Lisa Dubois entered the world of real estate at the age of 34 after getting bored in her marketing job in Washington, D.C.
“I was like, ‘I want to sell real estate, but I want to be an antique appraiser, too,” she said in an interview. Her career coach at the time told her she had to pick one, so she started selling houses part-time in addition to her day job.
Soon after, she partnered with the real estate agent who helped her buy a house in 2000, and the two created the Chrissy and Lisa Team with ReMax in Falls Church, Virginia. Together, the pair helped buyers in the Northern Virginia and Washington, D.C., markets and have now built a team of six other agents and administrative employees.
In the past five years alone, Dubois, a New York native, has had a hand in nearly 300 transactions across Virginia and D.C., with a total value of nearly $300 million, according to Homes.com.
She finds ways to make work joyful
Despite her success, Dubois hit a wall of sorts in November. She wanted to make work more fun. It’s not that she didn’t like her job, she said, it was more that she needed to imbue joy into her everyday life.
She decided to make social media her new project.
Step one was reaching out to a local agent whose content she liked. He connected her with his “guy,” Eric Cruz, the founder of creative consulting firm Idea Therapy. Dubois and Cruz set up a meeting shortly after.
Typically, Dubois explained, Cruz spends several days getting to know a client before giving them a social media game plan, Dubois explained, but she had a different experience.
Dubois was late, so her appointment was cut short, but she said she just “clicked” with Cruz.
“He said, ‘How seriously do you take yourself?’” Dubois recalled. “Then he was like, ‘You want to do ASMR?’ and I go, ‘Sure, but you got to tell me what that is.’” (It’s short for autonomous sensory meridian response, and it’s content that typically involves whispering or making noises into a microphone that elicits a satisfactory feeling in viewers.)
Next, they tried a combination of ASMR and playing hide-and-seek. They filmed three videos that first day.
“The first one, I got 10,000 views,” she said. “Second video we filmed got 13 million views. I was on the national news.”
Tips from a social media celebrity
Six months, 80,000 Instagram followers and 35,000 TikTok followers later, Dubois still calls her success “a fluke.”
But she meets with Cruz weekly, and they spend seven to eight hours filming.
Her last three Instagram videos (@lisaduboisrealtor) have over 55,000 views combined. Her TikTok account (@lisaduboisrealestate) boasts more than 900,000 likes across all its posts.
“I’m doing it for fun,” she said. “As long as it’s fun, I’m going to keep doing it.”
This interview has been condensed for length and clarity.
How much does social media virality affect your business?
If I get five calls based on the Instagram stuff, four of them are agents saying, how much more business are you doing? So I’ve sent referrals, which can be a profit generator in real estate. But I haven’t seen anything there.
I did have someone reach out in February and say “Hey, will you come down to Montclair?” They were my first ones, and I just closed them. We did a hide-and-seek with them, so that was fun. Then I got a listing lead off of that, which one of my team members took.
So, two deals. To put it into perspective, I sell 65 to 75 houses a year. One or two deals, I’ll take it. It pays for the videographer. It’s definitely bought brand recognition.
(A few minutes later, a woman passing by the table stopped and greeted Lisa. After the good-to-see-yous and how-are-yous, it was straight to the Dubois’ social media status.
“Your videos are so cute. You’re famous!” the passerby said. “I didn’t pay her,” Dubois joked.)
What advice do you have for agents just getting started in real estate?
Write down everybody you know — anybody you would talk to if you ran into them in the grocery store.
Then figure out who do you want to be? How do you want to run your business? Pick out what could be a way for you to be profitable.
I call myself a "relationship marketer." I’m looking for how to make a connection.
What about for agents specifically trying to gain a foothold on social media?
I liken it to what someone said to me probably 10 years ago: “Find your channel.” Who do you want to attract? At the time, that guy said, "I’ll take all the ABC Family people."
Well, I’m Comedy Central. If you’re funny, I’m in. I want to have some chuckles. I don’t want anybody bringing down my joy.