Kurtis Pirotta will be speaking at Prop20 in March and April. To register for this event visit proprea.com.au.
What’s your background?
Before I started with REA Group, I was a real estate agent. I was an agent for two years at McGrath, and I was pretty average. I wasn’t the best real estate agent ever. The biggest thing that I missed was the relationship part of the world. So as much as real estate is about relationships, it really is only for a month.
What I love about my role now is I get to travel around Australia and spend lots of time with business owners and property management people around their business, and provide advice and recommendations to help them make huge impact and change in their business.
I then go back and review and see how things have gone and how profitable they’ve become, and that’s what I enjoy the most.
What will you talk about at Prop20?
I’ll be sharing around social media strategies to make sure agents have a really prominent digital presence so that they can win the digital interview. It’s about making sure that they’re doing the small things right.
They don’t necessarily have to be experts at everything that goes on but do need to understand the high-level things that are non-negotiable as a standard that consumers expect nowadays. It’s about making sure they’ve got a consistent presence online, just like they would physically.
How important is having a consistent online message?
A lot of agents know they need to do something online but they don’t necessarily know what to do. There’s a bit of a spray and pray effect. They give it a crack but they either don’t complete things or do it half-way.
Like having the same profile picture – have some consistency with your personal brand, not just the branding and the logo, but with who you are. Essentially, for real estate agents, their face or their picture is their brand. So make sure you’ve got a relevant profile picture that looks the same online and not one that you got 20 years ago.
Where should an agent start with online marketing and branding?
Make sure they do all of the little things right to have consistency. Make sure that they’ve got someone taking care of their Google SEO. Make sure someone is giving them guidance around what content to share on social media to deliver value to people.
It’s not just about a photo of you in front of a sold sign, because we’re over it. Add value for people.
I want to share insights around what consumers are interacting with so that they can start thinking, “What content can I start delivering now that is going to be engaging but also be valuable for people that see it in my community?”
Be relevant to people before they even know they need a real estate agent.
