personal brochures

How to Write a Bio Page that Builds Rapport with Your Prospects

Aug 20, 2022

The three most important pages on a real estate agent’s website:

Home page
Testimonial page
Agent (and team) bios

You can add an IDX page to that list if you’re a buyers’ agent.

Today, however, we’re going to take a look at agent bios and the do’s and don’ts when writing yours.

The importance of your agent bio

“Your bio page is where you can build rapport with your potential customers if done right—something that can be difficult if you’re not face-to-face with them,” according to Daryl Johnson, founder of Frontier Marketing.

And doubly difficult if the two of you are total strangers.

The purpose of your bio is to connect with you not as a salesperson but as a human being. It’s a tall order but critical if you hope to earn their trust enough to pick up the phone and call you.

If writing your bio is easy, you’re doing it wrong

Perhaps one of the biggest mistakes agents make when composing their bios is to use other agent bios as a template of sorts.

If what you hope for is to appear like every other agent in town, use that strategy.

If not, the initial steps to writing your bio should include:

Knowing your audience
Knowing yourself

Research performed by crm.com.au found that websites that stand “… out from the crowd in favorable ways used tactics that helped them appear authentic and transparent.

Those tactics included:

Using real photographs, not stock
Offering various ways to get in touch with you
Storytelling
Showcasing testimonials from previous clients

“People favor companies that showcase themselves as being customer-focused, human, and easy to understand,” they concluded. And, we might add, they do so without being overtly salesy.

Most of all, an agent’s bio should help the reader feel like they’ve gotten to know you better and should give them a clearer understanding of how you attend to your client’s needs.

PLUS: When you have time…below are some marketing tools to help support your success.

1. Put Your Real Estate Business a Step Above with Your Own Branded Magazine

Homes & Life Magazine is a customizable magazine with rich, full-color content and a sharp, professional aesthetic. It includes compelling, direct response-driven articles written by real estate industry experts combined with engaging lifestyle content. Send out Homes & Life Magazine in Just Minutes – No Minimums Required. Or we’ll ship it to you.

Homes & Life Magazine is the ultimate “Coffee Table Lingerer”! …and it costs less than sending a greeting card! – Click Here

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The Real Estate Marketing Planner is a powerful 12-Month-Guide that strategically defines what marketing to do and when. Four key market segments include niche Markets, geographic farming, sphere of influence, and past clients. – Click Here

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This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is Become-A-Listing-Legend-3D-Book-White-274x300.jpg

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Real estate agent marketing: The Personal Brochure

Mar 16, 2020

Employees have it easy when it comes to marketing themselves to prospective employers. A resume and cover letter are typically all that’s expected.

Employees, however, aren’t the owners of small businesses with brands tied to the business owner.

Real estate agents looking for “employers” (i.e. clients) go about it more like models, who send out portfolios and composites.

The Selling a Home brochure is available in the Brochure section under Personal brochures.

For an agent, a listing presentation is akin to the model’s portfolio and a personal brochure is her composite.

But it’s not a vanity marketing piece

It’s easy to keep the content of expired listing and FSBO brochure on the right track. Too many personal brochures, on the other hand, end up looking and reading like vanity marketing pieces.

In fact, all personal branding walks that fine line. Therefore, lose the sales pitch, avoid trite, over-used statements and, overall, be authentic.

What to include in your real estate brochure?

Your business philosophy
Your bio
Any impressive sales statistics
Awards received
Showcase how you give back to the community
Testimonials

The World of Opportunities brochure is available in the Brochure section under Personal Brochures.

The latter is critical. Choose only the best testimonials and sprinkle them throughout.

Don’t forget the other stuff

It’s easy to get carried away with the text aspect of your personal real estate brochure. However, it’s important to pay attention to other aspects as well. These include:

Color selection is important and should match the branding colors you use in your logo, website, etc.
Layout
Typography
Font
Photographs

All of these should be carefully considered so that the end result is appealing, eye-catching and different from other agents in your market. Most of all it should convey expertise, authority, and professionalism.

How to use your personal brochure

“Our personal brochure is included and placed at the end of every pre-listing presentation package.,” says Barbara Todaro, the head of marketing for the Todaro Team in Franklin, MA. Other agents add to the list of ways to use your personal real estate brochure:

Include it in a mailing to owners of expired listings
Include it in a mailing to FSBOs
Stick it in your buyer’s packet

“If you do not have a personal brochure, it’s time to get one,” Todaro said.

“Buyers and sellers don’t want to be sold by you they want to be sold on you.” according to Mark Hughes, author of “Branded Agent: The 7 Strategies of Top Personal Real Estate Brands.”

The Neighborhood Specialist brochure is available in the Brochure section under Personal Brochures

Your professional real estate brochure will do just that.

Order or download the Neighborhood Specialist Personal Brochure and add it to your listing presentation, provide it at your Open Houses, and use it as a leave-behind or hand out.

Need help targeting the perfect niche of buyers or sellers? Use our mailing list tool to create the ideal list (it’s easy) or call our support team for assistance at 866.405.3638!

PLUS: When you have time…here are Free killer tools to help your success this year!

1. The 12 Month Done-For-You Strategic Marketing Plan – NEW 2020!

The Real Estate Marketing Planner is a powerful 12-Month-Guide that strategically defines what marketing to do when. Four key market segments are included, Niche Marketing, Get More Listings, Geographic Farming, and Sphere of Influence. –Click Here

2. The Free One-Page Real Estate Business Plan – NEW 2020!

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4. Become a Listing Legend Free eBook

5. The Free Online ROI Calculator

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3. Get the ALL-NEW Real Estate Marketing Guide “CRUSH IT”

The “Crush It” Guide includes easy steps to launching an effective direct mail marketing campaign, how to create a targeted mailing list, the perfect way to layout marketing materials for success, seven opportunities available to target in your area right now. –Click Here

Is your website generating real estate leads?

Feb 26, 2020

With all the changes Facebook has been forced to institute in its ad program, many agents we speak with are dumping their ads on the platform and seeking alternative forms of lead generation.

Some are reconsidering the “old” ways to generate leads, primarily direct mail.

We agree that direct mail is even more effective today than ever, but all marketing plans should be multi-pronged.

One free way to generate leads that is often overlooked is the agent website. Sure, you can hire someone to tweak your SEO, but there are other ways to help generate organic traffic.

Start with your content. As you go through the content on your site, keep this advice from Dan Ritzke, founder of Third Act Marketing, top-of-mind:

No one wants to learn about your brand

No one wants to learn about your product

No one wants to learn about you

Everyone wants to solve problems that are bothering them

Everyone wants to make their life easier

Everyone wants to make their job easier.

luxury marketing brochures — Give consumer s what they are asking for. Create property brochures with multi-photos and detailed descriptions. Available in the Brochure section.

The “everyone” you should concentrate on is real estate consumers. Luckily, NAR offers some tips they gleaned in a survey of these potential clients (2019 Homebuyer and Seller Generational Trends).

The top three website features that consumers find “very helpful” have to do with listings:

Photos
Detailed information about listings
Floor plans

That these consumers chose listing information as the most useful shows exactly why they visited real estate websites. Although neighborhood information is important, that’s not why they visited.

Your bio is also important, but most don’t find it “useful” to them.

The most useless information on agent websites, according to survey respondents, includes:

Videos
Information about open houses
Real estate news

While all ages rank videos as unimportant, 27 percent of baby boomers like them (the highest percentage of all groups).

What stood out the most for us is that floor plans are important to real estate website visitors yet we see few listings that include this feature.

Among the tasks you can accomplish to make your listings more valuable to buyers is to start including floor plans, lots of photos and get more detailed in your descriptions. Get more tips here.

While we can’t personally vouch for the following floor plan providers, several agents we’ve spoken with recommend them:

Then, ditch the videos on your website. Another NAR report proves that homebuyers don’t watch videos and don’t find them useful. They do, however, like virtual tours. Get on the 3-D virtual tour train in 2020 to offer value to website visitors.

The value the real estate agent brings to the process

That NAR survey also asked participants about the “Most Important Factors when Choosing an Agent.”

Let’s start with what they consider least important:

What matters least to real estate consumers?

Which broker you work for
Your level of community involvement
Designations (last on the list)

Note: There have been studies over the past couple of years that claim an agent’s community involvement is very important to the younger real estate consumer.

Your broker’s brand, whether it’s a Keller Williams or RE/Max or a local boutique brokerage, is often shown to be of little importance to consumers.

And, designations? Not only do consumers not know what the letters stand for, but when told, they aren’t impressed.

Create a personal brochure describing important attributes and experience and use it as a leave-behind

Don’t feel as if you need to take up space on your website, especially above the fold, with these items. Save that area for the things potential clients feel are valuable.

The top 3 qualities consumers look for in a real estate agent:

That the agent is honest and trustworthy
Experience
Reputation

Experience matters most to baby boomers and least to members of Gen X.

Think about Ritzke’s advice when tweaking your website’s information about you. Overtly salesy stuff will get you nowhere.

For instance, while they value experience, it will take a lot more than “Three decades as the top-selling agent” to convince them.

Ask yourself how your experience will help them solve common problems in a real estate transaction:

Experienced agents are better negotiators
Experienced agents know what can go wrong and can help buyers/sellers be proactive to avoid these pitfalls

When it comes to proving your honesty and reputation, nothing will do that better than your testimonials.

Tell them until the cows come home that you’re experienced and honest or the king or queen of trustworthiness and they may or — more likely — may not believe you.

When tweaking your website ensure that your best testimonial resides above the fold and that others – especially those in which your clients extoll your honesty and boost your reputation — are sprinkled liberally throughout your site.

Need more tips on how and why to use testimonials? You’ll find them right here.

Send the Multi-Photo Just Listed Postcards out to the area surrounding your listing. Turn one listing into many.