Did he just say what I think he said?
Yes, I did. Let me make it clear. I mentioned “profiling in real estate.” Are you scared of what’s about to come out of my mouth? You shouldn’t be. I’m talking about your profile. The little blurb about you on every site you join. The “Bio.” The “About Me.” That “Profile.” As I have settled into my ideas of how I want to present myself, I got to a point where I realized my profile wasn’t cutting it. I had tied myself to old ideas of what I needed to say in a profile (as a real estate agent) – I’m great, I’m here to help, blah, blah, blah. While I don’t disagree that you need to say those things…its all about how I wanted to say them. I felt my old profile was drab and a bit too stiff sounding. It was “just the facts ma’am.”
Let me lighten things up.
A few days ago I joined ActiveRain. I thought it would be good for me to help cut my teeth on blogging some more. I want my writing to improve and the best way to do that is constant practice and of course, some feedback. After entering my basic info and uploading a photo, I stared at the “My Profile” page forever. I hate writing about myself. It feels awkward to me. Especially because I am basically trying to sell myself through that profile. No matter how you look at it, that is the goal of a good profile. You want to be interesting enough to draw someone to look deeper. Its kind of the goal of everything we do in real estate…trying to get someone to look deeper into us and our services until they say “that’s the agent for me!”
So I sat and stared. Forever. I wrote a few words, deleted them, and wrote a few more. I’ve learned that writing is a weird thing in my head. I feel I’m decent at it, but when I sit down to do it, my mind often goes blank. Then a funny thing happens, I begin to channel William S. Burroughs (minus the opiate addiction, self-severed little finger, and murder of my wife), and the words flow. I am not a great planner when it comes to writing, but when I get going, the words seem to take on a life of their own. That’s what happened with my profile. I wanted to explain to the casual reader why I got into real estate and why I intend to stay here and make it a better place for all involved – consumers and agents. Yeah, I’m still crazy enough to want to change the world!
Who are you and what do you stand for?
I whipped up what I feel is a letter to the general public. Its my “who I am and what I stand for” letter to them. I wrote it in one go. I went back, fixed some spelling errors, and made sure the words made sense, but overall, I didn’t change much. I wanted to be honest, upfront, and myself. I think I achieved that, but I’d like you to be the judge. I also used it as my profile on rerockstar.com, so feel free to let me know what you think. What do you think is important in a good online profile?
Missy Caulk
November 12, 2008 at 9:13 pm
Matt, the link for Activerain isn’t working but I read your profile on RERockstar, very open and honest, I like it.
Matt Stigliano
November 12, 2008 at 9:19 pm
Missy – a) thanks for always taking time to comment on my posts and b) d’oh! I missed a bit of code, my apologies…I fixed it.
I’m glad you used “open and honest” since that’s what I wanted. I want people to read my writing and know that it came straight from my brain/gut to the words they see on screen without a lot of filtering to make it “perfect.”
Chris Shouse
November 12, 2008 at 10:07 pm
The profile on RERockstar was great very open and communicated well.
Jim Whatley
November 12, 2008 at 10:13 pm
good job I think you wrote it like you where talking to someone not at them. I liked it.
Paula Henry
November 12, 2008 at 10:56 pm
Matt – Excellent – you made me think I should change up mine a bit. I have the same values and opinions about client care.
Rock On!
Vicky Henry
November 13, 2008 at 6:20 am
I am not sure many people read your profile. I think we would like to all think they would but most people who are on the internet don’t read but scan for information. Just a thought….
Missy Caulk
November 13, 2008 at 7:02 am
Vicky, I agree the “about” section is not read at first but it will be read before they take the next step to work with someone. Like video’s for listings, if they are interested in that house, they will watch it over and over again, but if not they will not watch at all.
Matt Stigliano
November 13, 2008 at 7:39 am
Chris – Thanks!
Jim – Exactly. I want people to see my site and feel like I’m just having a conversation with them. I want them to not feel like I’m telling them “pick me,” but rather giving them the information so they can feel confident to pick me out of all the other agents they could choose.
Paula – Thanks! I’m glad its made you think about yours, that’s the biggest compliment I could receive.
Vicky and Missy – Vicky, I do agree with you on that (although I am the guy who reads everything, I’m not much of a scanner, although I have noticed I’m getting better at that), but think Missy’s point is valid too. They may not read it first, but I do think they will read it if their interest levels increase enough that they’re thinking about making a decision. I could be wrong, but no matter what, I think its important to have it there for those that will read it.
Brad Nix
November 13, 2008 at 4:28 pm
this is why Matt’s hot. I’m rewriting all of my profiles asap.
Matt Stigliano
November 13, 2008 at 6:01 pm
Brad – Please report back when you do, I’d love to see what you wrote. You did after all help create this monster (me) with our first email exchange. I still owe you or that one.
PS So everyone knows, my keyboard seems to have something stuck under the keys, so if you find any missing letters in anything I write, its not my fault (so far “G” and now “W” seem to be the culprits).
Bob Wilson
November 13, 2008 at 11:29 pm
Matt, one issue with the profile on both AR and your rockstar blog is that its duplicate content.