Elevated Agent: Kelli Higgins
Photos by John Burns
Kelli Higgins knows what real estate agents want: more time. She also knows what they need: unique branding. Through her Etsy shop, Elevated Agent, Higgins offers both.
Higgins has been a real estate agent for over 13 years but has been a graphic designer for longer. It was her eye for branding that made her unsatisfied with the materials she received from her brokerage.
“There really weren’t any good marketing pieces I felt were individual to me but also broad enough for any client,” Higgins said.
Higgins started designing her own materials. Her custom branding not only attracted clients but also other agents. Soon, she started designing pieces for her peers.
The demand eventually led Higgins to open her Etsy shop in 2019. Sales started coming in as soon as her first month, until, eventually, it became her primary source of income.
A SELLER’S MARKETPLACE
Elevated Agent is stocked with over 100 branding pieces for real estate agents, from client presentations to social media posts. She sells between 25 and 50 items a day.
While much of Higgins’ income is considered passive, meaning she doesn’t need to be present to make the sale, getting her shop off the ground was anything but hands-off. Her first year in business, Higgins purposely took a financial hit as she turned her full attention to growing Elevated Agent.
“It was definitely scary,” she said. “But it was an awesome opportunity to combine two passions.”
A big part of getting set up was turning Higgins’ branding pieces into Canva templates, so customers could customize her materials after they purchase and download them.
Higgins set an initial goal to stock her shop with 20 products. Once sellers reach 20 products, Higgins explained that Etsy rewards them with more advertising dollars. Once sellers hit 100 items, their advertising budget maxes out at $100 a month. Higgins hit that milestone within six months.
“I felt like, ‘OK, my shelves are full, and now I need to fluff it,’” Higgins said.
In the virtual world, “fluffing” meant tweaking her product photos and beefing up her descriptions to better address frequent customer questions. Those interactions proved to be one of the most valuable parts of her product development.
“I think that really helped me build good-selling products because it’s really what people want,” she said. “I know because they told me.”
Once her inventory hit 50 items, Higgins started bundling products.
“It’s a good idea to bundle items you often see people purchasing together or that they should purchase together,” Higgins said.
While templates are a huge part of her business, Higgins also has listings for custom work, which starts at $2,500. Higgins limits this part of her business to two projects a month so she can keep her turnarounds quick, while also staying focused on the passive side of her business.
“I’m choosing to try to build more passive than custom,” Higgins said. “I want that flexibility and the freedom instead of being tied to my computer.”
PROS AND CONS
Now in her third year as an Etsy seller, Higgins said there are some cons to selling on Etsy. For one, Etsy keeps customer information close to the vest. That became a bigger bone of contention as Elevated Agent continued to evolve.
“The longer I’m in business, the more I want to know about my customers,” she said.
To get that information, Higgins built her own email list by offering a free template to customers who joined her list. Her freebie helped her grow her list from 0 to 2,000.
As for other cons, there’s also the issue of Etsy promoting other sellers on Higgins’ shop under the “You may also like” header.
“I don’t love the idea that I could be losing a customer to one of my competitors just because they’re on Etsy,” Higgins said.
As for the volume of competition, that doesn’t deter Higgins, who sees it as a sign of demand.
“If you think of something and no one else is doing it, either you’re the first person who ever thought of that idea—and that’s pretty rare—or nobody needs it.”
That said, Higgins said aspiring Etsy sellers do need to research their competitors and take note of how they’re selling the product, how much they’re selling it for and how are they delivering it.
But Higgins’ most important advice for sellers who want to make a living through Etsy? Treat it like a business.
“Passive doesn’t mean it’s 100 percent hands- off. I’m still tweaking and updating and asking people what they want,” Higgins said. “It’s not }overnight or always easy, but it’s definitely worth it.”
