Meet Tina Balais, Founder of “Get Social With Tina”. She started her marketing agency just eight years ago and it has grown over the years from a marketing agency encompassing a one stop shop model to growing into a niche boutique firm that focuses primarily on growing real estate companies. An avid business woman, real estate investor and marketing guru, there is a lot to learn from this fellow Goss. Here is her story filled with passion, resilience and love for her craft.

Tell us about yourself, your experience in business?

I was born and and raised in Montréal from Greek origin. I started my career in childhood education. I love children but soon realized it would too much to work with them all day and then have my own one day so I decided to change career paths.

I found a Kijiji ad about working with builders, working directly with them and getting commissions from it. I decided to take it and became quite successful at it. Then started doing the same thing with clients for real estate brokers. I wanted something more stable, I wanted to be hired to advertise – I fell in love with Instagram and wanted to utilize that platform. Jasmine Star taught me – if she can do it – I can too! It fell into my lap as I was looking for a job – and I love real estate as from a young age we’ve been buying and selling houses with my family so I already knew how it worked. I would work directly from the builder / constructor and then with the broker.

When did you decide to take the leap of faith and start your own brand? 

It happened naturally from there. I started getting clients and instead of taking commissions, it became yearly contracts. I had developed an eye for social media and clients started coming to me. This was about eight years ago now – I launched my own Marketing Agency full time. One stop shop!

Now you focus on Instagram as the main social media?

Yes exactly. With time I realized that our strong point is real estate, and the way we market the best is through Instagram. Instagram : Real estate are synonymous! You can close sales directly on it. Yet many agents don’t know that. My goal is to provide the tools and services to help real estate brokers grow online.

Having so much experience working with real estate brokers, what is the main tip you would give them when it comes to their Instagram page?

The main thing : Start with the foundation, get your page and bio right! Make sure you have a professional profile and NAME. Key search words are important. Inside the bio you have to explain what you do like you’re speaking to a 5 year old. Short and sweet! Get to the point, how you can be of service to others : and how can you help? And what do you do. Use the “tool” to put your email or phone number directly. Also very important to have a call to action. Make it super clear.

For content : Don’t make it strictly business. What are you posting? Decide how many times you can show up? Is it daily or 3-4 times a week. Be consistent! If you go to long without posting people will assume you’re not a broker anymore.

Working on this consistently can be a lot of work.

It’s a full time job! If they have families it’s really hard to juggle everything. That’s why I like to come in and do the posting, create content, but I work with the person directly to make it authentic and personal. It’s important to bring in the lifestyle aspect, all the different dynamics of your life and bring in certain tips and tricks of the trade. 

Tell us about your offerings?

Offerings :

• Instagram Coaching: Teaching you how to do it yourself  & keeping you accountable 
• Instagram management : I’m doing it for you! I still work hand in hand with the client for this.

Email 📧 or DM for all information

What is your long term goal with your company?

I really love what I’m doing – I definitely want to grow and be able to help more women in real estate. I’m stuck in between having a big agency and keeping it boutique size. I want to grow and have quality clients who really understand it’s a full time job and it takes time to create something beautiful that will last. My ideal goal would be to have yearly contracts with 10-15 full time clients.

What keeps you motivated?

The future that I want to have. I’m young now and I can do the work and work hard. In the future I want to have children and I want to be able to spend time with them and work from home. I want to do what I want! I want the life that I want, my dream home, my country house, my family. That’s my plan.

You are also very strong with personal branding – are we going to see more of your coaching  programs launch?

Absolutely! As I grow I would like to grow this part of my brand and do just coaching with courses that people can register directly on.

What is the best advice you would give yourself looking back?

The best thing I’ve done for my business this year is delegating! I hired my assistant, and just taking out these tasks has helped me so much. What really helped me to justify it is think of it as an investment and not an expense. If you have to delegate – don’t overlook it.

Another big thing I learned – I used to think of competitors as competition and today I see them more as colleagues – it’s about collaboration. Women have grown and more willing to collaborate which is amazing.

What has been a big challenge you had to surmount while growing your business?

I had a personal matter about 5 years ago which held me back from growing for a while. The biggest struggle I faced was building my business back up  – on a positive outlook it helped me niche down and focus even more on what’s important.

Do you have rituals or things you do to stay balanced?

Now, I realized I need time to myself. I need a day to myself for my own content. I like taking Fridays off from work and do anything for me! Last week I got a massage so I’m trying to incorporate more things like that. I love reading books, taking bubble baths, I’m a Netflix junkie I love my shows. I take my weekends off, and I keep one day a week for my own content. It balances off – sometimes it takes longer or I have more packed in my week and others that are more light. In the beginning I was definitely working more. Now I am working smart. That’s what I also teach my clients. A balanced life is what matters at the end of the day, and being happy.

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For more information on TinaBalais.com 

Follow @Get.Social.with.Tina on Instagram