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Rising up within the small city of Fayetteville, North Carolina, Quiana Watson was at all times drawn to the concept of life as an entrepreneur. Watson was the second-oldest in a lineup of six youngsters, and it’s not onerous to think about why she may need to ultimately turn out to be her personal boss with all these siblings round.
But it surely wasn’t till she went to varsity and began to discover the hustle and bustle of Atlanta on brief journeys with associates that Watson started to develop a imaginative and prescient of what her life may very well be like as an entrepreneur in a thriving metropolis.
“That was the first time I really saw people being entrepreneurs and making their own moves and their own decisions,” Watson instructed Inman. “And specifically, seeing more minorities in those spaces.”
That spark of inspiration propelled Watson to get her actual property license, ultimately begin her personal firm, star in a actuality TV present and now function an Inman Influencer.
Watson has realized quite a bit about what to do and what not to do alongside the way in which, and she or he shared all the small print with Inman.
Large goals
Watson studied advertising at Fayetteville State College in her hometown, and fell in love with the creativity of the self-discipline from the get-go. On the identical time, she was additionally creating an attachment to the large metropolis a six-hour drive away: Atlanta.
“They would have all these events in Atlanta back then,” Watson reminisced. “So we’d come with our friends and just hang out and go to parties and the mall and really enjoy the culture of the city.”
The town, with twice the inhabitants of Fayetteville, had her enraptured, and after her school commencement, Watson determined to make the leap. With about $5,000 in financial savings, she moved to Atlanta with out a job lined up, however with loads of hope for the long run.
“I figured it would work itself out,” Watson stated. “I always tell people that story — it’s like, the amount of audacity you have in your young age when it’s like, I have nothing to lose; let me see if it’s going to work. And things worked out for me.”
Watson received a job that she initially thought was with a giant advertising agency, however was really with a telemarketing agency. Nonetheless, it helped her pay the payments and gave her some skilled work expertise.
Whereas out and about within the metropolis one night, Watson occurred to fulfill a gaggle of ladies who have been actual property brokers. After they struck up a dialog about careers, Watson was offered on getting her actual property license, too. The yr was 2007, and everybody now is aware of what was coming down the pike — the 2008 recession.
“When the market crashed, I had to really evaluate what I wanted to do and how I was going to maintain,” Watson stated. “Because I never sold a house — I didn’t sell one house. I was going to the office every day, I didn’t really know what I was doing, and everyone was like, ‘Just use your network.’ And I was like, ‘Well, I’m not from here, and I don’t have a network of people who are buying houses.’ So I went into property management at the time.”
Property administration allowed Watson to get her ft moist within the trade, acquire some expertise, construct her community and, finally, transfer up the ranks till she was in a managerial place. She labored in property administration for about 5 years earlier than reactivating her actual property license and beginning to work as a gross sales agent part-time. When the final rental constructing she was repping was offered a few yr later, she determined to make the leap to representing patrons and sellers full-time.
“I came in full-time and just applied those principles [from property management], which was a lot of reporting back-end systems and all that, to my business and really understanding the power of follow-up in sales,” Watson stated.
Courtesy of Quiana Watson
Studying the ability of social media
Watson shortly realized that utilizing social media in her enterprise might give her an enormous benefit. At some point when exhibiting some homes, she determined to begin filming herself for social from her automobile with ideas about what was taking place in her day, and the off-the-cuff tactic helped her acquire some captive followers.
“I just organically grew an audience of people that were like, ‘Wow.’ They were entertained, but also educated about what really happens in the real estate space,” Watson stated.
Over time, the dealer has amassed practically 500,000 followers on Instagram and over 16,000 on YouTube.
As of late, Watson stated she feels prefer it’s essential to indicate her persona to her viewers and show that she will be relatable whereas additionally serving as a trusted information by means of the transaction.
“It’s like, y’all, you have to also understand how to be personable,” Watson stated, after relaying the way it’s not unusual for her to bump right into a high-end shopper at a celebration occasionally. “Because the new age, as I like to call it, of entrepreneurs and the new people who are coming up and looking to purchase a home, they are looking for relatability … So I always post a little bit of what I like to say is not really ‘personal,’ but you know, that I have a life outside of real estate.”
Watson likes to throw some market updates and a few of her brokerage’s listings into the combination when producing content material. She additionally makes a aware effort to attempt to encourage different entrepreneurs who could also be following her on social.
“I think it’s important that we share the ups and downs of entrepreneurship,” Watson stated. “A lot of times, it can feel lonely because everybody just looks like, ‘Oh, they woke up, walked into a house, closed the deal, and nothing happened in the middle.’ And I kind of break down those barriers, like, these 15 things took place and this is how we progressed to the closing.”
Courtesy of Quiana Watson
Constructing a brokerage
Watson began her actual property gross sales profession with PalmerHouse Properties and after a couple of years moved to Compass. However she solely stayed with Compass for just below a yr earlier than realizing it was time to unfold her wings and create her personal firm. It was in 2020 when Watson paused, checked out the place she was in her profession and determined to make a change.
“I evaluated my business model and was just like, I feel like I can really do this independently,” Watson stated.
The dealer now has 22 actual property brokers working at her agency, Watson Realty Co., along with a number of employees members, whereas she leads the agency’s course as she continues to actively help shoppers with their homebuying and promoting wants. Watson has additionally developed niches in luxurious and new building, which partly got here out of the sturdy relationships she’s constructed with native homebuilders like Nick & Brothers and Constructed By KJ.
However establishing her personal firm wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows. Out of a want to scale, Watson realized at one level that she had grown too massive, too quick — and it was an excessive amount of to deal with.
“I’ve done it the wrong way, which is why I said ‘I closed the door,’” Watson instructed Inman, after earlier clarifying that she is not accepting new brokers right now. “I was so overzealous at one point, I want to say I had close to 60 agents.”
That determine was simply an excessive amount of for a broker-owner nonetheless lively available in the market with shoppers, Watson realized. It wasn’t that she was letting individuals who weren’t a superb match into the corporate — it was simply that everybody who got here by means of the doorways actually needed one-on-one time along with her, and it was unattainable to ship at that scale.
“It helped me recognize where I wanted to be in the marketplace and to focus on working with developers and keeping my company small until I hire an associate broker, which would stand in the gap for me,” Watson stated. “And make clear expectations when people were to come in that this is who your point of contact will be, this person is going to be — it would not and could not be me.”
Courtesy of Quiana Watson
An excessive amount of tea
In 2022, Watson additionally elevated her public profile by showing on The Women Who Listing Atlanta on OWN. The actual property actuality TV sequence aired for one season and adopted Watson, together with 5 different high feminine actual property professionals available in the market, whereas they juggled their skilled and private lives.
The expertise wasn’t precisely what Watson had anticipated.
“For me, my experience on reality TV was indifferent, to say the least,” she stated with fun. “I don’t know why I was naive enough to think, ‘It’s just going to be about real estate.’ And at the time, I was so brand conscious and, What’s professional? What’s not? I don’t want people to see me arguing with people … and who’s minding their own business. So even being on TV was a shock for me…”
She ended up quitting the present prematurely and realized a helpful lesson within the course of.
“I always tell people, be very careful what you say ‘yes’ to because every opportunity for you may not be the opportunity for you, so to speak, depending on how you run your business.”
Watson stated she’d be open to doing actuality TV once more (although not prepared to drop the whole lot on the subsequent point out of a suggestion), now that she higher understands the way it works in follow and might go into it with clear eyes.
“I have no real complaints; I just know that I will be very cautious — and I’ll tell anyone who is reading this — exposure is great, but make sure that once you get that exposure, it’s exposing you to opportunities that are going to help your business, not harm your business,” Watson stated.
Courtesy of Quiana Watson
A ardour for coaching and hopes for future development
After fielding questions from so many brokers over time in regards to the keys to her success, Watson began extra informally coaching different brokers in 2019 and formally launched a coaching group in 2020 when she additionally launched her brokerage. The corporate is known as Agent Instruments for Success.
“My top quality was ‘How to turn those likes to closings on social media,’” Watson explained. “And it was such a huge response that by the time I got to the following year and was launching my real estate brokerage, I was like, ‘OK, I’m going to begin a gaggle.’”
Enrollees attend occasions in particular person a few occasions per yr (this month in Washington, D.C., and Atlanta), and have common classes and check-ins on Zoom a number of occasions per 30 days.
“That has been one of my greatest accomplishments, I feel, because when I got into the industry, nobody told me how I should run [my business],” Watson stated. “Now I’m able to give back by offering training courses to help people not make the same mistakes I made and be successful and use a blueprint.”
Waiting for the subsequent 5 years, Watson is working in the direction of scaling her brokerage in a gradual, sustainable manner. She’s additionally exploring different alternatives for the enterprise, together with authorities contracts.
“That is another avenue that most people are not completely aware of, but it solidifies the legacy of a company,” Watson defined.
However as she grows her firm this time round, Watson is aware of to be a bit extra cautious.
“I won’t make the same mistakes I made before,” she stated.
