Everyone wants to be an influencer. But what does that actually mean, particularly in the context of a real estate career? At JohnHart Real Estate, we encourage our agents to look to their professional sphere of influence (PSOI) to get an idea of the strength and character of their influence. The objective is straightforward: become the only option for the community you serve. But it’s important to recognize that, though a PSOI isn’t unique to the real estate industry, it does take on a different character colored by the goals and demands that come with the career. To ensure that our agents develop our PSOI to their maximum benefit, we’ve orchestrated a series of systems and tools in our custom CRM, including a page of recommended local vendors for each of our agents: their “I Trust Them” page.
How Does JohnHart’s “I Trust Them” Page Work?
Upon joining JohnHart, our agents are given access to our ever-evolving, custom CRM and all of the innovative tools that come with it. Among these is a page dedicated to promoting reliable local vendors and community resources. The beauty of an agent’s “I Trust Them” page is in its tendency to strengthen community relationships while demonstrating real value to clients in need. Vendors enjoy the added exposure, while clients receive the added convenience of curated recommendations from their trusted agent. But, as with so many of our CRM’s tools, the effectiveness of an agent’s “I Trust Them” page relies heavily on how much care and attention they put into building a robust resource and leveraging that work.
Building a Comprehensive “I Trust Them” Page
While JohnHart provides each of our agents with access to their own individual “I Trust Them” page, it is up to the agent to populate the page with their own recommendations. We make this an intuitive process with our CRM and provide plenty of pointers for agents to get the most from their efforts.
Choosing Your Trusted Professionals
The first step for an agent is to identify their trusted professionals. We recommend considering the type of professions that would complement your own business or meet the diverse needs of your clients. It can be tempting to go for the low-hanging fruit: your trusted lenders or escrow officers. But we’d instead encourage agents to think broader with professions like electricians, contractors, and inspectors. Then, go a bit further from your field with professions like chiropractors, chefs, bartenders, or DJs.
JohnHart advises agents not to limit themselves to a single recommended vendor for each profession, but rather challenge themselves to suggest at least three options per profession. Not only does this allow clients options, but it also inevitably gives them the authority and responsibility of making their own researched decision.
Recruiting Local Businesses
Once an agent has added all of the vendors with which they’ve already established relationships, it’s time to find new ones. Agents can use our CRM to easily send an email to their database, asking business owners not already listed on their “I Trust Them” page to reach out. This provides a few immediate benefits:
(1.) It drives traffic to your “I Trust Them” page as business owners visit to see whether they’re already recommended.
(2.) It opens the door to building a stronger relationship by extending value to a professional who already exists in your network.
(3.) It allows agents an easier way to get at least three options for each profession listed.
Ensure Vendor Information is Correct and Complete
To get the most impact from an agent’s “I Trust Them” page, complete information needs to be collected for each listed professional. This includes:
(1.) Business name
(2.) Business phone number
(3.) Business email
(4.) Type of profession
(5.) Website link
The website link is a critical piece in that it provides our agents with an external link (which can be helpful with pushing up website rankings in search engines like Google while contributing to credibility and the agent’s own digital reputation). If a professional doesn’t have a dedicated website, you can link to their social media accounts, including platforms like Instagram, Meta, Google Business Profile, LinkedIn, and even Yelp.
Methods for Effectively Leveraging Your “I Trust Them” Page
The “I Trust Them” page is not a “set it and forget it” resource. JohnHart encourages our agents to leverage their “I Trust Them” page to establish stronger bonds with their community and their clients alike. Here are a few strategies that we recommend for getting the most from this tool.
(1.) Consider adding a link to your “I Trust Them” page in your Instagram bio or Linktree, Google Business Profile, and/or LinkedIn
(2.) Whenever you recommend one of your professionals, include a link to your “I Trust Them” page
(3.) Challenge yourself to gradually write meaningful reviews for every business on your “I Trust Them” page
(4.) Use social media to leave meaningful comments when one of the businesses or vendors on your “I Trust Them” page makes a post
(5.) Write blogs about your recommended professionals, including links to their site and relevant contact info
(6.) Create an event where you can introduce your trusted businesses and vendors to one another, creating a stronger, more unified community
(7.) After the event, share photos on social media and ensure you tag the businesses and professionals
(8.) Reach out to local influencers who align with your business’s brand, utilizing collaborative content or joint campaigns to expand your reach and reinforce your credibility
(9.) Host a community event and invite different professionals from your “I Trust Them” page who you would like to connect with one another
(10.) Whenever you add a new business or vendor to your “I Trust Them” page, review them, or recommend them, send them an email or text to let them know
Make Developing Your “I Trust Them” Page a Daily Fundamental
It can be overwhelming to try to build a comprehensive “I Trust Them” page right out of the gate for a new JohnHart agent. Therefore, we advise agents to choose actionable and quantifiable daily, weekly, or even monthly goals for the development and leveraging of their “I Trust Them” page.
Daily Activities
Recommended daily activities include:
(1.) Posting vendor highlights on Instagram and/or LinkedIn.
(2.) Adding two new vendors to your “I Trust Them” page.
(3.) Establishing 10 new meaningful vendor connections through concerted outreach efforts.
(4.) Sharing one referral from your “I Trust Them” page.
Weekly Activities
Recommended weekly activities include:
(1.) Establishing 10 distinct professional categories for your “I Trust Them Page” (week 1 only)
(2.) Having lunch with one professional
(3.) Write a meaningful Google review for one of your trusted vendors or businesses
(4.) Share your review on Instagram
(5.) Write a community spotlight blog
(6.) Challenge yourself to connect trusted vendors with one another
Monthly Activities
Recommended monthly activities include:
(1.) Add 50 professionals to your “I Trust Them” page
(2.) Host an event, like a dinner or meet-up, and invite 10 of your professionals
The Network Effect
The effectiveness of JohnHart’s “I Trust Them” page in building agents’ businesses can be traced back to a phenomenon called the “network effect.” The network effect describes the positive influence a person can muster as a result of helping a network or community grow in size while strengthening its bonds. JohnHart’s “I Trust Them” page starts agents out with an effective means of tapping into the network effect, thus enjoying a myriad of potential benefits, including:
(1.) More referrals – by strengthening your relationships with community pillars, you increase your frequency of referrals for your own business
(2.) Access to expert knowledge – when connecting with professionals from other industries, you open avenues into cultivated knowledge that offers more insight and value to your clients
(3.) Collaboration opportunities – influence builds when you collaborate with professionals outside of your immediate field, utilizing a synergy that benefits everyone involved
(4.) Strengthened reputation – by aligning yourself with reliable vendors, businesses, and trusted community leaders, you reinforce your own reputation as a reliable professional by association
Sphere Prospecting
When building your “I Trust Them” page, you will notice the benefits of your efforts rather quickly. But this is a long-term strategy that only improves with regular contribution and effort. Once you’ve created a detailed “I Trust Them” page, you can engage in a more effective form of sphere prospecting by using your existing network to generate leads.
Sphere prospecting delivers the best results when you take the following actions:
(1.) Ensure that everyone in your network is also following your Instagram account.
(2.) Use our CRM to set each contact to receive automatic listing alerts.
(3.) Confirm that all of your contacts’ relevant details are completed in our CRM.
(4.) Use JohnHart’s exclusive off-market opportunities to connect with your contacts once every week.
(5.) Never let a birthday, child’s birthday, wedding, purchase anniversary, or other milestone pass without connecting.
(6.) Every quarter, send each contact a personalized email, video update, and a greeting card, even if it’s to simply remind them that you’re thinking of them.
(7.) Use our real esrate CRM to add helpful, descriptive tags to each contact, such as “pet owner”, “parent”, etc.
Prioritize the Most Valuable Connections
Though there is a degree of altruism toward strengthening your community through vendor and business recommendations, it’s important to keep in mind that the “I Trust Them” page is intended as a tool to help JohnHart agents grow their businesses through authentic connection. This means that you should choose your recommendations wisely. Prioritize referring businesses and professionals who are the most likely to reciprocate. As long as you’re providing value to your clients, it’s not a wasted opportunity, but a professional who is willing to refer you in return is obviously more valuable than one who ignores you.
With a brand that says as much as JohnHart’s, Senior Copywriter Seth Styles never finds himself at a loss for words. Responsible for maintaining the voice of the company, he spends each day drafting marketing materials, blogs, bios, and agent resources that speak from the company’s collective mind and Hart… errr, heart.
Having spent over a decade in creative roles across a variety of industries, Seth brings with him vast experience in SEO practices, digital marketing, and all manner of professional writing with particular strength in blogging, content creation, and brand building. Gratitude, passion, and sincerity remain core tenets of his unwavering work ethic. The landscape of the industry changes daily, paralleling JohnHart’s efforts to {re}define real estate, but Seth works to maintain the company’s consistent message while offering both agents and clients a new echelon of service.
When not preserving the JohnHart essence in stirring copy, Seth puts his efforts into writing and illustrating an ongoing series entitled The Death of Romance. In addition, he adores spending quality time with his girlfriend and Romeo (his long-haired chihuahua mix), watching ‘70s and ‘80s horror movies, and reading (with a particular penchant for Victorian horror novels and authors Yukio Mishima and Bret Easton Ellis). He also occasionally records music as the vocalist and songwriter for his glam rock band, Peppermint Pumpkin.
