We recently connected with Kim Hullett and have shared our conversation below.
Kim, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What’s been the best thing you’ve ever seen (or done yourself) to show a customer that you appreciate them?
My entire marketing plan is built on curating events and gifts that delight, creating community for my sphere, and reminding potential and existing clients of my network around some of my strongest interests: art, design, beauty and home. My goal for gift-giving and these client connection events is to demonstrate my incorporation of the more feminine values of intuition, gratitude, and collaboration into the traditionally masculine deal-making process – recognizing that deals come together and agents are chosen based on relationships and my ability to create and share the stories clients want to tell or hear about their homes, whether they are buying or selling. The generosity of my approach breeds confidence in my process. And once we are aligned and the client relationship is solid, then it’s up to me to use my legal chops and business creativity to put the deal together and get it done.
Kim, 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 passionate residential real estate agent with 30 years of business and sales experience in various industries. I create trusting, aligned relationships with my clients and offer high-touch service and trusted advice for real estate transactions, ensuring that both buyers and sellers make financially and personally sound decisions. My time-tested process honors both the emotion evoked when people think of “home” with the data-driven information needed about a home’s pricing history, major systems, and unique features to create an empowered, delightful, and professional buying or selling experience. My degrees in law and engineering have served me well, allowing me to build businesses and bring her expertise to the industries in which I have worked. I have seamlessly integrated my distinctive approach and business values into a luxury brand and business, eschewing high-pressure sales tactics still used by most top realtors. I believe my refreshing and sometimes unexpected approach allows me to bring collaborative energy and compassion to my amazing client relationships. I focus on listening and connecting to my clients; creating a loyal and committed following of home buyers, sellers, and investors!
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
In 2020 when the world was on its personal edge, real estate deals and the activities associated with buying and selling homes was deemed critical, and we, as an industry, were forced to look in the mirror and realize that we needed to adapt (and could adapt) to a more virtual and efficient approach to showing properties and transacting real estate deals. Property law, the extremely small slice of property law that real estate agents are allowed to practice in Colorado, is antiquated and cumbersome, and so was brokering deals in this space. Seeing the processes used for buying and selling, inspecting, making offers, title company activities and closing deals grow up fast during this time was a meaningful improvement to our industry. And this forced pivot led to some additional shifts, many of which we have seen as a result of direct-to-consumer technology and the public’s frustration with the non-transparency in the real estate industry. I made some important changes after the initial 2020 changes; my most recent shift incorporated leaning into my personal brand, the availability of technology to me as an agent, and the more efficient nature of cloud brokerages for me and my clients – I am firmly ensconced and educating others now in my very virtual brokerage that has allowed me to do all of these things for the benefit of my team of agents and clients.
Conversations about M&A are often focused on multibillion dollar transactions – but M&A can be an important part of a small or medium business owner’s journey. We’d love to hear about your experience with selling businesses.
Don’t rule out your competitors. I sold my first company to my largest and most successful female competitor. No one is really your win-lose competitor if you see them as a valuable part of your company’s development process. Abundance principles dictate my entire business view: there is plenty for everyone and a rising tide raises all ships. There is nothing new, but there is also no way anyone can do something exactly like you will do in your corner of the world with your ideal clients. Start making appropriate levels of friendships or at least industry collaborations with people and leaders who are aligned with the way you do business and follow them. Create discernment and realize that the way to success is for everyone to consider you, accept that many will reject you, but with a clear message, plenty will choose you! Once you know who you are in business, then shout it clearly to the rooftops and bask in the ease of serving people who use your services or product based on your distinct messaging and branding. Then when you are ready to sell the business, you will know your value proposition and be able to sell to a competitor to expand their offerings and continue successfully in your footsteps. Build your business and brand for discernment and uniqueness to create a salable entity, something possible even in saturated industries.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.kimhullettrealestate.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kim.hullett/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KimHullettRealtor
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kimhullettrealtor/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@KimHullett
Image Credits
These were all purchase from my photographers – so I own all these photos. Thank you!