Orlando real estate professional combines the power of ReferralExchange with Instagram for instant success
From Facebook to Twitter to Instagram—and everything in between—real estate professionals are embracing social media to help promote both themselves and their brands—and drum up business, too.
But for real estate professional Nicole Mickle of Olde Town Brokers in Orlando, Fla., it’s the combination of her Instagram page (iorlandorealestate) and the lightning-fast resources of ReferralExchange— the premier agent-to-agent referral network—that are contributing to her incredible success.
“I had a friend of a friend outside my market who needed to be in a house in 35 days,” says Mickle of her experience working with the ReferralExchange platform. “I placed them into ReferralExchange and let the service take it from there. They loved the agent they chose, and the entire process took me 30 minutes.”
Besides being a self-described numbers person, Mickle is very tech- and social media-savvy, with a particular talent for design, as evidenced by her Instagram page, which she says is generating leads for her on a regular basis.
Working closely with relocation clients, the rapid turnaround Mickle’s getting through ReferralExchange has provided her with nothing short of a stellar reputation in the greater Orlando area.
Playing into her passion for numbers, Mickle started out as a mortgage broker. She then opened a global signing company, which remains in operation today.
After the market crash in 2008, she put her knowledge surrounding distressed properties to work for an Orlando area law firm while building a valuable network of banker associations. The next logical step? Getting her real estate license.
“I got my license, but never really intended to sell real estate,” admits Mickle. “I was looking for something I could do after the short sale work kind of dropped off, so I was challenged to build a new book of business and a new network of referral sources.”
Having already established herself as a blogger, Mickle decided to expand her brand through Instagram.
“I started meeting clients who wanted to relocate to the Orlando area from all over the county, and they were asking me to refer agents to help them sell their homes,” says Mickle. That’s when she first turned to ReferralExchange.
“Occasionally, I’d go through Twitter or Instagram when someone was looking for a real estate professional outside of my market, sort of sight unseen,” says Mickle, who goes on to say that she would vet them herself by phone. “But one of my clients lived in a remote region with slim pickings when it came to real estate agents, so I decided to try ReferralExchange to help my client with a one-time referral,” she adds.
“Within 24 hours, I had three agents call me and educate me to help get that home sold. In the space of three short phone calls, I learned everything I needed to know for my client, information that would have taken me a day or two to find on my own.”
Another client saw a photo of a pool on Mickle’s Instagram account and reached out when a relative needed to sell a property the next month in Atlanta.
“This client had to be relocated for work within 30 days, so I used ReferralExchange to get them an agent,” says Mickle. “They were under contract within seven days, and pre-approved/closed in 30 days, all because of ReferralExchange.”
As the Orlando market continues to ramp up, staying ahead of the competition is more important than ever, and for real estate professionals like Mickle—who aren’t afraid to think outside the box—the future is looking bright.
In fact, Mickle is currently working with three clients right in her own backyard. One is a relocation from Virginia that she met through ReferralExchange, and the other two are local Orlando residents searching for a rental property—coming to her through her Instagram site.
For more information, please visit www.referralexchange.com.
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