Molly Millard works full time as a commercial real estate broker and only displays her powerful singing voice on special occasions. But that doesn’t mean she hasn’t given some serious consideration to making a go of it as a pro vocalist.

Millard, a senior associate in Cushman & Wakefield’s Atlanta office, has been a singer since her childhood when she grew up in Northern Virginia. While at the University of Virginia, where she played lacrosse, Millard was a member of the a capella group Virginia Belles.

One year, she competed on the television show “American Idol.” She recalls flying to Hollywood for an on-stage audition in front of celebrity judges Jennifer Lopez, Harry Connick Jr. and Keith Urban.

“It’s probably the coolest thing I’ve ever done,” Millard said.

Millard later was a member of some musical groups that performed on a regular basis. The time commitment was too much for someone who was also in commercial real estate, she said.

Now Millard is focused on her real estate career, primarily advising professional services companies such as law and accounting firms on office space.

She does find time to accept a few singing gigs. She sometimes performs with another Atlanta commercial real estate broker, Leigh Martin at JLL, who has a regular gig singing at a local senior citizen home.

Millard has sung at NAIOP Night networking events for the commercial real estate industry group, competed in the Atlanta Commercial Board of Realtors’ Battle of the Broker Bands and recently sang the national anthem at an Atlanta Hawks game.

“You do something like that and you find yourself not getting nervous at all when doing a big presentation or pitches," she said.

She has not been asked to sing to close a real estate deal, though she wouldn't rule it out.

Just don’t ask her to sing at a karaoke party. Otherwise Millard will likely pick a song that’s incredibly difficult to sing — think Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You” — and make everyone else look like amateurs.

“Sometimes I’ll get the peer pressure thing,” she said, when friends and colleagues ask her to pick up the karaoke mic. She adds that trying to plead her way out of it usually doesn’t work.

“I’ll succumb and I’m fine,” she said.