The Best Way To Get Clients In Real Estate Photography, by Jonathan Corbett
Jonathan Corbett, a seasoned real estate photographer with over a decade of experience, presents a game-changing strategy for acquiring real estate photography clients in his instructional video. He begins by critiquing conventional methods, particularly the flawed approach of contacting random real estate agents on social media platforms like Instagram and offering free services. Jonathan points out the inefficiency of these outdated tactics, emphasizing that they often target a broad audience, most of whom do not have active listings or a real need for professional photography services.
Jonathan introduces a more targeted and effective approach by leveraging data from the real estate industry. He suggests utilizing resources like the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) and real estate associations to identify active and successful real estate agents. These platforms can provide vital information such as agent contact details, the number and price range of their listings, and geographical data. He also shares a novel method of scraping data from websites like Zillow using simple tools or outsourcing the task to freelancers on platforms like Fiverr. This approach allows photographers to gather comprehensive and organized data on active real estate agents and their listings.
The crux of Jonathan’s strategy lies in using this data to target the top 10% of real estate agents who are actively listing and selling properties. This focused approach ensures that photographers spend their time and resources on clients who are more likely to require their services, thereby increasing efficiency and profitability. Jonathan concludes by emphasizing the importance of this method in connecting with high-producing agents who may not be active on social media, thus unlocking a segment of the market that is often overlooked. He encourages viewers to apply this strategy and explore his additional resources for more insights into the real estate photography business.
Transcript
In this video, I’m going to share a strategy to get real estate photography clients that is so good, so unbelievably effective, your business will explode and grow faster than you ever thought possible. It is so profitable, in fact, that long-time industry veterans who are extremely high earners told me, and I quote, “Jonathan, this is like shooting fish in a barrel with a shotgun.” So, do me a favor, if you see someone sharing this idea somewhere else, make sure to share a link to my video because I haven’t seen this anywhere else, and I’ve looked. This is going to change all real estate photography client acquisition strategy from this day forward if people know about it.
And you’re probably thinking, “Wow, Jonathan, that’s a lot of hype you’re building, and you better be able to back this up.” Don’t worry, this is real. I’m going to change everything you thought you knew about real estate photography and do it in less than a few minutes. If you don’t know who I am, my name is Jonathan Corbett. I’ve been a real estate photographer for over 10 years. I made over $250,000 a year with real estate photography as a solo shooter before I started scaling with my team. And I like to make videos on how to do real estate photography better, faster, and more profitable than you ever thought possible.
Alright, so to get started, we need to talk about why some of the other advice is so bad. The problem with a lot of the advice out there is that anyone can give it, and new people to the industry don’t know any better, so lots of poor advice makes the rounds, even though it is terrifyingly bad, not only for your business but for you. And the worst part is, you guys are sharing it, making it even more popular. You’re killing me! One of the worst pieces of advice I have seen out there is contacting random real estate agents on Instagram. If you really want to do this poorly, you’ll contact these random agents and offer to shoot for free.
The reason this advice is so bad is because it’s not even industry-specific. This is a generic strategy that’s been shared all over the Internet and social media since Instagram was released in 2010. It’s over a decade old, it’s slow, and only effective at all because it’s better than sitting on your couch and doing nothing. You have to search out these individuals manually, with very low or no qualifying parameters besides a hashtag, offer them free work, go out and do this work, and hope to get some business out of it eventually. Folks, there are much better ways.
To bring you all to the light a little bit, let me share a statistic with you. In my state, there are a little over 50,000 registered agents. But, in the last year, only 4,000 of them have sold more than one home. That means over 90 percent of all real estate agents don’t even have a listing for you to take pictures of. If you spend your time randomly targeting Realtors, nine out of ten of them won’t even have business for you. That alone is an incredible waste of your time, even when you don’t consider all the legwork you’re doing for free shoots.
But what if I told you there’s a way to find out exactly who the 10 percent of agents are who do sell all the listings, how many listings they have, how expensive their listings are, where these listings are located, what brokerage they work for, their phone numbers, their emails, everything like a metal detector for pure solid gold, and how to get paid your very first shoot rather than shooting for free? Well, you can, and this is how.
There are several things all Realtors, and I mean all Realtors, make sure to do. One of these is joining the National Association of Realtors. Did you know the term “Realtor” itself is a trademarked term? Unless you are a member of the NAR, you can’t even call yourself a Realtor legally. Realtors also become members of their local Real Estate Association. Oftentimes,
you can become an associate member as a vendor and get benefits like the ability to hold sales meetings or even get a list of the members of your local association. Giving you a complete list of all the real estate agents in your area is pretty good, but the problem is not all real estate associations are the same, and not everyone will hand out lists like this. And even if your association does hand out these lists, these lists don’t tell you who’s actually getting listings, which is the whole idea here.
So, the best way to get what I have been talking about is not going to those associations, not randomly targeting people on Instagram, but to go directly to the source. If you’re new to the industry, you might not be familiar with the private realtor-only listing service called the Multiple Listing Service. But the MLS is the platform that agents use to post their listings. Every realtor uses this service because it is closely regulated by the operators who verify the information submitted is correct and up to date. Then the information is shared to third-party websites like Zillow, where common folk like you and me can browse and judge listings we could never afford. Anyway, rather than judging other people’s things, we can scrape the website and get a complete, exhaustive list of all the listings, whether they are current or sold in the last week, month, year, or any filter you can possibly imagine, and most importantly, the agents that listed those listings, their emails, their phone numbers, how many listings those agents have, what price the listing was at, everything. We’re talking about the 10 percent of Realtors who actually do real estate, not the Realtors who fake success and post selfies all day on Instagram.
And I’m not done yet, there’s more. One free way to get this if you are already started and have realtor friends is just asking a realtor to send you all the listings from the last month, three months, whatever. If you’re just getting started and you don’t have a realtor friend who can send that to you, you can go to Zillow, do a search for an area based on parameters that you think would be pretty good, copy the search URL, and send it to an outsourcer on Fiverr where they will scrape every listing within your search link and send you the info you want in an organized Excel spreadsheet. I highly suggest you request the price, address, Zillow link, agent, agency, phone, email, and city. Just search “scrape Zillow” on Fiverr, get a few quotes to make sure you’re getting a good price, and adjust your search if you need to make sure it isn’t too expensive. One of my favorite searches myself is searching all listings over three hundred thousand dollars that sold in the last three months with a drawn circle around my area. This will give you everything you need to do what I’m about to tell you. That’s right, I’m not even finished yet. The Best Is Yet To Come.
Once you receive your Excel spreadsheet with all the listings and their agents, you can then organize or sort the listing alphabetically by email, price if you want to target luxury listings first, whatever. But the most effective way I have found is entering the code down below in the description that will order your list according to the number of frequency. That way, you can have a list that lists the most occurring agents first, meaning you have an absolutely accurate list of the agents with the most listings and who the top agents are according to volume. There will be no hiding from you.
The coolest thing I’ve learned from all this is that there are a lot of high-producing agents out there that wouldn’t be caught dead on Instagram. They are the old guard. They don’t need a selfie game; they have a real network that’s decades old, and you know exactly who they are and how to reach them once you have this list. And at this point, you’re probably thinking, “Wow, Jonathan, this is the best video I’ve ever seen on how to get clients. I can’t believe it’s for free.” Well, it is. If you want to see more videos from a 10-year veteran who really knows what they’re doing in regards to editing, shooting, and business, like and subscribe wherever you’re seeing this because I will not disappoint. And there are a lot more industry secrets I’ve learned that I need to share with you.
If you don’t want to wait and you want access right now to over 200 videos on all things real estate photography, business, marketing, video, etc., check out realestatephotographymasterclass.com, the single largest resource for Real Estate Photography education that I know of. And I’m not even getting started. Thanks for watching, and always remember to learn, apply, and succeed.