We were lucky to catch up with Jocelyn Lomahan recently and have shared our conversation below.
Jocelyn , appreciate you joining us today. Any thoughts about whether to ask friends and family to support your business. What’s okay in your view?
If you ask most real estate agents how they got their start, they would likely tell you they started by helping a family member or a friend buy or sell a home. In my early years of real estate, it was during the time when short sales were the norm and friends would come to me because they were in trouble and they felt that they could trust me with their situation. I’m sure that there may have been more friends/family in this same situation that felt more embarrassed and in turn, did not choose to have me help them during this time. But years later, I came to respect their decisions because it is such an emotional ordeal. Buying and selling a home in and of itself is tough. But to be in a distressed situation is all the more challenging.
I have learned when and when not to ask my family and friends to support my business for these reasons. I have learned to simply share my stories — successes and failures — this tends to make people feel more connected to me and my business. And from there, they can choose whether or not to work with me. One thing’s for certain, as hurt as I might be that a friend/family member decided not to work with me, I would never, ever make anyone feel badly or guilty about it. I used to take it personally, but realized eventually, that it was never about me.
After 20 years of being in the business, the best way I can “ask” for my friends and family to support me is to simply provide as much value as I can, whether or not they ask for it. And it’s easy to do because it simply means connecting with people and knowing what’s going on in their lives and to contribute with no expectation of anything in return. Not only does it feel great, but in the end, it confirms that I care about them. And a wise person once told me: No one cares about how much you know until they know how much you care. I am proud to say that 90% of my business comes to me in the way of referrals. And it has made my career so fulfilling because I have been able to attract and retain like-minded clients with similar beliefs and ways of thinking — it truly makes what I do enjoyable and fulfilling.
Jocelyn , 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?
I am a native San Diegan, grew up in Southeast San Diego and attended SDSU with a Business Degree with an emphasis in Finance. My Filipino parents expected me to be a nurse like my mother, but that wasn’t in the cards for me. I thought I would be in the Finance Industry due to my banking background, but eventually I stumbled on real estate — and although I never considered myself a “sales” person, I realized that some of my innate strengths are (thanks to learning them from Gallup and “Living Your Strengths”) Positivity, Adaptability and WOO aka Winning Others Over…. which are great skills when dealing with people. I got my start in Real Estate working with top agents in the most expensive zip code in San Diego — 92067, Rancho Santa Fe…. from there I did a complete 180 and learned about short sales/foreclosures…. these two extremes gave me a great range of knowledge about real estate and 20 years later, I love what I do every day and have the absolute honor of helping change people’s lives through real estate.
Most recently I became involved in AREAA (Asian Real Estate Association), whose mission is to help the AANHPI and other diversity groups achieve the dream of homeownership. We advocate on a National level by talking with elected officials about the challenges that they face — including things like appraisal inequity, to address any potential bias that might cause minority communities to be undervalued. My own parents were immigrants to the country and were lucky enough to be able to achieve the dream of homeownership, but I know that there are many that come to this country and work hard, but never realize this dream simply because they don’t know that they can. I eventually became President of our San Diego chapter, which has been an absolute honor to represent the organization and encourage my fellow realtors of all backgrounds to advocate for this mission.
In addition to working hard for my clients which is the reason most of my business comes to me in the way of referrals, I make community service a huge part of my business. In addition to the work I do with AREAA, I also serve on my local town council of Rancho Penasquitos. I am heavily involved in my parish Our Lady of Mt. Carmel. I serve on other various boards and volunteer as much as I can. I give much of my time, talent and treasure because I know that I am extremely blessed to be able to have the career I have. I know that people don’t buy a home every day, so I want to give back to others and be active in my community to be a resource to others, whether it be real estate related or not.
In the early years of my business, I parked myself at my favorite coffee shop Mostra and always invited people to have “Java with Jocelyn” and to this day, I’m known for coffee dates…. My coffee dates have become a great way to connect with people and the topic of real estate tends to always come up, even if just to ask “how’s the market.”
But at the end of the day, I want to be remembered as someone who truly cares about her clients and her community.
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
Since social media is such a big part of a realtor’s business, I have been very active for a long time. I have seen how social media has helped my business and slowed it down.
Most coaches tell us realtors to post a mix of business and personal posts. I used to post very consistently about my new listings, recent sales and client testimonials. But after awhile, I started to get a little self conscious about doing so, I thought I was being too braggy and cut back a bit on posting about real estate. It was at a time in my life also when a lot was going on in my personal life, having kids, watching the kids grow, their involvement in sports, travel adventures, my own personal growth, competing in pageants after kids, all of the organizations I became involved with, even running for an elected position at one point — I steered away from posting about my real estate business, my primary source of income, and I felt the effects. I even had a trusted colleague ask me if I was still in the business because I never posted about real estate… Also, posting too much about my personal endeavors caused potential friends/family that wanted to use me say: It seems like you’re too busy for me. This is when I knew I had to get more consistent, even if it meant putting it on a calendar to ensure I was posting the right mix of real estate and personal.
During Covid, when we were all at home, I started playing with Tik Tok more, and initially it was to have fun with my daughters and doing the dances with them… eventually I started to do the dances but with a Realtor twist to them… never did I think that this would lead to attention, but it did. I would get comments like: You’re that realtor that dances on Tik Tok.
I am to the point in my career now that in order to grow through social media, I have to make it more than just a ‘thing I do’ and treat it like what it is: a pillar of my business that I need to invest financially in for it to grow. I have contracted with a video production company to assist me with creating unique, informative and entertaining social media content and to post consistently over a wide variety of platforms to extend my reach. It’s a huge shift in my business and I am excited to see the results of this pivot.
The advice I would give to new real estate agents is to be consistent with this incredible free opportunity.
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
As commission-only and mostly solo business, real estate can be an emotional roller coaster. I was very hard on myself when I didn’t win an offer for my client, or I didn’t get a listing or my buyer decided to wait for the market to get better and stop looking for homes. I took these losses very personally and I was very fearful of not making money and I would get super anxious.
But it was through working with a business coach that I was able to unlearn this negative mindset. I was able to see that being fearful affected my outlook. I focused more on the losses rather than all of my wins, as there were several families I was able to help, but my scarcity mindset only allowed me to focus on the ones I didn’t win. I learned that I had to detach from the outcomes and approach my business that way, because by doing so, I was able to act and react in a much more rational rather than emotional state and doing so helped me tremendously. I used to be nervous about having difficult conversations with clients because I was more worried about how I would feel rather than the clients. I learned that this was an extremely selfish attitude and I am grateful that I unlearned this.
One story in particular comes to mind. I started working with a lovely couple many years ago when they were boyfriend/girlfriend. They wanted to purchase a home, but changed their minds deciding that their rent was such a great deal that they didn’t want to have a mortgage. A few years later, they reached out again — we looked again, but in the end decided not to buy. This happened a few more times, but after they got married and had their first child, we actually got into escrow on a home and things were finally on track. But they got cold feet during the process and wanted to cancel. The old me would have agreed with them and helped them to get their deposit back. But upon much introspection, I detached from the outcome, was completely unselfish and had a firm talk with them about why I think they should buy the home. I gave all the facts and even admitted that I had failed them years ago by not encouraging them to buy a house sooner. After many tears, they finally admitted that they were just scared and that my firmness showed just how much I cared about them and it was exactly what they needed to hear in order to move forward with the purchase. I truly wanted what was best for them, and believed in them and their ability to make this move, and they are so happy now. When we closed escrow, they said thank you for not letting them quit again.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.thekeytosandiego.com
- Instagram: @jocelyn.lomahan
- Facebook: jocelyn.lomahan
- Linkedin: @jocelynlomahan
- Twitter: @jocelynlomahan
- Youtube: @jocelyn.lomahan
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/jocelyn-lomahan-avenue-home-collective-san-diego
- Other: TikTok: @jocelyn.lomahan