Today’s RealTrending podcast features Rainy Hake Austin, president of The Agency. Rainy discusses how their boutique-feel brokerage is able to scale that model using brand consistency.
Here is a small preview of today’s interview with Rainy. The transcript below has been lightly edited for length and clarity:
Tracey Velt: The Agency is known as a California boutique brand. But, a few years ago, your leadership team decided to grow into other states and countries. How are you scaling your brand without losing that boutique feel?
Rainy Hake Austin: We try to make sure there’s consistency where consistency is needed in terms of the experience with the brand and the interaction that the consumer has. But then we want to make sure that resonates inside of the market. The consumer interacts with the brand in different ways depending on whether it’s an urban market versus a suburban market. We need to be open to that, and we work with our partners to allow for that flexibility.
At the same time, we hold true to our brand standard, so that when you have an experience with the brand, it’s consistent, and that is predictable in terms of the quality that you expect to have from the Agency brand. I think that’s very important for anyone who’s looking to grow outside of the market in it.
You want to make sure that you really understand how your brand is going to resonate with the end user, and then, you control what you can, and make really clear choices about that. And that’s really what we focused on.
RealTrending features the brightest minds in real estate. Twice a month, brokerage leaders, top agents, team leaders, and industry experts share their success secrets, trends, and lessons learned navigating this ever-changing industry. Hosted by Tracey Velt and produced by Elissa Branch.