The Human Experience

In this episode, the Good Mood Marketing trio sits down with Kristy Johnson, a 14-year veteran in the real estate marketing space. Rejoining the Catalyst team as Director of Brand Strategy, Kristy dives into how Catalyst’s culture drew her back to the agency, walks us through the importance of the relationship between onsite teams and customer experience, and how everyone should pay attention to one common theme in branding: Identity. Find out how all of these factors affect the human experience in the fast paced world of real estate.

Kristy Johnson

Kristy Johnson works at Catalyst as Director of Brand Strategy. She oversees the team responsible for leading, shaping, and driving the development of clients’ brand identities. In her 14 year career, Kristy has navigated the real estate industry from residential to multifamily to student and more, with extensive experience in the marketing agency space working with major national brands inside and outside of real estate, and has now made her way back onto the Catalyst team.

Transcript

Thomas Demiranda (00:14):

Welcome back to Good Mood Marketing. This is Thomas, and as always, I’m here with Christy and Katie, and today we will talk with our very own Kristy Johnson. She recently started with our team but previously worked with us for four years. Currently, she’s our Director of Brand Strategy and has a very robust real estate and marketing background. So today we get to chat with her about her real estate, good company culture, and brand strategy hot takes. Kristy, welcome back.

Kristy Johnson (00:39):

Thanks, Thomas and team. So good to be back. Thanks for having me on the podcast today. I’ll start with a little bit about me and my background for everyone that’s listening. I grew up around the real estate industry. I feel like it was embedded in my bones from an early age. My father was a residential real estate agent, so it was constantly seeing him go showing homes and kind of attending some of his open houses here and there, and really fell in love with real estate in general through that. In college, I decided to pivot from what I originally had thought I was going to do, which was real estate law and actually partner with my father in his real estate business. So at the ripe age of 21, I had graduated from college a year early, super eager to get into business with him and went to real estate school — was the youngest person there.

Kristy Johnson (01:35):

And I went and got my real estate license, but that was in 2008, and we all know how that ended <laugh>. So probably wasn’t the best time to get into real estate and get my license, but from there, I really pivoted with using my degree from college and I was a marketing major, so I pivoted into one of the largest advertising agencies in the Southeast at the time. But before that, I was still working a little bit with the real estate stuff. Before it had officially kind of shut down in 2008, I had worked on websites like Joomla, if anybody remembers that back in the day. Lots of coding back in the day on those Joomla sites.

Christy McFerren (02:18):

We keep a good mood here, so I won’t insert comment <laugh>.

Kristy Johnson (02:23):

But yeah, I did a lot of website copy, did a lot of email direct mailers for my father, and then again, pivoted more into that, real estate, pivoted out of real estate and into that advertising agency. And I really, in my early career, I spent most of my time in sports and marketing, entertainment marketing as well.

Katie Degutis (02:41):

Those were always my favorite stories that you would bring in <laugh>.

Kristy Johnson (02:46):

Lots of really fun things that I did back in the day. But when I moved to Austin, I found Catalyst through a Facebook group and came in and interviewed with Christy. And the rest is kind of history. I worked for Catalyst for four years on the account team, and after I left Catalyst, I was with a competitor in the space and then also with a prop tech real estate organization. But I’m really, really happy to be back and with this crew, of course. And just spreading the good news about the real estate industry and back in kind of my roots.

Christy McFerren (03:20):

Yeah, we’re happy to have you back. It’s so awesome.

Katie Degutis (03:22):

Yeah, definitely good to have you at the table again. For sure.

Kristy Johnson (03:25):

Thank you.

Katie Degutis (03:26):

Kind of with some of your various roles and different agency experience, both in different types and sizes, what would you say you look for in a company’s culture to help you really thrive? Or what kind of environment do you prefer to work in?

Kristy Johnson (03:38):

Yeah, I think in any company, anybody that wants to come in and make a big impact is looking for an organization that really lives their values. And so I think what really gravitated me back to coming to Catalyst was just the authenticity, how truly genuine this team is. And for me, that’s such a big piece. This is something you do constantly day in and day out, and you want to surround yourself with people that truly do live the values that the organization, you know, is constantly talking about externally. And I felt like I really had that with you all and with the team. So I think that’s really important as in just genuinely caring about people’s success. I think to be a good leader, you have to truly, genuinely care about growing and developing your team and really being there for them.

Kristy Johnson (04:32):

And then on the latter part, it’s really just a company that really listens to their team. So something that I really enjoyed about the time that I’ve been away, and obviously the pandemic, things that have kind of happened since then. Joining Catalyst, Christy shared with me that there were these mental health hours that you all had established, and I think that’s really, really important these days. And any really good culture is, of course, you’ve got PTO and dedicated time to take off, and hopefully your supervisor’s encouraging you to take that time, but also just having a sense of awareness that there’s a lot going on in the world right now. The pandemic has dragged out for about three years. A lot of major socioeconomic issues are going on in today’s world, and having that extra mental health time to really take some time to take care of yourself outside of your day-to-day job is amazing. And I think a lot of companies have a culture that promotes those types of things, but really being a company that embeds it into every single month, this is something we’re encouraging you to do is pretty amazing.

Katie Degutis (05:44):

And I think also like you, we didn’t have the gold standard in place when you’d left originally. So kind of, I’m curious to see in the next couple of months, kind of your takes from that, and obviously you’ve had a little bit from the training side, but seeing more of like the full team implementation of it.

Kristy Johnson (06:00):

Absolutely.

Katie Degutis (06:01):

I think that you were probably a pretty big fabric of that from the beginning just because of the time you were here and the role that you played at the time, but excited to kind of see how that all grows.

Christy McFerren (06:12):

Yeah, for sure. It’s really good to have you back, and I think one of the things that resonates so much with what you just said about values is so much of that is who you are. So over the years as we’ve kept in touch and I’ve followed your journey, you know, it’s, it was painful, you know, to see you go and it’s made it even more heartwarming to see you come, want to come back, because you’re so much that person yourself. And so I think that’s why it’s an easy yes. You know, was like, yeah, please come back on <laugh> because we’ll figure out a way because you have that, you can always find talent, but you can’t always know for sure you have character with that talent and when you know you’ve got both. Like yeah.

Katie Degutis (06:54):

Well and I just have to say, we never, you left right at the beginning of COVID, so we never had like a going away. We never got to have a send-off or anything. So it always felt like your leaving was incomplete, and now we don’t have to worry about it.

Kristy Johnson (07:07):

Right. It’s just a brief pause.

Christy McFerren (07:09):

Exactly. Yeah. Maybe that’s the key. If when somebody that you, you don’t want to go, you just don’t tell them goodbye <laugh>.

Thomas Demiranda (07:15):

Well, Christy texted me or called me, and I was telling KJ this the other day that I hadn’t told her these past few years because I was in Brazil and you know, like, I need to talk to you <laugh>.

Christy McFerren (07:27):

Oh yeah.

Thomas Demiranda (07:28):

And heart sank for a couple reasons, and then she told me and I was just like barbecuing with my family. I got like super sad. I was like, what is going on? The pandemic and Kristy’s leaving us <laugh>.

Kristy Johnson (07:40):

It was tough.

Katie Degutis (07:40):

And I don’t know how long I’m going to be in Brazil though. <laugh>.

Christy McFerren (07:42):

Yeah, I know. I told Thomas on the way out to Brazil. I was like, there’s a little thing kind of going on you may want to reconsider, but yeah, I would’ve probably gone to.

Kristy Johnson (07:52):

It was tough, but I, you know, one thing that I’m really proud of during the time that I was gone is I generally stayed connected with you all in some form or capacity. With Katie, I definitely talked with her about true crime and things that were work related.

Katie Degutis (08:07):

I will say Robert Durst having a lot of stuff going on during then definitely helped us keep in touch. <laugh>

Kristy Johnson (08:12):

Yeah. And Thomas with travel and questions about the Cape and just the East Coast in general, and Christy in general, we would catch up for lunches and things like that here and there. So yeah, just it feels like we, while we’ve had a moment of pause where we weren’t together, it also still feels like it feels the same to me.

Christy McFerren (08:31):

Yeah. Well, and I think, too, that’s a testament to the relationships — we’re really where it’s at, and the work that we do together is important, but it is sort of secondary to the relationships here. So I know you gave me some good coaching on Tulum, and I still haven’t like taken you up on the advice.

Kristy Johnson (08:49):

There’s still time.

Christy McFerren (08:49):

The headlines kind of got nuts around Tulum here for a bit.

Kristy Johnson (08:53):

It has.

Katie Degutis (08:54):

I figured I would just live through her photos at that point. <laugh>

Christy McFerren (08:57):

I might have to just know how that place will be one day. <laugh> Good luck to them. But pivoting a little bit into kind of the role that you’re here to do, the Brand Strategy Director role, I’d love to kind of pick your brain a little bit about what’s your favorite kind of work in that space? I know you’ve just gotten back, but what’s your vision for how you want to come in with that? And the way that we work with our clients?

Kristy Johnson (09:22):

Yeah. I would say, now coming into things, it’s great to see a lot of the clients that we’ve worked with previously still working with us and working with larger portfolios that they have. So for me, coming in brand new again, it’s almost just taking a step back and looking at, comprehensively, what have we done with these clients? What brands have we built for them? I think the biggest important pieces when you start looking at a brand are, you know, creating a fully comprehensive brand where the name, the logo, the tagline, the colors, the full visual identity are really succinct. And also thinking about when that brand is established, how do you keep that brand presence strong? And that’s through online reputation management. And that’s in conjunction with the on-site operations teams, right? There’s some things that we lean on them heavily for, but for me coming in right now, it’s really looking at the clients holistically, what have they done, how do they stay, you know, ahead of what their competitors are doing.

Kristy Johnson (10:25):

So when they create a rebrand or, you know, we’re starting a brand from scratch, it doesn’t feel like they’re just going to blend into the market holistically. And I think there’s a couple steps that you can do to kind of get there and that’s really doing your due diligence on who their competitors are, understanding what kinds of nuances are in their specific market, looking at the architectural design of the property itself, your target demographics, maybe even the history of the site that the property is on that kind of helped build that story of the brand holistically. And so for me, I’m going to be digging into that really extensively over these next couple of weeks to understand where our clients are at, where do they want to be, and how do we help them get there.

Christy McFerren (11:08):

I think one thing that’s exciting for me is we look at, so many people look at brands as like, OK, we created a logo and identity, you know, sort of a brand guide and expression and messaging of a brand. And then we send it over, you know, to the digital team and they run ads and it seems like so many times, those two functions are kind of siloed, right. And how do we, you know, merge those two more together where you have your brand strategist kind of overseeing the digital and the ongoing aspect. You mentioned reputation, but there’s also the ads and there’s also, you know, emails and campaigns and making sure that we preserve brand integrity and find ways to like keep those, you know, apartment communities standing out more and more. Because it’s just so much more competitive all the time, and I think the brand strategy is so much more important than it used to be.

Kristy Johnson (11:56):

Yeah.

Christy McFerren (11:56):

Even at that kind of smaller level, you know?

Kristy Johnson (11:59):

Absolutely. Yeah. I think that with that to be really successful and fruitful, those two teams have to be really succinct as well, you know. They have to be sharing information from the brand side to the digital side of how did we get here, how do we establish this brand? And then the brand team kind of weighing in on creative that might be going out for those ads overall, the copy, making sure that matches the brand guide that we initially established, and just really being in sync about changes or feedback that the client is giving us along the way, for those to be really unified along the journey.

Thomas Demiranda (12:33):

Which is why when we speak with clients, you know, although it’s not required, I think they get a better experience if, whether it’s us or another agency, starts with the market research, does the brand strategy, and then also implements the digital and website because then you get the same folks that started the whole thing going all the way through and really understand how that’s all supposed to be working together.

Kristy Johnson (12:57):

Yeah, absolutely.

Christy McFerren (12:58):

So many times one of the disconnects, too, is what we create at the, you know, corporate/marketing agency level with what gets implemented on the ground and how do you see that kind of divide being bridged and brought closer together with like, do you have ideas on, not to put you on the spot, but like how do we coordinate better with on-site teams that may not even be in our market or necessarily know everyone on our team?

Kristy Johnson (13:23):

Yeah, I think it’s just getting ahead of it, being proactive and introducing yourself to those points of contact. Establishing who the key players are at each of these properties, making sure they understand who we are and why we were brought on to the relationship with the owner or operator, and then really establishing this is what we’re doing as far as our next steps and this is where we need your input and you are there and you’re on the ground and you know this property better than anyone of us at the agency level are going to know, and making them feel really a part of some of the decision-making. I think that’s when you get the adoption and getting folks to feel more comfortable with sharing feedback is making them feel like a part of the decision-making as well.

Christy McFerren (14:06):

One challenge that I’ve seen is how do you get a site team to buy into a brand that isn’t strong and what makes it, you know, what makes it strong and what makes it not, and how do you get them to buy in?

Kristy Johnson (14:18):

I think you get them to buy in when they can feel the impact that they can make on it and that they were a part of making that impact based off feedback that they’ve given or, you know, just brainstorming together as a group. I think if they feel like they’re connected to it and they can see the success and they can see the evolution of it getting better and better and better, especially from an online reputation management perspective. And I think Mark, our CX manager, has done a really good job at bridging the gap with on-site teams and creating a little bit of contests and kind of friendly competition among them of, “Hey, you know, you’re at X, Y, Z star rating. Let’s get you up half a point by X, Y, Z date.” And so I think it’s, if they can feel that they personally have some skin in the game and they can go back to their leaders and say, “I drove this change with our agency, Catalyst,” I think that’s when you get that unity from all angles.

Christy McFerren (15:13):

Yeah. Like what I hear you saying is that it goes back to values.

Kristy Johnson (15:16):

Exactly.

Christy McFerren (15:17):

When, you know, it’s not so much about what kind of cash prize can I get them? I mean that never hurts.

Kristy Johnson (15:21):

Of course.

Christy McFerren (15:22):

You know, like, how do I feel fulfilled in my job?

Kristy Johnson (15:25):

Right.

Christy McFerren (15:26):

Because really the question everyone’s asking in every role is how do you get a site team member, you know, feeling fulfilled? Well, it’s by the buy-in that you’re talking about and helping them feel like, at the end of the day, that I expressed a part of who I am and I’m proud of that.

Kristy Johnson (15:40):

Yeah.

Katie Degutis (15:41):

I would also say that, like, if it’s a rebrand and a new company is coming in from a management standpoint, that it’s especially important for that buy-in because otherwise it’s just, OK, here’s another manager, like it’s going to be another one in six months. Why am I wasting my time to invest in this brand, or why do I care [about] anything? I know friends of mine who have had multiple different management companies come to their community and they’re just like, well, it’s going to be someone else in six months. Like, they’ve all been awful since then. They don’t necessarily have a positive experience.

Kristy Johnson (16:10):

Right.

Katie Degutis (16:10):

For the employees that are on site, being able to, like, have some kind of say in what they want the environment to be and how they want people to perceive their brand so that they can actually implement that on the ground is probably huge.

Christy McFerren (16:23):

I’ll never forget going out to what was The Edge in Orlando, and talking with that site team, and they were not having it with being renamed because they had built a lot of esprit de corps around their name and identity. And I’m like, I’m so sorry, but I’ve been tasked with renaming.

Kristy Johnson (16:46):

Yeah.

Christy McFerren (16:46):

That’s what I’m here for. So I remember us sitting around brainstorming together in person about names that sounded like The Edge that could be believed in. And we came up with The Verge, you know, and it was a successful brand and they were bought in.

Katie Degutis (17:01):

It was such a great rebrand.

Kristy Johnson (17:02):

It was.

Christy McFerren (17:03):

And it was so successful all the way around, for the investor all the way up to the investors. And I think that’s, you know, part and parcel because of the, you know, location and it was just partly an easy property, but partly not. They had a lot of reno and a lot of CapEx that they did. And they still held together as a team because they had that buy-in we were talking about.

Kristy Johnson (17:26):

Definitely.

Christy McFerren (17:26):

And it’s so important to, at a corporate position or in a marketing position, to not disrupt anything that’s already been built in terms of the human experience.

Kristy Johnson (17:35):

Definitely.

Thomas Demiranda (17:35):

I think it definitely has to do with the way leadership communicates to the on-site teams of like, instead of telling them, maybe sharing with them and expecting their ideas, like Kristy mentioned before. So it’s the way you kind of cast your vision of, “Hey, this is what we think the brand is going to be, this is what we’re envisioning, this is how we think you guys can, um, share this story with us and help us get there.”

Kristy Johnson (17:58):

Yeah. And it’s just, you know, something you have to be consistent about because if we’re with points of contact, we’re talking to them, you know, day in and day out, it’s letting them know even the smallest things that they’ve shared with us were meaningful in some way and recognizing them even with their leaders or, you know, when corporate gets together and really calling them out as being an integral part in that brand. I think that’s how you again continue to get that buy-in and that cohesion with the on-site teams.

Christy McFerren (18:30):

Well and I think, too, when you think about the very nature of branding, it’s about identity, and identity is so much about values and, like, personality and self-expression and feeling like I am someone and this is literally my mark that I’m leaving. And there’s, it’s like such a direct analogy to how we actually feel about ourselves as people. You can’t get more direct than branding.

Kristy Johnson (18:56):

Yeah.

Christy McFerren (18:56):

And so you’re the perfect person to be here directing brand strategy because you come from that place of the heart. But while you’re here, what would be like your dream branding challenge?

Kristy Johnson (19:08):

Yeah, dream branding challenge. I mean, I love branding work that involves cause marketing and so, you know, for us to continue to be working with Shelters to Shutters is amazing. I love getting to work on projects like that, but I also have obviously a sweet spot for any projects that are local to Austin. So obviously Austin has grown substantially, and there’s constant redevelopment, and some of that’s great and some obviously to a harsh critique <laugh>. But I love to work on a project that really encapsulates the community. And I think there’s a lot of projects that are going on in Austin that are really substantial in size, especially in South Austin right now, which is just going through a total facelift. I would love to work on a really big development project that’s in our local backyard.

Christy McFerren (20:01):

Yeah, that’d be fun. You got your assignment, Thomas.

Thomas Demiranda (20:03):

And SoCo, too. I always think, you know, getting near, you know that H-E-B, how everything’s pushing out.

Kristy Johnson (20:09):

Oh yeah.

Thomas Demiranda (20:10):

Like to be able to brand like a project there and tie it back to landmarks or history would be cool to do.

Kristy Johnson (20:17):

Yeah. We gotta keep it weird though, still <laugh>.

Christy McFerren (20:19):

Yeah.

Katie Degutis (20:20):

And of course with any kind of market research, like there’s so much you can do, but it’s so different when you can go visit the site in person.

Kristy Johnson (20:25):

Right.

Katie Degutis (20:25):

And walk around in the area.

Thomas Demiranda (20:29):

So I think we have a tradition here, Kristy, where we go around and tell each other what has put us in a good mood. So we’ll start with you. You can share with us maybe this week, today, what has you in a good mood?

Kristy Johnson (20:41):

Yeah, I think my good mood is hopefully everyone that’s listening can hear it. It’s being back with this crew for sure. My heart is definitely full. It feels like coming back home. So it’s been just like such a blessing to be back with this crew, and it’s been amazing to see the growth of this team. A lot of folks that were here during the four years that I was previously here are still here today. And to see their growth and personal development is really, really amazing. And I think there’s just so much opportunity as I’ve been talking with all of you, and with some of our clients, I think there’s just untapped potential for this year, and I’m really excited about that.

Katie Degutis (21:22):

We’re definitely happy to have you back, too.

Thomas Demiranda (21:24):

Yes.

Kristy Johnson (21:24):

Thank you.

Christy McFerren (21:25):

A hundred percent.

Katie Degutis (21:26):

I would say it’s a little weird for me today. We’re recording on a Monday instead of a Tuesday, so I’m still mentally in weekend mode a little bit and just was able to get a ton done this weekend around the house and really relax yesterday. So that was really nice.

Christy McFerren (21:40):

Cool. I would have to say my good mood is either going to be materialistic or nostalgic, so we’re gonna go nostalgic real quick. I spent the weekend going through a couple of boxes from my childhood and I just had a great laugh at my second-grade artistic skills and my attempts at being poetic.

Katie Degutis (21:56):

You should bring those in for Lauren and get back on the design team a little bit.

Christy McFerren (22:00):

Hard pass <laugh>. I think she would reject me outright. But on the materialistic side, I picked up a Moonwatch on Friday and I’m still glowing.

Thomas Demiranda (22:09):

Yes. <laugh> I am happy for you.

Christy McFerren (22:11):

Thank you. <laugh>

Thomas Demiranda (22:13):

Speaking of nostalgia, I think my good mood is I’m taking my family next month to Cape Cod. It’s where my parents live, so I’ll be able to spend some time there. March is a great time to be in the Northeast. It’s kind of cold, but still sunny. So looking to spend some time there. With that, thank you for listening to our show. We’re so excited to keep this going. And we’ll catch you on the next one. Cheers.

Christy McFerren (22:39):

Cheers, everybody.

Thomas Demiranda (22:55):

Hey, this is Thomas from the Good Mood Marketing Podcast. If you like what you’re listening to, please rate or review us on whichever streaming platform you’re listening to. Thanks.