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

Jamie, appreciate you joining us today. Would you say you are more focused on growing revenue or cutting costs? We’d love to hear how you think about these two critical drivers

We spend the majority of our focus on client experience and fostering an environment for growth for our agents. As a team leader and producing agent we wear many hats throughout the day to serve our clients and agents.

We have a personal team but are also the Austin area leaders for our brokerage. We are at a new cutting edge AI brokerage called Epique Realty that is changing the way agents do business.

One of the ways they are doing this is removing the barrier of many of the costs of doing business such as listing signs and installation, transaction coordination, listing photos, AI tools, Lofty Epterprise CRM, included mentorship, etc.

Not only are they saving agents in their business they are saving in their personal lives through car wash membership, roadside assistance, healthcare, prescription, dental, vision, etc. so a lot of costs we had before epique are covered allowing us to put more effort in client appreciation events and pop bys etc.

The savings from our bottom line has also allowed us to put more back into professional development that we may have not felt fit in the budget before.

For example we just signed up to be coached by the Tom Ferry team and it’s something we are very excited about that may not have been possible without the savings we have.

We are referral based so how we show love to our sphere and community play a huge role in growing our business. We are able to be more generous with a lower bottom line.

We love helping our agents at epique and on our team and have a hard time drawing the line at what is just for our team versed what we can do for everyone. So most of the time it’s almost a “team lite” for all agents in our group.

We have goals for 2025 of growing our local team through referral channels and teaching our agents how to build their business through close relationships that go far beyond a transaction.

We will continue to grow our down line at epique and share the power of having a brokerage that truly cares about the agents success more than their company. We have the privilege of being on the ground floor of the next big change in Cloud based brokerage for our industry and are so excited about the opportunities that are coming.

Jamie, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Jamie- I originally got into real estate because I love everything about it after buying our first home in 2001 in Leander. My husband and I grew up here in Jonestown and always loved the area and knew it’s where we wanted to make our lives. After kids started getting school age I wanted to have their schedule so I took a 13 year hiatus to work at Leander ISD ultimately becoming an Audio Video teacher at Glen HS my last 5 years. All of my district experience helped me build a bigger sphere base in the community and showed me how I can educate people in all things real estate my true passion. After a year of covid teaching and helping my ailing father I started over in real estate. First at a flat fee broker because I wanted to have the freedom to run my business that it provided until I realized how important finding your tribe can be! That led me on an expedition to find the right group and brokerage to support my goals. I landed on exp in 2022 and that is how I met Jessica. Fast forward a year and we are at Build a conference all about how to 2.0 your business and build a down line and team. That’s where the Epique model was introduced in July 2023. I could not unhear the things Epique was offering! And thought man I would want my broker to do that for me and did the math of how much I would’ve saved on 2022 with the benefits they offer! It was too much not to make a change.
It has been the best decision of my career. I thoroughly enjoy the agents we are bringing into our group and helping them grow while I feel empowered and supported to reach my goals as well.

Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?

Kinda gave that in the last part but that’s a great story!

We are now work wives and talk 15 times a day whether it’s calls, in person, text, zoom.

I truly can’t remember life before Jessica and love her to pieces.
She is so selfless and kind. One funny thing is while I am “younger” my kids are 20 and 23. Jess is still in the thick of it with 3 ages 6,10,12 and all the baseball, school pick up, and birthday parties!
I try to give her the reminders of how these moments won’t last forever.

What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?

Yes! As a teacher I thought I was going to have to take 2 years to get up and going and praise the lord I had saved my teacher salary in 6 months. That was my metric to leave teaching.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://Keygroupaustin.com
• Instagram: Jamie.winkley_realtor
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JamieWinkleyTXRealtor
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamiewinkley?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_app

Image Credits

Kristi Krouse Photography I will email photo