Welcome to the High Performance Agent Podcast. I'm your host, Tina Beliveau, and I'm an expert in real estate marketing, social media, technology, and systems. I'm here to teach you how to build a sustainable and consistent business that supports your dream life.
Through my repeat, referral, and relationship-driven systems, I've built a team that's sold nearly 2,000 homes over my 20 years in the industry. In this podcast, I keep it real and share exactly what I do, and more importantly, how you can do it too. If you're ready to scale faster, work smarter, and generate more leads from your sphere, please check out High Performance Agent Academy, my 12-month course packed with plug-and-play systems, done-for-you marketing, and step-by-step strategies.
You get my entire business in a box, plus coaching and personalized support from me every step of the way. Get all the details at tinabelliveau.com slash academy.
Here's a thought for you. The more successful you get, the harder it can become to keep up unless you start doing less. If I have your attention, I want to unpack the paradox that I think we don't talk about enough in our industry, which is that growth as a realtor brings a lot of pressure.
That tired old saying of “what got you here may not get you there” is what I was thinking about as the theme behind this episode. What I wanted to do was unpack a recent client party that I had that was very successful on multiple levels. I was okay, but what is it about this party that I really want to communicate to the people listening to this?
What I want to talk about is a phrase that my friend Laura Malik coined, lifestyle lead generation. While it's not a completely groundbreaking idea, I think it's something that doesn't get enough attention in our world — how can we create business by doing the things we were already going to do anyway, by going about our day, by going about our life, and basically inviting people in to participate in things that we either were absolutely going to do anyway or would gladly do just because I'm putting a little extra oomph into making something happen.
The specific example I'm going to tell you about is this pumpkin painting party — love the alliteration there — that I had at my house a couple of weeks back. I was just thinking about the big picture of how this could apply to you, regardless of whether you're in the season of little kids and that integrating into your marketing and your business growth.
I was thinking back to the fact that there was a point where about 10 years into my career, I was experiencing huge success, huge growth, knocking on the door of $50 million in annual production volume with a small team and a really strong administrative staff.
Part of what started to happen at that level of production and that number of people is things just got really complex. Part of what happened, and I don't know if you will relate to me this way, I think this is something if you're ambitious like me, it's just natural to always pursue more and to do more and to maybe even feel this fear or paranoia that you have to keep doing everything you used to do to keep things running.
I think what's crazy about success is it can be such a mind F because we can easily get on this treadmill where I feel I have to keep doing this because what if I don't? I have overhead. I have team members to pay. I have team members to feed business to.
It's definitely that fine balance, but what can happen is it's easy to fall into this trap of doing more and more instead of continually being like, how do I simplify? How do I do less?
I don't know about you, but to me, lazy is a word that for a long time had a very negative connotation. I do value work ethic. At my core, I am a very hard worker, too hard of a worker. I work so much that I could probably be classified as a workaholic if you were to pull out a manual and try and diagnose me.
I had this big burnout thing that happened over a series of years. I didn't even recognize what was happening to me in the years as I was getting more and more burned out because it was this thing happening to me that I didn't understand until I had a little bit of retrospect.
But I basically had this psychotic break. Just kidding. I had a psychotic break at the end of 2019 and in 2020, and I was like, I refuse to continue to work this way.
If you've listened to my other episodes, you've probably heard me talk about this ad nauseam, but it was such a turning point in my business where it was like, okay, how do I do everything as lazy and easily and online and streamlined and automated and as efficient as possible without — and this is a really important point — without losing the human element, without losing my personality, my authenticity, and still being in relationship with people, but doing it in a way where I'm not chasing, I'm not exhausting myself, I'm really finding ways to cause people to come to me.
This isn't something I wish I could take credit for consciously doing, but in retrospect, what I can see when I look back at what I've built over the last five, six years with my systems is I have created so many pathways for people to come to me and raise their hand and tell me that they want to do business with me or they want to be a repeat client or they want to refer me.
And it comes down to putting these things out there that people can respond to — whether that's an Instagram story, DMing me or PMing me on Facebook, literally hitting reply on an artfully well-written, well-designed email, or responding to an event that I have marketed because they truly want to be there.
The core thought is how do I stop chasing and start attracting more and more? Maybe if you're listening to this and maybe you're already attracting some, but you really want to supercharge that, one of the things I want to invite you to do is sit down and make a list of everything you're doing to lead generate, market, advertise, whatever words you use for creating business.
If you were to just brain dump all the things you've done so far this year, whether it was a one-off just listed postcard or your email newsletter or certain events, or maybe online leads that you're purchasing, are you blogging, what social media platforms are you on? Really take stock of what you're doing to market.
And then write down — it's basically a source of business analysis — but in this different way than just “are they from my database or from somewhere else?” Really discern which of those are driving the majority of your business.
I think one of the things that I've been guilty of is there are often minor players on that list that aren't contributing that much, but it's just easy to hold onto them, I think out of fear, out of FOMO and fear of wanting everything. I think it almost is a parallel to this fear that a lot of us can have of not wanting to niche down or niche up, or however you want to put it — of “if I market that I only work luxury, then this whole segment of people aren’t going to work with me.”
Or “if I really go hard that I work in this one geographic area, what about this whole other part of my database that is everywhere but that?”
Those are things that have definitely held me back at times in my career, trying to have it all in this other way, trying to hold on to everything with tight fists. It's almost a scarcity mindset that I'm speaking to, instead of just trusting that going for what I really want and focusing on that is going to take care of me and take care of all the people who I employ and take care of, which is at least 15 at my last count — between all my businesses and my household helpers, dog walker, and cleaner.
I have a lot of people that count on me. It is a lot of pressure, truthfully, and it can create these unproductive behaviors and thought patterns. Even if you don't have anyone counting on you to pay their bills besides your household itself, it's still a lot of pressure.
I just invite you to look within if you're holding on to things that aren't really giving a return on investment, or they're zapping your energy. Keep listening and keep your mind open to what it could look like to embrace more lifestyle lead generation — and probably cut some of your expenses as well.
I just want to walk you through what I actually did. And I don't want you to get stuck on the topic of the party, because it really might not speak to your season of life.
I hosted a pumpkin painting party for my database. But I've been doing lifestyle lead generation for a really long time. I could do a brain dump of many event concepts that I've done.
A couple years back, I tried to pick things that I'm into or I'm already going to do. At one point, I was kind of obsessed with learning how to decorate sugar cookies — the way you see all the beautiful cookies on Instagram. I hosted a sugar cookie decorating party and made it kid and adult friendly, and it was a total hit.
One thing I've always wanted to do and haven't done yet is a flower arranging party. That's on my vision board.
I've done many female-focused events. I had a private event at Nordstrom that was on skincare and makeup technique. I also had a private event at a salon where people had little breakouts on how to be better at blow drying your hair, how to curl your hair properly — just fun stuff like that.
I've had a party at Pottery Barn where I had one of the managers speak about household decor trends at that time, and everybody who came got a 20% off coupon. They were totally stoked about that.
I could go on and on. I've had many lifestyle parties, and I think my only mistake was at one point not embracing that those were enough — and that some of the more laborious things I was doing to maintain my relationships weren’t really necessary.
An example would be — I did a lot of referral-based coaching with the Buffini method, which I credit for my success. It definitely got me to a certain point and was supercharged by things I learned at Keller Williams about lead generation.
The thing about both of those mindsets, and this is no shade to any of that, I'm just sharing my own experience — that snapshot in time was pre-Instagram. Facebook at that time was not nearly as business-friendly. It was really just personal profile usage.
This was before we had social media to have that whole other option of creating contact with people. There was a lot of calling my database, texting them, “Hey, did you see the invite to my…” and it basically felt like I was bugging them. I did it because I wanted to grow my business and those were the best practices that I had access to at the time.
But that's the kind of stuff that I never want to do again. I never want to manufacture a reason to call you and check on you. At the end of the day, I would just rather respond — I would rather you reach out to me because you need my best contractor, or you're curious what I think about something, or you got your new tax bill and you're wondering.
At this point, my mission is to create avenues for people to easily and comfortably reach out to me or attend my stuff. I'm not going to beg for it. I'm not going to beg for your business. I'm not going to sweat it if you aren't a repeat client for whatever reason, because I've learned I have really good client loyalty.
But at the end of the day, some people are not going to hire my team again — their aunt's going to become a realtor, or they're going to choose Redfin. I cannot capture it all. I am not going to sweat anyone who doesn't want to work with me.
I used to. It used to feel very personal. And I think I always joke, the longer you do real estate, the easier it is to become just a little dead inside — not really, but to have that thicker skin where it just doesn't matter.
The thing I really want to emphasize with lifestyle lead gen is there are a zillion ways to do it. I'm in the kid season of life. Before that, it was very female-focused or generalized.
There’s obviously a lot of power in mushing and just embracing where you're at. My pumpkin party was simple. I had a good feeling it would appeal.
I used to do these fall fest parties at farms, and they just felt like a lot of work. This was refreshing to do something low budget. We literally spent $160 on pumpkins, bought some art supplies, some munchkins — a very simple party.
I invited my whole database. Because I have a very high-functioning CRM that I've been in for years, I actually have a lot of data on who has kids.
I tend not to follow up repeatedly about my parties. I do a mass text just a couple of times a year because I don't want to annoy people with lots of texting. But it's a one-time text — “Hey, here's the party, come if you want, here’s the link to get more info.”
People are either interested or they aren’t. Then I did a follow-up email only to people that I knew had kids, because I literally have a tag in my CRM for whether they have kids or their kids’ names in a custom field. I can pull that data in two seconds and target my marketing to the right people.
That may sound crazy to you, but if you eventually do something like my Academy and see how I set things up, you'll realize it's simple. Years later, when you’ve set up these kinds of systems, it makes it easy to run your business without doing anything manually and doing everything based on having good information and systems that work.
It was a simple concept. We had about 50 kids on the RSVP list, plus all of their adults — about 45 ended up coming, which is a really high show rate. We had good weather, which was awesome, and it was such a fun event.
Sometimes I feel my events need to have a lot of features, and it’s a good reminder for myself (and maybe you) that one core concept is all you need. Especially with kids — kids don't always last somewhere for a long time.
Some people came, painted their pumpkin, ate a munchkin, and were out the door. Others came and played in my yard. It was very sweet.
The best part was everyone who came was like-minded. It was all little kids for the most part. It was that camaraderie of being around parents with toddlers. It just felt like community.
Even though people didn't all know each other, many did — certain segments of my database that know each other because they're referral daisy chains. But there was something about it that felt powerful and good.
I think the key for lifestyle lead gen, if I were to boil it down, is something you genuinely enjoy — something that resonates, even if it's a small portion of your database. It doesn't have to be a big party to be successful.
I have a big database and I've been doing events for a long time, so mine tend to be big — but don't compare to me. If you have a pumpkin painting party and five people come, or as I’m recording this and we’re coming into November, maybe it’s Christmas cookie decorating or New Year’s crafts.
There’s a seasonal activity for everything, for adults and kids alike.
For the formula, there are a couple of things. I think my texting system for invitations gets it in front of people in a way where they're more likely to see it and come. I make our RSVP really easy. I don't bug people. I never want to follow up with someone about a party and make them apologize that they haven’t replied or can’t make it.
I respect other people’s mental labor. I’m only going to reach out if I really have something to say, not to guilt them or make sure they saw it. I don’t want that — unless it’s one of my very best friends and I just want to make sure they didn’t miss my kid’s birthday invite. That’s totally different from a client event.
I don’t chase. I don’t take it personally if people don’t reply. I take every event as a learning experience — whether it was the right thing at the right time for my set of people.
A couple of other things I did to make this event work well for me: I added an “invite a friend” field to the RSVP form and said, “If you want to bring anyone with you, drop their name and email here and I’ll send them an invite.” Several people filled that out. Then I sent a group email to the person in my database and copied whoever they wanted to invite — just introducing myself and sharing the details.
That brought in new database additions and new connections. The only time I make personal invitations for my events is when I’m getting someone into my database for the first time and using the event as the vehicle for that.
That’s when I send a personal text with the RSVP link, usually to a few neighbors or new moms in my preschool circle who aren’t in my system yet. Once they fill out the form, they’re in my world — and from there, it’s just relationship.
The party was awesome. I’m definitely doing it again. I love anything that aligns with my lifestyle.
I just want to say — some of what I’ve described can be tough to pull off if you don’t have the systems in place. So at the core, I’ll run through the things that make my lifestyle lead gen work well for me:
* I have a CRM that’s actually good and high functioning. My entire database is in it — past clients, referral sources, and people I know through my community.
* I tag everything clearly: every buyer and seller by year, every referral by year, and I can pull that data instantly when planning events or outreach.
* You can do this without a CRM, but everything becomes easier once you have one.
My formula is simple. My CRM system is dialed in, my email marketing is consistent, and I send one high-quality newsletter per month. People do still read email. I hear about it in person all the time — “I love your latest newsletter.”
The next part of my formula is a couple of lifestyle events per year. I did two this year: an Easter egg hunt in the spring (which was a blast) and the pumpkin painting event.
Then I do my pie party, which I think of more as retention and appreciation than lifestyle. They’re all events, but they scratch different itches. My lifestyle events have been more kid-focused recently, but I plan to balance that out with something adult-oriented next year.
Next in my recipe: social media. If you know me, you probably follow me. I’m big on stories. People feel like they know me. They reply all day, every day — we chat about random stuff.
People ask me for advice on everything, not just real estate. Lately, they’ve been buying things from my affiliate links. It’s fascinating. I’ve become an all-purpose advice source for many people. Then when they’re ready to transact, they let me know.
I could ask for business more directly, but I don’t want to. I want to work with people who already know they want to work with me.
Once people get a taste of your personality, it seals the deal.
The other day I was tagged many times in a Facebook thread in my own group, where someone asked for a realtor who specializes in my niche. I got tons of tags, but so did others. I thought, “We’ll see.” That night, the person DMed me — “I’m the anonymous one. Can we talk?”
We scheduled a call the next day, and one minute in she said, “I’m so glad I just called you.” That’s all it takes — moving from online to one-to-one connection.
That works beautifully for me. I post listings and personal updates, but most of my connection happens in stories. That’s where my business comes from. I’ve tried doing more Reels and growth strategies, but honestly, I’m a relationship builder at heart.
That’s my lifestyle lead gen. I share my lifestyle in my content.
Other things that keep my business strong:
* Anniversary gift boxes for past clients
* Birthday cards for everyone whose info I have
* Strong Google review presence that reinforces credibility when people are deciding
If someone’s unsure, a conversation or even a voicemail from me usually seals it. In our AI-heavy world, being unapologetically human and authentic is what stands out.
AI might bring data, but it can’t replicate personality or connection.
In summary: if you’re burned out, you probably already have a strong business. You’re just working too much, and things have gotten complex. You might be afraid to let go of some things.
Maybe your systems aren’t where they should be. Maybe you feel that pit in your stomach hearing me describe my CRM. You know you need to do it but haven’t yet.
Here’s my invitation: book a Clarity Call with me. The link is in the show notes. When you’re in proximity to someone who’s already built the systems, everything gets easier.
I had a call this week with a newer agent — I asked her questions and built her a business plan in minutes that could’ve taken her 10 years to figure out on her own.
If you want my systems, or you’re curious about one-on-one coaching or mentorship, it all starts the same way: book a Clarity Call.
I just opened my calendar for these again. I have one spot open for a private coaching client — the first in over a year.
If you want to grow efficiently and joyfully, reach out. And whether you do or not, I encourage you to simplify, make lead generation fun, and let your authentic personality shine. That’s what attracts people to you.
That’s it for me on this one. If you have questions for me to address on the podcast, message me on Instagram — my handle is @highperformanceagent.
Hope you book a Clarity Call.
Thank you for listening to the high performance agent podcast. Make sure to subscribe or follow so you don't miss the next one and check the show notes for links to all of my resources, including my course, high performance agent Academy. And please come say hi on Instagram.
You can find me @highperformanceagent. Talk to you soon.
