I had the pleasure of meeting with Kim V. Colaprete and Chavi M. Hohm, two of the three members of Team Diva Real Estate, before Seattle Agent Reboot. They were recommended to me by Coldwell Banker Bain as a team that is doing a great job online building relationships and generating business.
After chatting with both of them it is clear to me why they are successful: They are outgoing, hard-working and aren’t afraid to do what needs to get done to make things happen. They work very hard to build relationships offline and online through their blog and social media profiles, and have done a fantastic job of building an extremely strong presence on Yelp.
We selected Team Diva to be part of our “Anatomy of an Agent” panel at Reboot where we showcased their site live onstage, and they were able to share some of their success with the audience and get feedback from our panel of experts.
Here is an interview I did with Kim and Chavi about their business and their Reboot experience.
Q: How long have you been in real estate?
A: Kim has been in real estate since 1999, and I joined her right before the crash in 2008. Since that time our team has expanded to include Kaz in 2010.
Q: How many transactions did you do last year?
A: 28.
Q: How many are you on track for this year?
A: We have closed 16 total with a small number of those being renters. The plan is to close around 40 transactions.
Q: What area do you work in?
A: City of Seattle. Rarely do we leave the 206 area code.
Q: How much of your business comes from online (i.e., social media, Yelp, blog, etc.)?
A: About 32 percent of 2011 business was a result of our online presence. But social media and our blog keep us in touch with our existing clients. Their referrals were 30 percent of our business.
Q: If you could offer one piece of advice for someone trying to build their online leads/online presence, what would it be?
A: Identify the people who you are going to work well with; keep the conversation going; be yourself; and the most important is to keep at it. It took us close to nine months before we found our voice on our blog and now you cannot stop us!
Q: You were asked to be a part of the Anatomy of an Agent panel at Seattle Reboot. What were the top takeaways from that experience?
A: Team Diva is closely looking at what it would look like for us to specialize more in a specific neighborhood per the advice given from Zillow’s Nick Taylor. It is a new concept for our team since we are more focused on the type of people we work well with versus their actual neighborhood.
Q: Is there any advice you received that you did not agree with?
A: It felt a little odd to receive advice from some of the panel members about using an SEO pack when we had one already. Team Diva has an SEO pack in our WordPress blog that we use regularly. Our business model is highly focused on the demographic that is going to most relate to Team Diva. Hence, the usage of that SEO pack is more on people versus locations.
Q: What was the best piece of advice you received?
A: Up our video presence. It is an area that needs more focus from Team Diva to make happen in the same way we have focused on our blog.
Q: What is the No. 1 thing you plan to implement into your business after this experience (and after coming to Reboot)?
A: The discussion on handling negative social media was an amazing topic. We received one negative review on Yelp! recently. It was so odd for us to receive a negative comment that we did not know what to do. But Agent Reboot really taught us how to handle the situation. Team Diva has also launched a Pinterest site. And now we have a plan for video!
Q: Anything else you’d like to add?
A: Agent Reboot was filled with hard-working and super-exciting brokers from all over the Northwest. It was inspiring to connect with these great people and learn how we can constantly improve Team Diva!
To connect with Team Diva find them on Facebook or Twitter!
Next stop for Agent Reboot is in Denver on Wednesday, April 25! If you are in the Denver area, there are still tickets available. We’d love to see you there — click here to view the program and to get registered online. Only $49 to register online, or $99 the day of the event. Hope to see you there!
