Today’s RealTrending features Cole Slate, broker-owner of Slate Real Estate in Jacksonville, Florida. Slate doesn’t believe in recruiting. Instead, he believes in attracting the right agent for his culture.
“It’s important that we and our agents are doing this for the right reasons,” he said. What are those reasons? They all revolve around helping people in the community, whether it’s through appreciation events for crossing guards, first responders and teachers, or helping buyers and sellers. Slate offers his best practices on community engagement and agent attraction.
Here is a small preview of today’s interview with Cole. The transcript below has been lightly edited for length and clarity:
Tracey Velt: You’re tied to your community. You’re invested in your community. It’s part of your culture, but you also get business from it. Tell me, what’s your return on investment on these appreciation events? What percentage of your business comes back to you?
Cole Slate: Not only with these events, but all the type of marketing that we do at Slate Real Estate is so much brand awareness centric. We’re not buying leads, we’re not doing whatever it’s called pay-per-click or anything like that. We’re just trying to have the best reputation of any firm in the area and at the end of the day, real estate is nothing but a popularity contest. Get the first phone call or the first inquiry, then once you have made that connection, then you got to turn to sweep the customer referral off their feet with customer service.
It has come back so many times. And everyone can see how sincere and how much we’re doing this for the right reasons. Of course, business comes out of it. And we’re so blessed, and we’re so appreciative that it does, but we definitely want to make sure that no one even has the slightest inkling of us doing something like that for the wrong reasons.
The RealTrending podcast features the brightest minds in real estate. Twice a month, brokerage leaders, top agents, team leaders, and industry experts share their success secrets, trends, and lessons learned navigating this ever-changing industry. Hosted by Tracey Velt and produced by Elissa Branch.
