One of the most dangerous phrases in real estate might be, “That’s the way I’ve always done it.” It’s especially dangerous for experienced agents. When you’ve been successful for years, it’s easy to believe the strategies that got you where you are will be the same strategies that take you where you want to go next.
But markets change. Consumers change. Technology changes. And how people discover and evaluate real estate agents is changing faster than ever. Jennifer Carroll, a top-producing agent serving the greater Louisville, Kentucky, and Southern Indiana area, has been in real estate for 25 years.
I recently sat down with Carroll, and what struck me about our conversation wasn’t simply what she’s accomplished. It was her willingness to keep evolving despite already being successful.
“I’m just really uber aware of the fact that it’s easy for us to potentially get in this mindset of, well, it’s the way we’ve always done it,” Carroll told me. Video became one of the ways she refused to let that happen.
The best time to start doesn’t have to be the beginning of your career
She was already the top-producing agent in her company when she began seriously considering video. She didn’t need it to rescue a struggling business. She saw it as a way to remain relevant, improve how she marketed properties and continue raising the bar for her clients.
Her aha moment came while attending a conference where I was teaching a session on video. At the time, she said virtually no one in her market was creating real estate video. Like many agents, she wasn’t particularly excited about seeing or hearing herself on camera either.
Then something I said during the session stuck with her. I reminded the audience that if they hate how they look and sound on video, it’s irrelevant, because that’s exactly how they look and sound when they’re sitting across from a client.
Carroll went home and took action. That’s an important part of her story because when you look at the quality of her videos today, it would be easy to assume that’s where she started. It wasn’t.
“They were painfully awful,” she laughed when describing some of those early videos. That’s how almost everybody starts. Your first listing presentation probably wasn’t your best. Your first contract negotiation probably wasn’t your best. Why would we expect our first video to be our best? You don’t get good and then start. You start, and that’s how you get good.
Every listing gets the same commitment
As her video strategy developed, she made a decision that says a lot about both her business and her brand. Every listing gets professional video. Not just luxury homes. Not just the listings that will look great on Instagram. “Every single listing that I market, whether it’s a vacant lot or a house of any value, gets the same level of service,” she said.
She told me that she understands there’s a cost associated with that, and newer agents may need to build toward this. But her philosophy is simple: Do for all that which you’re willing to do for one. Because she isn’t only marketing a house. She’s marketing her brand.
Imagine a prospective seller sees an incredible video she produced for a million-dollar listing. Then they consider hiring her to sell a more modestly priced property. What happens if they discover she doesn’t provide the same level of marketing for them?
Consistency creates expectations. Carroll wants the expectation associated with her brand to be excellence. And sellers notice. She told me about a recent listing appointment with a couple in their late 70s. Before she ever walked through their door, the seller had already visited her social platforms and watched several of her videos.
“She absolutely made a judgment before I walked in that door on what my professional presence was going to be,” Carroll said. Think about the power of that. The listing presentation had already started before she arrived.
Stop confusing followers with influence
One of the things I appreciated most about her approach is that she isn’t obsessed with follower counts. “I am no social media phenomenon whatsoever,” she told me. “I’m not focused on the followers. If they come, they come.”
Instead, she’s focused on the message and how her brand is presented. That’s a distinction agents need to understand. We’ve been conditioned to think social media success means followers, likes and comments.
But what if the right seller watches your video and never likes it? What if they watch five of your videos, decide you’re the agent they want to hire and call you six months later? Which would you rather have, 10,000 likes or one $1 million listing?
Carroll recently launched a brand-new social media platform with her business partner, Joyce Duncan Mills. One of their property videos generated more than 15,000 views despite the account being new. She was happy about the views, but not because they made her feel popular. “I love that my client’s home is getting that much traction,” she said. That’s the metric that matters.
Realize that the amount of followers is less important than it has ever been. The algorithm is not concerned with your follower count. It is concerned about providing the best possible fit for what viewers are searching for. The Carroll & Co Collection pages showcase this fact. Many people would see the smaller follower counts and overlook how much business these pages are driving.
You don’t even have to talk
One of the most interesting evolutions in her strategy has been moving away from traditional “talking head” listing videos. Her son, who owns a media company and works as her videographer, gave her some direct feedback early on.
“He said, ‘Mom, you’ve got to stop being this talking head. Nobody wants to hear you describe this home for the first 45 seconds.’” So she evolved again. Today, she and her business partner are experimenting with a more cinematic approach. Instead of standing in front of a home describing the number of bedrooms and bathrooms, they let the property tell the story.
They identify the three or four elements that make the property special and build the video around those experiences. For one property, they created the feeling of a girls’ night in, preparing dinner and experiencing the home instead of simply describing it.
That should also encourage agents who hate being on camera. You don’t always have to talk. Show the morning coffee on the balcony. Show dinner being prepared in the kitchen. Show someone walking to the neighborhood restaurant. Show the lifestyle. The home can become the main character.
Does video actually sell homes?
It’s easy to say video builds a brand. But does it actually affect transactions? Carroll believes it does. When Carroll and Mills launched their new partnership, they immediately listed three very different properties. Different locations. Different price points. Different types of homes. They created cinematic video campaigns for all three. The response was remarkable.
All three generated significant showing activity and multiple offers. All three ultimately accepted offers above list price, with backup contracts as well. “I know that the video presence of how we did these properties justice in the marketing of them is a big factor of why that result was what it was,” Carroll said.
That doesn’t mean video magically sells an overpriced house. It means great marketing creates attention, and attention creates opportunities.
Sometimes the video doesn’t find a buyer. It creates one.
Carroll also shared a story about longtime clients in their mid-70s who she knew would eventually downsize. They weren’t actively searching, though. Then she listed a courtyard home with a pool that was almost perfectly suited to them.
She posted the video on Friday. Saturday morning, the client called. “I want to go see this property.” Carroll asked, “Is it time?” “It might be.” They bought the home that day. The video didn’t magically convince someone who never planned to move to buy a house. The seed was already there. What the video did was accelerate their timeline.
Those clients weren’t searching Zillow every night. They hadn’t started formally looking at properties. But because she remained in their social feed, the right house found them before they went looking for it. That’s an incredibly important takeaway. Sometimes video doesn’t create demand. It expedites demand.
Your videos belong in your listing presentation
Carroll doesn’t leave her videos online and hope prospective sellers discover them. She brings them into the listing presentation. “I absolutely show samples of these videos in every single listing appointment that I go on,” she said.
She doesn’t overwhelm sellers with 15 videos. She selects one or two that resemble the type of marketing she envisions for their property and explains the thinking behind them. When the conversation moves to marketing, video is the first thing she shows.
Some of her productions can take four to six hours to shoot. Is that a lot of time? Sure. But think about the leverage.
One video might be watched 15,000 times. It markets the listing, demonstrates her capabilities to future sellers, keeps her visible to past clients and becomes another digital signal associated with her name and market expertise. Four hours suddenly doesn’t seem like such a large amount of time compared to the impact it has on her business.
Then something unexpected started happening: AI began recommending her
Near the end of our conversation, she shared something that may be the most important lesson for where real estate marketing is heading. Historically, she estimates 95 percent or more of her business has come from repeat clients and referrals. Then, over the past couple of months, something changed. New prospects began calling.
Naturally, she asked how they found her. Their answer? AI. Whether through ChatGPT or another platform, consumers were asking for real estate recommendations, and she was showing up. What fascinated her was that she hadn’t intentionally done anything to make that happen.
“I’ve done nothing to feed the beast, so to speak,” she told me. My response to her was simple. She hadn’t realized it, but she was actually giving AI exactly what it was looking for. Years of consistent video content had created digital evidence about who she was, what she did and the market she served. Now, as search behavior evolves, that content is potentially creating value in ways she never anticipated.
The biggest lesson: Take action
Her story isn’t really about professional videography. It’s about action. She didn’t start with cinematic videos. She started with videos she now jokingly calls painful. Then she got better. She experimented. She invested more. She changed her style. She stayed consistent.
And now video is helping her market listings, win listing presentations, stay connected with past clients, create buyer opportunities, strengthen her brand and even become discoverable through AI. You don’t need to start where she is today. You need to start where she started.
Take out your phone. Shoot the video. Post it. Learn from it. Then do another one. Because the agents being rewarded in this next era of real estate won’t necessarily be the ones who understood video first. They’ll be the ones who finally decided to take action.
Jennifer Carroll can be found on Instagram.
