Three weeks after Ryan Serhant was publicly scolded by Brown Harris Stevens CEO Bess Freedman, the celebrity broker has scored a bit of revenge.
Madison Sutton, the social media star behind “TheNYCAgent” TikTok account, has bolted from Freedman’s brokerage to join the McPeak team at Serhant.
Freedman, on stage with Serhant at The Real Deal’s Showcase event, had blasted “reality” shows — the kind that made Serhant famous — for giving the wrong impression of the industry.
Serhant made no apologies for his approach, and his brokerage seemed to allude to it in a statement about Sutton’s defection.
Team founder Sean McPeak praised Sutton’s “mastery of TikTok and social media” and added, “Her approach to sales is in complete alignment with our own.”
Serhant people were seen aggressively courting Sutton at the TRD event in Midtown.
To be sure, Brown Harris Stevens is no luddite brokerage. It has embraced new ways of selling, as reflected by its bringing Sutton and her five-person team to the firm’s flagship office in January. She was tasked with developing training materials for BHS agents to develop content and cultivate business on TikTok.
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Brown Harris Stevens adding TikTok training to its arsenal
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Brown Harris Stevens dives into TikTok
Last month, BHS launched its TikTok account. At the time, BHS said Sutton was going to create a weekly video series for it.
Now the firm is pivoting.
“We have decided to go in a different direction with our TikTok trainings, collaborating with current BHS agents like Anthony Park who has over 118,000 followers,” a spokesperson said in a statement. “Real estate will always be the primary focus at BHS and we pride ourselves on our work ethic and professionalism.”
The quote seemed to convey Freedman’s sentiment that shows like “Million Dollar Listing,” on which Serhant starred, make agents’ work seem easy and less than serious.
Sutton has 150,000 followers across all social platforms and averages 4 million monthly impressions. On TikTok, she has 103,500 followers and 1.8 million likes.
“I have witnessed first-hand the incredible business shift that comes from leveraging content creation and social media,” she said in a statement. “This is not just the future of selling real estate, it’s how you sell real estate right now.”
Sutton added that she will be working with Serhant’s in-house Studios team to further develop her personal brand.