Real Estate Self-Promotion – Why You Struggle when writing about your own value to your clients.
You write beautiful blog posts, you write captivating descriptions of your listings for sale, and then… you try to write your bio or a home page that promotes you, and you get stuck.
Almost every agent who contacts me to write for them says the same thing. They have no trouble at all writing about their listings, their community, and their real estate adventures, but when it’s time to write about themselves, their writing skills go out the window.
Why does this happen?
Because Mom raised you with good manners.
All those lessons from childhood are stuck in our heads. You know, the ones that say things like “Don’t brag,” “Don’t call attention to yourself,” “Don’t toot your own horn,” “Let other people go first,” and on and on. As a result, we feel that it’s somehow “not right” to tell the world that we’re darned good at what we do.
I have some clients who have trouble even filling out the questionnaire I send – because it’s so difficult for them to talk about what makes them better than the average agent. Sometimes I have to get on the phone and ask a lot of questions about how they do business before I find out what makes them special.
My own Mom must have cringed when I got into real estate. One of her favorite sayings was “Fools’ names and fools’ faces are always seen in public places.” And there I was, placing ads, writing articles, and getting my picture in the local newspaper every chance I got.
I’ll give her credit – she supported my efforts and didn’t say a thing about it.
You can’t afford to listen to Mom.
When you’re in the real estate business (or the copywriting business) you MUST promote yourself. You can’t just sit quietly in the corner and hope that someone will recognize your skills, your dedication to customer service, and your value to them.
So you have two choices:
Either recognize why you’re having trouble and somehow push yourself past it, or get someone else to write about you. That might be me or another copywriter. It might be a spouse or a good friend. Or, if you and a co-worker are both good writers, you could trade favors and write about each other.
The bottom line is that you do have to promote yourself, even when you feel uncomfortable about it.
To learn all about how to write a better bio, and see examples, just click here.
