Amie Quirarte of The Q Group Speaks at Inman Connect New York

When real estate agents hear the words “personal brand” the first things they think of might be business cards, social media posts and email newsletters.

But according to Douglas Elliman’s McKenzie Ryan, an agent in New York, a personal brand should extend into every asset of life.

“A brand is not one dimensional, or what you decide you want to portray on social media,” she told the audience at Inman Connect New York on Tuesday. “A brand is who you show up as in real life and a brand is who you are.”

Ryan spoke on a panel about strategies for building a lasting personal brand alongside Amie Quirarte of Tahoe Luxury Properties and Jas Takhar of REC Canada.

Takhar agreed with Ryan, and argued that forming a consistent personal brand was all but essential for those working in real estate in the current market.

That’s not to say social media should be neglected. Many savvy potential seller clients may be more swayed by your social media presence than your listing presentation.

“I personally have a love-hate relationship with social media but we have to have a presence and what does that presence communicate,” Michelle Griffith of Douglas Elliman said during a panel conversation on winning listing presentations on Tuesday. “Do you have video footage so that they can understand who you are and get a feeling? I think that as agents, now more than ever we need to really focus on: if our clients are cyber-stalking us, what does that look like?”

Your brand shouldn’t be forced though, and should be an accurate representation of who you are.

“I think that in the beginning especially when you’re getting started and you’re trying to find out what your brand is going to look like its easy to try to fit into a mold of ‘I want to be in this box so that every single person likes me,’” Quirarte said. “Fuck that — you’ve got to do what is best for you. You need to be the agent that you are.”

“It sounds so cheesy and so lame but it goes a long way,” she added.

Article originally published by Inman Connect

Amie Quirarte is a luxury real estate agent with Tahoe Luxury Properties in California and Nevada. Connect with her on Facebook or LinkedIn.

Not Alot of Clients Right Now? Here’s What You Should Be Doing

The ebb and flow of the real estate business can be affected by the seasons, the economy and more. Here’s how to weather the slow times while building your business.

Article Originally Published by Inman Connect
February 17, 2023

I sell real estate in Lake Tahoe, a seasonal and second-homeowner destination. Due to our unique market, I’ve become accustomed to the inevitable slowdowns every fall and spring.

At the beginning of my career, it wasn’t easy to normalize the downtime and find productivity in my business, even without clients. I would become anxious, stressed and paranoid until I found ways to utilize my free time efficiently.

Below are a few steps that you can implement in your business when you’re low on clients:

1. Remind yourself that every single agent, even the most successful agents making millions of dollars every year, experience lulls in their business

We’ll have highs, lows and everything in between. So while you’re having your best year, I could be having my worst year. That doesn’t mean you won’t ever sell a house again; it just means that the timing of your clients, or future clients, hasn’t reached the inflection point of a sale yet.

There’s Freedom in Saying No, Setting Boundaries, Saying Goodbye

If you don’t set boundaries, you can’t expect clients to respect them. Set firm boundaries, and communicate them upfront.

Article Originally Published by Inman Connect
February 15, 2023

As real estate agents and brokers, it seems as though many of us are programmed to always say the magic word “yes.”

Yes, we can squeeze 21 showings in one day despite them being on completely opposite sides of town. Yes, I can talk at 11 p.m. Yes, I will “make” the sellers fix every item on the home inspection list.

Scarcity is typically the main driving force behind the obsessive “yes” in our business, but I think for many of us, it can contribute to a downfall in our personal life and burnout in our professional life.

We’re scared that if we don’t answer every call as it is coming in, the lead on the other end may hang up and call someone else. And while that may be true, what do we, in turn, sacrifice to catch every potential lead that comes our way?

If every lead turned into a sale, then perhaps most, or at least some, of the yeses are warranted. But if they don’t always convert, and let’s be honest, we know they don’t, then we owe it to ourselves to be more mindful of what type of interruptions we are allowing into our lives.

When Your Toughest Competitor is the Other Agent

Article Originally Published by Inman Connect

The next time you experience a hot-headed real estate agent on the other side of the deal, try these tips to cool it down

February 14, 2023

We’ve all been there — the agent on the other end of the transaction is aggressive, short-fused, and impossible to work alongside. Every question or request is met with confrontation, and there is no attempt at collaboration toward the shared goal of closing the transaction.

So, what do you do? Do you meet them with the same anger, carry on with a hard exterior, and beat each other down until you cross the finish line? Or do you find a way to be the bigger person and “take one for the team” so everyone can peacefully work together?

In this situation, I like to give myself the same pep talk I give my 8-year-old daughter and bring it back to the basics: Typically, other people’s frustration has nothing to do with you. You may have become the scapegoat for the other agent’s problems, fears or worries without even knowing it. The other agent likely has something going on in their life, causing them to treat others in a way that can feel aggressive or hurtful. The best solution is to be direct and kind, and approach the situation thoughtfully.

“We are on the same team, and I want to work with you to get this deal across the finish line. To do that, we have to come to some type of agreement on repairs. Why don’t I share my client’s requests with you, and then we can brainstorm together on how to find a middle ground.”  

Approaching each conversation from a collaborative perspective sets the tone, and it’s basic human nature at that point to respond more respectfully.

The agent who needs boundaries

But what about when you have an agent on the other side who sees red and won’t respond well to your approaches? That is when your directness and boundaries come into play.

If you have an agent, or a client, who is treating you poorly, the first step is to calmly communicate the boundaries in which you’re willing to communicate.

For example, if every time you pick up the phone, the agent raises their voice to you, you can communicate via email and say something like:

“Based on our past few phone conversations, I have decided we should only communicate via email from now on. I do not appreciate being yelled at or spoken to in the tone I have experienced. I am willing to attempt a phone conversation again if we can agree on how we will work together to achieve our mutual goal of closing this deal.” 

Bringing awareness to your boundaries and the way the agent has been treating you will almost always warrant a more respectful conversation. But if it doesn’t, hold true to your boundaries, and only communicate under the terms you see fit.

Real estate is a highly emotional business because we are helping clients with their most valuable investments, but it doesn’t mean that we, as agents, need to take on these same emotions. I see it as our job to stay calm, cool, and collected, especially in the face of turbulence. The next time you experience a hot-headed agent, try these tips to cool it down.

Amie Quirarte is a luxury real estate agent with Tahoe Luxury Properties in California and Nevada. Connect with her on Facebook or LinkedIn.

How These Agents Found Success in the Face of Tragedy

Amanda Marsh and Amie Quirarte shared their personal experiences at Inman Connect New York on Thursday and talked about channeling endurance and resilience.

Article Originally Published by Inman Connect

When Amanda Marsh was 15, her life turned upside down.

While visiting her extended family for Thanksgiving in November 1993, she received a phone call from her grandfather detailing the unthinkable: Her mother, father, and sister had all been killed in a car crash on the way to pick her up at the airport, leaving her an orphan.

“I went from being a 15-year-old carefree teenager that wants to go to the mall, to a part of me died with them that day,” Marsh told the crowd at Inman Connect New York on Thursday. “That was my life-defining moment where I looked internally at ‘who am I going to be?’”

Marsh, an agent at Cantrell Real Estate in Springfield, Missouri, spoke on a panel with Amie Quirarte, of Tahoe Luxury Properties, moderated by Inman CEO Emily Paquette about channeling endurance and resilience when confronted with dramatic change.

For Quirarte, real estate offered an opportunity to succeed regardless of her background.

Quirarte’s father committed suicide when she was 9 years old, and her mother struggled with drug addiction. She was raised by her grandfather, who was married to an addict.

“We had a lot of turbulence in my life,” she said. “Most of my life was spent going in and out of homeless shelters, not knowing where my next meal was going to come from.”

When her grandfather died, Quirarte moved to Santa Barbara to attend community college, a moment she felt was her first opportunity to escape her family’s troubled past.

Because she had no family to support her, she worked several jobs to keep herself afloat while attending school and ended up having to drop out of community college.

“I have never felt like such a failure in my entire life than I did at that time,” she said. “I genuinely had no idea what I would do that would be different than what I was destined to do.”

But then, she started working in the real estate industry.

“It sounds really cheesy and really cliche, but it changed my life in a very big and important way,” she said.

Real estate presented itself to Quirarte as a world where she could achieve real success and where her background couldn’t slow her down, and the only thing that mattered was her own competence.

“It didn’t matter, my education background or my family background,” she said. “Real estate does not discriminate. Success in this business is truly what you make it. It does not have to be about where you came from or what success you’ve had in other ventures. It’s all about you, and that’s awesome.”

 

Amie Quirarte is a luxury real estate agent with Tahoe Luxury Properties in California and Nevada. Connect with her on Facebook or LinkedIn.

Is Cold Calling Dead?

Article Originally Published by Inman Connect

While the old-school version of this lead-gen method may indeed be over, there’s a contemporary version that’s alive and well, and getting results.

December 29, 2022

Cue the deep and ominous music; here comes the dreaded conversation about cold calling.

To cold call or not, that is the question.

Those two words tend to elicit visible and tangible fear and discomfort in most agents. But why? Is it our deep-rooted fear of rejection? Is it because we’ve been told we must follow a script to be successful? Or is it simply because the idea is so foreign to some of us that we’ve created a fear-based mentality around it?

I can tell you from experience that cold calling is alive and well, and has kept my $50 million+ per year business thriving.

Let’s start by throwing out the old idea of cold calling. When people say cold calling is dead, perhaps they mean the old version is dead — and I agree with them. But, in its place, is a type of calling that is effective and useful to the people on both sides of the call. The goal of every agent should not only be a sale, but to provide value to their clients.

When you hang up on spam calls, is it a personal jab to the person who is calling? Absolutely not. You probably don’t even think of the person on the other end in most cases. Remind yourself of this when you start feeling rejection and doubt creeping in. It has nothing to do with you. Let yourself move on to the next call with ease and as Elsa once said, let it go!

  1. After introducing yourself, when the person answers the phone, always ask, “Is now a good time to talk?” If they say no, ask them when a better time would be. This will always create a much better outcome than if you start rambling the second they say Hello. They could be waiting for a call from the doctor or their child’s school, and the last thing they may want to do is talk to you. At least right now. Be mindful and thoughtful of the human on the other end of this call.
  2. Be respectful of people’s boundaries and visit the Do Not Call Registry: https://telemarketing.donotcall.gov/.

It is important to be mindful about who you’re calling, and verifying their information is not on this list. Doing this in advance will save you from a very unpleasant conversation down the road.

I have known many agents who swear that “cold-calling is not for them,” but when I asked how often they tried it or their experience with it, most of them replied by saying they’ve never actually done it. And hey, it may not be for them or you, but with so many top-producing agents seeing success from it, isn’t it worth a try?

If you find yourself at a standstill or a crossroads for marketing and lead generation, give these steps a try. And you might just land yourself a $20 million sale from one phone call as I did.

Amie Quirarte is a luxury real estate agent with Tahoe Luxury Properties in California and Nevada. Connect with her on Facebook or LinkedIn.

Top 6 Things this Real Estate Coach Wants You to Know

Article Originally Published by Inman Connect

While the real estate market always presents challenges and variables, the way you respond is up to you and you alone. With 2023 on the horizon, what better time to start implementing new strategies than now?

December 06, 2022

Despite having coaching clients from all over the country (and a few outside of the country), I consistently hear the same struggles arise for agents. At some point in every agent’s career, you feel like you’re in a gridlock when it comes to business. You may go into the office daily and do all the “right” things, but you still don’t have the leads and sales needed to make this career work.

A quick Google search on “how to generate real estate leads” essentially brings you to a spiral of antiquated information and leaves most agents feeling more hopeless than before their Google spiral.

A few years ago, I developed a coaching program to change how agents view their businesses. I am sharing my top six tips that will help you grow and nurture your business in untraditional ways and, ideally, reignite your passion for this business.