Lindsay Listanski is the head of Climb Real Estate’s national marketing. She is a digital native who speaks regularly at brand and industry events on social media, technology, and millennial trends. Lindsay was named one of the top 20 social influencers in real estate on Stefan Swanepoel’s Power 200 rankings and a PR News Mover and Shaker in both 2017 and 2018.

In her segment, she shares valuable tips in becoming an influencer and tells us more about working with millennials. 

Started at the bay

Climb real estate was born in San Francisco’s Bay Area with the mandate to build something for agents, by agents. It was awarded by Inman as one of the most innovative brokerages in 2016 and was eventually acquired by NRT. Two years later, they are now preparing for a national launch.

The climb team is always looking to draw inspiration from the world around us, whether that’s through entertainment, food, or fashion. Founder Chris Lim was really inspired by the food truck craze and wondered how he could bring that to the real estate industry.

So they looked into getting an Airstream, a cooler version of a mini chrome trailer, and it eventually became a staple around the area. Clients were just jumping in and learning more about Climb. 

It’s not about age, it’s about the mindset 

Climb has a younger draw to its brand and a tech vibe that people often associate with millennials, but the brand is trying to move away from talking about ‘millennials’ and focusing more on the idea of the connected generation. It’s not about age, it’s about the mindset.

Climb has a mentorship program to help young agents onboard with the company since they may find difficulties with being hired by some brokerages. Most millennials are renters and some brokerages don’t see them as a valuable market yet, but a full 20% of Climb’s market are renters, so that’s creating a fierce loyalty towards the brand. 

Connecting at conferences

Lindsay was thankful for being given the opportunity to attend conferences like Inman and being part of the Realogy family as she was able to use that to make friends around the world. She says that if you know how to leverage it social media the right way, and if you’re generous with your expertise and content, chances are high that people will listen. If you don’t make it just about yourself, and instead position yourself to help others, then that’s really valuable.

She also mentioned that in conferences, it’s important that you connect with the people you’re with. “You can’t just hide behind your phone anymore,” she jokes. 

Climb is a brand, yes. But they’re really seeing themselves as a platform.

“...we're taking a step back and saying is brand important? Yes. But at the end of the day, it's the agent that's more important, whether you're influential or not, we want to allow them to raise up on our shoulders so that we can support them. But you're right, there are mega-super influencers on Instagram and leveraging their reach is really important. Making sure that we're serving them in any way that we can is important. 

I think one of the ways that will be leveraging those influencers will be through our learning and training programs. So, we want to help these influencers get an even higher national platform to take their expertise, be generous, whether it's through social or another platform..” 

Building your profile takes time

“The easy way is that you pay a service to get you artificial likes and engagement. And I think that's really the wrong way to do it. So, I think you need to see the long game. I think that you need to really put yourself out there and not in a way that's all about yourself and about your community.

One of the things I love about Climb is we're so embedded into our communities and I think that's an instant way to grow. So I think thinking hyper-local if you're an agent and then eventually getting that long national game is a really good way to do it.”