Transitioning from a successful corporate career, Karen Page spent 8 years as a real estate agent before opening her own independent property agency. Her journey is filled with valuable marketing lessons no matter where you are in your real estate career.
Meet Karen Page, a real estate principal whose journey is inspiring and relatable. Karen had already mastered the art of multitasking as a mother who worked full-time while raising four daughters (including twins!). But like many of us who exited the corporate rat race in our early 40s, Karen sought a new challenge and chose real estate.
With her keen interest in property, strong local network, self-drive, and love of helping others, Karen made the switch and became a real estate sales agent at a local real estate office operating under an international brand.
As most real estate agents can attest, industry success requires more than just hard work and cold calling. You need to master the art of marketing your property services. You need to be more visible than other competing agents, better known, and well-liked. Karen’s evolution from corporate employee to franchise agent and, finally, agency owner — perfectly illustrates the role marketing plays at every step in your career.
Let’s delve into Karen’s journey and discover what her journey can teach us about career growth and the power of marketing.
Starting out: from human resources to real estate
Karen’s first foray into real estate was as a sales agent within a franchise office in the northern suburbs of Sydney, where she lives. She worked for two experienced principals, gaining knowledge about the industry and learning how to sell homes.
Thanks to her years in human resources, Karen had a natural talent for prospecting and was quite comfortable following up on leads. Her positive personality helped her build rapport with local residents. Still, she found that her franchise or office provided very little agent marketing, so getting in front of local homeowners through door-knocking and cold calling was laborious.
Initially, her marketing activities were limited to a single headshot photo, a short written bio, and a profile page on the corporate real estate website. She invested in a profile video that included a testimonial from a satisfied client. While these tools ticked the necessary boxes for a real estate profile, they didn’t reflect Karen’s unique personality or connect her to the local community. They felt “corporate,” lacking the personal touch that differentiated her from her competition.
Overcoming marketing hurdles: where corporate falls short
At this point, Karen came to Hoole looking for help to build a stronger personal brand. She needed to stand out in her local market, not just blend in with other agents working under the same umbrella brand. This is where many franchise agents struggle: while corporate resources can be extensive, they often fail to reflect what makes an individual agent special and, in real estate, a one-size-fits-all approach won’t generate leads or property listings.
When we first worked with Karen, we focused on helping her establish a personal brand. We gave her a makeover with a more insightful written profile that shared her unique story – not just her qualifications but her life experience. Beyond the headshot and property listings, we wanted people to know who Karen was. We organised a photo shoot that included photos of Karen, put her in situ within her neighbourhood with her children, and showed her meeting and greeting prospective sellers and home buyers. Much to our amusement, a neighbour’s dog, watching from behind his white picket fence, also wanted to join in the photoshoot. It’s fun, impromptu shots like this that can really bring your marketing to life!
Showcasing Karen in different environments went a long way toward helping prospects see her as a warm, personable, and approachable real estate agent—someone homeowners could feel comfortable working with.
Next, we built Karen an agent website. This personalised site went far beyond her profile page on the corporate directory. Karen’s website was central to her agent marketing and gave her a digital shopfront through which she could promote her knowledge of the neighbourhood, her home-selling expertise, and her well-honed negotiation skills.
Karen’s agent website published a fresh blog each week, and contacts in her database were emailed a link to the website to read the article. Using a modest budget, ads on Facebook and Instagram further amplified the number of people who saw her marketing messages.
Sending people to a website helps with search engine optimisation (SEO) or, for a more simplistic explanation, Google search results. The beauty of an agent site is that only you are featured. Visitors can’t accidentally stumble across other agents from your office or network, so every marketing dollar you spend goes towards promoting you and you alone.
Growing your local real estate presence
In real estate, your personal brand is everything. Karen understood that if she was really going to make her mark, she needed to be more than just another agent from a prominent real estate agency – she needed to become a household name within her local community.
In addition to her online marketing initiatives, Karen sponsored a local school and contributed blogs to a neighbourhood publication. These weren’t just advertisements but informative pieces that positioned her as a go-to expert in the area, making sure her name became synonymous with real estate sales. She also invested in a billboard in the local shopping centre, making sure her name, image, and marketing message appeared in print in a location with a large amount of foot traffic. Her marketing efforts weren’t just about listing and selling houses – they were about becoming a well-known, well-liked and trusted figure within the community.
As Karen’s visibility grew, so did her reputation. People could more easily recall her name, and more importantly, they associated her as a well-established and reliable real estate agent. Her marketing wasn’t flashy; it was authentic and audience-focused. And it worked. Karen built strong relationships with home sellers, many of whom referred her to friends and family, helping her grow a solid base of loyal customers.
Going it alone: opening a real estate business
After eight years of building her reputation under one of Australia’s leading real estate brands, Karen faced a pivotal point in her career. While the franchise office had given her a great start in real estate sales, it had limitations. She was still beholden to contributing to corporate branding and office marketing costs, which left very little budget for agent marketing. Plus, her position as part of a wider team inhibited the growth of her personal brand. Karen knew she could do more – if only she had the freedom to control her marketing investments, she could take her business in a new direction and expand from home sales alone.
So, she took the plunge and opened her own real estate agency, developed an independent brand that leveraged her name, Page&Co, and the goodwill she’d built over the previous eight years within her home suburb in Sydney’s northern district.
Starting a real estate agency is no small feat. Karen registered a business name and invested in professional branding that went far beyond just designing a logo and had a custom website built. This was a significant financial commitment, but Karen saw it as a necessary step to take control of her career and future earnings. And with that investment, she gained something invaluable: freedom.
As an independent real estate agency owner, Karen had complete autonomy over her business. Rather than adhering to one-size-fits-all corporate marketing templates, she could tailor her marketing messages to reflect her unique strengths and personality and appeal to people who owned homes in her region of Sydney. She could decide how to engage with the community, where best to allocate marketing funds, and have complete autonomy to grow her client base without needing approval from a principal or real estate franchise head office.
Brand marketing: the key to long-term real estate success
With her newfound independence, Karen upped her marketing strategy, focusing on creating a distinct personal brand. Karen’s marketing messages highlight her deep local knowledge and her passion for her community, further strengthening her position as a go-to property expert within her postcode.
With the Hoole team’s support, Karen launched a tailored content marketing strategy that included weekly blogs, fortnightly video campaigns, and in-depth property market reports. Every piece of brand marketing content is emailed to her contact database and advertised on social media platforms. We also assist with social media property campaigns, ensuring that each property is seen by the maximum number of residents. This not only helps the seller but also reinforces the fact that the team at Page&Co can sell homes swiftly and for great price results.
Beyond home selling and property management tips, Karen shares valuable insights on the lifestyle afforded to those who choose to make Sydney’s northern districts home. On Karen’s behalf, we share home renovation, gardening, and home styling ideas that suit the types of homes in the region.
Covering upcoming community events and spotlighting individual suburbs, Karen’s content marketing reflects her genuine passion for the area. This well-rounded, personalised approach helps her audience feel that she genuinely understands their lives and the wider community, not just the property market.
At Hoole, we take the time to help Karen’s business promote other local businesses, from dog walkers to homeware stores, outdoor activity centres, and nearby entertainment venues. This helps strengthen her local network and shows respect and admiration for others servicing the same community.
By investing a percentage of her projected annual revenue back into marketing her business, Page&Co, each month, Karen takes a strategic, business-minded approach to growing her real estate brand. She has transformed from a real estate agent with take-home pay (earning a proportion of the commission earned per home sale) into a successful real estate agency owner who employs staff and gives back to the community in which she lives and works.
Marketing lessons for real estate professionals
Karen’s story offers several essential marketing lessons for anyone building a real estate career, whether you are a sales agent, property manager, commercial agent or buyer’s agent:
1. Invest in your brand early: Whether you’re part of a franchise or an independent agency, start building your personal brand early in your career. For Karen, investing in herself helped her establish herself as a reputable agent faster and put her on the path to financial freedom. Get into the habit of putting aside a percentage of your income for personal marketing as early in your career as possible. It pays dividends to break away from the employee mindset and flex your business-building muscle sooner rather than later.
2. Community equity is key: Karen’s success wasn’t just about selling homes; it came from establishing genuine relationships with local property owners and fellow business owners. Karen’s consistent presence within the local area, both online and in person, helped her establish rapport. This goes beyond superficial networking and asking for appraisals. It requires authentic engagement. Real estate is as much about people as it is about property, and fostering a genuine connection with your community will pay off in loyalty and referrals.
3. Adapt as you grow: As Karen’s career evolved, so did her marketing strategy. The marketing activities that helped her establish her reputation as a sales agent changed once she launched her own independent real estate agency. She recognised that different stages of growth required different approaches to branding, marketing, and lead generation. Being flexible and open to adapting your marketing strategy at each stage in your career is essential for staying relevant and competitive in real estate.
4. Grow your marketing budget = grow your business: While working for a franchise offers some stability and structure, it also has its limitations. To be in complete control of her brand image and grow her annual income, Karen realised that she needed to break away from the corporate franchise marketing mould. For real estate agents looking to maximise their potential and tailor their marketing to their unique vision, an independent brand offers you the freedom to craft personalised marketing messages that align with your long-term goals.
Real estate marketing support for every career stage
Karen Page’s story reminds us that every real estate career evolves in stages, and our role as a digital marketing agency is to support each individual real estate professional at each stage of their journey. Whether you are a fresh new agent who is seeking to establish a personal reputation within a more significant business or an experienced agent looking to break free from a franchise and create something uniquely your own, our strategies and solutions at Hoole are designed to evolve with you. From helping you to better define your unique points of difference through agent marketing to supporting you with the inception of your very own real estate brand, my team will meet you where you are currently and help you get to where you want to be.
Ready to get professional marketing help?
If you’re a real estate professional who wants to take your business to the next level with marketing tailored to your personal style and clientele, book a free 1-hour consultation with me, Melanie Hoole. I’ll give you on-the-spot recommendations specific to your needs and show you how digital marketing can help position you as a local real estate expert. I look forward to talking with you.