Good news!
Every B.I.T.S. section now also ships as a long-form blog post.
If you ever miss a newsletter or want to take a deeper dive into any of the ideas we share, you can visit the Beacon blog to find them all.
Now, let’s get into this week’s edition.…
🏆 [B]est in Class: Boston agent/influencer is racking up views galore
🧠 [I]deas That Work: She wrote the book on social cues for business
📈 [T]raffic & Attention: Is this NOLA listing hot or a hot mess?
🔔 [S]eller Signals: Your seller is choosing a driver, not a better map
🏆 [B]EST IN CLASS - Real campaigns by top listing agents
She’s getting 7-figure deals from her Instagram (here’s how)
Katherine Kranenburg is one of the best listing agents in Newton, Massachusetts.
She has nearly 30,000 Instagram followers and her pitch is Boston first. Then the house.
At Moments Cafe in Newton, Mayor Marc Laredo posed between the business owners for one of her posts.
Then she took a 10-minute drive to a newly constructed $2.1 million Newtonville townhouse to film the rooms on her phone.
Many of her videos get tens of thousands of views.
Her buyer pool is up 80 percent, she said.
"No one wakes up thinking they're buying a house from Katherine Kranenburg. They want to know what is happening in Boston."
Mike's Pastry. Sail Boston. Back Bay elephants. She covers Boston like the insider that she is.
Then, when she posts a listing walkthrough, people actually watch it.
Her posts have spurred many recent seven-figure deals. The Boston Globe even profiled her.
What's working
Hyperlocal content builds the swimming pool. Her listings cannonball into it from time to time.
She is farming Boston so that her next seller's buyer already follows her. She is, dare we say, the digital mayor.
Key takeaway
Spend the attention on the neighborhood first, and your listings show up inside a feed your followers already trust.
Read a deep dive on Katherine’s strategy 👀
🧠[I]DEAS THAT WORK - Strategies listing agents should use
If you want people to stop questioning you then stop doing this
Vanessa Van Edwards, in her bestselling book Cues, has one people cue that belongs at the kitchen table of your next listing appointment.
If you want people to stop questioning you, stop making statements like they are questions.
Instead, imagine a period at the end.
Not "I charge $100 per hour?"
"I charge $100 per hour."
A strong idea still needs strong cues.
At the listing appointment:
Based on what closed in this neighborhood in the last 60 days, the list price is $X.
Period. Two-beat pause.
Do not add "does that feel okay?"
Do not shrug.
Do not let your voice go up.
What's working
The list price is a competence moment.
Question inflection turns it into a maybe.
A period turns it into a signature.
Key takeaway
Say the list number like a statement. Then shut up long enough for them to hear it.
📈[T]RAFFIC & ATTENTION - Listings going viral (and why)
Is this NOLA mansion unique or a hot mess?
3623 Chartres Street in Bywater just got featured on Zillow Gone Wild.
Their post said there is something about a New Orleans home that makes you want to move there.
It has a rooftop terrace. Courtyard. Chef's kitchen. Tiles from Nicaragua. Wood from the homeowner's mill. Window frames from old McDonogh schools.
The Instagram comments are hilarious.
Here’s one that sums up all the others:
“Did they recycle bits and pieces after a hurricane and just slap it all together. Are we in Morocco? Spain? Mexico? The Caribbean? The theme is: All Over the Place. This gave me an existential headache. Plus the broken neck I can imagine from those stairs.”
Viral attention is real, but it is still not a sale.
If this were your listing, how would you market it?
More importantly, would you respond to the IG comments?
🔔[S]ELLER SIGNALS - Conversations agents are having with sellers right now
Your seller is shopping you against the top producer (here’s what tp say)
Darryl Davis just named the objection that every agent eventually gets.
You are connecting. The presentation is going well.
Selling a home is a journey. The seller is choosing a driver.
Here is what they miss: every agent in the market is holding the same map.
Same MLS. Same portals. Same yard signs. Same lockboxes.
You and the top producer are both drivers with that identical map.
More miles on the odometer does not automatically make them the right driver for this trip.
When your seller says...
"Why shouldn't I just hire the top producer? They sell everything."
The question is which driver you trust to get this house to the closing table.
I will not bash them.
I will tell you how I will be the one on the phone at 9 p.m., not someone from my team.
If you feel I am competent and we connected, hire me.
If you do not, hire them.
People will appreciate your honesty over any clever script you could come up with.
Want the longer cut of any of this week’s section? All four are linked below.
Thanks for reading the entire newsletter, and we hope you like the new longer-form content on the blog.
We’ll see you next week.
- Chris Smith and Jimmy Mackin
