Category: The Foundation

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

Posted on by Liza Muhl

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.

“You have to differentiate yourself,” he said. “If you don’t get started in 2024… you are going to be left behind.”

Takhar also argued that maintaining a social media presence is more effective than traditional lead-generation strategies like mailers and cold calls.

“No longer do people want to be bothered by cold calling because you sound like an air duct cleaner,” he said. “Why not go where people are already scrolling on their phone and showcase other aspects of your life.”

The panelists encouraged agents to show their followers aspects of their life other than just their real estate business — their hobbies, their families, their communities and discouraged posts bragging about real estate awards and accolades.

“How many No. 1 real estate agents are there in every single city?” Takhar said. “Showcase the other aspects of your life.”

Personal branding can extend beyond your social media presence as well. Quirarte told the audience of a community Halloween party she hosted in Tahoe this year with local merchants and musicians that brought 550 people to an event space in town. After spending less than $1,000 on the party, Quirarte said she ended the night with three new referrals.

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.

How These Agents Found Success in the Face of Tragedy

Posted on by Liza Muhl

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 Marsh, becoming an orphan left her faced with a choice in how to respond and grieve. Instead of letting herself be crushed, she found ways to be resilient.

“I was not going to crumble, and I was not going to let tragedy define my life,” she said. “I wanted to make my family proud.”

As a result, Marsh says she has kept herself busy for the past 30 years.

“I have been busy since Nov. 27, 1993 — call it what you want, it’s probably most likely a trauma-based response — to pour myself into absolutely everything that I do,” she said. “I’m passionate about anything and everything… it has helped me to become the businesswoman that I am.”

Emily Paquette, Amanda Marsh and Amie Quirarte at Inman Connect New York | Photos by AJ Canaria & Mercedes Santiago of MoxiWorks

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?

Posted on by Liza Muhl
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.

BY AMIE QUIRARTE
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.

The idea that you pick up the phone and randomly dial numbers with the hope that the person picking up with have a pre-approval letter for $1 million and no agent is unrealistic. As much as well all want to believe unicorns exist, let’s get real here. If you spend any of your time cold calling with this belief, you will not get very far.

But if you adjust the way you look at and approach cold calling, it could very well change your entire business for the better.

Here’s how to get started with cold calling:

  1. Before you pick up the phone, make sure you’re calling a farm that is already familiar with you and your business. How can you do that? Start by sending out an introduction letter via snail mail to the same farm you intend on calling. That way, when you pick up the phone to call and reach someone on the other end, they {may} already know who you are, making the transition to a conversation much easier.
  2. Create rapport immediately: Find things in common, talk about events happening in your community or neighborhood. Let them know you’re not another spam robot, and try to have a real conversation from the start. This does not need to be about real estate immediately!
  3. Call the same farm(s) and stay consistent. Consistency is key.
  4. Throw out the boring script. You don’t need it. Can you imagine if the people in your life read from a script every time they spoke to you? We are calling people, which means each person that you reach will have needs and desires that will vary from yourself and others. You must adjust your conversation based on the individual person instead of sticking to the script.
  5. Understand that a No (or an immediate hang-up) is not personal.

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

Posted on by Liza Muhl

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?

BY AMIE QUIRARTE
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.

Don’t give up when it gets slow. Work harder than ever

In my experience, when the market starts to shift and things start to feel slow, our confidence and drive as agents begin to shift, too. We start to believe our businesses and markets are “tanking,” and we lose the stamina to keep prospecting every day because it feels discouraging.

I understand how challenging it can be to get up every morning in a slower-paced market and continue to make your calls. How challenging it feels to continue to send your newsletter even when you think no one is reading it or interested. How challenging it feels to continue sending your mailers when the only response you get is to take them off your list. I’ve been there.

The truth is that every successful agent has been there. Your perseverance in these situations sets you apart from every other agent out there. If it feels hard for you, it’s hard for others, too. I know with 100 percent certainty that if you can continue to work hard during these times, you will continue to see success. It may not be immediate, but it will come back to you.

And the agents who aren’t able to continue persevering when times get rough are the ones who will leave the business in the next year.

Be honest with yourself about your strengths and weaknesses

As agents, we are told the countless ways to succeed, whether through door knocking, cold calling, open houses, community events, mailers — you name it. There seems to be an expectation that you must do all these things to be successful, which creates a heavy burden on our shoulders. However, the reality is that you should only be doing what you are good at.

Read that again. You should do what you’re good at. Be honest about where you struggle, and hone in on your strengths. When you find what you’re good at, you should dedicate all your energy and time to that because that is how you will get clients.

Evaluate yourself and each transaction by writing down what went well and what didn’t go so well. Look back and reference these notes often

Self-evaluation is one of the most vital practices we can incorporate into our businesses. Whether you’re seasoned or a brand new agent, each transaction gives us the opportunity to grow and learn. Some of the lessons may seem more evident than others, but if you sit down and truly evaluate each transaction, I guarantee you will learn some lessons that don’t seem as obvious.

Get a transaction notebook, and take five minutes on the day a transaction closes to write down your notes while it is still fresh in your mind.

  • Did you forget to remind the sellers about the utility transfer?
  • Did you compromise on personal boundaries that are important to you by responding to your client’s calls at 9 p.m.?
  • Did you get angry with the other agent and say something you regret?

Write it down. Learn from it, and make sure that you’re improving in the areas you’ve identified with each transaction.

Pro-tip: Do this with your transaction coordinator, and get their take on it, too. 

Get curious about your fears in real estate. When you do this, you can shine a light on what is holding you back

When I start a new coaching session, being honest about their fears is the first task I give my clients. Fear has a different meaning for each of us, and it takes on various forms depending on the person and the circumstances.

My fear has always come out in the form of anxiety. When I’m experiencing anxiety, I tend to think about the worst-case scenario, and, despite my best efforts to prevent this, I live in that space temporarily. It can be a scary space to sit in, but essential nonetheless. I’ve found that this space shows me what is truly important and what I care about most.

So what are your fears? Is it rejection, not making enough money, or botching a transaction? Be honest with yourself about these fears and what is holding you back so you can find ways to safely challenge yourself to overcome these fears.

Find out which systems work for you and which don’t. Release the ones that are no longer serving you

We are constantly fed this idea that you must do things one way to succeed in this business. Do you know what my advice is? Throw that shit out. That’s right. It’s time to get clear on what works best for you. And no one knows that better than you.

You don’t need every CRM, lead generation program, and campaign marketing software. You need what works for you. I have been in the business for over 10 years, and I still use a Google sheet to keep track of my leads. This isn’t because I haven’t tried Top Producer, SalesForce, Zoho, and every other CRM that exists. It’s because, after trial and error, I found the most basic spreadsheet is what works best for me.

I encourage you to try new programs and venture out of your comfort zone, but at the end of the day, you need to find what works for you regardless of what others may tell you. Remember, nobody knows you better than you do.

Find your optimal time for productivity, and work within those hours. Don’t force yourself to work 9 to 5

We all know that one agent who comes into the office every day. They start at 8, leave at 5, and you wonder what the hell they are doing all day long. If that works for them, more power to them, but if it doesn’t work for you, you are not alone.

We are fed the idea that to be “productive” or “successful,” we have to sit in front of a computer for eight hours a day. But, seriously, where did that come from? I am least productive when I sit in front of my computer all day. The beauty of real estate is the flexibility of our schedule. No one says you need to be in your office all day, every day, so why are you?

Start to notice the times when you’re most productive. For example, do you get more done in the morning or afternoon? Can you tailor your schedule to accommodate the times when you’re most productive?

So much of our struggle as agents is finding a healthy work-life balance. If we can commit to knowing ourselves and honoring that, we can create more balance and freedom in our lives. For example, if you work best between 8 a.m. and noon, you can commit to being in your office during those times. And once you get to 12 p.m., you have the freedom to do what will make you feel good.

  • Is it time alone to sit and read a book?
  • Is it time to exercise?
  • Is it time to meditate?

You can start to lean into the pieces of your life that will make you feel like the best version of yourself. When you can release the guilt of being off earlier than your friends and family, you will start to have more of a healthy work-life balance. If you have a healthy work-life balance, your success will only continue to grow because you will be happier in all areas of your life. It’s really that simple.

Real estate is a beautiful business because our actions measure our success. Realtors love to blame the market or their circumstances if they’re having a hard time reaching their pillar of success, but the truth is that our success is entirely up to us and us alone. The market will constantly shift, and there will always be variables outside of our control, but the one thing we can control is how we approach our business and our lives in general.

With 2023 on the horizon, what better time to start implementing these strategies than now?

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