Name: Kim Gifford
Title: Realtor, William Pitt Sotheby’s
Age: 53
Experience: 13 years
Kim Gifford already had sales experience when she began her real estate career, but in the early 2000s, she knew she had to learn how to market herself online. These days she could hardly be any busier. When she’s not selling houses, she enjoys spending time with her sons, Michael and Peter, and her 8-year-old border collie/golden retriever mix, Oreo. She’s an avid flower gardener and enjoys tennis and long walks – when time allows.
Q: You started out in the insurance business. Did you like it?
A: I was a personal lines agent who sold property, casualty, auto, homeowners, umbrella and boat insurance policies for about eight years. It was a lot of paperwork and I represented about 10 companies. I went from sales from service. It was a lot of negative conversations, so when I got pregnant and about a month away from delivering my son, I said, “I want to work with Ed Mc Mahon and hand out all those big sweepstakes checks.”
So, I had my son Michael and then my second son Peter 16 months later. When Michael was about 7, I got my real estate license. I started in a nice little office in downtown Bethel in 2003. That market was great. I started and got a website and learned about writing content and search engine optimization. I was one of the only area Realtors with a website at the time. I had so much business, I was giving leads away. I was among the top 3 percent of Coldwell Banker agents in the country and top 100 agents in the New York/Connecticut metropolitan area. Everyone found me on the Internet. Then the market crashed in 2008, but I maintained my presence and kept busy through it all. Now Connecticut is still recovering, but I’m stronger than ever.
Q: How did you curate your online presence to bring in more leads?
A: I was working out of my living room. My youngest has Down syndrome and my oldest was involved with sports, so I was busy. I didn’t have any training. But content marketing companies were contacting me. They said they could boost my leads. I hired a company and paid them a lot and I slowly learned what they did and how it all worked. I was always adding to it. It worked like magic.
In the recession, Massachusetts fell apart first. We were the last ones hit, so we’re still getting out of it. We’re the only state in the union where prices are still dropping. But here in Fairfield County, buyers from New York save us and can’t move here fast enough. I never wanted to do short sales, but they’re horrible. And foreclosures. My experience has broadened to all types of transactions. We’re busy.
Now, I write some of my own content and I use some from a company I work with. People will search my site, Facebook and LinkedIn. By the time they contact me, they feel like they already know me, and they want to work with me. I am always on social media. I am very careful about what I post. I’m always positive, I sprinkle in my listings and I’m empathetic and put myself in the reader’s position and treat them the way I want to be treated.
I’m also on Zillow. My website has all of my client testimonials and on Zillow. Zillow sells my business and is very big for me. Realtors who don’t use social media, I see their sales drying up. I just started Instagram this weekend and it’s going well.
Q: You shot an episode of “My First House” on TLC. How did that come about?
A: That came through Facebook. One of the guys I knew from the third grade moved to California and is a producer; he posted that he needed a Connecticut Realtor to try out for a show. A mutual friend connected us and he called me and interviewed me. I had to provide casting videos of me interviewing three sets of my clients. They had hundreds of videos to look at and TLC picked mine. It was so much fun. My buyers bought a house in Newtown in 2011. We re-created the scene where we met and started working together. The producers came out from California. I had to contact listing agents of homes currently on the market and ask them if we could get permission to use their listings as one of the ones the buyer’s didn’t pick. Everyone had to sign waivers.
The producers said our episode was the funniest they’d ever seen. We finished in October 2012 and the [Newton school] shooting happened in December. My show was the last time the country would see the innocence of that town. The show finally aired in May 2013, and it was strange how much had changed in just a few months.
It was a fun experience. It definitely helped business. The real estate market was at its absolute worst in 2012. In 2013, we were wondering if it would every get better. By 2014, it picked up and everyone seemed more optimistic. The show is a feather in my cap, but now it’s more of a conversation piece.
Gifford’s Five Least Favorite Things To Hear From A Buyer:
- Our parents are coming with us to see houses.
- We want to make an offer on a short sale.
- Can we see the house a third (or fourth or fifth) time?
- Our parents will be there during inspections.
- We decided to rent.
