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Mari Slobounov is a top-producing real estate agent in Madison who transformed her business by creating Living in Madison, a hyper-local Instagram brand with over 20,000 followers. She runs a high-performing team doing 150+ transactions annually and has pioneered a unique succession plan that keeps retired agents earning passive income.

She explains:

• How getting your nails done turned into a buyer under contract in 4 days

• Why the Instagram page started as just resharing local restaurant content

• The birthday epiphany in France that led to rebranding her entire team

• How poll questions in Instagram stories convert at nearly 100%

• Why she now films Coldplay concerts instead of just watching them

We cover:

(01:41 ) How a casual conversation accidentally launched a 20K-follower Instagram empire

(03:09 ) The 40th birthday epiphany in France that changed everything

(03:59 ) The first Instagram lead that proved everyone wrong

(05:22 ) Nail salon to under contract in 4 days

(06:45 ) 8-10 qualified leads per month with zero ad spend

(07:53 ) How Instagram polls generate instant buyer consultations

(08:53 ) 150 transactions and $65 million the numbers behind the grind

(11:10 ) When creating content started ruining life experiences

(12:03 ) The breaking point: hiring two assistants just for Instagram

(55:09 ) "What is your plan?"—the hardest question to answer

(56:44 ) The lead generation pie chart breakdown

(58:05 ) Why buying Zillow leads is "the dumbest thing"

(59:14 ) Why consistency beats strategy every single time

(1:00:08 ) You have to grind for two years minimum no shortcuts

(1:00:56 ) Leading by example when you run a 150-transaction team

Resources:
Mari's inks:
Website: https://www.livinginmadison.com/
Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/livinginmadisonre/

My Links:
📧 Newsletter: www.breakingandbuildingleaders.com/
🎙 Podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/sh...
🎥 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BreakingandBuildingLeaders/featured
🐣 X: https://x.com/andrewbayon
📸 Instagram: www.instagram.com/andrew_bayon/
🕺 TikTok: www.tiktok.com/@andrewbayon

A little about us:
- 10 years ago I made thousands of sales calls
- I was unfulfilled on the rollercoast of referral based sales
- I was overweight
- 7 years ago I spoke on stage at Curaytor about marketing
- I was the marketer for 5 top teams in the US spending several million on paid ads
- We were posting content on social but a little aimlessly
- Now we've generated well over $10 million in GCI directly from YouTube for agents
- Run many of the top YouTube channels from 0 to 50k in real estate
- Scaled the only hyper local newsletters across 50+ markets
- We grew our team at Knwn Local to 45 people
- We believe building a media brand is the new way to grow your business and own your market now. Instead of renting your business with expensive leads, you can own it with an audience.

- Brand is one of the highest leverage things in business that scales your impact beyond you.
- Big visions often don't make sense to small-minded people.

If you want to have a greater impact, you'll have to make greater sacrifices.
My message: Don’t be well known, be Knwn well.
I'm pumped to help you grow & scale your business with this content.

DISCLAIMER:

Information shared here is for educational purposes only. Individuals and business owners should evaluate their own business strategies, and identify any potentials risks. The information shared here is not a guarantee of success.

Your results may vary. Copyright © Knwn Local 2025

We make these videos to help build the leaders of tomorrow, but also there are a lot of “coaches” and “claims” on social media and hard to cut through the clutter. I post these to build trust with real estate professionals through value and real experience. And if they’re awesome and see the value and need help - we work together.