How Khani Zulu Built a Real Estate Brand with Authenticity & Style | Real Estate Pro Show

Erika (00:00.982)
Hey everyone, welcome to the Real Estate Pro Show. I’m your host, Erika, and today I’m thrilled to be joined by Khani Zulu, who’s been making serious moves in the real estate space. Khani, it’s so great to have you on the show today.

Khani Zulu (00:16.632)
Thank you. I’m super excited to be here.

Erika (00:19.744)
So let’s jump on in. For folks who may not be familiar with your world, give us a rundown, Khani. How did you get started in the real estate world?

Khani Zulu (00:29.784)
Sure. Well, I’m here in Austin, Texas. I got my license in 2016. Prior to that, I was in Los Angeles for almost 20 years. I’m actually from Texas. I have a degree in theater and dance, which a lot of people are like, how does that translate to real estate? I’ll give you that insight in a minute. I moved to LA.

met a famous tattoo artist, married him, went into business with him, helped run his tattoo shop. We serviced a lot of A-list celebrities, industry professionals, ran our business very customer experience focused and minded. We were all about education upfront and walking people through a very, seemed like a permanent financial and emotional decision. when we decided to sell that studio,

I moved back to Texas, I got into real estate. I had always been interested in real estate. I’m very much equally left and right brained. So, and I done all the creative stuff as a young person, you know, dance, theater, production, which helps with real estate, fashion design, teaching yoga, managing the tattoo studio. You know, the through line here is that I love people and I love working with people and building relationships.

That’s really, think, I had really no idea what I was getting into when I got into real estate, but I got my real estate license in 2016 in March. I had my first two closings in May, and it was a rocket start from there. Most of my clients in the very beginning happened to be investors that were referrals from our clientele in LA that were wanting to invest in Austin, because at the time Austin was, you know,

just getting on the map of being really hot to invest in. that’s pretty much how I got started.

Erika (02:33.206)
That’s awesome. And your experience helping run the tattoo shop, did it kind of give you a different perspective with how you wanted to build your real estate?

Khani Zulu (02:44.686)
Yeah, I I think that one just kind of fed into the other in that I mentioned we were very client, we were focused on the client experience and the education upfront. And that is the number one thing that I’ve carried with me from that experience to this business is that it’s really about forming a strong bond with your clients and trust from the get go.

really understanding the process and helping them understand the process so they trust you and feel confident in their decisions. And then ultimately, it goes beyond that. It’s also like with the tattoo studio, we created a community where we were doing fundraising and parties and giving back and getting our clients together. I mean, I’ve got stories of clients that met at the tattoo shop that got married and my husband married them and then I like.

That’s all translating to the tattoo business. I mean, sorry, the real estate business. It’s all translating to the real estate business because I’m trying to do the same thing here and that I’m, I really am trying, even though it’s a transactional business, I’m trying to maintain, not trying, I am maintaining some very strong connections with my clients and continuing to stay in touch and help them even beyond their initial transaction.

which even with my investors, who are not always the most loyal people to their agents, I’ve got investors that are extremely loyal to me and that have continued to work with me over the last nine or 10 years.

Erika (04:26.592)
That’s awesome. And I’m sure you know how competitive the market is. What’s been key to making yourself stand out?

Khani Zulu (04:35.544)
authenticity. I think in the beginning, when I first got into real estate, honestly, I probably would have gotten into real estate 20 years before I did. But I had this idea in my head that I had to, you know, wear a suit, not show my tattoos, take out all my piercings, and just blend in, I guess. And that’s just not who I am. And I

I kind of did that a little bit in the beginning because I was trying to figure it out, right? No one really gives you a playbook when you start real estate. They just kind of throw you in. the more deals I did and the more feedback I got from my clients, I was getting feedback about just how easy it was to talk to me, how real I was, how different I was from other agents, and that they felt like I was.

actually telling them the truth and saying things that they understood. And also, people were very drawn to my style. And that’s actually been a huge differentiator is that today I’m dressed a little, I’m kind of dressed down for me, but just like not being afraid to express myself through fashion, which is a huge…

I guess, love of mine, passion of mine, since I’m not performing anymore as a dancer in theater. I just started embracing that even more and built it into my brand, which is translated into some really dynamic marketing and just the way that I work with my stagers and the videos that we make to sell properties and even the educational content that I put out. think it’s…

It’s less dry, it’s just people are more attracted. I’m sure there’s some people that are turned off by it, because you’re not for everybody, right? But it’s, I think my authenticity has really, really set me apart.

Erika (06:37.802)
Yeah, that’s awesome Connie. Hey, I want to talk to you a little bit about trends. Is there anything that you see trending in the marketplace and are you changing your strategy because of that?

Khani Zulu (06:51.758)
Ooh, that’s actually a great question. mean, do you mean, well, okay. So the first thing that comes to mind when you say trend is kind of market conditions. And I definitely think we’ve got, you know, the rates have been a challenge for the last few years. Austin was hit hard. We were one of the first and one of the highest appreciating cities during COVID. So we were a very undervalued market.

pre-COVID for the kind of amenities and just attraction to the city that we had. And so when COVID hit and so many people moved here, we appreciated like mad. And then when the rates jumped up, we also hit a brick wall. So it’s been, the last few years have been very challenging. And I think, but what I’ve, the trend that I’ve noticed is the buyers that are in the market,

are either people my age or older who are NT Nesters and the interest rates may not be an issue, they’re paying cash, there’s more affordability there, or they’re the younger sex, Gen Z, straight out of college, making six figures, plus crazy benefits and…

options from their tech jobs that want to get into real estate because they’re very investment minded. Both of them kind of have very similar ideals of the homes that they want and used to you could price a home as is and it would sell at some point. I think the trend that we’re really seeing now is that both of those sets of buyers they want turnkey, they want a house that’s updated.

They want a house that’s priced right. They’re not going to overpay. They’re going to take their time looking.

Khani Zulu (08:56.086)
Yeah, I think that that’s the biggest thing is that they’re really looking for more turnkey properties that are just move in ready.

Erika (09:08.15)
So Connie, you probably have had a moment with all your experience where things got real. Maybe a deal went sideways or you had to pivot fast and completely change your plans. Do you have a moment like that that you can share with our audience?

Khani Zulu (09:25.742)
Oh, yeah, I’m sure I do. I’m sure I have a few to be honest. It’s remembering. I mean, I think early on coming out of COVID and I hate talking about COVID, but really like we haven’t had a normal since 2019. And even 2019 was kind of a soft market, right?

Erika (09:30.696)
Yeah.

Khani Zulu (09:56.31)
You know, once we hit, we had such a crazy, crazy time all over the country. I mean, everybody did. We were all making a ton of money, but we were also, I literally, I don’t know about everybody else, but I worked from 4 a.m. till 12 midnight most days for years during COVID. It was bananas. And then coming out of that, so every home sold, it didn’t matter what it looked like. It didn’t matter how it was priced. Nothing really mattered. Everything moved.

In Austin, we had like less than two weeks worth of inventory at one point. Right now we have about seven months worth of inventory. It’s night and day. Yeah. And so, but when all of that started to change back in mid, like mid 2022, when the rates really jumped up.

Khani Zulu (10:49.838)
Things, I had listings that were sitting. Your sellers are like, what’s happening? My neighbor just sold their house in a day. We’ve been on the market three weeks. At that time, three weeks seemed like a long time. Now we’re in a cycle where it’s like, know, 80 days is our average days on market over here. I had to think really quickly of, okay, I’ve not experienced this because I jumped in, even in 2016, we were in a strong market.

I had not been in a market where things were tough to sell. So I had to start getting really creative with my marketing and figure out, number one, even more than that, how to have a conversation with a seller about what’s happening and why. So really having to stay educated on the data, really having to stay educated on who’s your buyer in the marketplace. think for agents, a lot of times we get so caught up in the data.

that informs our clients, but also who’s looking, who are really paying attention to the feedback. So I think for me, was getting really, bringing a lot of awareness to my conversations around who’s the buyer, why is it taking so long, how do we handle these objections, and then how do we get creative in our marketing? And then once we really started to realize that,

this affordability issue with the pricing and the interest rates affected people buying homes that weren’t turnkey or HGTV ready. How do you deal with that? So then coming up with some creative solutions. So I started looking for companies that would fund renovations upfront. So that was, I would say one thing we did to pivot.

I guess to go back to your question, to go back to your question would be getting more clarity and awareness in conversations around market shifts, getting creative around how do you do improvements or creatively market a property that isn’t selling, and then how do you keep buyers in the game? Because a lot of buyers just wanted to

Khani Zulu (13:15.628)
Step back. And I think that’s still a challenge right now is getting people to understand that old adage of buy low, sell high. Like everyone’s sitting on the sidelines right now because interest rates are high, but y’all prices are here. So you’re gonna wait till the interest rates are here and then the prices go up. Like it doesn’t make sense. Anyway, I don’t know if I completely answered your question, but.

Erika (13:43.404)
You did, you did. I also wanted to ask you, what’s made the biggest difference for you with building your network? Was there a moment that you realized that building a relationship in the industry, that it was like a game changer for you with growing your business?

Khani Zulu (14:07.884)
That is an amazing question actually. So building your network.

Khani Zulu (14:15.506)
I did not really realize how important that was in two ways. It’s obvious in the way of who are you working with, who are your clientele, what is their net worth, how much are their homes worth? Me, like every other agent, would love to up our average price point. So coming from the arts in the world that I worked in, a lot of my clientele were not high net worth individuals.

I and investors, so my average price point has stayed fairly, you know, around the median for Austin, not super high. I look like I’m a luxury agent, but I actually, and I do some luxury sales, of course, but most of my deals are around the median price of Austin, which is around 500,000. So that’s number one. It’s like, how do you find,

clients who are higher net worth so I can have higher sales, frankly. Work less, make more. Sell less, houses do make more money. So that’s been an interesting thing, is just figuring out where to meet people and what groups to join.

We upped our marketing several years ago to appear more luxury. And so that’s definitely helped me attract that clientele. But I would say another really, really important network that people don’t, a lot of agents don’t think of anyway is other agents, frankly. So I was in Tom Ferry coaching for six years.

That’s a nationwide, if not international network. I get a ton of referrals from that. I’m now with Christie’s International Real Estate. That’s an international network. get a ton of referrals from that network. And then I’ve been in some masterminds from some other, I’m a conference junkie, so I go to all the conferences, meeting people, really connecting.

Khani Zulu (16:33.998)
with other agents and people in other cities to create a network where I can literally help my clients anywhere. It doesn’t matter where they go in the US. And I think that that’s really important. It’s not just important for my bottom line, but my goal always is that my clients are really taken care of. So I take my referrals very seriously. forming those…

Not just knowing all those people, but actually forming the relationships so that when I refer somebody, I can really trust that they’re being taken care of is what’s super important to me.

Erika (17:08.576)
Yeah, yeah, totally. Connie, I wanted to ask you two, what do you see next on the horizon? Is there a specific goal you have in mind? Maybe you want to scale?

Khani Zulu (17:22.094)
That’s a great question. I’ve been thinking a lot about that the last, well really the last couple of years. I had a bigger team and a business partner for several years. We parted ways a few years ago and that has been a whole interesting growth process for me of figuring it out because really when I partnered

with her, I was very early in my real estate career. figuring out that I could do it on my own, I do have an amazing operations manager who’s been with me for four years who I could not function without. And her and I, she can take every one of my big crazy ideas and operationalize it. we’re great pair.

But we’ve been talking a lot about when you have a team, there’s a bit of a revolving door with agents. And I think one of my downfalls in the past was not creating a stronger culture. I was so focused on training the agents and giving them education and teaching them how to run deals. But I wasn’t really connecting with them in a way that they were really buying into what I was building.

So I’ve had a big epiphany around that the last, I would say, year. So while I’m not actively out there recruiting agents, I am mindful that I, or intentional that I want to build a team in a mindful way. So when I do run across agents, I’m starting to have conversations around what their goals are, what their dreams are, how they need support.

I have very streamlined systems and processes in place. So I think scaling is definitely on the horizon for me. With the right people, it’s going to be quality over quantity. I would rather have a smaller team doing lots of deals than a big team where agents just do a few deals here and there. So I think it’s going to take me a while to build that.

Khani Zulu (19:40.118)
I do have a couple agents on my team right now that I think are gonna do really awesome things. They’re both new, but I think they’re gonna be great. And then one of the biggest things is I’m being called to coach and mentor. I’ve always, I started teaching dance when I was 13 years old. And I’ve always in some capacity been a teacher. And I have new agents reaching out to me all the time.

I have turned a lot of people away who’ve wanted to join my team. Mostly just for personal reasons, I wasn’t ready. But now I’m starting to have a clearer vision of helping people find their purpose through the Purpose Factor Assessment. So I am about to become a licensed Purpose Factor Assessment Facilitator, which if you haven’t read that book, The Purpose Factor, I highly recommend it. Gabrielle and Brian.

Bochet wrote this book, they work with the military, they work with Fortune 500 companies. They help people find their purpose to do a better job and not purpose meaning what you’re supposed to do, but it’s the best of what you have to give others. And I think my coaching style will be less about let’s just see what works for you and throw spaghetti at the wall and see what fits, right? Which is what.

most agents do when they start, but let’s really hone in on what your purpose and how you operate mentally, the things you’re drawn to and your natural strengths and weaknesses, and let’s form a business plan from day one with that in mind to help you grow your business so hopefully you’re not wasting the time, money, and energy that most of us other agents have had to do to get to where we are.

Erika (21:37.366)
That’s really exciting, Connie. Before we wrap up, if someone wants to reach out, connect with you, maybe they want to partner up, or maybe they are interested in coaching, what’s the best way for them to reach you?

Khani Zulu (21:39.586)
Yeah.

Khani Zulu (21:52.206)
I would say, well, my website’s easy. It’s conniezulu.com. I’m assuming you’re going to have show notes, right? I don’t have to spell it. Oh yeah, like, don’t have spell it. Do I need to spell it? Instagram is a great place. khani.zulu. Those are probably the best ways. Yeah.

Erika (22:00.88)
I think we do.

Erika (22:14.376)
Awesome. Khani, we appreciate your time, story, and perspective. Thanks so much for being on the show.

Khani Zulu (22:20.184)
Thank you. It was awesome.

Erika (22:22.924)
For those tuning in, if you got value from the show, make sure that you’re subscribed to the Real Estate Pro Show. We’ve got more conversations coming up with people out there who are building fantastic real estate empires. We’ll see you on the next episode. Bye.