How I Built My Business Through Attraction Marketing, Personal Branding, and Value Driven Events in Denver Real Estate

Jerad Larkin
7 days ago
6 min read

Opening question:

How do you stand out in a crowded real estate market when every competitor seems interchangeable, every service feels commoditized, and everyone is fighting for the same attention?

Snippet answer:

You stand out by building a personal brand, offering real value, and showing up consistently with classes, events, and marketing that draws people in instead of chasing them. This is the exact approach I used to build my business at Chicago Title and create an attraction based model that continues to grow year after year.

The Real Story Behind How Attraction Marketing Works in Real Estate

If you're trying to grow as a real estate professional in Denver or beyond, you've probably felt it. The constant pressure to chase leads. The pressure to cold call. The pressure to convince people that you’re somehow different than the next person. I know that pressure very well. When I stumbled into title insurance sales eight years ago, I knew absolutely no one in Denver real estate. I didn’t grow up here. I didn’t have a built in network. And I was in an industry that most people see as a commodity where price is regulated and relationships run deep.

To make it even more challenging, the traditional model for title sales at the time was built around wining, dining, and hoping to get a shot at someone’s next listing.

But I knew early on that wasn’t going to be my path. My background was in marketing. Video production. Social media. Branding. I’d built a small boutique marketing agency before joining Chicago Title, and I genuinely loved everything about the creative and digital side of building businesses. So I made a decision early on that completely changed everything.

I wasn’t going to be the person chasing business. I was going to become the person people came to. That shift in mindset ended up becoming the foundation for everything I teach today about attraction marketing for real estate and personal branding for real estate agents.

Why Personal Branding Matters More Than Ever

One of the biggest similarities between title insurance and property management is this: consumers often believe every provider is exactly the same.

They don’t see the difference until someone shows them the difference.

That’s why personal branding for real estate agents is no longer optional. Your brand is the only thing that makes you different before someone actually experiences your service.

Your personal brand communicates:

• What you stand for

• How you deliver value

• What makes you unique

• Why someone should trust you

In my case, I leaned all the way into teaching, sharing, and serving through marketing education. Video classes. Social media strategy. Facebook ads. AI. Tech workshops. Neighborhood farming. You name it.

The more I taught, the more people saw me not just as “the title guy,” but as a marketing resource they wanted to stay connected with. And here’s the best part. You don’t need to be an expert in everything. You only need to teach, share, and create content around what you actually know, what you’re learning, and what your ideal clients need to hear. When your brand is built around solving real problems, opportunities start coming to you.

Why My First Classes Totally Failed (and Why That Was the Best Thing That Could’ve Happened)

I still laugh thinking about it. My very first video marketing classes back in 2017 were a complete flop. I would post the event, get excited, set up the room… and one person would show up. Sometimes nobody. And honestly, that was humbling.

But it also taught me two huge lessons that I now share in all my real estate marketing classes in Denver:

Lesson 1: Nobody wants what they don’t understand yet. In 2017, most agents didn’t want to be on video. They didn’t see the value yet. Today it’s one of the top strategies in real estate branding.

Lesson 2: Consistency beats talent. Showing up week after week built the muscle of resilience. It also built familiarity with my audience. Even when people weren’t attending, they were noticing. That consistency eventually turned into momentum. And that momentum turned into opportunity.

How I Shifted From Cold Calling to Attraction Marketing

When I tell agents today that I used to cold call… they don’t believe me.

But that's exactly how I started. I cold called. I did pop bys. I dropped off Costco baskets. I showed up at offices where nobody was there. I did the things the “traditional” way because that’s all I knew. The turning point happened when I realized I wasn’t meeting the people I could actually help. Networking events brought random groups of people together, but not the people I wanted to serve.

That’s when I made the shift:

Instead of showing up to other people’s events, I started hosting my own.

Classes. Workshops. Masterminds. Marketing clinics. Training sessions. Creative networking experiences.

And everything changed.

Hosting events allowed me to:

• Control the room

• Provide real value

• Build authority

• Connect with people who actually wanted help

• Attract agents who needed marketing support

• Create content while teaching

• Build my personal brand faster than anything else

This is exactly why attraction marketing for real estate works so well. You create a gravity that pulls the right people toward you.

What a Typical Month Looks Like Now (And How This Applies to Your Real Estate Business)

Today I host 7 to 10 events every month across Denver. Last year I hosted 92. This year I’ll break 100. Every single event still follows the same core rule:

If someone shows up, they must leave feeling like they learned something valuable with zero pressure to work with me. And it works.

People come back. People refer their friends. People call when they’re ready for a partner who brings something more to the table than just closing services.

Here’s how you can apply this to your own real estate business:

1. Think beyond lead generation. Think connection generation. Not every event needs to be a class. It can be a happy hour. A workshop. A Zoom session. A panel. A community event. Anything that brings people together builds trust.

2. Treat every invite as a touch point. Even if only three people show up, hundreds may have seen the event invite.

3. Repurpose the content. Film your classes. Post recaps. Share lessons. Turn it into a blog. Build your brand.

4. Follow up like crazy. My follow up system includes email, text, video messages, retargeting ads on Meta and Google, and weekly email nurturing.

Events warm people up. Follow up converts them.

How Multichannel Marketing Turned Into My Biggest Competitive Advantage

Teaching classes wasn’t the only thing that made the attraction model work.

I paired every event with a multichannel marketing approach:

• Email

• Instagram

• Facebook

• YouTube

• Retargeting ads

• Direct mail

• In person networking

• My weekly email newsletter

• My website and tools library

• Lead magnet downloads

The reason this works is simple.

People live on different channels. Some respond to direct mail. Some respond to Instagram. Some only see your emails. Some show up to your events.

You need to be where they already are.

This is also why I run $1 a day Meta ads and Google Ads for brand awareness. They keep me top of mind with the exact people I want to stay connected with.

Why Serving First Will Always Outperform Selling

Something I say often is that my entire business is built on giving everything away.

Classes

Tools

Guides

Scripts

Templates

Prompts

Workflows

Tutorials

Real estate marketing systems

AI training

Social media guidance

Neighborhood farming strategies

Branding insights

When you give without expectation, you build trust at scale. People don’t feel pressured. They feel supported. And when they do need a title partner, they already know exactly who to call. This is the same approach I recommend for real estate agents:

Teach what you know. Share what you're learning. Show up consistently. Give more than anyone expects. Play the long game.

Attraction marketing works because you earn attention instead of demanding it.

What You Can Start Doing This Week

If you want to start shifting toward attraction marketing for real estate, here are five simple steps:

1. Host one small event. Even if three people come, you win.

2. Film it. Turn the footage into 30 pieces of content.

3. Identify your avatar. Speak directly to the people you want to attract.

4. Build your weekly email. Consistency builds authority.

5. Start running brand awareness ads. One dollar a day can change your visibility.

You don’t have to do everything at once. You just need to start.

Final Takeaway

Attraction marketing isn’t an overnight strategy. It’s a commitment to showing up, providing real value, and positioning yourself as the guide your audience can trust.

If you build your personal brand with intention and you give generously, people will start to see you as the resource they’ve been looking for.

That’s how I went from knowing nobody in Denver real estate to building a brand that now attracts the right people instead of chasing them. And you can do the same thing in your own real estate business with the right approach.