This is my life this semester. I’m Amber Hampton, and if I survive the chaos that this semester brings, I’ll graduate in May (with honors!) with a B.A. in journalism. I am currently interning for Tracy Dougan, real estate associate. It’s a very busy time for her, too. She’s just made a big move, from Crye-Leike, Realtors to Marx & Bensdorf. She was a top-producer at Crye-Leike, so she brings a lot to the table at her new firm, and I’m here to help her bring in more.
Last week I took property photos for a new listing. I’m finishing up the editing of those so they can be posted to the Multiple Listing Service. Friday we’re having a strategy meeting. We had a grand plan worked out to increase her footprint with Crye-Leike, but now she’s not there any longer. While Tennessee has laws governing real estate agents, and the Tennessee Real Estate Commission has further regulations, each individual firm can place their own company’s rules on an agent to be sure their own brand isn’t damaged. Marx & Bensdorf has some different policies from Crye-Leike, which we have to adjust for, but by and large they are less restrictive and will open up more doors to push Tracy’s personal brand through.
So far, I’ve learned real estate is a minute to minute job. Our strategy meeting was supposed to be today, but Tracy has a buyer that needs her and a seller that’s having a minor crisis, and so plans change quickly. You have to be ready to rock when you need to and roll when you have to. I’ve also been researching a lot of different residential real estate agents and how they use social media and other marketing platforms. Tracy is fairly new in the business, not even two years in, so we’re really starting from the ground up. She didn’t do much marketing at Crye-Leike, so it’s a whole new game now.
I hope that I learn how to effectively market a brand or personal brand, as the case may be, and really get more familiar with social media outlets and how to incorporate them into what I do on a daily basis. Over that, I hope I get an opportunity to do design work. While real estate is an industry that definitely benefits from utilizing online resources, there’s still a lot of print work that happens. I hope to get familiar with both elements in terms of design and professional specs.
Most of all, I’m just looking forward to working with a really innovate woman who is already blazing a trail for herself. I certainly hope I am an asset to her this semester.