At the end of 2020, I took a major risk (something a little out of character for me) and left my full-time career at a public relations agency to take on real estate in Denver and partner with my sister on a business to help other entrepreneurs. The real estate market in Denver has been hotter than hot for the past several years, and the pandemic has driven additional complexities like historically low inventory, buyer competition and high appreciation rates. Alternatively, the pandemic hit the travel industry hard, but as the vaccine continues to roll-out anticipation for leisure travel is building up and I think we’ll hit a travel boom later this year for leisure purposes.
Since starting this new career endeavor, I’ve found myself utilizing similar skills from my communications career (leadership, client service, project management) that are helping me to be successful in real estate and in partnership with my sister to market our business (Habitats by Kat) and recruit other entrepreneurs like us to join our travel/hospitality community. Even though these industries were completely new to me from a professional standpoint, I quickly realized that I was doing a lot of the same day to day activities just in a new environment.
This thought process led me and my sister to think about lifestyle brands. Real estate and travel jobs force you to build relationships and understand client needs so you have a full understanding of their lifestyle or the life they want to build or community they want to be a part of. The two truly go hand in hand. For example, if you help a buyer find their perfect home you know their style…do they like contemporary, traditional or mid-century modern real estate? If you know this then you can easily identify the perfect vacation home or hotel brand for their next trip. Combining these two services adds more value to our clients, separates us from the competition and allows us to build rapport. As a side note, 99.9% of people love talking about real estate and travel…so we don’t find ourselves “selling” all that much. The core of our business is building relationships and educating others on the full suite of services we can offer up.
If you are a real estate agent reading this and enjoy travel my guess is, you could be having an “ah-hah” moment. That’s exactly the moment that my sister and I had which led to us combining real estate and travel into a business to help other entrepreneurs.
Below are the reasons that motivated me and my sister to start our business and how you can add travel to your real estate business:
- An established network of clients
- A reason to connect with past clients and offer an additional service
- Grow referral business through real estate and travel
- People travel more than they buy real estate
- Earn extra commissions through travel
- Booking travel is 100% remote
- Access to incredible vacation homes, condos, villas, resorts, hotels and cruises at discounted rates that you can book for personal travel as well as for clients
- Improve monthly newsletters with added services, lifestyle component and travel incentives
Don’t hesitate to reach out to me to learn more. I love connecting with other entrepreneurs to help them grow their business (whether it’s existing or you’re just getting started).