A job as a REALTOR® and an event planner are really not as different as you’d think they are.
Although I obtained my real estate license in the middle of 2021, I didn’t really start working until January of 2022 for various reasons. Now that I have six months under my belt, I thought I’d reflect on why I think my new job as a REALTOR® isn’t all that different from my past role running an event staffing and experiential marketing agency.
For those of you who know me already, you also know that I ran my own multi award-winning brand experience agency for 18 years. It was my first job out of university and it became my career for close to two decades. For the first ten years, I wore many hats. I actively worked on planning our events while managing sales, accounting and more. As my team grew, I was able to delegate most of the events, but I generally remained involved in some of the larger projects.
With all of this said, you may be wondering why I walked away from a business I’d worked so hard to build. So, let’s start there.
First off, although I spent a significant amount of time growing my agency, it wasn’t necessarily what I set out to do after university. I studied journalism and hoped to get into broadcast, but since I had been working in promotions and events part-time throughout, it became my back up plan when my aspiring career as a news broadcaster didn’t pan out.
About five years in, I considered getting a job as a REALTOR® as well. My number one goal when I began working full-time was to buy my own house. I moved around alot, about a dozen times in twenty years. I just wanted a sense of stability and a place to call my own. I made that dream come true just three years after I started with the agency I later came to own. This is me at my housewarming back in 2007!
I recognized early on that real estate was a tremendous vehicle to financial freedom and creating long term generational wealth. I thought that getting a job as a REALTOR® , even though I already had a very busy full-time career as an event planner, would help with my investment goals.
After speaking to a couple of brokerages however, I got cold feet. Some of them scared me away with the thought of paying high fees that I may not make back if I wasn’t actively working all the time. My business was pretty consuming so I put the idea on the back burner for a little while.
In the meantime, I invested in my first rental property – a vacation rental in Fort Myers Florida. I sold it about four years later and doubled my money.
I didn’t know what to do next…
Shortly after, I became aware of a real estate education company that is run by a well known HGTV personality and his business partner. My agency had been staffing events for them in Texas and Florida. I didn’t know much about what they did but started seeing ads for one of their events here in Toronto. I decided to go.
One thing lead to another and before I knew it, I had purchased a membership from them. I went to their Investor’s Summit, and not only did I learn alot, I also DID alot. I jumped in head first with a range of investment opportunities and was able to generate enough passive income, I could comfortably reduce, and then eliminate my earnings from my business.
Although I wouldn’t have been so concerned with this at any other time, I was pregnant with my first child and wanted to reduce any financial dependency I had on my business so I could preserve our retained earnings when I had to take a step back to go on maternity leave.
At the time, there was no way that anyone could have known that a pandemic was looming. I welcomed my first child into the world just three months before we went into our first lock down. My business came to a complete standstill. We had hundreds of thousands of dollars in booked business get cancelled and over a million dollars in our pipeline disappeared.
I had an infant at home so I didn’t have the time to figure out creative ways to pivot into other areas to generate income. Instead, I let all but one member of my team members to protect and stretch our savings.
Two months later, I enrolled in Humber’s program to get a job as a REALTOR® . I didn’t necessarily need the money, given the passive income streams I’d developed, but getting my real estate license was complimentary to everything I’d already been doing. It made sense and it was an industry I’d enjoyed up until this point.
I gave myself a year to finish the program and completed it in about ten months. I was a little ahead of schedule so I decided to put my career plans on pause. I wanted to enjoy time with my daughter while she was still young. (She is so cute, can you blame me for wanting to enjoy this time with her while she is small?!). We also had an ailing family member we wanted to spend time with before they passed. I had to prioritize the needs of my family and fortunately, I was in a position to be able to do so.
I started my social media marketing right after getting my license but I didn’t officially kick things off and start working with clients until January. In fact, I even turned away a couple of clients early on because I knew I didn’t have the bandwidth to support them.
I’ve already learned so much already! In addition, I’ve come to realize that there are a ton of similaries to working a job as a REALTOR® and one in events.
In the beginning, I was supporting another REALTOR® at my brokerage for a little while. I was taking many of his buyers out on showings and similar to events where you have to become a mini expert on everything associated with it, buyers also look to you for the answers. If you don’t have the answer, then it’s your job as a REALTOR® to find it which is not always as easy as you’d think it would be.
Since there is so much to learn and know as you go, I began developing my own playbook, a guide I could make quick reference to with little tips, tricks and nuances that I’d learned from other REALTOR®’s and my brokerage. I had developed the same type of guides for each role in my business to show new employees not only what to do, but how to do it.
A few months in, I landed my first listing. Low and behold, it turned out to be for one of the events staff who had worked on my roster several years before. She had been getting my newsletters and reached out to inquire about listing a family home that she’d inherited.
She told me up front that she had been considering working with a family friend of her father’s or me. To be honest, I really had no idea why she was even debating between the two of us given her personal connection to the other REALTOR® but she must have had her reasons.
After a little negotiating, we came to an agreement and put the listing agreement together. Of course, working a job as a REALTOR® comes with a large number of systematized documents/forms which differ completely from the event services agreements I’d developed for my business, but the process of securing a client was comparable in many ways.
Once a listing agreement is signed, you need to create a work back schedule for your listing. Much like an event, more often than not, you’ll need to work with a range of providers to get a property ready to hit the market.
In this particular situation, the home was nearing the end of a renovation. It required a thorough cleaning from top to bottom and would also need to be staged. In the days before staging however, there were some odds and ends that the seller needed additional assistance with.
Although none of these items fall in the description you’d expect to see while working a job as a REALTOR® , they needed to be done.I was there for two days chipping paint off the floors, patching, sanding and painting holes in a wall, taking furniture that didn’t sell at auction to Value Village, gardening in the front and back of the house, cleaning windows. The list goes on…
While the work itself was a little different, running around in those last couple of days before a home is ready to hit the market was reminiscent of how it feels running around getting an event ready to launch. There are always last minute things that come up unexpectedly and you just need to do what you need to do to deliver for your client.
Shortly after, I received a referral from one of my suppliers to meet with another potential client. They had a REALTOR® they’d worked with in the past who told them they could sell their house as is. And, if the market hadn’t changed so swiftly, I’m sure they could have done so and still done quite well.
The reality though was that the home some, to be safe, and also to show well for the prpose of selling. I supported the sellers collecting quotes for handymen to fix things up over the course of 4-6 weeks prior to listing.
Although a ton of work had taken place, there were still some cosmetic things I noticed that I wanted to address before the photos/videos were done.
Once again, I found myself gardening to spruce up the curb appeal. I pulled all of the weeds on their front lawn, planted a mix of flowers in the garden, purchased a couple of baskets for their planters and also laid fresh mulch. 
Inside, I took care of cleaning up any loose wiring around the TV or in any other rooms. I bought a grout refresher for their shower as well as caulking to clean up any seams on baseboards, behind counters etc.
I’m sure some REALTOR® ‘s would not take care of some of these things, they would just tell their client’s what had to be done – but in both of these cases, the seller’s needed the extra help. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what’s in your job description, it just matters that you are willing to go above and beyond to get things done.
Once a listing hits the market, the next thing you need to do is take care of the marketing. MLS is still the #1 source to promote properties on the market, but in these changing times, I also tried to be resourceful. I secured the contact information for 250 REALTOR® ‘s who work in west Toronto to send my listing to, I spent some money on paid ads on social media and I also canvassed the neighbourhood to invite people to the open house. I even held an open house every weekend for four consecutive weekends.
It goes without saying that the world of real estate and events are different, very different in fact; but the services that you deliver to your clients are very much the same. Whether you’re working a job as a REALTOR® or as an event planner, you need to remain in regular communication with your client(s), create a work back schedule to stay on top of your deadlines/deliverables and sometimes, you have to think outside of the box and go above/beyond to get things done.
I’m may still be a little new to the industry (in this capacity at least) but I’ve been investing for the past fifteen years. In spite of this experience, I think one of the biggest challenges for new REALTOR® ‘s, aside from getting leads, is proving yourself.
Why would a client want to work with you over someone with more experience under their belt?
Although this can be a significant barrier, I’ve tried to be as open and honest with every prospect as possible and demonstrate my value every step of the way.
For each meeting, I prepare a folder for my potential client. This includes a copy of my brokerages Buyer or Seller’s Guide, a copy of my pre-listing presentation, a custom personalized letter as well as relevant comps.
I’ve also tried to personalize the experience as much as possible.
For example, I’ve been speaking with one potential client for close to six months. She was taking a trip overseas for an extended period of time so before leaving, I dropped off a care package for her with magazines, crossword puzzles, snacks, chap stick, hand sanitizer, cream and a copy of my book (yes, I wrote a booked called “The Accidental Entrepreneur” which chronicles my crazy life and career in events).
When she returned from her trip and we set up our first formal meeting, I brought some desserts that are popular in her culture along with my presentation package.
It’s the little touches that go a long way, aren’t they?
I can’t say I have dozens or hundreds of sales under my belt (at least, not yet), but I have close to 20 years experience running my own business in events. During that time, my company worked with hundreds of clients across Canada, the U.S., Europe and even Australia on thousands of events and promotional marketing campaigns. I’ve also been an active real estate investor for several years.
If I know how to do anything, I know how to get the job done 😉
The market has been shifting swiftly over the past few months. In spite of rising interest rates, they are still historically low – and with that said, now it’s the buyer’s time to shine. Should you be looking to get into the market or make a move, I’d love to help you find a house to turn into your perfect home.
Let’s talk! I can be reached at 647.896.6584 | info@serenaholmesrealtor.com. To find out more about me and how I operate, click here. For more on the company I ran for 18 years before transitioning to real estate, head to Tigris Events.
For lots of other great tips, news and updates, make sure we’re connected on social and you’ve subscribed to my YouTube channel.
