How to Love On Your Community (and Grow Your Business at the Same Time)
In 2021, Stephanie Fortman, a real estate agent in Laramie, Wyoming, pulled $8 million in sales. Not bad… but after chatting with our team, she knew she could do even better.
So, she joined the Plat Fam and started building a local brand.
She didn’t hustle harder or spend thousands on Zillow. She simply started marketing in a way that made her a local favorite.
By the end of 2022, Stephanie’s sales reached $10 million. In June of 2024, she’d already hit $13 million (in this economy? In Laramie, where the average home costs $400k?!).
As a matter of fact, Steph went from serving mostly buyers to serving mostly sellers. She’s able to be choosy about the clients she works with, which, as a mother, is the ideal situation for her.
But let’s back up a bit.
For context, most of our Platform Marketing clients — as many as 95% of them — initially discover us on Facebook or hear about us through the grapevine.
Not Stephanie. Our CEO connected with her IRL.
In 2021, at the height of the pandemic, Tim happened to be on a 10,000-mile road trip with his wife and her sister. They went from Florida to the Grand Canyon, saw the Hoover Dam, and visited the California redwoods. After taking in the Rocky Mountains, they shot up to Wyoming.
Tim wanted to see Laramie.
While in town, he decided to visit Range Leather Co., a locally-owned leather shop. There, he met Kyle, the company’s founder. Tim loves chatting with small business owners, so he didn’t hesitate to connect.
Now, if you know anything about Platform Marketing, then you know we only work with one realtor per market — and at the time, Laramie was open.
So, Tim decided to ask Kyle if he knew any good realtors in town. He recommended Steph Fortman, whose office happened to be just down the street. She wasn’t around that day, but Tim got her business card, and they set up a time to get coffee.
From Tim’s perspective, the meeting was great. He told Stephanie all about Platform and determined that she would be a good fit.
But when Stephanie called him a couple of days later, it was to tell him that she wasn’t interested in becoming a client. At least, “not right now.”
Tim was bummed. Steph was born and raised in Laramie, went to the University of Wyoming, and knows the area inside out and backwards. She was the perfect candidate for Platform.
Oh, well. Maybe later.
Luckily, “later” wasn’t very far off. Tim and his wife decided to spend six weeks in Laramie, from August to September 2021. They spent time with Steph and her husband, and by the end of the summer, she was ready to join the Plat Fam.
She wanted — and didn’t know how — to showcase her community online. She wanted to build a brand that highlights how much she loves Laramie and her people.
If she was honest with herself, she’d wanted to try this type of marketing and branding for a while.
Fortunately, we wanted nothing more than to help her achieve these goals. All she had to do was overcome her fear of being on camera — and her husband, Brian, supported her in doing just that.
To this day, Brian films Steph’s videos and lets her know which ads she has in the pipeline. He takes photos for her and helps her write unique ad scripts.
They’re a fantastic team.
One of Steph’s favorite ads to date is the one they filmed to highlight Laramie’s teacher community. It’s a tribute to local educators, thanking them for their hard work, dedication, and unsung efforts inside and outside the classroom.
(Doesn’t sound like an ad, right? Exactly. The best ones don’t.)
That video has over 65k views, which means that, on average, every adult in Laramie has seen it multiple times. It has nothing to do with Steph’s real estate business — but it proves that she’s a local and that she cares.
(Psst! People tend to like that in a realtor.)
This is how Steph gets to love on her community and grow her business at the same time.
She creates content so consistently and has become such a face in Laramie that by 2024, she was overwhelmed by the number of warm leads in her pipeline. Good problem to have, right?
People love Steph’s posts, her authenticity, and her genuine adoration for her town. And that’s what we mean when we say that the Platform strategy works: Our clients are beloved by their clients and neighbors.
So, if the idea of “marketing yourself” is scary, consider a reframe:
What if you promoted your town instead? And what if, by doing that, your business grew, and you got to help more people?
If, like Steph, you’re willing to give this mentality a shot, we’d love to support you. Find out if your market is available here.