We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Lauren Clark. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Lauren below.

Lauren, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today It’s always helpful to hear about times when someone’s had to take a risk – how did they think through the decision, why did they take the risk, and what ended up happening. We’d love to hear about a risk you’ve taken.

I started my photography business when I was 17 and a senior in high school. I had a mentor who guided me through the process to get a tax ID and a DBA at the county courthouse and I was on my way with big dreams to take my friend’s senior photos to pay off my new camera before I graduated high school a month later.

I spent all of my free time taking photos and learning how to take better photos, sell and market my skills to my hometown in Texas. I went on to college for a year and sat aimlessly through classes for a year and 2 days before I dropped out and decided to put all of my chips into my photography business. It paid off! Within 3 years I was shooting weddings all over the USA and had a blog that was read nationwide. I became a workshop speaker and even sold a digital product training people how to edit in photoshop.

Fast forward a few more years and I wanted to start a family. I slowed down in my business and had to find a new identity as a stay at home mom, not as a successful business owner with free time to travel. I settled into this new job and poured my heart and soul into it, but still had a drive to succeed in entrepreneurship. After my third son was born I felt like a caged race horse and decided to relaunch my photo business… right when covid shut down the world and all events and “non- essential” businesses were told to cancel their work and all sit at home together.

My husband had a career change the week before and my business was canceled. We sat at home not knowing what to do with our lives.

We were given an opportunity to move down to Dripping Springs, Texas during the pandemic and had no earthly business moving to a new town, one that the cost of living was astronomically higher than our current home town. We both heard in our hearts to make the move.

So we did.

We had 1 temporary job and I would have to start my entire business over. It was at this time that I decided to start real estate school. I didn’t want to shoot weddings all of my life and wanted something that I could grow into as a second career… the only thing was I wanted to bring all of my creativity on the journey with me.

I took the classes and passed the test on the first try within 6 weeks and I was off with a new real estate brokerage. I learned scripts and how to cold call and host open houses. I was terrified and put way out of my comfort zone. It was nothing like I thought it would be. I felt robotic and unauthentic in almost every scripted interaction I was told to have. I hated it. So on the side I started creating a new blog on what it was like to live in my new town with beautiful photography. That brokerage told me it was a waste of time and I was to stick to cold calling and open houses only.

It didn’t feel right.

It was not in line with heart or my vision for what I could create with my past skill set. So I quit that company a few weeks later and put all of my chips into blogging for real estate and Instagram with a company that would allow me more freedom for creative lead generation.

Within months I was using my creativity to lead generate by telling stories and showing visuals of the lifestyle in my town and my google search ranking shot up to the first page. People started calling wanting me to help them move to my new town! People were drawn to my out of the box approach to selling real estate and my readership soared. By staying true to the things I love and what I was good at I was able to provide for my family in our new (incredible) town by using creativity and unique marketing approaches that I had learned from 20 years of being self employed as a wedding photographer. I was able to merge everything I loved into a new fulfilling career… and I wouldn’t have done any of this if we hadn’t taken the huge risk to move to Dripping Springs during one of the scariest times of our career.

It has been a miracle to both take so many risks in my life and be richly rewarded by the grinding of doing the work, staying true to my gifting and looking for ways to break out of corporate and industry norms for real estate.

Lauren, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I love to work! I’ve been working since I was 14 when I had my first job waiting tables at a small town cafe in West Texas. I’d spend time trying to figure out how to make every table happy and always be attentive to their desires.

I always felt like the black sheep of my athletic family and was not interested in playing sports in high school, but instead had a love for photography, entrepreneurship and creativity. My uncle gave me my first Canon AE-1 film camera when I was 15 and I would spend all of my allowance developing film from off beat photoshoots I would put together of my sister and my pets looking into mirrors in fields and dressing up in strange costumes with double exposures. When I turned 17 I started my own photography business with the small goal of photographing my friend’s senior photos to pay for my new digital camera and professional lens. No more film meant I could shoot photos all day for free! That little business went on to earn me 1 million dollars in sales by the time I was 24. I became a workshop speaker, blogger and digital course creator in my early 20s. I even had someone ask me for my autograph in a Dion’s pizza because they recognized me from my blog! My storytelling and openness on social media created a few super fans. My husband and I traveled the USA photographing weddings and my life felt like one huge success!

After slowing my business down and wrestling with who I would be without all of the success and “fame” in my small industry, I decided to start a family and had 3 sons within 5 years. This was one of the hardest, yet most rewarding times of my life. I was shut inside my home on feeding and sleep schedules and reading parenting books, changing diapers and learning how to parent rambunctious toddlers. They became my new photography subjects while my name and business faded from the minds of old customers. I knew it was holy work to be a parent, but I struggled so much with feeling like a part of my soul was collecting dust. The achiever in me felt like it was shelved and everything I had worked so hard to tip the scales of success was over. I felt like a caged racehorse and I would dream about how I would change the world, impact lives and do something big… but only after the kids were older.

It felt like starts and stops of big ideas, big pushes to get them off of the ground and then going backwards when the idea would flop. I felt like I would always just be a “has been”.

Fast forward a few hard years and my next career move was into real estate. It felt scary. It felt too corporate for this artsy mom, but I decided to dive in and try not to lose my authenticity and tenacity that built my first career into something I loved and was proud of.

Starting in real estate during the covid boom near Austin one year and floundering during the hardest year in real estate in 30 years the next brought out the endurance I had acquired while being a mom to my three young boys. I stayed up late, took out of the box risks and worked my tail off to help my family stay afloat when so many in the industry were collectively struggling. I have enjoyed marrying my photography career into real estate with a pure love of doing good work for people, thinking outside of the industry norms and creating unique marketing materials. My google SEO has hit the first page when you search for my area realtor and my IG has a few thousand followers who enjoy my hyper local content as I claim to be a “tour guide of fun” in Dripping Springs. I’ve also started a youtube channel where I try to be a friendly face showcasing what it’s like to live in my new town and why you’d love it to. I am excited about my future in real estate and life!

I plan to accomplish big things for my family and brainstorm ways to help people with the financial freedom I attain through my real estate career.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

I have always loved social media. The fun of it all. The risk of it all. It’s just always been something that I’ve had a knack for. I knew that my target market was on social media and was using in the same way that I was- to search for real estate and realtors in certain markets.

Once I realized this I began following the hashtags of different markets to see how other realtors were achieving this same type of reach. I saw how realtors were making funny reels and I absolutely loved how wild and creative people were getting by doing something really out of the box.

When I got into real estate all I could think of was how corporate it all felt and how I would NOT get locked into that mold. I think I’ve always been a contrarian. If someone said white was in I would choose something totally different. I had a passion to think for myself and take risks.

So when everyone else in my area was posting the more corporate content on their instagrams I went hog wild with funny reels. The first one I hit publish on I could feel my heartbeat in my throat. I knew the implications of posting something that could be seen as unprofessional and silly, but also knew that if could connect with my target audience and set me apart.

I was either going to burn my professional image to the ground… or build an empire!

The reels were a hit and it grew my IG audience by over 2500 followers. I have had many, many leads and buyers come from being myself on Instagram and I know that it would have been the opposite if I had not taken that risk.

Any fun sales or marketing stories?

My very first home sale was during the height of the pandemic. I cold called a lady and she answered! Most don’t answer or just hang up on you. I took copious notes on what she was looking for and scoured the MLS for anything that resembled it.

30 minutes later I was walking through a home that fit her criteria and I emailed her a video tour. She later told me that she realized I was a hustler and that sold her on using me.

We found a house the next weekend and put an offer on it and got it! I was an anxious mess the entire time because it was my first sale. I called my broker almost daily for advice and questions on how to handle everything. The sale was extremely rocky and at the end my broker told me that it would probably be the hardest deal I would ever have to hold together. I had a new crop of gray just from that experience!

And it was my FIRST one! I felt like a year was removed from my lifespan because of the stress! The entire time I leaned into communication and treated her like she was my only client… because she was! I catered to her every need and once the deal was closed I asked the opposing listing agent to lunch.

She told me that she’d never been asked to lunch by the buyer’s agent before and as we got to know one another over queso and tacos she asked how long I had been in the business. I laughed and told her that this was my first sale. Her jaw dropped and she said she thought I had been in real estate for 10 years with the way I handled everything. At the end of the lunch she told me that she was retiring and was going to give me all of her future business because of how much she loved how I operated in real estate. I left the lunch and collected my first commission check and sat in my car and cried. Welcome to real estate! I’ve also closed several deals for that realtor now!

Contact Info:

• Website: http://laurenclarkrealtor.com/
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/laurenlovesdrippingsprings
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/laurenlovesdrippingsprings
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauren-clark-19900b201/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4YJ59GcQoGT58PeS65cBLA

Image Credits
Carrin Lewis Photography