Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Samantha Steele Hang. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Samantha, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. One of the things we most admire about small businesses is their ability to diverge from the corporate/industry standard. Is there something that you or your brand do that differs from the industry standard? We’d love to hear about it as well as any stories you might have that illustrate how or why this difference matters.

One thing the real estate industry pushes to grow agents’ business is to buy their leads, or essentially buy their clients. I have built my business organically and authentically through word of mouth, networking, community, collaboration, and referrals. Another thing that used to be considered a waste of time when I was building my business was utilizing social media to gain trust and ultimately grow your clientele. Now, it is quite normal, but when I was starting out, it was considered to be idiotic. Regardless, I have always used social media to educate my audience and community in a fun, transparent, and authentic way. I think in today’s age, if you aren’t utilizing this tool and utilizing it well, the potential of your business is severely missing out on big opportunities. Lastly, I am a mom and it was always important to me that I was able to balance work life with mom life and my goal was to be able to, for the most part, take summers off to spend time with the kids, as well as December for their winter break. Summers are one of the busiest times for real estate. So I had to figure out how to sell a year’s worth of real estate to sustain myself, my kids, and our lives, while only working 8 months out of the year and essentially part-time hours. So, at first, it was hard to keep my blinders on and not give into the industry standard that success is measured by the amount of sales/volume an agent does; but measure MY success by how well I can balance my work and kids and if I could make a year’s worth salary working only 8 months.
So with that being said, I have stuck to my guns and have been able to double my business year over year and now have an organically established business while keeping what’s most important (family) at the forefront.

Samantha, 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 got into real estate out of happenstance actually. At the time, I was a mom of 4 kids, 4 years old and under and pregnant with the 5th. Before becoming a mom, I was a workaholic. I loved working and what I did, but after becoming a mom, paying for childcare didn’t make sense. So I stayed at home with the kids. I wasn’t feeling completely fulfilled by that though. So I started looking for a job that had flexible hours and I could do without compromising raising the kids. At that same time, my parents were looking for a home close to us to live near their grandkids and I was their boots on the ground. Their real estate agent was transitioning off his current team to be a solo agent and needed help. I quickly jumped on the opportunity and have never once questioned that this is exactly what I was meant to be doing.
Now I have a fully functioning well-oiled real estate business, as well as a home renovation business. I also partner with 2 local small business owners (not in real estate) in content pop-ups that help teach other local small business owners how to utilize social media to grow their businesses and create a space each month to do so.
My heart is to give back to my community through real estate and giving back to small business owners. If you think about it, each home sale brings up the community’s economy and each local small business owner is bringing up the economy as they grow, make, and sell, as well. So why not encompass the two!!

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

A few things helped build my reputation in my market. Networking, social media, and intention. I naturally can connect with people and build solid, genuine rapport with the individuals I connect with, so building a community and networking came easily to me. I also made it a point VERY early on that I was not going to pay for client leads, so I had no choice but to start connecting and networking. Social media DEFINITELY helped with that. I could speak with and engage with 50 people a day, where if I had tried to meet with 50 people in one day and build a relationship with all of them in that one day….that would be impossible. Lastly, intention. I think it’s very easy to feel the pressure of needing to make a sale or a certain amount. At times, that gets in the way of your original intention of simply wanting to help people. Staying focused on the true intention of my work and why I’m doing what I’m doing, gave me the ability to build trust and loyalty when I was speaking with others because they could feel my true intention and didn’t get that “salesy” ick feeling when they spoke to me.

How did you build your audience on social media?

I started my social media because I knew that was the cheapest (AKA free) way to grow and to reach as many people as I could each day. So with that intention of building a clientele list, I kept my social media focused on education through entertaining. I started with the very basics of the home buying and selling processes. Then as I collected client stories and as I sold more homes, I started to evolve and share client successes, how to’s, day in the life pieces, and so on. Sharing a verity of types of content while keeping the focus on real estate helped grab my audience’s attention and, most importantly, established my authority in the industry and in my area. It built respect, trust, loyalty. The coolest thing about utilizing social media, is that once I met a new client for the first time, they already knew me! It was like my content pieces had established a foundation and relationship with my client for me! So my number one advice for anyone trying to build their business on social is to not try to “go viral”. Keep your content relevant to your community within your market area and ALWAYS be yourself! Your people/clients will find you.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://linktr.ee/samanthasteelehang
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thetopknot.realtor?igsh=MWJ6NTRuNHE1ZHluaQ%3D%3D&utm_source=qr
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/BDDBbJaQ8pVq7q7n/?mibextid=eQY6cl