Carol McMorris has a simple strategy when it comes to managing her successful career and nine children. “You have to learn to let the little things go,” she says. Carol is the top real estate agent in both Wilton and Ridgefield for the Higgins Group.

Carol and her husband Bill, an attorney in Wilton, met while she was studying for her MBA in finance at New York University. With the arrival of her first baby, she withdrew from the university, took a real estate course and sold houses on Long Island before moving to Wilton in 1989. “I stayed home with the children at first,” Carol says, but it wasn’t long before she was back at work, helped at home by part-time baby-sitters. “We never had a live-in nanny,” she says, adding that she couldn’t manage without the help of her husband.

Though she may let the little things slide, Carol is a stickler when it comes to getting the best deals for her clients. Ten years ago she hired a full-time handyman to work on her new house listings. “If your houses don’t look good they won’t move,” she says. This week she has two new houses going on the market. Both are getting new tiles in the bathrooms before anyone sees them. Her philosophy is simple but effective. “I do right by my customers and I don’t think of the commission,” she says. “I provide hands-on customer service.”

The bulk of Carol’s business is in Wilton, though she recently opened an office in Ridgefield. She currently has about 25 listings and, being an optimist, is confident that they will sell soon. “It was a slow first quarter,” she says. “I always try to find the upside. If a house isn’t selling I find out why and make it move.”