#326 Mail-Right Show: How to Get Actual Customers From Your Real-Estate Biography Pages

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“How to get actual customers from your real-estate biography pages”

Robert Newman: Welcome back to the Mail-Right Show ladies and gentlemen, today’s episode is number 326. John has stuck in with me almost 180 of those episodes. Unbelievable. And what we’re going to discuss today is we’re going to talk about how we’re going to turn one of the most unused unrated pages that every single person listening to this show has guaranteed you everybody’s got one. And we’re going to tell you how to turn that page into a page that actually produces you leads wherever you have it up. So, without any further ado, the page in question is your biography page. All right, your real estate biography page. You’re about page if you’re looking at a website, your introduction or cover page, if you’re talking about LinkedIn, every single one of us here has written differently about pages or bio pages everywhere from 150 words, all the way up to, 15,000, depending on who you are.

So really deeply excited about this. But before I just jump into it and start to explain how people are missing the point with these pages. I want to introduce my co-host for those of you who might be new to the Mail-Right Show John is a WordPress development vet. He’s got two companies, one of which is in the real estate space. They make an amazing real estate product that they are targeting at agents that have been online for, or working for 1 to 5 years. He and his partner are really good at numerous things actually, but, they have a particular history with, Facebook and can answer a lot of questions about that like, is it still effective? So without any further ado John, why don’t you go ahead and finish it up and say hello?
Jonathan Denwood: Yeah, thanks for that Rob. So basically if you’re looking to, have a semi or full custom individual look and design for your own website, we do that on WordPress. And then, and we’ve got a host of marketing tools that can help you market yourself online to your local market, or we can help you run some campaigns, either on Facebook or using Google local adverts back over to you, Rob.

Robert Newman: All right. So here is a statistic that most of you would not be familiar with. all I do all day long is look at real estate websites and it is always surprising that when I share the reason that we decided to talk about this today, John, or the reason I suggested it as a topic, it is literally amazing to me that every time I do a review without fail every agent that hires me as we’re looking through their numbers, they get surprised by how many people have actually looked at their about page. It’s always in the top 10, always. And sometimes it’s as high as number 3 or 4 in terms of the most, viewed pages on the website. And I’m talking about big websites, not just small ones, not just somebody who has a couple of hundred people coming in. I’m talking about websites that have thousands and thousands of visitors. And you still see the about page be number four and number five on the website.

Where it is that people have gotten that these pages aren’t valuable is, a mystery to me because let me tell everybody here, who’s listening to the show. Here’s what I’ve learned after doing digital for 16 years, wherever there are eyeballs if you are tracking or looking at like a website and a page wherever there are eyeballs there is a possibility. So if you have a homepage that gets 10,000 visitors and you don’t think anything is happening on that homepage, or if your website gets 10,000 visitors and you’re just not getting any calls, messages, nothing. And you’re like, man, the website is broken. No, the website’s not broken. You’re just not connecting with your audience in the right way, which, is what we’re going to talk about today is how to do that through your real estate biography. So, just out of curiosity, John, how much time have you spent on your biography, on your various websites?

Jonathan Denwood: A lot more than I used to, on my other business, which is WP-Tonic, I have a video of myself and a brief outline about me and then my key team members and on the Mail-Right website there’s the about us page has about my background and, Adam’s background.
Robert Newman: OK. For all that, I talk about this. I posted a blog post that, actually is coming close to ranking, on the first page for real estate bio. All right. But of Google. but the interesting thing was my own about page I hadn’t touched in quite a long time and I had been eliminating sections like I was a squirrel hiding chestnuts because I wasn’t getting response off it the way that I wanted. So I just kept eliminating pieces. Because I felt like I was talking about stuff that people didn’t want to hear. And I was, you know what I was talking about, everybody listening to the show, John, do you know what I was talking about?
Jonathan Denwood: The mind boggles actually when it comes to you, Rob.
Robert Newman: Okay. So I was talking about all the really rich and famous and successful real estate agents I’ve done business with within the past. I don’t ultimately think that passage a name or two anybody gave a rat butt. Okay. I don’t think they cared and it certainly didn’t increase response. So here’s what I’ve noticed about my own channels and about my own mediums. Because when I got into inboundREM, I really had a chance to run for the very first time, John, with my own ideas about how I was going to do marketing. I’ve always been working for other people, consulting with other agents, always like a higher gun, never just doing it all on my own.

The number one video, one of my own videos that are made me about $200,000 in contracted business is a single video that I did back in 2017. And the video is on my homepage. Most of these videos, most of the time are ignored. Anybody listening to the show knows this is true. John’s looking like he’s actually waiting for me to tell him what the hell it is I did. And you know what I did, I skipped the jargon. I filmed the video in my garage with the garage, clearly visible behind me. Clearly, I’m in a garage. My toolkit is behind me, this massive toolkit. And I just, oh, so

Jonathan Denwood: You’ve got a massive toolkit then Robert.

Robert Newman: John! Keep it clean.
Jonathan Denwood: I’m just asking about your toolkit in your garage, you are the one that brought it up.

Robert Newman: So anyway, so, here’s the thing I talked deeply about why I was establishing inboundREM mind you, this was right at the beginning of me starting an agency wasn’t the beginning of my real estate marketing career. It was actually 10 years into it. It was just the beginning of me saying, Hey, I’m going to do an agency thing and I’m going to build websites and, and do SEO campaigns that some of the real estate industry will be able to afford. And, the crazy thing was, since I stuck all to personal stuff, it was all personal. None of it was professional. I keep getting calls off that video because, and now drumroll please, ladies and gentlemen, the most important thing that you can do, thank you.

The most important thing that you can do when you create an about page, the most important thing. It’s not that you shouldn’t mention professional it’s that your professional is a byline. And the main piece of information is who are you? John is a boxer, an entrepreneur, a cancer survivor a guy that, that really, like diligent dyslexic. This is who he really is. So, and I’m really, I’m an alcoholic I’m these, these different things. And I was raised by hippies and it’s impacted my whole entire life every single business I’ve ever run was how I was raised. Cause I was raised without media. I was raised without TV and I didn’t realize how impactful that was until I was much older. Now whenever my life gets harder ever, I get in trouble. My, go-to every single time is to pick up a book every time no exceptions.

I’m having trouble in a relationship. I go out and find a relationship book. If I’m having trouble in business, I go out and read business books. Why am I sharing that with everybody on the show? Like why are we talking about this? Because the object of our, about page on our own website, the object of most things, except maybe LinkedIn, which is a professional only site, is to make a connection to the person who’s visiting your website. You want them to understand who you are as a person. They probably got there, or there will be plenty of other information on your website that will clearly indicate your accolades. As an example, social proof, I have 50 reviews that are posted on my website. They can figure out who I am that way quite easily. They’ll see that I’m super knowledgeable that I’m this, that I’m that, but who am I as a person? That’s what you’re about page is supposed to say.

Jonathan Denwood: Who are you, Robert?

Robert Newman: I just shared some of that. So here’s what we’re going to do for the second part of the show, because we’re coming up on our break in a minute or so here, but the second part of the show, the wind-up, if John still gives me the runway is I’m going to start to give everybody the tools to do an exercise on how to get to this information. Just like John just said who am I? And now I’m going to use John as a model. Now, John truthfully, and honestly have, have we discussed this at all? Have I prepped you anyway, shape or form?

Jonathan Denwood: No, you, you would never do that. Listeners and viewers. He never preps me about anything on the show before. If he ever did that, I’ll be shocked I’ll fall off this chair. But just to finish off, I just got a couple of quick comments about what you’ve just said. I think what a lot of real estate agents, what you have to realize is just being proficient in what you do is great. And it will probably make you stand out in truth and it’s sad, but it’s truthful, just being really proficient and organized and doing what you say you’re going to do. Probably what will make you stand out from the crowd to a certain level, even in 2022. But the thing you have to understand if you’re a real estate agent now in 2022 is you’re in media.

We’ve all through social media we’ve all become a celebrity for three minutes. What was that American artist that said that [inaudible12:26] Morehart, that predicted that we were all going to be celebrities for three minutes,
Robert Newman: 10 minutes.

Jonathan Denwood: 10 minutes. Was it, well, if it’s 2022, it’s probably gone down to three minutes. It’s the Tik Tok generation. so what I’m saying is you’ve gotta accept that to be successful as a real estate agent in 2022, you you’ve gotta accept that you can’t be the secret agent that you’ve gotta be out there and you’ve gotta build a brand and the brand is about you. So I think this is probably going to be one of the most important conversations we’ve had on this show for quite a while, really back over to you, Robert.

Robert Newman: Okay. With no further ado, listen, I will say this, this is free I’m going to go do an exercise. That’s going to give me an example. Not the only example, not, not the way you have to do it, but an example of how to get to your story. The things that matter, because I’ve studied psychology a lot. I’ve read a lot of those books mentioned earlier in the show. And now unlike many other times in my life, I’m not proposing an idea that I have not tried. I’m telling you that this works. It’s worked amazingly for me, all my stuff that produces results tends to be on the personal side. All the stuff that I do, that’s really great and glitzy and glammy and, and like the 10 ranked real estate lead generation companies. And I spend a hundred hours on it. And like, I get nobody contacting me. And then I do a little video saying, yeah, I was raised by hippies and I get like 10 phone calls. So it’s important.

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Robert Newman: Welcome back to the Mail-Right Show ladies and gentlemen. So I am going to run you through, how to get to a personal story. I’m going to use John as our case study, he has not been prepped we’ve not researched this. We have not discussed this in any way, shape, or form he is a blank slate. So

Jonathan Denwood: You are not the only one that’s said that.

Robert Newman: So here’s the thing ladies and gentlemen, usually a lot of who we become as an adult has a lot to do with where we started in our life. So, I usually frame that in the idea in my head as zero to 18. It’s not a matter of like, that has to be the way it is, but then I would usually say, so, John. You don’t sound like you’re from here. Did you grow up someplace else?

Jonathan Denwood: No, I was brought up in Northeast London,

Robert Newman: Northeast London. So what part, like what city was there? I don’t know how they do it. There was a village or the name of Northeast London.

Jonathan Denwood: Burrows a bit like New York has Burrows.

Robert Newman: Okay.
Jonathan Denwood: I was brought up in the Burrow of Redbridge, the nearest, in a suburb, a commuter area called barking sides, which, is Northeast London.
Robert Newman: Barking sides in Redridge so and do they have, do the schools in London work the same way that they do here? Did you have like grade zero through six that you were in?
Jonathan Denwood: No we have, an infant, which takes you up to seven. We have junior, which takes you up to 11 or 12, and then we have senior, which normally takes you from 11 to 16. Or if, if you’re going to do your A levels, you normally stay on to 18. So 16, 18 is what you classify as high school, either you stay on at school an extra two years to get what you are called, A levels, which are the main, gatekeeper to your ability to go to university or not.
Robert Newman: Got you. So you’re going to school you’re in Northeast London. When did you figure out you were, had a learning disability?

Jonathan Denwood: Never did at school? No. My mother had dyslexia and she, was quite concerned, she could see clear signs that I was very adept at hiding it. Because I was a bit, ashamed of it. It’s like all children, you just want to be like everybody else. And when you get to an adult you want not to be like everybody else. So I was very astute and had all sorts of morphologies to hide my dyslexia. But my mother knew there was a problem. So she kind of put up a bit of a stink and they sent me, bless their hearts to special needs for the emotionally disturbed children for two and half years which is a [Inaudible18:27] way did help because the quality of the teachers, this unit, attracted were normally the most dedicated. They did manage to teach me, how to read and, not quite my writing still looks like a doctor. But they did help. Unfortunately, after the two and a half years of being an observer of extremely emotionally disturbed children, which I wasn’t one, I just had dyslexia, but they really had some very disturbed children at this school. They sent me back to, the normal education system that had induced the problems I was facing at the beginning. But that’s another story.

Robert Newman: Okay. Well, that’s, that’s an interesting part. I mean you’re saying that from an adult’s perspective, but I gotta feel like you took away some lessons from all that as you got to adulthood, I’ve seen it, but I don’t want to reveal it to the show. I want you to try to think it through yourself and kind of say like, if you say were those early years in north London being just, being held back, being around these kids, do you feel like that impacted you?

Jonathan Denwood: Well obviously yes. I’m a strange concoction because a lot of people would say I’m very extroverted. I run podcasts. I’m on YouTube, I’m out there a lot, but really I’m very introverted at the same time. So it’s a strange mixed part of me that is very, craves attention. And, I’m not very good at dealing, with situations where I’m not the center of attention. but in some ways, I don’t like the attention, but what I mean by that is I’m not very good at coping in situations where I feel that I’m been put on the sidelines a bit and I think that comes from my childhood basically. And it took me a while. Which can be for good or bad because I can be a bit or used to be, a little bit destructive to get attention if it was necessary.
Robert Newman: Okay. So for everybody listening, what I’m running you through is an exercise to try to figure out how or what you might speak about when you’re writing your biography. All right. Yeah. That’s what we’re doing. I’m not going to reveal what I’m doing as we’re going on. I’m just going to do it. John’s going to talk and then we’re going to, we’re going to go back and take a look. Now, this is zero to 18 and there’s plenty more ground I’m sure that we could cover. And

Jonathan Denwood: I just wanted to say, I think the one thing I learned from being a dyslexic and this is not uncommon is that I’m very, used to failure and I can accept failure, or don’t let it, once I accept was the right word, I don’t let it get me down for too long cause I’m quite used to it. So, I just get up and I just put my foot in front of another one and keep moving forward.

Robert Newman: So for the listeners and viewers, here’s an interesting, another thing I’ve picked up from these books. Okay. I’ve read lots of clinical studies. I’ve read guys that have studied, motivated, and like the science of the mind. A fascinating thing about the human character is that people with minor disabilities, something that slows them down but does not stop them, tend to be far more proficient at going farther in life than people without for the reason that John just said. If your life starts off with, everything’s just bloody hard, like always hard, you’re always failing. You get used to it. You get used to trying and trying and trying and trying and trying until you succeed. That’s it. Whereas other people get hit in the face a couple of times and they fall to the ground and they never get up. So here’s what I heard you say, John, I did hear you say that the early part of your life was wildly impactful. I heard you say that your dyslexia has been wildly impactful and I would probably talk about both those things. And I would talk about them in the context that we just said, being dyslexic has allowed me the space to persevere inside the business world because it probably played into it, John. It’s a personal character trait that doesn’t relate to business directly, but it probably does impact the fact that you started multiple businesses. You’ve been an investor, oh, you might even get married again. Who knows?

Jonathan Denwood: [24:00 Inaudible] I can’t afford that the last attempt cost me a small fortune

Robert Newman: Those of you who can’t see John just broke out in a sweat just literally right now. So these are personal tidbits about your character makeup that people would want to know. I always suggest complete and total honesty. I also love the fact that John was in England. He’s moved over here. I happen to know some of his other adult stories, but we’re going to, we’re going to pull that curtain back and go into mid-adulthood. When you’re doing this exercise for yourself, you want to spend the most time thinking about how childhood experiences might have impacted your, adult life. Cause that is what you want to talk about on your real estate bio. Did your parents influence you? Mine did a lot, but that’s just because they were weirdos that were never around. So their actions hit me hard and I became a weirdo who doesn’t ha like has a big chosen family but oftentimes spends a lot of time by himself. So big surprise, right? It impacts who we become.

So John, that’s the first part of your story. The second part of your story is between 18 and 25, a mid-adult young adult. Usually, those are our college years. Oftentimes many of us meet our first mate or spouse. However, you want to phrase it. Some of us start to have children and go off on that route. The ages between 18 and 25 are the second stage of human development in our current society. And they tend to also be impactful, not as much as a youth, but especially if you go and you have a collegiate experience or something like that, it does still really impactful. So John, when you were 18, did you still live in, in London?

Jonathan Denwood: No. I joined the British army, Robert.
Robert Newman: Well. I didn’t even know that. Okay. So you joined the military, you did that right at 18?

Jonathan Denwood: Yes.
Robert Newman: Okay. And, and you were in the army, you’re a soldier, or were you like in logistics? Did you see combat?

Jonathan Denwood: No Infantry?
Robert Newman: You were in the infantry?
Jonathan Denwood: Yes.

Robert Newman: Okay. So, where did you deploy to?

Jonathan Denwood: I had two tours of Northern Ireland. And I went to penguin land. I went to the Falkland Islands, not during the Falkland war. It was afterward.

Robert Newman: Okay. So you went to Northern Ireland? Forgive me. My dates are crap and I don’t actually know how old you are. Don’t remember at least.
Jonathan Denwood: I’m 58.
Robert Newman: Okay. So yeah, that’s 40 years ago. Was that before the peace treaty with Northern Ireland?

Jonathan Denwood: Oh, definitely. Well, we weren’t at war with Southern Ireland. We were at war not, well, I don’t know. It was colonial. It was on reflection

Robert Newman: Civil unrest is what they would usually call.

Jonathan Denwood: Well, It was worse. It was a form of continuous colonialization of Ireland.

Robert Newman: OK. Okay.

Jonathan Denwood: That’s political ain’t it.
Robert Newman: Having said that. Did you have any experiences from that time in your life that stay with you?

Jonathan Denwood: A burning, I won’t say hatred. A burning. I don’t know how to put it. It’s not hatred, but, a dislike for authority and the British establishment. That is bullshit is bullshit English, the British people almost every day.

Robert Newman: Okay. Oh, you joined the military, with what sounds like idealistic youth and then.
Jonathan Denwood: No, I just wanted like most people that joined the army, I just wanted, my father tried. My father was a war hero. He won the military cross, which is the second-highest to it’s only the Victoria Cross that’s higher. And he really tried to persuade me not to join. The more he tried to persuade me, the more decided I was. And he was totally right to try to persuade me not to join, but, being an arrogant, 18-year-old arrogant little [Inaudible] I decided to do it.
Robert Newman: Okay. So you joined the military, you were two years. Did I hear you say?

Jonathan Denwood: No. I was in there for five years, but I, after four years, they did allow me to, I had to buy my way out. I had to give them money to let them get out of the fifth year.
Robert Newman: okay.
Jonathan Denwood: My father loaned me the money. My father is a pretty successful business person. And he wouldn’t give it to me. He said to teach me a lesson and I bought myself out of the army. They wanted me to be an officer they were very supportive of my dyslexia, given fairness. They were, in some ways very progressive, but the last thing I wanted was to be a British officer. Cause I despise the British upper class. I absolutely despise them.
Robert Newman: Why do you think? Where did that healthy amount of despising come from?

Jonathan Denwood: Because they are cancer. Britain could become an enormously great country again, it’s got enormous strengths and possibilities there and it’s held back by a ruling class.

Robert Newman: Okay. So

Jonathan Denwood: Who is in my opinion, traitors to the memory, to the collective. My family has lived in Britain for over a thousand years. I see them as, traitors to the country.

Robert Newman: Okay.
Jonathan Denwood: That’s why I came to America because I couldn’t stomach it anymore.

Robert Newman: Every single thing that we’re talking about, so I’m going to take a beat, but I’m going to circle back around to this. So all this stuff, your midlife right now has at least in this little interview and this exercise, it’s sounding more impactful. Like you did four years in the military, which.
Jonathan Denwood: Most people so I don’t bring it up.
Robert Newman: I didn’t know,
Jonathan Denwood: I treat a, I treat it as a compliment that people say, well, you are not the type. And I take that as a compliment because the last thing I want is people to think I’m the military type don’t take that as dis- I’ve got the greatest respect for those.

Robert Newman: I feel like you’re talking to everybody else. I don’t take it any particular way. Yeah. Yeah. My best friend did a lot of tours in the Navy. He’s an old punk just like I am. And we both made our youthful indiscretions. Like you did. We both thought we knew the way, better than everybody else. You get so tired of telling your parents, right.

Jonathan Denwood: it did give me focus and it did teach discipline and focus. So there were benefits, but I think I could have chosen a slightly different path to get those elements out of it.

Robert Newman: All right. So, we’ve learned a lot about John and his midlife, and just for the sake of time

Jonathan Denwood: We need to wrap up and then go for bonus content.

Robert Newman: So when we come back, ladies and gentlemen, we’ll be wrapping it and I’ll be doing, 25 to 50. Let’s call it. Which by the way, everybody, I hope you’re understanding we’ve now got a great biography ahead of us. We’ve got, we’ve got enough from John. We’ve got, we’ve lived in London, we’ve developed a healthy disrespect for authority. However, we so developed a strong connection into discipline. Strong sounds like strong attention is being paid to society. Some kind of interest in engaging in, because if you’re going to get so upset, you’re going to leave a country based on their politics. There isn’t anybody in the world of,

Jonathan Denwood: Oh, it took 20 years. I went into business when I came out of the army, and at 27 I had over 30 people working for me.

Robert Newman: Beautiful. All right. We’re going to talk more about that we are going to go to our break ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for tuning into the podcast part of the show, John, if somebody would like to look you up, how would you like them to go about doing that?

Jonathan Denwood: Well, if you’re not being put off by that going to the Mail-Right website, and book a demo, and I would love to show you what we do for agents around the website and all the other great things that we got as Mail-Right back over to you.
Robert Newman: And ladies and gentlemen if you’ve just become fascinated with the interviewer in this conversation, you can find me on inboundREM.com, as I’ve indicated earlier in this podcast, I have now redone my about page and it is significantly personal. So I walked my talk. And if any of you would like to see an example of what I mean by this, go to inboundREM.com/about, and you’ll find–

Jonathan Denwood: I’m going there right now.