A former professional baseball player is using logic from America’s favorite game to hit home runs in the real estate business, and it’s being noticed at a national level.The Holden Agency, 28 Park Ave West, was recently named one of 32 finalists for the Most Innovative Real Estate Brokerage title, awarded each year by Inman News, a globally-recognized real estate media company.Jerry Holden, a former minor league pitcher and CEO/broker at The Holden Agency, says his agents are like a team.“As a baseball player, I’d be sitting on the bench in the bullpen, and that guy next to me is technically competing with me,” he said. “However, that guy also helps me stretch my arm; we play toss together; we work together; we try to get better because we have one common goal, to get to the World Series.”Baseball players like real estate agents are independent contractors. Their on-the-job performance ultimately determines their level of success, which means everyone, even their teammates are competitors.“With real estate, we have one common goal, to give better service to that customer,” Holden said. “If we take care of our customers, we all win.”Holden has three rules: Trust. Share. Collaborate.Agents participate in year-round training to keep them on track, but Holden says there’s plenty of business to go around.“If you take care of your customer, the customer with refer you more deals,” Holden said.He doesn’t know who nominated The Holden Agency, but said its innovative business strategy has previously been featured in Inman News.“I didn’t believe it at first,” Holden said. “I said, ‘Is this true? Is this legit? Because I don’t believe it. Is this spam?’”He forwarded the award email to another Inman representative to check. It was true.“Our team 100 percent is the winner of this nomination,” Holden said. “It’s not Jerry Holden, it’s the whole agency team, bottom line, because one person can’t do this. This is a collaboration of an entire fleet of team members.”Other nominees for “Most Innovative Brokerage” include Sotheby’s International Realty and Better Homes and Gardens Tech Valley.“We are honored to celebrate so much creativity and invention,” said Brad Inman, Inman publisher, according to the company’s website. “Never in the history of the Innovator Awards has there ever been so much innovation and, therefore, never has our list of finalists been so large – these are exciting times.”The winners will be announced at Inman’s annual conference, Aug. 7 to 11, in San Francisco. Holden will speak at the conference, and several other agents will also attend.To learn more about The Holden Agency, visit its website.