nature.
“Transparency, I’m very forward and very thorough, I explain the process, whether you’re new or have done it 70 times,” said Funwela. “I explain the process to you beginning to end and what the expectations are. I’m a very paper person. You will have documentation for every step of the process.”
“I think that’s huge, educating people, holding their hand and really giving the true expectations up front. I’m not everyone’s cup of tea and I say that. If you need someone that’s going to coddle you, tell you what you want to hear or tip toe around your feelings, I’m not your girl and I’m Ok with that. I’d rather lose business or have business decide that it’s a better fit with someone else than to make the job more challenging for me to try and convince someone to trust me.
As we finished our talk, I had to ask Shanna about something that I’m a huge fan of because of the creativity and the reason I initially found out about here.
When listing their properties, most agents will just show pictures of the house or list the pertinent information.
However, the Shanna Funwela/Brock Hanna Team (Coldwell Banker Reality) are like most advertising teams.
Take a lot at these videos!
“It’s not my character to do that. I am funny, silly at times. Although my mom would say you’re prettier when you smile, I tend to be very serious and have my business hat on a lot. It’s very out of my comfort zone. People might think I’m fun and silly, I might be but not when it comes to work.”
“When I decided to partner up with Brock, he’s a lot more fun than I am. He’s the good cop, I’m the bad cop, that’s the game we play. Actually, it’s not a game, it’s the way we really are. I’m very meticulous about things and matter of fact and he’s easy going, approachable and super fun. He’s the one that started the videos.”
“It’s not my cup of tea, I don’t like them, still don’t like them, I think they’re horrible, I think they’re corny, I don’t think I’d necessarily hire an agent because they make a video like that. But I will tell you, we got super busy and didn’t necessarily have the time to put together a video and kind of scaled back and after that, we had people reaching out to us, asking where the videos were and why we stopped making them, why they haven’t seen something new. We had a client call us and said that they were hiring us, and we didn’t even know them, because they saw the videos.”
”It is something that definitely gets attention, some people think it’s fun, some people think it’s corny. We all know that the video isn’t necessarily going to sell your house, it’s about the attention it’s going to get. It’s about giving us agents attention and people will navigate to our website, which is really the key. From there people will start scrolling and look at other houses and other things.”
