Zoom Call 9.19.23 Dorie Dillard Dominating Your Neighborhood

Zoom Call  9.19.23 Dorie Dillard Dominating Your Neighborhood

The Zoom Call this week was presented by Dorie Dillard and was a how to on dominate your neighborhood or market area.

Her frequent posts are focused on the Canyon Creek subdivision of Austin TX. This is a pattern that was developed over a period of years and hard work to become recognized.

She started by offering up the uniqueness of our business, as we get to choose our partners, or collaborators. 

She acknowledged other ActiveRain members that dominate their market, and the manner in which they do same. Ours is a business that constantly changes and requires our changing as well to stay successful.

She started her career as a single mother and needed to find her way to getting business. 

She met her husband in the office they shared. He had come into real estate after leaving a successful business career in women's fashion.

The shared common goals, work ethics and a love for travel. They married in 1994 and became heavily involved in relocation work, as Austin was attracting large corporate offices. Geno's extensive knowledge and familiarity with Austin made their work with relocating families simple.

Along with their work with relocating families, they found themselves getting additional listings. They worked to develop a business plan split 50/50 with buyers and sellers.

They had enough business that allowed them to hire an assistant and over a span of 21 years had 2 such assistants. This allowed then to focus on their clients, which in turn further developed their business.

In the early 2000's, they moved into the Canyon Creek area, which at the time was intended to have slightly over 1300 homes. She was determined to work the area and sell where she lived.

She started her marketing by working a list of 500 homes in the Subdivision in the first year. It was doubled to 1,000 in the second year, with the eventuality of marketing to the remainder, as they were completed.

 She was working with the resources offered by her agency brand to further her marketing.

Dorie also got more involved in community activities to better expose herself and her real estate brand.

By maintaining a visual presence, she was able to achieve a dominant 50% of market share.

With the fall of the market in 2008, she sought avenues to get exposure.  She started to blog on ActiveRain as well as set up the Canyon Creek website.

A monthly newsletter was created, with market statistics as well as community news. She used local high school students to hand deliver the letter, to all 1,388 homes.

She was always pleased to walk into a listing presentation and see copies of her newsletter on the table before the conversation started.

She drew confidence and marketing strategies from some of the dominant ActiveRain members as well.  A trip to a RainCamp in Houston further drew her into the reality of blogging.

From Barbara Todaro, she drew many tips on how to market effectively.  She credited a tip given to here on a phone call as pushing her business up the ladder. The tip was to put out a rider to her signs as being The Most Frequently Hired Realtor in Canyon Creek.  In addition, a second sign that just offered the statement:  Look Who Sold Another Home.

She found that by reading some of the marketing tips offered by bloggers around the country she would get a fresh insight as to how to better promote herself. Also, it gave her an advantage over her competition that stayed with their old methods.

Her ActiveRain posts on the marketing of the area as well as hyper-local posts on events in Canyon Creek, as well as the family posts she put up on their special vacations together continued to increase her audience and her business.

She continues to maintain contact with her sphere with monthly newsletters, monthly posts on Canyon Creek, as well as personal calls and notes to clients.

She uses a program, Concierge Listing Program, which generates a polished brochure, sends out emails to her community, sphere, and fellow agents about new listings as well as an individual website, YouTube video, and sets up special media marketing she can also use.  

Dorie sends out a quarterly marketing newsletter. which features her daughter, also an accomplished real estate agent. That is a part of her exit strategy from working regularly.

She advises that anyone seeking to be the best in their area, that they must become well familiar with all there is to that area. Know schools, services and if a planned community, know the HOA fees and requirements.

A successful agent needs to know the area, and also know what may be on the horizon as well. The best agent knows all there is and can address any question relatively to the community.

Dorie spoke of the fortunes that she enjoyed over the years. When she first started working her area, she was just another one of the agents in the area, while the top agent was carrying 50 listings to her 4.

With persistence and consistency of marketing, she took over the control of the area and was Top Producer for many a year.

Her formula worked very well.

Questions were asked and answered, and all were most impressed with the call.

Zoom Call  9.19.23 Dorie Dillard Dominating Your Neighborhood