Episode 82: Stop Outsourcing Your Personal Brand and Learn How to Fish

Episode 82: More Than Real Estate Podcast: Stop Outsourcing Your Personal Brand and Learn How to Fish

Cassie Dieudonne spent a year paying a company $1,200 a month to make her content and run her ads. Zero deals came from it. Six months after she brought her personal brand back in house, she has seven deals directly from Instagram and 11 million closed by July, in a year she almost didn't invest in herself at all.

✨ A year of done for you content and nothing to show for it. A company approached Cassie with an exclusive in her zip code. They sent her shot lists, edited her videos, wrote her captions, and ran her ads for $1,200 a month. Her words: "I gave it a year and I didn't get anyone from it." The captions were the part that stung most, because she knew she could write them herself.

✨ 11 million by July in a year she called humbling. Cassie has been licensed nine years and had never broken 10 million in a full year. "Total I've closed 11 million from January to July." She joined right before Ashley had Winnie, on a payment plan, in a year when rates were up and inventory was sitting and she told herself she couldn't afford it.

✨ Seven deals, ten to fifteen minutes a day. Three closed sales from Instagram, two of those clients now listing their own homes, plus two buyer rep agreements. Ashley runs the math on air at a 650 average and lands around $136,000 in commission. Cassie's actual time investment: "I probably spend 10 to 15 minutes a day on a reel," posted between six and seven at night because that's when hers performs.

✨ It works in a suburb, not just a skyline. Cassie is in Katy, Texas, and she names the objection before Ashley can. "I'm not like I'm in Nashville or like that. I'm not in a beach town. I'm not in Charleston." One voiceover reel about a patio bar in old Katy pulled over 100,000 views and a wave of local followers, because nobody outside Katy is following a bar in Katy.

✨ Rejection is protection. Nine years in, Cassie has learned to let the wrong client go. She has watched a listing leave and sell with someone else and made peace with it. She sets the expectation up front that a Sunday night text waits until morning, and her teenagers hold her to it at the dinner table. "I'm not answering somebody at 8:00 on a Sunday night."

About Cassie Dieudonne

Cassie is a real estate agent in Katy, Texas, a Houston suburb known for its schools and its oil and gas relocation traffic. She has been licensed nine years and works without a team by ch