We were lucky to catch up with Marissa Holmes recently and have shared our conversation below.

Marissa, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Owning a business isn’t always glamorous and so most business owners we’ve connected with have shared that on tough days they sometimes wonder what it would have been like to have just had a regular job instead of all the responsibility of running a business. Have you ever felt that way?

There are so many times when I have the thought “What would I be doing as a salary employee, if I wasn’t in the real estate industry”? To be honest, there’s nothing that comes to mind that would be as fulfilling for me. That thought comes to my head when things get tough and sometimes I question whether I’m in the right career. I have worked so hard to get to where I am today, and I have to remind myself that…. a lot. More than you’d think! When there’s no “clock out” button, and there’s many times when I’m in the middle of dinner and have to take important calls, or miss a family function because I have clients in town. It can be tough to balance every day. It’s true when they say, “Nothing worth having comes easy”. I have to stop and remind myself of the upsides and positives to this career, where I can dictate my own schedule and truly be in the driver’s seat of my own success. Every day is a new challenge and chance to learn. I am not in this business to be successful for myself. I am doing this for my family and my kids’ future – they are my “why”. Overall, theres no “YOU’VE MADE IT!” milestone. There’s room for growth every day and I still feel that very deeply, even after 7 years in the business.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Taking you all the way back to when I was in college, in Eugene, Oregon, working for a student housing apartment complex as their flyer girl. I would walk around University of Oregon (Go Ducks!) and would pass around flyers promoting the apartments specials. I was so young and really just needed the money as a broke college student. After doing that for a few months, I got promoted to be a leasing consultant and help rent out the apartments. I LOVED it, and my colleagues and I were super competitive, in a good way. I started to learn more about myself and what I enjoy doing for work. A year later, when I was 21 years old, my company asked if I would fly down to San Marcos, TX to help manage a student housing community that was having a hard time with their leasing and operations. I looked at this as a great opportunity to move up in the company and show them I was serious, so I packed everything I owned, and flew to Texas within 2 weeks. This was my very first time in Texas! I was SO excited and COMPLETELY terrified at the same time. I was young, I didn’t know anyone, aside from one colleague…. but I was also so determined to make things happen for myself. I had been on my own ever since I was out of high school, and I was really determined to be successful in whatever I was passionate about. What I thought was supposed to be more of a temporary thing, turned into me becoming a Texan for life. Over the next 5 years, I got promoted to property manager, overseeing the whole community. This was amazing and exciting, but also entailed some of the most challenging things I’ve ever gone through. I learned how to manage a full staff and have operating procedures in place, I learned everything I could about customer service and how to completely transform a building’s reputation, I learned so much about operating statements, expenses, net sheets, etc., I learned how to hire and fire people, I learned about marketing….(so much marketing) and most importantly, I learned how to be a leader. Going through all of that in my early 20’s…wow. It was a lot but I’m so glad I got to experience it. In 2017, after 7 years in the property management industry, I decided I was going take my career to real estate sales. The management side of things, I learned, is just not something I could see myself doing for the rest of my life. I was in a place in my life where I really wanted to grow and set myself up for my future. Even if that means I have to completely start over (and go broke!) – I knew that was the sacrifice I had to make.

I got my license and I thought, surely I can make my first sale within the next couple months! …. HA! That’s hilarious. I worked every single day, connecting with anyone I knew to see if they were interested in selling/buying anytime soon. I worked open houses, I worked social media like crazy (instagram was my main platform), I worked the phones at my office, I door knocked, I cold-called… I would pretty much take any possible opportunity that came my way. It was not pretty or glamorous, whatsoever. It was actually quite humbling! I got my first sale after 6 months of constant grinding. It happened to be some of my great friends and a colleague at my previous company. I will NEVER forget how special that sale was to me. It wasn’t just my first sale. I got to help some of my favorite people buy their first home and I saw how much that meant to them. That is when I knew I wanted to do this forever.

Real estate transactions are never easy and rarely perfectly smooth, even if you do everything right. That’s just a fact. I knew that I had the thick skin to handle whatever is thrown my way, but also have the empathy and care for my clients to help them go through the process and quite honestly, all of the emotions that come with it. Buying/selling a home is stressful, I get it. I never take anything personal in a transaction. I handle it straight on, and don’t stop until we can get some type of resolution and my clients know that I am working hard to make things right for them. Once we go through all of THAT…….. THEN we can celebrate at closing!

Knowing the work history I have gone through, I truly feel like it’s prepared me so much for what I go through now, when I am assisting clients through difficult transactions. I also know that I’m not perfect and I’m human, so if there’s ever a mistake on my end, I will absolutely own up to it and take accountability. Full honesty and communication is SO important to me.

After being a solo agent for 4 years, I started my own real estate team called MOD Home Group. I wish that there was some cool acronym for this team name, but there’s not… I just like the name. Fast forward to my business now, I’m 7 years in and a lot of my sales come from repeat clients, referrals, and social media.

I can truly say that because I put the client FIRST, and always strive to go above and beyond, that is why I have been able to have a successful real estate career. I focus on relationships, and put others first before my own needs. That is what fills my cup, is helping others. That has also been the driving factor of the repeat clients and referrals! It all comes full circle. So that’s the secret sauce……. put the client FIRST!

There’s 3 of us on the team now and we have made the top 2.5% agents in all of Austin. I am proud of what I have become and even though there’s still SO much to learn and work towards, I can admit that I need to get better about taking those moments to just be grateful for how far I’ve come.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

Starting from as early as my teens, I always loved marketing and being creative. I think back to when we had those dorky MySpace pages – I would go crazy on the graphics and HTML, ha! Or even getting into scrapbooking, that was one of my favorite things I used to do with my grandmother. I just really loved to be creative and crafty.

As soon as I got into real estate, I started my focus on instagram and was extremely consistent with it. I was able to meet SO many amazing clients on that platform, while also getting to express all creativity. (follow me! @marissaholmes_atx)
I would post at least 4-5 times a week and be very interactive on stories every single day. My goal was to educate people about the real estate market, provide homebuying/selling tips, and also keep it fun and authentic to my personality as much as possible. I’m constantly making fun of myself on there and just showcasing my dorky-ness, while also showing I can be a young business professional and be serious when I need to be! The nice thing is that whenever I would end up getting a new client from instagram, we always vibe so well. We usually end up being very similar! Those are some of my most favorite clients that are now friends. It’s awesome!

Any thoughts, advice, or strategies you can share for fostering brand loyalty?

I think it’s so, so, SO important to keep the relationship with clients after the sale. That is just the beginning for me! (unless it’s a client that I just don’t want to talk to again, there are a few of those, if I’m being honest) I’ve been blessed with amazing clients and I always want to be their real estate resource, whether they are in the market to buy/sell or not. After closing, I stay in touch with clients in many different ways. Most of the time it’s social media, since that’s where everyone is these days. I have my certain clients that only like to talk on the phone so I’ll call them, or I’ll make time to go to lunches/happy hours. We also have an annual client appreciation party that’s a ton of fun. Each month I’ll send newsletters with market updates and annual reminders for important tax deadlines or inspection reminders (the less-exciting stuff). Either way, it’s so important that my people know I am there for them anytime, and it’s not a “goodbye” after closing!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://MODHomeGroup.com
• Instagram: @marissaholmes_atx
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarissaRealtyAustin/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MarissaHolmes_ATX
• Other: Tik Tok: @modhomegroup

Image Credits

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