It’s always refreshing to see business owners pivot creatively to spark new opportunities. When it happens during a particularly challenging time for small businesses, you know they’re on a concrete path to growth.
Real estate marketing pro and photographer Stephen Covic has combined his marketing background and design skills to create his own business, all while holding down a full-time job with a Vancouver-based real estate agency.
With some hustle in his spare time, Stephen is creating his own standout brand with hopes to offer related services to the real estate industry.
Related: Before you enroll in real estate courses
Leaping into the unknown
Past social media and marketing roles helped Stephen discover his creative side but didn’t quite align with his larger goals.
Confident that he could create a business and life he loved, Stephen made the leap from Toronto to Vancouver three years ago.
His commitment to this vision paid off as he began to take on work and partner with inspiring industry leaders.
Passionate about real estate, design, and stylish content creation, Stephen now powers his brand with a new portfolio website, StephenCovic.com, built by the pros at GoDaddy's Website Design Service.
Stephen loves being creative for his clients and finding new ways to connect buyers with the right properties.
With his new brand, Stephen Covic, he’ll be exploring new and better ways to do that, always thinking about offering unique value for clients.
I’d love to travel and highlight properties in other cities and areas of the world in the future.
A natural community builder, Stephen hopes to share his knowledge with a broader audience. Real estate, design projects, and research into investment properties are areas he’d love to explore further and share with others. Longer-term goals include personal investment into real estate.
The importance of passion
Stephen is frank when sharing that his work needs to be aligned with his purpose to feel happy and fulfilled. As long as the business and creative projects continue to grow in ways that make him sense that alignment, he’ll feel successful.
Of course, there have been struggles along the way. Stephen recalls projects and professional roles where he just couldn’t find the inspiration to love the work he was doing. However, that discomfort taught him to keep looking for more and helped remind him that his path to the right fit wasn’t complete yet. He doesn’t regret the steps it took to get to where he is today.
There’s no way to know what you’ll love to do without walking the path and throwing a few things at the wall to see what sticks.
You have to be a person who looks for opportunities and is willing to make them happen.
He shares examples of when he first moved to Vancouver and wasn’t feeling at home in the city. He wanted to feel connected and rooted in his new community, and when he realized that’s what was missing, he made an effort to do more, explore more, experience more.
A few words of advice
Stephens cautions young professionals against accepting everything put in front of them without considering if it will make them happy and fit their bigger plan.
A job that pays the bills might be a necessity at times, but that’s not always going to make you happy. Stephen has found working for himself allows him more freedom to make decisions more mindfully. That flexibility allows the breaks he sometimes needs to redirect his energy in constructive ways.
Stephen Covic is uniquely positioned, with deep roots in marketing, social media, and lifestyle content creation. This experience, combined with an eye for photography and videography, helps him stand out in an industry where traditional marketing still reigns.
He understands how to showcase a luxury home’s design elements and use digital marketing to reach new audiences.
He’s open to learning from more experienced realtors, and they lean on his understanding of modern sales channels such as YouTube and IGTV.
With this blend of experience and skill, Stephen knows he is building a name for himself for high-end social media marketing, photography and videography services for the luxury real estate market.
Even marketers need to market themselves
The Stephen Covic website went live just a couple of months ago, through what Stephen calls an easy, seamless process with GoDaddy’s Website Design Service. The web professionals at GoDaddy were able to understand his vision and delivered a finished website beyond his expectations.
He’s already brimming with ideas for how he can use it to help grow his business.
When you have a beautiful website that’s easy to navigate and keep updated, it gets easier to take each idea from concept to execution. A design project can be a shared adventure with written and video content and progress photos shared through the project.
Removing obstacles from the creative process by outsourcing the design of your website can be a great way to fuel your ideas.
When you can show people you can be creative and strategic, they’re likely to want to be a part of what you’re doing. The more Stephen can use tools like his new website to show his work and ideas, the better the projects and partnerships he’ll attract. He says, “it’s an important way to offer examples of what I can do to help encourage people to want to work with me.”
The path ahead
COVID-19 has impacted Stephen’s business as he considers expansion and new ideas. He’d love to travel and share design projects and properties from all kinds of exciting locations.
However, meeting the challenges of working remotely, finding partnerships and projects that are a great fit within existing limitations have helped him grow. So while the challenges are undeniable, he’s been able to work within the constraints to learn and grow and better prepare for future growth.
Marketing doesn’t stop just because the landscape changes. The challenge is to figure out where you fit, where you can offer value.
Staying home more to abide by local restrictions has shifted his routines and spending habits in positive ways. He can see he’ll reach his larger goals more quickly if he permanently adopts some changes. He appreciates the freedom and says if you have flexibility as a business owner, use it to create a routine that balances both what you need to do and want to include in your life.
Never stop growing
Stephen’s advice to other business owners is to keep evaluating your work and your level of satisfaction. Don’t give up when the road gets difficult. If you can’t do business how you have always done it, what can you do? Do what you love, find new ways to do it when obstacles arise and don’t be afraid to shift and change direction as needed.
He knows he’s fortunate to live in Canada and feels privileged to have the stability and security required to launch and grow new business avenues. He’ll always be looking for ways to connect and build community, highlight other local businesses and lift others.
Stephen Covic is building a name for himself as a trusted resource for real estate clients and companies wanting to sell in major markets across Canada.
