How Real2Designs Was Born…
Let’s face it. Selling real estate is never easy.
Six months in and a fresh-faced new agent starts to realize that all those fanciful ideas of closing a dozen deals a month is not so easy to achieve. The first realization comes with your hit with the costs. After paying for 30 – 90 hrs of your real estate training, depending on your state, you tend to think the worst is over.
Not so fast, then your broker hits you with all the real estate membership dues and the MLS quarterly dues on top of that. Depending on your brokerage, there are additional costs involved including CRM subscriptions, office fees, yearly training certificates, etc.
Even before you’ve acquired your first client, you’re already behind the eight ball.
What a lot of new real estate agents don’t actually realize is that they are in business for themselves. Signing up with a brokerage keeps everyone accountable and obviously does have its benefits. Real estate agents have a contractual obligation to their broker which means they are not employees. As such, you are fully responsible for building up your own business, brand, and reputation.
I’ll be honest with you, when that realization hit me, it was pretty daunting.
Real estate agents come from many different backgrounds including teachers, furniture salesmen, students, etc. Literally, anyone can become a licensed Realtor. Lucky for me, I have a degree in graphic design so I eagerly embarked on branding myself with a logo and tag line.
Well, then I realized that the biggest part of selling real estate is accomplished online. So then I had to learn how to create posts and set up a slew of social media accounts. Then I had to learn how to create Google ads, and Facebook ads, and subscribe to a media post scheduler. Guess what? That all costs money too!
A funny thing began to happen. As I shared my flyers, mailers and social media posts, other real estate agents would comment. In my office, I’d often get comments on the designs of my logo and branding. I started to offer to help other agents out and little by little I realized there is a real need here. So I set up Real2Designs on ETSY. You can still find me there too!
Over the course of two years, I went from zero sales to over 450 sales.
The demand for unique designs is growing. Real estate professionals must have eye-catching graphics that will help them stand out from the competition all around them.
That’s where Real2Designs fits in.
I’m here to save you time and money since most of our templates are very inexpensive and easy to edit. I want to keep it that way so that even newbies can get a huge leg up on their own marketing.
More Than Just Stuff
Setting up an ETSY shop allowed me to test the market and see for myself just how much of an appetite there was for fresh new do-it-yourself marketing material. As opposed to hiring a graphic designer or photographer and paying out hundreds of dollars a pop to boot.
Even the hottest selling agent in town is always looking for ways to save money and time.
Every real estate agent should have a side-hustle. When the 2020 COVID pandemic hit and everything shut right down, I thanked God my ETSY shop was already up and running!
I started creating CANVA templates that were very easy to customize. That included things like social media bundles, postcards, and newsletters. From there I ventured into planners, mailers, t-shirts, and more.
Being a property investor for years now, I decided to offer products and tools for that market as well. That’s when I asked my husband to create some useful tools such as calculators that really help take out the guesswork of whether or not a property will be profitable. Real estate agents love these calculators too!
So why did I decide to embark on my own website? Two reasons, really. First, I wanted a site where I had full control and no one can take it down. I’ve read too many horror stories of ETSY shop owners who have suddenly had their stores shut down with no way to recover them. I’ve put in far too many hours and effort to build up the REAL2DESIGNS brand to risk it all.
The second reason is that I want to offer more than just “stuff”. I really do enjoy writing and as such, this website lets me express myself, share my experiences and offer up advice along the way.
My Best Advice For Agents
The best advice I have for agents is to set up a CANVA account. It’s an absolute must-have for any agent, regardless of how much experience they have. You can start off with a free account and as you start to realize just how valuable this platform is, it’s almost guaranteed you’re going to upgrade.
CANVA is easy to use and it’s free! Get on it, and start using it today. Using our CANVA templates here, you can quickly and easily customize a huge variety of content including social media posts, flyers, mailers, newsletters, and print material like planners as well.
When you link to your social media accounts in CANVA, you’ll then be able to instantly publish your new post to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram, or schedule a post to publish on a certain day without ever leaving CANVA. This alone saves you so much time!
Did you know that CANVA is also a print shop? So you can order your finished product such as flyers, postcards, and business cards right from there and get them delivered to your door.
