I don’t think the creative work our studio does is superior to any other kind of work, but there is a particular intimacy to it that is undeniable.

I imagine you may feel the same in real estate.

Where “the work” is one thing, but the client stories intertwined with your work are another, almost like a sweet package deal. Especially on tough days when interest rate media headlines are abysmal and your latest appraisal comes in sideways…isn’t that kind of a bright spot?

The bright spot, I mean, of feeling privileged and trusted to know your people as well as you do. Realizing that your buyer and sellers often want you to intersect with their more personal nuances and news, or be invited into the peripheral rhythms of their families, careers, and pastimes.

Balancing personal with professional seems to be a healthy practice the good Realtors relish.

In my work, creatively, I relish it as well.

When my clients share stories — when they tell me real things — it’s an act of safekeeping and a moment of relief amidst the hard work and pressure to be constantly, creatively “on.”

It’s like someone taps me on the shoulder in those very human moments and switches my overdrive mental dialogue to OFF. “Oh hey Caroline, you get to take a break and be a human with a human today. Listen to what they’re saying. This is so cool. You get to care.”

I’m genuinely grateful, always, for the opportunities my work affords to be curious and to care.

For instance, our Realtor clients have shared pregnancy news and unexpected cancer diagnoses with me long before the news ever hit their Facebook feeds. The rush of sickness or constant medical appointments meant we needed to adjust our project timelines, and so they rang my phone one day and opened up.

Sometimes, unprompted, they volunteer sensitive revenue info. Maybe with a tinge of sadness (“We’re just not where we hoped to be this quarter”) or with obvious pride of milestones met (“We’re really killing it so far this year”).

I’ve had clients expose their grief to me over a parent’s death or the passing of a beloved business partner, as part of explaining their company and how they want to honor the values instilled by these people they’ve lost.

I remember experiencing a sudden tragic loss of my own two years ago (my baby sister). In the wake of that, I received a polite text from a client one afternoon asking for my home address. Two days later, a massive crock of chicken soup and biscuits was delivered to my front door with a note that read, “Work comes last this week. Have a cry and some soup and know there’s a whole team of Realtors in Austin who are thinking about you.”

Then there are lighter moments that come with the work, but no less intimate in my book.

The Realtor who is a mother of four, taking my call while hissing at trouble-making toddlers in the background. Her nanny called in sick that day, she says to me, and “ONCE again I am expected to be a multi-tasking rockstar — why is motherhood the most underrated job on the planet?? — sorry, Caroline, let me get to my computer and pull up your PDF — OMG PIPER SIT DOWN!!!!”

The Realtor who mailed me samples of how his brand looks printed on azure blue letterpress postcards with the exact buttery-soft blind emboss we discussed. Included is his handwritten note of thanks for the way the rebrand has transformed his confidence.

The Realtor who texts pictures of magazine clippings from Arch Digest with the note — “This probably won’t make sense, BUT everything about this picture makes me feel the way I want my brand to feel” — and it makes perfect sense to me and what I already intuitively know about this client and her taste.

They say “it’s work, it’s not personal,” but that’s just not true.

When you’re an agent shepherding clients in and out of homes and transitions, it’s tender.

When I’m at the creative helm of projects that are such clear, personal portraits of how seriously our agent clients take themselves — what they’re willing to invest to become brand-better — it’s tender.

And the creative intimacy of ALL that is bursting with story.

Yesterday I took a walk in our neighborhood with my husband, Joe. It was a rare moment of child-free adult conversation about our jobs and what was challenging and lifting us so far this week.

My husband knows all our studio clients by name because month to month, I talk about who is on the roster, what we’re doing for them, and how it’s going.

Oh we sent Paige’s refinement over today. Kyler and I had a great phone call and we’re close to project wrap-up. April is excited about her copy so far, and is such a thoughtful collaborator. So-and-so loved the mock-up we sent. So-and-so is ghosting us again but I THINK she has the flu?!?!…

“You know,” Joe said to me, “I wonder if your clients know how much you remember every little detail. I wonder if it would surprise them, how much you think about the work or even process it with me.”

Maybe I do wonder.

It takes 60+ hours to create just one visual brand our studio is proud to assign our name to. The end result is a suite of only so many pieces, but we’re talking about distilling a company’s essence into a fractional representation of what it’s actually about — and then crafting THAT to be clear and magnetic to the Realtor’s audience.

Distilling a brand’s “aboutness,” whether visually or in writing (we do both around here) is a science and an art.

And because I am not a computer and our collective intelligence as a team is not artificial, the work requires double the coffee and many humanities breaks.

When my kids come home from school or the nanny’s, they ask to go ride bikes in the driveway, and so I slip into sneakers and take them outside to play — and still my creative brain is working, assigning hierarchy to color swatches, or stitching sentences and compositions and layers of texture together.

Creating order from the chaos.

I love this work we do. It’s immersive, and so rewarding when the Realtors who trust us to do the work see or read or review it all, and then email back brightly, “That’s it! That’s me.”

This all has been a ramble, but what I’m trying to say — what I’m reminding myself to delight in again today — is that the creative process is part method, sure. But the magic and mojo actually comes from the intimacy of connections formed along the way.

That’s why I keep coming back here every day, and why I firmly believe that what we have to offer in this space is rare and valuable:

Friendship, connection, and stories.

Those things can’t be outsourced.

Which is exactly why (no matter what the latest ridiculous real estate headline is on CNN) your agent self will always find a way to muscle through and flourish.

The human side of your real estate business is too tender, too necessary, too all in for you to ever be replaceable.

So maybe delight in that today.

Take yourself, your career and your real estate brand seriously again today. (And here, have another coffee; you probably need it.)

P.S – What’s BLUEPRINT, again? 

We’re a gaggle of designers, writers, and creatives on a mission to change the branding narrative in real estate.

We offer a signature branding service and the industry’s most elegant and high-converting digital products to help modern, stylish Realtors do three things:

➝ Communicate their worth;

➝ Become the obvious choice;

➝ Tell the right stories to stand out + SELL more.

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