We recently connected with Jami Kinton-Sluss and have shared our conversation below.

Jami, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today In our experience, overnight success is usually the result of years of hard work laying the foundation for success, but unfortunately, it’s exactly this part of the story that most of the media ignores. So, we’d appreciate if you could open up about your growth story and the nitty, gritty details that went into scaling up.

Our business has always been super focused on our team, and we always will be. One thing that has always set us apart is that, unlike nearly every other real estate brokerage, we do not compete with our agents, meaning we don’t sell real estate. We make sure every lead and opportunity is given to our team. However, I would say that we scaled to new level when we started putting an even greater focus on social media and marketing. We realized that marketing our agents just as hard as our listings was going to improve business for them, and ultimately us, if we marketed with this focus. We tell our agents that the sky is the limit when it comes to what we will do for them marketing wise and we are forever researching and brainstorming to make sure we are completely ahead of the curve.

As a result, in the last few years, Sluss Realty became No. 1 on Facebook in our area and, according to our local board of REALTORS, we have the highest retention rate of agents, alongside of the fact that we have more local agents than any other brokerage in North Central Ohio.

Additionally, we put an even greater focus on giving back to our community. There is honestly pretty much not a day that goes by that we aren’t raising money for a cause, volunteering our time, highlighting other small businesses, etc. We’ve seen wonderful partnerships and relationships forming because of this that have just been the icing on the cake for us, as we just absolutely love every chance we get to better our community.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Sluss Realty is the longest-standing real estate company in North Central Ohio. We know that our 52 successful years in our community is due to a history of strong integrity, honesty with our team and our community, a genuine care and heart to give back and a forward-thinking mentality.

We are completely unique in that our owners and full-time staff do not sell real estate. Instead, we dedicate 100% of our time to our agents. We believe that if we do everything we can to ensure our agent’s success, our company will in turn be successful.

We put a huge emphasis on our community and giving back. All three of our owners, including myself, are homegrown, so doing our part to make our community a better place is incredibly important to us.

We have the most in-depth training program of any local brokerage and our marketing blows every other company out of the water. Again, because we don’t sell real estate, we have more time to focus on improving every aspect of our company.

This is why we have the highest agent retention rate and have more local agents than ANY brokerage in our area.

Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?

No one likes to brag, but we do feel it is important to constantly share with clients, as well as our social media following, that we have more than double the 5-star Google reviews than any other brokerage. Our marketing is also are NOT cookie cutter. We tailor our marketing to our clients needs and their home needs. Every home is different, so we treat them differently in strategy. We also are constantly giving back, which we hope sends the message that we truly care about our community. We oversea every aspect of our business, and work hard to find solutions to problems. We are constantly changing and growing in a positive direction and we believe the combination of all these things – and making sure we’re sharing them – has worked to grow our clientele.

Any advice for managing a team?

Because our agents are all independent contractors, and so much of the job can be done remotely, we work hard to counter this and make sure our agents feel a true part of our Sluss family. We want them to develop a bond, not just with us, but with each other. Because of the nature of the job, they are essentially competing with each other, so we want to combat any uncomfortable feelings with providing ongoing opportunities for team building. Just this past winter, we had a Kingwood Center team night, gingerbread house building day, snowman building day, Dial-A-Santa community outreach, coat drive, Christmas party and more.

Contact Info:

• Website: slussrealty.com
• Instagram: @slussrealty
• Facebook: facebook.com/slussrealty
• Youtube: youtube.com/slussrealty