Several people I know in real estate don’t collect reviews. This is something I learned the importance of early on and made an effort to gather them since. I’m no multi-hundred review Realtor, but I frequently meet new clients primarily because of the reviews that I have displayed on the internet.

Another friend doesn’t like the term “review” and instead prefers to call them “testimonials”. I can understand his reasoning. The word review has a negative connotation to it. I’m not asking people to review me, as though it’s a grading sheet for how I performed, but more so to validate that they had a positive experience.

I still call them reviews. But creating a process around this has made a big difference for me. I tend to meet people who are looking online for a real estate professional in my market. I don’t get everyone, but I often at least get a seat at the table.

I’ve found that a lot of the time these people only interview me, but not always. They’re often people who do not know another real estate professional. This makes them easier to convert to clients. Win for Sam.

The process is simple enough. I used to wait until the deal was over before I would ask for the review. Sometimes I still do (especially with people that I have a strong rapport with) but this is more a point of bad form than it is process.

When it’s optimally executed, I wait for a high point in the transaction. Sometimes for listings, this actually precedes the transaction and is somewhere in the time between taking the listing and getting an acceptable offer. But in either case, I wait for a high point when I’m the obvious hero to them. In that moment of elation, when they’re happier with me than they ever have been or perhaps ever will be again, I ask them if they’d be willing to do me a favor.¹

I’ve never had anyone that I asked this say no.² Usually people are delighted, especially in the elated moment, to agree to do something like this.

So, then what? Hope that they are disciplined and get it done, eventually?

That’s what I used to do. Not always effective. What I’ve found is that most people want to write me a nice review, especially once they’ve learned how helpful it can be for me.³ Sometimes, oftentimes, that’s the problem. They want to write me a nice review. An excellent review. A perfect review.

And so the review never gets written.

This is a human problem. Being that the content of the review seems to be less important than the quantity of positive reviews, I emphasize this to them as well. I take it a step further and offer to write the review for them, highlighting things that went well, and then encouraging them to edit it to their liking and just to use it as a starting point.

Well, I did that for a while, but then I took it a step further. I just wrote it, and sent it to them along with a direct link to my Google Business Reviews where they would then just have to paste it and click once for it to be complete—if they wanted. I do this all through text messages or emails if I have to. Texts are optimal because I can share the language and the link and they can do it quickly. Of course, they are welcome to just use it as a starting point if they want to write me a review of their own, but I’ve found that most people are content with the review I write so long as it’s honest and well-written. They’d rather not spend more time on this than needed, their ambitions about writing an excellent review notwithstanding.

Only one person has written a review altogether different than the one I provided them. As it turns out, I’m quite a bit better than the average consumer at writing a review for a real estate professional!⁴ I know which things to emphasize and am able to remember the points of the transaction that they may have forgotten. It all gets packed into the review. If it’s a high-priced property, or a transaction type that fits some marketing funnel I have, I accentuate that too so I can add it to those marketing funnels and channels. This will speak more specifically to prospective clients that fit those price points or demographics or stages of life. Did I get chosen over a well-respected Realtor in the market? It’s going in there. I wouldn’t name their name, but you better believe I’m writing it.

It works really well. I don’t feel shameful or unethical about it either. The client approves the language and posts it. That’s what’s important.

Some platforms have been easier to get reviews on than others.⁵ Zillow used to be a crapshoot. It might get published, but it might not. They would make the consumer click more times and go through more hoops. And it wasn’t always immediate. Bad enough I have to ask these people to do this shit. Worse still, when they do it and it doesn’t publish for unknown reasons, I have to politely ask them to do it again.

These reviews are money—they matter. But the client only cares a little about doing me a favor. After all, they’re paying for my service. “Raving fans” or not, the less friction I create by asking them for anything other than the order, the better.

In closing, I’ll add that it’s important to own the reviews as business assets. Keeping them published on these third-party sites (Zillow, Realtor, Trulia, Google) is good, but copy and paste them into a Word file and/or onto your website. If for any reason any of those companies dies, goes away, glitches out, deletes your shit, locks you out, etc., etc., etc., you are without those reviews. They own them, not you. Take it from me. I’m one of many people who were subject to a phishing scam where some jerkoff somewhere hacked into my Facebook profile and began posting obscene videos. Within seconds, Facebook locked my account. It was subsequently deleted and there was no recourse I could take. That was a kick in the balls for a guy with 2500 Facebook “friends” where I would post every new listing and sale. I still have some work to do around this gathering all mine into a file and republishing on my websites, and so I’m telling myself this as much as I’m writing it for others here.

So, go get those reviews! It doesn’t have to be a terribly uncomfortable act to ask someone. Wait for the high moment, ask them to do you a favor (after you’ve just made their day), and write up a scripted text that you send after they agree explaining that your business is dependent on people like them leaving positive feedback for other people thinking about doing business with you in the future. If they agree to write a review, then send them another scripted text explaining that in your experience, oftentimes clients want to write the perfect review, and so it never gets written. Because of that, you took a couple minutes to put together this quick review for them to use or not. They can use it as a starting point or just copy and paste it if it’s easier for them. Then send the direct link to whatever platforms you prefer if they agree. Follow up as needed if needed and be politely persistent.

1. The closing is not always the high point. In fact, it’s usually not. It’s also awkward to ask for it because, at least for me, it feels way more forced and like they’re expecting me to ask them for a review before/during/after the closing. I think the client sometimes feels they’ve done me a favor when we’re at the closing because they’ve acknowledged once if not more times very recently just how much money my services cost them. ↩︎
2. I don’t typically ask people for a review if the relationship feels strained for any reason or if something went poorly through the transaction. Call that what you want, but I’m actually not interested in people leaving me a negative review on the internet. ↩︎
3. I explain to them that this is how many people either find me online or “interview” me before they reach out at all, both of which are true. ↩︎
4. It’s important not to write it in Realtor jargon though. You’re playing the consumer here, so don’t say deal, double-side/double-end, over ask, DOM, or any of this other nonsense language we squawk to each other. The consumer doesn’t have a goddamn clue what any of that means, for one, and for two, they’ll likely intuit that it wasn’t their fellow consumer that wrote it. ↩︎
5. I’ve found Google My Business (GMB) to be the easiest to work with. I have some on Realtor.com, more on Zillow.com, and most on GMB. I think I’m going to begin trying to get more on Zillow again but will prompt clients with both links and will not ask. The instructions will be to post them here and here, not one or the other. Ask for what you want, don’t hope for shit. ↩︎