About the Client: TradeMark Properties
This case study examines how commercial real estate brand strategy helped TradeMark Properties better communicate four decades of experience, relationships, and sophisticated real estate expertise while positioning the firm for its next generation of growth.
Billie Redmond started TradeMark Properties in 1984 with a strong vision and desire to serve. She believed a real estate company could impact lives for generations, and TradeMark’s legacy has proven her right. The company has stood firm on a mission to put people first, help clients build generational wealth, and earn trust through integrity and long-lasting relationships.
The company has grown and adapted over the years, including expanding its services during the 2008 recession. Today, TradeMark is the most diverse commercial real estate firm in the Triangle. Its brokers bring more than 317 years of collective experience to the table, and client relationships average more than 15 years.
For four decades, the team has been busy working on incredible projects, serving clients, and delivering results. But with their heads down doing the work, they haven’t always stopped to tell people about it.
TradeMark recognized an opportunity to better communicate what makes the firm different and bring its brand in line with where the company is headed. For help with that, TradeMark turned to Hummingbird Creative Group.
Together, Hummingbird and TradeMark evolved the brand from a more traditional identity toward one that captures the company’s energy, achievement, and forward momentum. At the center of that evolution is a simple call to action:
It’s time to make your mark.
This case study explores how commercial real estate brand strategy, positioning, audience definition, messaging, and creative execution helped TradeMark better communicate its four-decade legacy while creating a brand built for what comes next.
Branding Challenges for an Established Commercial Real Estate Firm
TradeMark know that they did not struggle with experience and market knowledge and through that saw a communication opportunity.
The firm had spent decades developing long-term client relationships, tackling complex projects, and helping shape commercial real estate throughout the Triangle. Yet the magnitude of that work wasn’t always reflected in how the market perceived the company.
Without a national flag behind its name, TradeMark could sometimes be seen simply as a small boutique firm in Raleigh rather than a deeply experienced commercial real estate company with sophisticated capabilities, resources, technology, and reach.
At the same time, a new generation of leadership was thinking differently about the future. They were embracing technology, examining processes, pursuing growth, and looking for ways to disrupt an industry that has traditionally been slow to change.
The brand needed to connect those two stories: the trust and relationships that built TradeMark and the ambition and forward momentum shaping its future.
A Legacy of Trust and Lasting Relationships
Founder Billie Redmond said yes to real estate before she was even licensed, and her work was cut out for her. Being a woman in a male-dominated industry in the 1980s required tenacity and grit. Lucky for Redmond, she had both.
“She knew she could do it,” says current TradeMark President Amy Carroll. “But she couldn’t just do general brokerage like other people. She had to do more. She had to show she was going to think harder. To be more strategic. To work harder. She was going to always have clients’ interest at heart. And I think that ended up being her superpower.”
That approach earned clients’ trust and helped TradeMark develop a multigenerational client base. It goes back to Redmond’s “why”: helping people create generational wealth.
“We help families,” Carroll says. “We’ll start with the father and then go with the son and then grandson.”
Today, with client relationships averaging more than 15 years, that commitment to relationships remains a defining part of the TradeMark brand.
More Than the Real Estate Transaction
TradeMark has focused on diversity since before that was even a buzzword. Different people with different perspectives bring a unique depth of value to the team.
“We’re incredibly strategic,” says Carroll. “We’re not just thinking about the transaction. We’re thinking about the implications on someone’s business, their legacy, their growth, and the area.”
Sometimes that means telling a client the transaction they have in mind isn’t the right strategy—even though no transaction means no commission.
“It’s relationships first,” Carroll says. “That’s what’s sustained the company this long.”
Those relationships don’t get put on hold when there isn’t a deal underway.
As part of Hummingbird’s research, the team interviewed one of TradeMark’s longest-term clients. This included multigenerational relationship spanning more than 40 years. Those that were interviewed pointed out how often TradeMark brings them ideas even when there isn’t a transaction on the table.
“I know we do that, but for someone to say it really resonated with me because I do think that’s unusual,” Carroll says. “It’s part of our value. Our clients are top of mind. It’s a big differentiator.”
That distinction became important to the brand strategy. TradeMark isn’t simply facilitating transactions. Its team is thinking about what those decisions mean for clients’ businesses, families, growth, and long-term legacies.
The Best-Kept Secret in the Triangle
For all that experience and strategic thinking, TradeMark had become something of a best-kept secret in the Triangle.
Its projects consistently demonstrate sophisticated expertise and the ability to solve complex problems. But without a national brand, some organizations could overlook those strengths.
“People come to Billie Redmond with some of the most complex things in our market,” Carroll says. “One was assembling land in downtown Raleigh for a professional soccer stadium. If you’d come to me with that, I would have just said, ‘You’re crazy! It’s not possible.’ And she did it. She delivered.”
Carroll says the team’s work is changing the shape of the Triangle, but sometimes they unintentionally keep it to themselves.
“We work on incredible projects and do these amazing things, but we have our head down and we’re working so hard and we’re delivering, delivering, delivering. We forget to tell anyone about it.”
The result is a gap between what TradeMark does and what some people perceive.
“They say, ‘Oh, you’re just a small boutique firm in Raleigh,’” Carroll says.
Closing that perception gap became one of the central opportunities for TradeMark’s commercial real estate brand strategy: making the firm’s capabilities, experience, and impact much harder to overlook.
A New Generation of Leadership in Commercial Real Estate
Amy Carroll joined TradeMark in 2017 and became president in 2019, when Redmond’s son Jim Harris became CEO.
“Jim and I took over at year 35,” Carroll says. “Billie had always done everything. She wore every hat. With this next generation of leadership, we know we’re not Billie. I don’t think we can fill her shoes. But if we collectively work together and use each other’s strengths, we absolutely can make something great.”
That next generation isn’t trying to abandon what made TradeMark successful. Instead, the leadership team is building on that foundation while finding new ways to work.
Under their leadership, TradeMark has implemented new technologies, including AI. They’re researching how to become thought leaders and change makers in an industry that hasn’t changed much in 20 years.
“We’re doing everything from strategy to marketing to processes to automation,” Carroll says. “Our goal is to really not do the same real estate people were doing when I started 20 years ago.”
That evolution created a natural turning point for the brand. TradeMark’s reputation had been built on decades of relationships and results. Its next chapter needed to preserve that foundation while communicating a greater sense of movement, ambition, and possibility.
How Trademark is Going to Get There
With the company moving in a new direction, it was time for the brand to do the same.
TradeMark Properties partnered with Hummingbird Creative Group to refine its brand strategy and messaging so the firm could stop being one of the Triangle’s best-kept secrets and better communicate the magnitude of what it does.
“We have the same resources, technology, and reach as the firms with a national flag, but we have a different method,” Carroll says. “We have a deeper method of doing business because we’ve had to overcome that, and you know Billie had to outwork the men at the beginning, and now we have to outwork the flags. We have to show people why to pick the little guy.”
Through research, internal conversations, and interviews with TradeMark clients, Hummingbird identified an opportunity to evolve the brand from its more traditional positioning toward a brand archetype that better reflects where the company is headed.
Carroll saw the fit immediately.
“We’re in growth mode,” she says. “We’re asking, ‘How can we do things differently? How can we disrupt? How can we change? How can we differentiate?’”
Reaching the Next Generation Without Leaving the Last One Behind
Audience definition was another important part of the strategy.
TradeMark has longtime clients and multigenerational relationships that remain deeply important to the firm. At the same time, Harris and Carroll are working to reach a new generation of commercial real estate investors.
The brand therefore couldn’t simply pivot toward something new. It needed to create a bridge between the relationships that built TradeMark and the people who will shape its future.
That thinking helped lead to a new central message:
It’s time to make your mark.
“I love it because it’s a call to action,” Carroll says. “It’s a forward-moving statement. We want people to act now. Let’s have the conversation now. How do you want to make your mark?”
The message captures the Achiever mentality while remaining broad enough to speak to multiple audiences. For clients and investors, it creates an invitation to think about what they want to build, accomplish, or leave behind. For TradeMark’s own team, it reinforces a culture focused on achievement and forward movement.
Our Approach: Commercial Real Estate Brand Strategy & Messaging
Hummingbird Creative Group developed a commercial real estate brand strategy for TradeMark Properties designed to better reflect both the company it has become and the company its leadership is building for the future.
Research and interviews helped uncover how clients experience TradeMark, identify meaningful differentiators, define key audiences, and refine the firm’s positioning. Those insights informed the evolution from a Traditionalist to an Achiever brand archetype and a messaging strategy centered on action, accomplishment, and impact.
It’s time to make your mark became the expression of that strategy. It is a forward-looking call to action grounded in a company that has already spent four decades helping clients make an impact of their own.
Results: A Clearer Brand for TradeMark’s Next Chapter
TradeMark’s projects have long demonstrated the strategic thinking, sophisticated expertise, and ability to solve complex problems that distinguish the firm. The new brand strategy gives TradeMark a clearer framework for communicating those strengths.
Rather than changing what TradeMark stands for, the work helps bring greater visibility to what has been there all along: deep relationships, strategic thinking, extensive experience, and a commitment to looking beyond an individual transaction.
At the same time, the Achiever positioning introduces a stronger sense of momentum that reflects the company’s current leadership and growth mindset.
The resulting messaging can speak to longtime TradeMark clients, a new generation of commercial real estate investors, and TradeMark’s own team.
It’s time to make your mark brings those audiences together around one forward-looking question: What do you want to accomplish next?
Why This Matters for Commercial Real Estate Firms
A commercial real estate firm can have decades of experience, strong client relationships, and an impressive track record without its brand telling the full story.
That gap matters. Prospective clients can’t value expertise they don’t understand, and an established reputation doesn’t automatically communicate where a company is going next.
TradeMark’s story demonstrates how commercial real estate brand strategy can help established firms:
- Better communicate expertise and sophisticated capabilities
- Turn long-standing strengths into meaningful market differentiation
- Close the gap between reputation and market perception
- Reach emerging audiences without abandoning established relationships
- Align brand positioning with a new generation of leadership
- Create messaging that connects legacy with future growth
For TradeMark, the goal wasn’t to replace four decades of history with something new. It was to make that history part of a stronger story about what comes next.
Editor’s Note
TradeMark Properties partnered with Hummingbird Creative Group on commercial real estate brand strategy, audience definition, positioning, messaging, campaign visual identity, and brochure development. Through research and client interviews, Hummingbird helped evolve TradeMark from a Traditionalist to an Achiever brand archetype while preserving the relationships, integrity, and strategic thinking that have defined the firm for more than four decades.
The resulting It’s time to make your mark message connects TradeMark’s established legacy with its current leadership, growth mindset, and vision for the future.
Read the full branding case study → It’s Time to Make Your Mark
Services Provided
Commercial real estate brand strategy, brand positioning, audience definition, messaging strategy, stakeholder and client research, brand archetype strategy, campaign visual identity, brochure design