We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Sarah Church. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Sarah below.
Sarah, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you tell us about an important lesson you learned while working at a prior job?
Before moving to the Twin Cities almost 6 years ago, I worked for a local real estate company named Amy Wienands Real Estate in my hometown of Waterloo, Iowa. I was hired when I was 19, to pilot a new position that the company had never had before. They wanted to have an in house licensed agent that would set appointments for the buyer’s agents + listing agents from the company database, inbound calls, etc. This position was called an ISA (inside sales agent). As it was new to the company, my boss & I learned how valuable this position was together for the first time. I spent 3 years prospecting and following up with hundreds of clients every week. This job taught me how to figure out what people really need (even when they might not know), it taught me the whole back-end process of a real estate transaction and what goes into getting to the closing table, and it taught me how to handle the inevitable rejection of being in real estate. Learning all of from behind the scenes before jumping into the sales side myself in a brand new market was incredibly valuable. After I moved to Minnesota, I was able to hit the ground running because I had the knowledge of how to talk to clients, how to organize follow-up, how to advise properly, and so much more. Being an ISA first gave me the experience, thick skin, and strategic experience to really be a value add to my clients from day 1.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I got into real estate when I was 19, so this will be my 10th year as a licensed realtor. After a few years of working in the business, I moved to Minnesota and shifted from an ISA/ W2 roll to an 1099 independent contractor. It was a bit scary moving to a brand new city and going straight into such a competitive business, but for those who know me, I enjoy a good challenge! I quickly found success hosting open houses for my colleagues listings, and that became my “thing”. I got all of my clients from hosting open houses and started to provide trainings to other offices/ brokerages about how I was doing it. I love sharing what is working for me, because this can be such a lonely and competitive business that if there is something that is working, I am all for sharing. I am naturally a strategic thinker and efficient problem solver, so those skills work well for this line of work as every client + house match is a puzzle that has many moving parts to perfectly fit together, and putting that puzzle together is truly what makes me happy! It was really important to me to be able to serve clients at an incredibly high level, while also having some fun along the way. Based on my feedback over the years, that is how people feel when they work with me, so it feels like a dream come true to be able to bring expert counsel with a personal touch too.
Contact Info:
- Website: heysarahchurch.com
- Instagram: heysarahchurch
- Facebook: Sarah Church
Image Credits
Hannah Knudson Photography, Skylar Rae Photography, Pemberton Media