You wake up at 4:45 AM, live in a house with brown cabinets instead of white subway tile, and feel like you have nothing “unique” to share on Instagram. Sound like a marketing nightmare? Actually, it’s pure content gold, and we’re about to prove it.

In this coaching call episode, Chelsea and Kayla sit down with longtime Modern Agent member Nikki Southard to tackle her juiciest questions about maximizing the membership, finding authenticity when you feel “too normal,” and building a personal brand that connects with real people.

How to Use Your Modern Agent Membership (Without Getting Overwhelmed)

Imagine you’ve just joined Modern Agent Social Club..

You’re scrolling through the incredible (and endless) content ideas, and suddenly your brain starts spinning. There are carousels, email templates, story sequences, monthly menus, training calls, and a Facebook group buzzing with activity.

Your first thought? “This is amazing!” Your second thought? “Where the heck do I even start?”

If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. It’s actually one of the most common questions we get from new members. So let’s break down exactly how to dive in without drowning.

Before you even think about posting, spend your first few days getting familiar with the Modern Agent Method. Understand the content cocktail. Get clear on our whole approach to personal branding and social media.

Spend three days just exploring. Go through old trainings. Scroll the Facebook group. Check out what other members are posting. Get a feel for the vibe and the variety of ways people are using the content.

Buuuut don’t spend three MONTHS browsing. We’ve had members who’ve been in for four months and still ask, “When should I start posting?” The answer is now. Just pick something that feels totally on-brand and use it, maybe once a week to start. You can always iterate and improve as you go.

The point is building that posting muscle without overwhelming yourself.

Once that feels easy (and it will), then you can add a second post. Then maybe a local reel. Then maybe you start showing up in stories more.

Every piece of content you create should have a mix: a little you, a little real estate, a little local. This is what makes the difference between billboard posting and personal brand posting.

So if you’re doing a “personal” post, it should still have a real estate element. If you’re doing a “local” post, it should still feel personal and have a real estate tie-in. This is what makes everything feel cohesive instead of like you’re posting random, disconnected content.

Once you’re ready to level up, start following the weekly members podcast. This takes all those overwhelming options and distills them into a simple, “here are the five things to focus on this week” plan.

You don’t even have to do all five things. Do two. Do one. The point is having a clear direction instead of staring at endless possibilities and feeling paralyzed.

Remember: It’s a tool, not a rulebook.

Modern Agent isn’t telling you exactly what to post and when. It’s giving you the framework and the building blocks to create something that’s uniquely yours.

Email Marketing Strategy, Segmentation, and the 3-Email Delivery Trick

Let’s talk about the email marketing question that keeps agents up at night: “Someone just downloaded my local guide. Do I add them to my monthly newsletter? Do I segment them? Do I send them through a whole sequence first? WHAT DO I DO?”

Take a deep breath. We’re about to make this way simpler than you think.

Yes, segmenting your email list works great for businesses that sell completely different products to completely different people. But you’re a real estate agent. Whether someone downloaded your holiday guide, your spring local guide, or your home equity calculator, they’re all the same type of person: someone local who could be a future buyer or seller.

So stop overthinking the segments!

Also, keep in mind that if someone is on your list, they chose to hear from you.

Kayla is strongly against including a sentence like “but you can always unsubscribe if you don’t want these emails” in your emails.

It’s like asking someone on a date and immediately following it up with “but feel free to cancel if you want to.”

Chelsea followed up with a little-known but brilliant email strategy: when someone requests your freebie, you should send it to them three times in 24 hours. Not because you’re being annoying, but because it dramatically improves your email deliverability.

Here’s how it works:

Email 1: Send immediately when they opt in. Just the freebie with a simple “here’s what you requested!”

Email 2: Send 6 hours later. “Hey, just wanted to make sure you got this!” Include the link again.

Email 3: Send 18 hours after the first one. This is where you introduce yourself and set expectations for future emails.

Why does this work? Because when people actually open and click your emails, it tells email providers that you’re legitimate and your emails should land in inboxes.

Plus, let’s be real… With everyone’s overflowing inboxes, there’s a good chance they missed the first one anyway!

Finally, make sure you keep your emails worth opening!

If you’re sending a mix of personal stories, cute new listings, something funny you saw online, and local happenings, people aren’t going to feel like you’re being pushy or aggressive.

You’re just being a friend who happens to sell real estate and knows a lot about the local area. When someone signs up for emails like that and then… never gets them? That’s disappointing. They wanted to stay connected with you.

Finding Your Authentic Voice When You Feel “Too Normal” for Social Media

“Be authentic!” they say. “Just be yourself!” they shout from every marketing guru’s mountaintop. But what if you feel like there’s literally nothing that stands out about you? What if your life feels perfectly… normal?

Good news! Normal is exactly what people are craving.

Think about your favorite TV characters or people you love to follow on social media. Take Joey from Friends, for example. His whole “brand” is basically: likes girls, loves sandwiches, and says “How you doin’?” That’s it. Nothing groundbreaking. Nothing you couldn’t find in a thousand other guys.

Or look at Chip and Joanna Gaines. They’re a married couple who flip homes in Texas. Kayla’s parents do the same thing in Indiana. It’s not revolutionary, but it became a billion-dollar brand because they showed up as themselves consistently.

The most successful personal brands aren’t built on being the most unique person in the room. They’re built on being the most consistently, relatably you.

Let’s try something. Think of someone you love following on Instagram—someone whose content you always watch. What drew you to them? What makes you think “me too!” when you see their posts?

We did this exercise with Nikki, and she mentioned loving Krista Horton. When we asked what she loved about following her, she said it was how she interacts with her kids, her humor, and how relatable she is. “She seems like someone you’d want to hang out with; she’d make light of any situation.”

That’s not about being wildly unique. That’s about showing up consistently as someone warm and real.

Here’s the secret to authentic content: pretend there’s a camera crew following you around, but you’re not filming a TV show. You’re just supposed to do whatever you normally do, and they’re documenting it.

What would that look like? Probably a lot like Krista Horton’s stories: her kid eating eggs with way too much pepper, installing wallpaper, getting ready while chatting to the camera like a friend.

For a real estate agent, your version might be: setting up a home search on MLS, behind-the-scenes of a closing, showing houses, or even just getting the kids to bed after a long day so you can finally watch your favorite show.

Chelsea shared the perfect example of this: there’s a sommelier she follows who could post about credentials, wine education, and technical expertise. Instead, she posts about eating Cheez-Its in the bathroom at 1 AM while drinking a second bottle of wine and watching Netflix.

That’s what creates connection. Not the fancy credentials but the real moments that make people think, “Oh my god, she’s just like me.”

During the coaching call, Nikki mentioned she wakes up at 4:45 AM to get two hours of quiet work time before her kids wake up. Chelsea and Kayla’s immediate response? “Document that!”

Not because waking up at 4:45 is wildly unique, but because it’s consistently her. It becomes something people know about her. When clients meet her, they might say, “Is today one of your early mornings?”

If showing your face and voice feels scary, start with once a week in your stories. Set a timer on your phone for a random time and just share what you’re doing when it goes off. Are you drinking coffee? Setting up showings? Watching Gabby’s Dollhouse for the millionth time with your kids?

Those mundane moments are your connection points.

And if you still feel boring, just remember that everyone else is just as “normal” as you are. The difference is some people are brave enough to share it.

Easy Content Ideas for Non-Aesthetic Houses

Let’s address the elephant in the room, or should we say, the brown cabinets in the kitchen.

You look around your house and think, “This isn’t Instagram-worthy. Where’s my white subway tile? Where’s my marble countertop? How am I supposed to create content when my house looks… normal?”

Kayla shared the perfect example: Tori Sprankle, who’s known for her incredibly aesthetic feed, once confessed that she was insecure about showing up on social media because she lived in “this little log cabin in the woods” instead of a pristine white house.

The irony is that that cozy log cabin aesthetic was exactly what drew people to her. She was worried about the very thing that made her stand out and feel authentic.

This happens to agents everywhere. You think your house isn’t “Instagram enough,” but your future clients are living in houses that look exactly like yours.

Here are some ways to turn your “normal” house into content gold:

The “Dinner Still Tastes Great” Series: “My kids still had an amazing Christmas morning even though our house is from the early 2000s.” “Dinner still tastes incredible even though my kitchen doesn’t have a backsplash.” “Local takeout from [restaurant name] tastes just as good on my old dining room table.”

The Small Improvements Series: Show how you’re making your space feel cuter without a full renovation. “Here’s the plant I got, here’s the candle I added, here’s how I stacked these cookbooks.” Give people permission to love what they have while making small tweaks.

The Humor Approach: “I still cook dinner every night even though I don’t have granite countertops.” “Our spam meal baseboards in the kitchen have seen some things, but they’re still standing.” Sometimes pointing out the imperfections with humor makes people love you more.

The Romanticizing Angle: “Romanticizing life in my 1950s mid-century modern home.” Show how you find beauty in what you have rather than constantly wishing for what you don’t.

This isn’t just about being relatable (though it is that). It’s smart business strategy. When you normalize regular houses, you:

• Make sellers feel comfortable having you assess their home
• Show buyers you can help them see potential in any house
• Position yourself as the agent who has vision, not just for perfect homes
• Create content that speaks to the majority of your market (most people don’t live in Pinterest-perfect houses)

Through this conversation, Nikki’s brand menu started to emerge: kids, small-town living, normalizing regular houses, working out, and that 4:45 AM routine. These aren’t random facts about her — they’re the building blocks of a personal brand that will attract her ideal clients.

The beauty of the non-aesthetic approach is that it’s inherently authentic. You’re not trying to compete with the agents who have access to million-dollar listings. You’re saying, “Let’s use what we have and here’s how we’re going to make it amazing.”

How Often Should You Promote Your Freebies?

How often should you talk about your freebies without being annoying? The answer might surprise you: way more than you’re currently doing it, but probably not in the way you think.

First of all, your freebies are helpful, not pushy.

When someone gets your local guide or your showing checklist, you’re genuinely making their life easier. So you should be sharing your freebies all the time!

But how?

Instead of creating dedicated posts about your freebies, make them the perfect “PS” to your regular content. Every time you do a local post — whether it’s about the Memorial Day rodeo, your favorite coffee shop, or that 4:45 AM workout routine — add a simple PS.

“PS: Grab my local guide to learn about my other favorite places in this area.”

This works whether it’s text on screen in a reel or a PS in your caption. You’re not making the whole post about the freebie, but you’re consistently reminding people it exists.

If you’re showing up in stories consistently, add a weekly mention of your freebie. The key is making it feel natural and related to what you’re already sharing.

The beauty of stories is that your audience there is already warmer — they’re actively choosing to watch your behind-the-scenes content.

As you consistently mention your resources, people start to think of you as the go-to person for that type of help. They might not need a buyer guide today, but when their friend mentions thinking about buying a house six months from now, guess whose name comes to mind?

This episode was edited by Adrienne Cruz.