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.

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.