What Actually Works When Growing a Business Online ft Shannon Gillette (Exclusive Audio Episode)
The Dept. w/ Omar El-Takrori
Omar El-Takrori
4.9 • 820 Ratings
🗓️ 5 February 2026
⏱️ 82 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this episode of The Dept. Omar sits down with real estate powerhouse Shannon Gillette to break down how she built one of the top-producing teams in Arizona by leading with personal brand, trust, and long-term thinking. Shannon shares how showing up consistently on social media without turning it into a nonstop commercial created inbound demand, eliminated the need for cold sales, and fueled massive growth. They unpack the real role of Instagram Stories, YouTube, and video storytelling in selling lifestyle (not just listings), how to scale from solo operator to CEO, and why hiring, delegation, and core values are essential to building a business that lasts. From faith and leadership to wealth-building, investing, and creating impact beyond money, this conversation is a masterclass in building a high-integrity business that supports both success and quality of life.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the department. I'm on Walter Cori and I'm so excited to be joined by a real estate mogul, someone who's built an empire. Her name is Shannon Gillette. Let's give it up for our guests. |
| 0:11.1 | Come on. And we also have a live audience as you guys can hear. That was not AI and that was, and that's not a laugh track. Those are real people laughing. |
| 0:23.4 | Oh, yeah, they're in, we have an angle for them. So you guys can wave at the camera. |
| 0:30.5 | Let's just jump right into it. What was your first six figure year? What did you do differently |
| 0:37.2 | right before that? |
| 0:39.2 | And I want to know like the lynchpin thing. |
| 0:42.7 | Well, it feels so weird to be called a real estate mogul because it seems like just yesterday |
| 0:49.6 | when I left a successful new home sales career because I never saw my family. I was living in my new |
| 0:56.0 | home sales office and it was 2014 and I was so scared to be a real estate agent because I knew the stats. |
| 1:03.7 | I knew that 87% of real estate agents don't make it past their first two years, but I didn't want to go |
| 1:08.9 | back to that corporate lifestyle. I wanted to make it |
| 1:12.4 | work, but I had no Instagram followers, no money to buy leads. I had no idea how I was going to |
| 1:20.1 | make this all work. And I don't know if anyone can relate to checking out at the grocery store |
| 1:25.8 | and swiping your debit card. and there's like that 10 second |
| 1:29.3 | pause where it's like thinking and you don't know if it's going to say declined or approved and |
| 1:35.5 | then you see the checkmark and you're like okay I don't know if anyone can really like with that but |
| 1:39.1 | that was me and I was like what am I going to do but around around that time in 2014, 2015, when I would go on |
| 1:46.9 | Instagram, I noticed the accounts I enjoyed following were people outside of the real estate space |
| 1:52.0 | that were not just sharing what they do for a living and sharing their product. They were |
| 1:56.0 | sharing their life. And I felt like I knew them. I knew their dog's name. I knew where they |
| 2:00.0 | like to travel. And I felt like we were friends, even though they had no idea who I was. And I felt like I knew them. I knew their dog's name. I knew where they like to travel. |
| 2:00.8 | And I felt like we were friends, even though they had no idea who I was. And I asked myself, could I do that as a |
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