Adrienne Albert obtained a master’s degree in architecture from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, then started a catering business at a tennis academy.

What was the connection?

“Well, for one it was difficult to get decent architecture jobs in those days, “Ms. Albert said. “But then a catering hall burned down, and I was asked to design and rebuild it. Then shortly after that, I got involved with running a tennis academy. It needed catering. So I started cooking in my third-floor walk-up in Boston and brought the food to the tennis place – you know, finger food, sandwiches, and small cheesecakes.”

After three years of this, she got a job at a real estate advertising agency in Toronto. Within two years, it became the largest such agency in the Canadian city.

“I combined marketing and advertising in real estate,” she said, explaining her strategy in Toronto.

She had every incentive to continue in the real estate industry – but not in Canada.

She was pregnant, and she wanted her son to be born in America.

“I’m very patriotic, “Ms.Albert said.”I wanted my son to be raised in America.”

Her son, Matthew Brecher, now works in the real estate business.

Even as he was growing up in New York, his mother yearned to use the architectural skills she’d learned at MIT.

So she started building models of buildings.

Those models, along with full-size replicas of condominium homes, have enabled the president of the Marketing Directors Inc. to sell more than $15 billion in properties in America and Canada.

“You see, most developers love finance,” Ms. Albert said. “Very few of them love marketing. I’ve been promoting the idea that if you market your property better, you will get more customers – and higher prices.”

So in her scheme, a well-appointed sales office is a must.The office must be on-site. It must have a welcoming atmosphere. That means fresh flowers, soothing decor, comfort food, and smiling salespeople – always smiling salespeople.

“Those smiles need to be sincere,” Ms.Albert said,adding that she emphasizes sincerity in her training course for real estate salespeople all across America.

Those salespeople not only lead potential customers to the building models Ms. Albert has created, they also point to miniature versions of condominium apartments.

“You can peek into the apartments, which are fully furnished – all models, of course,” Ms. Albert said. “But customers can imagine themselves living in those exquisite units. They can imagine the space.”

To tap even more into customers’ imaginations, Ms. Albert also maintains a staff of brokers in the sales offices. The idea, simply put, is to try and arrive at a deal on-site.

That technique has been successfully used at more than 50 residential projects.

So why not sell commercial space in a similar fashion?

“I’ve always wondered about that,” Ms.Albert said.”But you can’t dance at every wedding.”

She paused to look around the restaurant, where several well-known commercial developers were dining.

“I assume that commercial developers could benefit from the kind of marketing I provide,” Ms. Albert said. “We’ve been raising the bar for developers. And I think we’ve become the standard over the years as to what real estate sales should be.”

The sales she and other marketers generate are increasing every year.The president of the real estate valuation company Miller Samuel, Jonathan Miller, said yesterday that the average sales price in Manhattan rose to a record in 2005, or $1,317,528, up $307,530 (30.4%) from last year’s $1,009,998.

Mr. Miller said that this year, sales of residential property in Manhattan alone would exceed $12 billion, a figure that fuels Ms. Albert’s enthusiasm for condominium sales.

Indeed, Ms. Albert’s enthusiasm is such that even her 70-year-old mother, Rosalind, a painter and sculptor, started taking real estate courses, and often turned up at her daughter’s sales sites.

“I got my energy and fun-loving nature from my mother,” the Brooklynborn Ms. Albert said. “And my father, Murray,who was a doctor, gave me my intellectual mooring.He was very learned, very intellectual, and very grounded. He would always say me, his only daughter, ‘Never be the second best.'”

Did that mean her father hoped she would follow him into medicine?

“I was never directed toward a specific career – but I was always urged to have a career,” Ms. Albert said. “I was always expected to chart my own course.”

The course took her to Simmons College, a small women’s institution in Boston, where Ms. Albert majored in art history and philosophy. She also took design courses and, for one academic project, designed a building complex.

Somewhere along the way, she developed a fascination for architecture. That is why she sought, and obtained, admission to a four-year master’s degree program at MIT.

“Yes, that program was certainly tough,” Ms. Albert said. “But I learned to be intellectually disciplined, and to be analytical.”

She also learned that she was inclined more toward design than conventional brick-and-mortar architecture. In fact,during the time she ran the tennis academy on Route 128 near Boston, Ms. Albert designed indoor courts.

In her mind, selling real estate involves design, too.

“What sort of facility should be built? How to make the residential environment most appealing for the buyer?” Ms. Albert said. “These are the kinds of questions I raise with developers well before their projects start. We help develop understanding of how to gain competitive advantage.”

And what does that involve?

“That involves designing a sales campaign that enables developers make sales more effectively,” Ms. Albert said.”And I’m always mindful that the end-user, the customer, is looking for a better life in a new apartment.”