Most agents live and die by one source of leads. Their sphere. And when it goes cold, so does the business. Mike Heddle built something stronger and more sustainable. Over two decades in Hamilton, Ontario, he grew Heddle Real Estate into a team that sells around 300 homes a year, powered by five income streams he calls verticals. Institutional relationships. New development. Investors. A national referral network. And his center of influence. Together they bring in 120 to 140 organic, inbound leads every month. But leads are only half the story. In this episode, Mike walks through the system that catches every one of them, from his CRM "buckets" to the lead stages that decide who gets nurtured, who gets a passive campaign, and who gets moved to the trash (yes, he has a rule for that). You'll learn how his weekly "Deal of the Week" campaign became a 10-year lead magnet, why he tracks meaningful conversations instead of dials, and the one question he asks before adding any new vertical to his business. If you're relying on a single source of income and want to diversify, take a listen. Connect with Mike: Website: heddlerealestate.ca Instagram & Facebook: @mike.heddle Connect with Christine: Sign up for The SunBeam newsletter at postandbeamcreative.com. If you liked this episode, share it with a friend, follow the show on your favorite podcast app, and subscribe on YouTube so you never miss another episode. This episode is supported by BKeeperAI. Learn more at bkeeperai.com. Rate, Review, Follow & Share! "Christine has a warm and welcoming style that brings out the best of her guests and shares it brilliantly with all her listeners." - If you're feeling all the feels too, please stop by the podcast, rate it and leave us a review. It really does help boost the show. Here are all the ways to connect: Christine George Instagram Sign up for The Sunbeam newsletter: postandbeamcreative.com Post & Beam YouTube Channel

I asked Corrie Harding-Keizs a slightly cynical question. She does all this community work. The food drives. The school events. The yard sales. A whole video series she funds herself. "Are you actually seeing a return on all of that?" "That wasn't the goal. That was the gift." BOOM! Corrie is the broker and team leader of CHK Real Estate, a top 1% Royal LePage team in South Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. And her entire business is built on community. But not in the way some agents mean when they say that. She didn't start showing up to generate leads. She started showing up because she was curious. She and her family had planted roots in a new area, and she genuinely wanted to know the place. So she went to local business events with zero real estate agenda. She joined her kids' school community association. She hosted Santa photo events, Halloween nights, and skate-in-the-parks. She helped deliver meals every weekend during the pandemic through an initiative called Feed Mississauga. The relationships came first. The business came later, on its own. So many agents do what they think they are supposed to do to grow. And so much of it has nothing to do with what they actually enjoy or what they are good at. So they procrastinate it, or they do it halfway, and it shows. Corrie did the opposite. She leaned all the way into the work that lit her up. The fact that it also grew her business was a byproduct. When I asked what separates someone like her from an agent who just markets their involvement, she named two things: Consistency. "Most people aren't consistent. Consistency is a superpower." She shows up to the events her name is on. She follows through. People learn they can rely on her, so they invite her into more. Heart. She leads with care, not transactions, right down to how her team negotiates. It's why they hold a five-star Google rating, which is not easy to maintain. Corrie now films a series called Rooted, where she interviews local business owners she has known for years. And she keeps learning things about them she never knew. "It's not about me," she said. "I'm genuinely interested in their story." If you want to build community into your business, Corrie's advice is to start with your why. Make sure you actually have the time and the interest, not just the ambition. Then start small and niche. Host one yard sale. Show up to one thing. Do it well. People will notice and ask you to do more. You do not have to do this. If community work is not your thing, don't force it. Find the thing that is yours. But if it is your thing, Corrie will tell you it gives back a sense of belonging and connection. Lifetime relationships. The kind you cannot buy a sign for. Connect with Corrie Visit Corrie's team Follow Corrie on Instagram corrie@corriehardingteam.com Check out her show, Rooted Connect with Christine: Sign up for The SunBeam newsletter at postandbeamcreative.com. If you liked this episode, share it with a friend, follow the show on your favorite podcast app, and subscribe on YouTube so you never miss another episode. This episode is supported by BKeeperAI. Learn more at bkeeperai.com. Rate, Review, Follow & Share! "Christine has a warm and welcoming style that brings out the best of her guests and shares it brilliantly with all her listeners." - If you're feeling all the feels too, please stop by the podcast, rate it and leave us a review. It really does help boost the show. Here are all the ways to connect: Christine George Instagram Sign up for The Sunbeam newsletter: postandbeamcreative.com Post & Beam YouTube Channel

If a Billion Dollars Can't Save You, What Can? Jess Lane had done everything right. Twenty years building iconic brands. Jim Beam. Visa. Miller. Porsche. A front-row seat to an IPO at The RealReal. A billion-dollar unicorn on her resume. A master's in psychology on top of it all. Then, the same year she helped a company reach unicorn status, she was let go in a mass reduction alongside 150 other people. She did what we are all taught to do. She buckled down. She applied to 496 jobs. It did not work. And when she looked up from her own situation, she saw something bigger happening: thousands of talented executives in the exact same spot. She had studied data and trends her whole career. Now she was looking at herself as the commodity, and the market was not what it used to be. So she asked herself, if a billion dollars can't save you, what can? Her answer: you save yourself. That is the heart of this conversation, and the heart of the company Jess went on to build. Choosing Yourself The Full Cup Co is Jess's career design company. The name comes from an old truth we have all heard: you can't pour from an empty cup. When she stopped choosing herself, her cup ran dry. Choosing yourself sounds simple. It is not, because so much of what drives us is external. Money. Titles. Brands. The stuff coming at us every second of every day. Jess points to decades of research called self-determination theory. The motivators that lead to long-term success and well-being are all intrinsic. There are three of them: Autonomy. Do you have a choice? Competence. Are you good at it? Connectedness. Does it mean something to you? Your Unique Blueprint After the deep work, Jess's clients end up with what she calls a unique blueprint. It pulls together your background, your values, your skills and strengths, your interests, your desired impact, and the meaning you have made from your experiences. No one else has your exact combination. When you break it down and pull out the themes, things get clear. You understand yourself better. And in a world that increasingly sounds like AI and reads like a resume, sounding human is how you stand out. Personal Brand vs. Self-Promotion Many agents freeze up at the idea of building a personal brand because it feels like bragging. Jess draws a clean line. Self-promotion is listing how many deals you have closed. A personal brand leads with the value you offer others, a mission behind the work, and a set of values people can feel. People see through the rest. Come from a place of giving instead of getting. It goes further in the long run. Breaking Down the Wall Years in the corporate world train you to show up the way you think you are expected to. Sometimes that conditioning goes all the way back to childhood and the messages you absorbed about work. Jess starts by turning down the noise. A quick 360 wellness check against her five key pillars. A career genogram that looks back, sometimes as far as your grandparents, at the messages and beliefs you inherited about work. None of it is about becoming a different person. It is about noticing the beliefs that might be holding you back and gently deciding what you want to carry forward and what you are ready to reframe. Her framework is both a landing pad and a launch pad. The Launch Pad Once you have your blueprint, you build. Jess's advice: solve human problems, and create revenue streams that can only come from you. She points to something agents should not miss. The US Surgeon General has issued an advisory on the epidemic of loneliness and isolation. Agents are uniquely positioned to solve that problem because they are embedded in their communities. In a slow year, building community is not a nice-to-have. It is a real advantage. One Piece of Advice for the Agent Who Feels Stuck Think bigger. Ditch the checklist. Think of yourself as a whole human, lean into your unique blueprint, and let your heart come through. The more human you are, the more you resonate. And resonating with people is the whole point. Connect with Jess: Website: fullcupco.com LinkedIn: Jess Lane Instagram: @thefullcupco Connect with Christine: Sign up for The SunBeam newsletter at postandbeamcreative.com. If you liked this episode, share it with a friend, follow the show on your favorite podcast app, and subscribe on YouTube so you never miss another episode. This episode is supported by BKeeperAI. Learn more at bkeeperai.com. Rate, Review, Follow & Share! "Christine has a warm and welcoming style that brings out the best of her guests and shares it brilliantly with all her listeners." - If you're feeling all the feels too, please stop by the podcast, rate it and leave us a review. It really does help boost the show. Here are all the ways to connect: Christine George Instagram Sign up for The Sunbeam newsletter: postandbeamcreative.com Post & Beam YouTube Channel

There is a story we tell ourselves in real estate: that social media only works if you go viral, buy followers, or post ten times a week until you burn out. Chris Wannamaker is living proof that none of that is true. Chris is the co-team leader at The W Group at RE/MAX Connect in Toronto. Before real estate, he spent nearly a decade in PR, advertising, and management consulting, including time at Edelman, the world's largest PR firm. Eight years ago, he joined his partner Edward in the business. Today, 30% of his personal book of business comes directly from Instagram. He does it with an audience of about 9,000 people. Professionalism is a competitive advantage Chris came to real estate from the corporate world, and it gave him something many agents never build: a standard of professionalism. "It really prepared me to be a consummate professional," Chris says of his years at Edelman. "That's something I definitely bring into all of my client touchpoints now." An engaged audience beats a big one Chris was stuck around 7,000 followers for years, then a few posts took off and moved him to around 9,000. He is quick to point out that the number was never the point. "These aren't bot followers. I don't have 200,000 followers across Canada. That's not going to serve my business too well," he says. "I have a pretty targeted base of followers located mostly in Toronto. It's an engaged audience who cares about what I post, and that is more important than trying to reach everyone." Most of the people who follow Chris are people he has actually met, or who came to him through a referral or his content. That is what makes the audience convert. The right content mix is the one you will actually keep up Ask Chris for the perfect personal-to-professional ratio, and he will not give you a formula. His advice is simpler: share your listings and your wins, but let people see your real life too, your dog, travel with your husband, workouts, friends. The proof is in his most successful post ever. It was not a listing. It was a curated carousel of wedding photos for his two-year anniversary, and it brought in more than 1,000 new followers. "People are connecting with you about your personal life just as much," Chris says. "Having a blended channel of both is how you're going to reach the most people who actually trust you." That blend is also on brand. The W Group aims to be elevated but approachable, professional but not overly serious. As Chris puts it, "We can have fun with real estate. That's how I am as a person, and that's what I want to show on my social media." The $100 strategy that turns followers into clients Late last year, the team started putting a modest amount behind their new listing videos, about $100 over two weeks, sometimes $150. The goal is not clicks or messages. It is brand awareness and follows. For every new follower, Chris sends a personal, same-day message. Not an autoresponder. Most people ignore it or say thank you. But a meaningful few reply with, "I was curious about that listing," or, "I've been saving, and I don't know where to start." And that is where Chris does the thing so many agents forget: he tells them the next step. "People want to be guided by you," he says. "I'm not just saying, 'Thanks for letting me know.' I'm saying, 'Okay, cool. Let's have a call. What's your name? Can you share your email and phone number?'" From this small change alone, in a matter of months, Chris landed a listing referral, a buyer who purchased in a blue-chip Toronto neighborhood, and two more active buyers. The whole thing takes about five minutes a day. Systems make it sustainable Chris also invests in systems. Every listing gets the same three-piece content mix: a photo (with Chris and Edward actually in it), a polished reel with text, and a walkthrough video. Captions are templated from the listing write-up, so nothing gets reinvented from scratch. "I don't believe in reinventing the wheel every time," he says. "A quick, cute message with some personality is a lot more effective than three lines of ChatGPT garbage." Take the online relationship offline For all the Instagram talk, Chris is clear about where the team actually spends its money: engaging the existing database. A 200-plus-person annual client event, smaller micro events, holiday drop-offs, client dinners, and a real investment in their CRM, Follow-Up Boss. The systems remind him when it is someone's birthday. The message he sends is personal. "People want to hear from me. They don't want to feel like they're just in my system," he says. "AI is a useful tool, but people value human connection now more than ever." The takeaway You do not need 50,000 followers. You need a real audience, a genuine presence, and the discipline to guide people to the next step. As Chris says, "Don't worry about the number of followers. Focus on the quality and authenticity of your content." Links: Chris Wannamaker, Co-Team Leader, The W Group at RE/MAX Connect Website: wgrouprealestate.ca Instagram: @cwans Sign up for The SunBeam newsletter at postbeamcreative.com. Rate, Review, Follow & Share! "Christine has a warm and welcoming style that brings out the best of her guests and shares it brilliantly with all her listeners." - If you're feeling all the feels too, please stop by the podcast, rate it and leave us a review. It really does help boost the show. Here are all the ways to connect: Christine George Instagram Sign up for The Sunbeam newsletter: postandbeamcreative.com Post & Beam YouTube Channel

This is the season's Best Of. I went back through some of my favorite conversations from this season and pulled the seven tips that resonated with me most. When I laid them all out, they sorted themselves into the three ideas this whole show is named for: getting people to know you, like you, and trust you. Know: Can people actually find you? First up is Angie Javier from realtor.com. When an agent tells her business has slowed down, she does something a little unconventional. She looks them up online, right there in front of them. And 98 percent of the time, she cannot find them. The point is, a buyer who took your card at an open house is going home to look you up, and if you are not there, your card is gone. Her fix: claim your free realtor.com profile, get one clear website instead of three conflicting ones, and make sure you show up on at least one social platform. Next, Google expert Tasia Custode clears up something about the Google Workspace ecosystem. Think of it as your suite of Google apps, Gmail, Drive, Docs, Sheets, and Slides, all working together, with Gemini's AI tools now woven throughout. Her take is that the paid Pro version is worth it because it is where the AI-powered features that can actually save you time live. Then SEO expert Emily Gertenbach delivers this super important tip: you may have heard that GEO, optimizing for AI search, is a whole new discipline. Google recently published guidance that essentially says it is not a separate thing. Good SEO and good AI search come down to the same rule: put genuinely valuable content online that a generative tool could not have produced on its own. You do that by adding your first-person expertise. Emily points to E-E-A-T, which stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. You are a licensed professional with real stories, real mistakes you have watched clients avoid, and real results. Say those things in your own voice, and you will out-rank any hack. Like: Do you sound like someone worth choosing? Being found is one thing. Being chosen is another. Brand strategist Scott Coligan believes the reason so many agents blend together is simpler than we want to admit: they only study other agents. His advice is to look outside your category entirely. Study hospitality, concierge medicine, interior design, anywhere a person wants to feel cared for and advocated for. Then design your brand around the feeling you want a client to walk away with, not around the transaction. Distinction is not something you wait for the market to hand you. It is something you intentionally create. Marc Davison and I do not agree about personal branding, and we spent a whole episode on it. But he is right about one thing. Decades ago, agents were salespeople who worked for a broker, so the only thing to promote was personality: the red hat, the dog, the smile. Today is different. You have a book of business, listings, clients, reviews, and a point of view. In his words, you are sitting on a vault of good stuff. Build your brand around what you have actually created, not only around a photo of you holding your phone. Trust: Does the experience match the promise? The last piece is trust, and trust is not only built in front of your client. It is built behind the scenes, in the culture of your team. Happiness expert Valerie Alexander shared a framework you can use today. Three things make people love their work: accomplishment, autonomy, and acknowledgment. People want to feel a sense of progress; they do not want to be micromanaged, and they want to be seen for their contributions. She also names a trap, the accidental manager, the good person who was never actually trained in the soft skills of leading people. This applies whether you have a full team or a handful of contractors who make your business run. And I will close a little closer to home, with my BKeeperAI co-founders, Laura O'Connor and Eric Hunsberger. Our promise is accurate, easy expense help delivered through human verification. That human piece is our non-negotiable because it is what builds trust. As Laura put it, even 15 minutes spent getting someone on the right track can be what earns you a customer for the next 12 months. The lesson for any agent is the same: make the experience easy and ensure there is always a real person behind it. Seven tips, three ideas. Get found, sound like someone worth choosing, and make sure the experience lives up to the promise. If even one of these gave you a next step this week, that is the whole point. Featured in this episode: Angie Javier, (from Ep. 136) Tasia Custode, Google expert (from Ep. 137) Emily Gertenbach, SEO, EG Creative Content (from Ep. 139) Scott Coligan, fractional CMO, Human Experience Method (from Ep. 135) Marc Davison, 1000 Watt (from Ep. 134) Valerie Alexander, Speak Happiness (from Ep. 138) Laura O'Connor and Eric Hunsberger, BKeeperAI co-founders (from Ep. 140) Links: Subscribe to The SunBeam newsletter BKeeperAI Rate, Review, Follow & Share! "Christine has a warm and welcoming style that brings out the best of her guests and shares it brilliantly with all her listeners." - If you're feeling all the feels too, please stop by the podcast, rate it and leave us a review. It really does help boost the show. Here are all the ways to connect: Christine George Instagram Sign up for The Sunbeam newsletter: postandbeamcreative.com Post & Beam YouTube Channel

Most agents think a great website is a beautiful website. Nice colors, a clean logo, and a few polished photos. Katy Martin would gently push back on that. Katy is a website developer and brand strategist behind Joyful Design Co., and in this week's episode of Know Like Trust, she shared her belief that you can have a relatively plain website with great copy, and it will outperform a stunning website with weak copy every single time. Here's why that matters for you.... You have a few seconds to make the right impression When someone lands on your site, they take in your photography, colors, logo, and words almost instantly. Katy calls it brand harmony: when all of those cues line up, the visitor knows they're in the right place. It's the same feeling you get walking into a shop you love. Something just says, "Yes, this is for me." When the brand is bandaided together, people read that too. As Katy put it, if an agent shows up to a contract signing without a pen, you start to wonder what else they forget. Your website is making that same first impression before you ever say a word. The litmus test for your headline Look at the main headline on your homepage and ask one question: could I put this exact sentence on any other agent's website and have it still make sense? If the answer is yes, your headline isn't doing its job. A strong headline says who you are, who you serve, and where you serve them, in language only you could use. A generic one is just a jumble of words that could live on anyone's site, including Apple's. Photography is not a nice-to-have For a personal brand, Katy believes photography is the single most important element on the page. Good photos of you communicate so much without a single word: who you are, where you work, your warmth, your style. She'd rather invest in a real photo shoot with lots of poses and angles than over-design around a handful of stock images. The most beautiful sites she builds are often the ones where the photography is already doing the heavy lifting. What is a website even for now? This is the question reshaping everything. With AI and the way Google now answers questions directly in search, your website has become the last stop, not the first. By the time someone arrives, they've already been educated. So your job is to communicate what you do and how you help faster than ever, and to give every page one clear goal: capture the lead, book the call, start the conversation. Fall in love with your data Katy also believes something I usually avoid: website analytics. Her team built an automated report that backdates your data so you can actually see the story instead of plugging in numbers. One client had a traffic spike in May. The reason? A podcast appearance. The lesson? Do more of that. Your data isn't a chore. It's a map of what's working, so you can stop trying to do ten thousand things at once. Your homework If you do nothing else this week, go look at your homepage headline and ask the litmus test question. Then look at your photography. Those two things will tell you most of what you need to know. And if you'd like help with both your brand and your website, I have exciting news. Katy and I are now collaborating on branding and website development together. You can find out how to work with us as a team at postandbeamcreative.com/realestatebranding. Follow Katy on Instagram Visit Katy: https://joyfuldesign.co/ Check out our branding and website collaboration packages: https://www.postandbeamcreative.com/real-estate-branding Rate, Review, Follow & Share! "Christine has a warm and welcoming style that brings out the best of her guests and shares it brilliantly with all her listeners." - If you're feeling all the feels too, please stop by the podcast, rate it and leave us a review. It really does help boost the show. Here are all the ways to connect: Christine George Instagram Sign up for The Sunbeam newsletter: postandbeamcreative.com Post & Beam YouTube Channel

Most of the startup stories you hear are told looking backward. The product's already built, the wins are neatly stacked, and the founders make it all sound easy. This one isn't that. In Episode 140, I'm not interviewing a guest about their finished company. I'm sitting down with my two co-founders, Laura O'Connor and Eric Hunsberger, while we're right in the thick of launching BKeeperAI. The messy middle. And I wanted to share it while we're still in it. Here's the problem we set out to solve. If you're a solopreneur, a real estate agent, a contractor, or a one-person shop, you know exactly how tax season goes. Receipts everywhere. Expenses you can't quite remember. A long weekend lost to sorting a shoebox so your CPA can make sense of it. As Laura put it, the finance side of business is the part most people grit their teeth through, and it's also what keeps the whole thing running. So we asked a simple question: what's the easiest way people already stay in touch about the things that matter? You don't open an app to plan dinner with a friend. You text. So BKeeperAI lives where you already are. You snap a photo of a receipt, text it, and you're done. No app to download, no software to learn, no password to forget. But the part I'm proudest of is the part that's harder to scale, and that's exactly why we kept it - the human verification. When Laura first walked Eric and me through an exercise to find what each of us cared about most, we landed in three different places. For Eric, our CTO, it was accuracy. For me, it was ease. For Laura, it was the human. And when we asked ourselves the hard question, if everything else fell away and we could only get one thing right, we agreed it had to be the human support. Because we've all lived the other version: locked out of a platform, no one to call, hours lost to a chatbot that can't actually help. We didn't want to be one more source of that frustration. While AI is core to how the product works and how Eric built it. Behind it, there's a real person making sure your expenses look right. We even joked in our brand manifesto that we're not a SaaS company at all. We're an Accountability-as-a-Service company. A few other things we get into: The decision we debated far longer than you'd guess (it wasn't the tech, it was tone). Why "tension" and "conflict" are not the same thing, and why I now want a founding team that has plenty of the first kind. What each of us would tell ourselves three months ago. If you've ever thought about building something of your own, or you just want tax season to stop being the worst week of your year, I think you'll get a lot out of this one. Follow Laura. Follow Eric. Check out BKeeperAI. Rate, Review, Follow & Share! "Christine has a warm and welcoming style that brings out the best of her guests and shares it brilliantly with all her listeners." - If you're feeling all the feels too, please stop by the podcast, rate it and leave us a review. It really does help boost the show. Apply now for a free coaching session on the Know Like Trust for Real Estate Podcast and get personalized help with your real estate business. Here are all the ways to connect: Christine George Instagram Sign up for The Sunbeam newsletter: postandbeamcreative.com Post & Beam YouTube Channel

Why Your Real Estate Blog Is Your Best SEO Strategy, and AI Isn't Going to Save You If the words "search engine optimization" make you want to run in the other direction, you're not alone. It's one of the most-searched topics in marketing and one of the most misunderstood. So I brought in someone who lives and breathes this stuff to cut through the noise. Emily Gertenbach is a content writer and SEO expert, and in a recent conversation on the Know Like Trust for Real Estate podcast, she surprised me when she said, "GEO isn't really a thing." So What Is SEO, Really? Emily stripped it all the way down for us, and here's the core: SEO is the strategic use of webpages to drive traffic to your site. That's it. It has two components: the technical side (ensuring search engine bots can actually access and crawl your site) and the content side (giving those bots something worth surfacing in search results). The technical piece trips people up because it sounds complicated, but for most real estate agents on established platforms like Wix, Squarespace, or WordPress, your site is probably already technically sound. The bigger issue is content. Why Your Blog Matters More Than You Think If your website only has a homepage, an about page, and a contact page, you essentially have three chances to show up in search results. That's it. Search engines, including AI tools like ChatGPT, find and surface information by crawling the web for text-based content that answers real questions. If someone searches "how to sell a house fast in Boston" and you've never written a blog post about it, there's nothing for the algorithm to return. No snippet. No click. No lead. Emily was direct: blogging is critically important. And that doesn't change based on whether someone is searching on Google, asking Gemini on their phone, or typing a question into ChatGPT. They're all pulling from the same web. Does Social Media Count for SEO? The answer is mostly no. While LinkedIn articles have a better chance of appearing in search results than Instagram posts or TikToks, social media is not where your SEO lives. About 95% of what shows up in search results is your website and your Google Business Profile. That said, Emily made a crucial distinction: social media matters for your marketing, not your SEO. They serve different purposes. Your website and email list are assets you own. Your Instagram account can be shut down tomorrow. Always publish content to a platform you control first, then distribute it everywhere else. One practical tip: if you've been writing articles on LinkedIn and want them to help your SEO, reverse the order. Publish on your website first, then post the content to LinkedIn with a note at the bottom that it was originally published at your URL. This signals to Google which version is the original and protects your website's search authority. What Google Just Said About GEO Over the past couple of years, a whole industry emerged around "GEO" generative engine optimization, the idea that optimizing for AI search engines required different tactics than traditional SEO. People were adding special code, restructuring entire sites, treating it like a separate strategy. Then Google published an update to its guidelines, and Emily summed it up simply: GEO isn't really a thing. What Google actually said was this: for content to perform in search, whether regular search or AI search, it cannot be content that can be easily produced by a generative AI tool. If you're using AI to write your blog posts, you're essentially remixing information that already existed in the model's training data. You're not adding anything new. And that means it won't rank. The Real Secret: Your First-Person Expertise The acronym Emily wants you to remember is EEAT: Expertise, Experience, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness. As a licensed real estate professional, you have all four, but only if you're actually sharing your perspective. That means writing about things you've seen firsthand. Mistakes sellers make in your specific market. What a fast close actually looks like from the inside. Why a particular neighborhood is different from what buyers expect. That's the content that performs because it's genuinely useful, and it could only come from you. Emily runs a content writing business, doing exactly this for clients, learning their voice and creating articles that sound like them. She's clear that hiring a skilled writer can be a good investment, but only if that writer takes the time to understand who you are. AI shortcuts won't replicate that. Three Things to Do Right Now Emily wrapped with three concrete action steps for real estate solopreneurs: Check your website on your phone. If it's slow to load or hard to navigate, that's a technical problem and search engines notice. Fix it before worrying about anything else. Get clear on your unique expertise. What do you know that other agents in your market don't? What's your angle? That's what your blog should be built around. Build backlinks intentionally. Are there service providers, local directories, or Chamber of Commerce listings where your website URL could live? Every link back to your site from a reputable source helps. SEO doesn't have to be the monster it looks like from the outside. It comes down to having a website people and search engines can access, publishing content that actually answers real questions, and showing up as the expert you already are. Resources mentioned: Emily Gertenbach's website: egcreativecontent.com Emily on LinkedIn: Emily Gertenbach Fathom Analytics: usefathom.com Google Search Console: search.google.com/search-console BkeeperAI (Christine's expense tracking tool for solopreneurs): bkeeperai.com Rate, Review, Follow & Share! "Christine has a warm and welcoming style that brings out the best of her guests and shares it brilliantly with all her listeners." - If you're feeling all the feels too, please stop by the podcast, rate it and leave us a review. It really does help boost the show. Apply now for a free coaching session on the Know Like Trust for Real Estate Podcast and get personalized help with your real estate business. Here are all the ways to connect: Christine George Instagram Sign up for The Sunbeam newsletter: postandbeamcreative.com Post & Beam YouTube Channel

Joanne Powell, REALTOR® | Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Northwest Joanne Powell has been in real estate for 19 years. Licensed for 7. She's built her business almost entirely on relationships and referrals, and she's really good at it. Her clients describe her in words like loyal, earnest, genuine. One longtime client has sent her 20 to 30 people over the years. Another said working with Joanne changed what they thought real estate could feel like. Her husband calls her "soothing." Her clients call her "steady." Joanne didn't have a brand identity that matched who she actually was. After two decades in the industry, she had no cohesive visual presence - no logo, no color story, no identity that people could recognize as distinctly her. She had been scattered, she said, and she was ready to stop being scattered and start being seen. She came to Post & Beam with a clear goal: build something she could grow into. Something warm. Something that would complement the Berkshire Hathaway black-and-white palette without disappearing into it. Something that felt like her - not salesy, not rushed, not a credential laundry list, as she said, just her. Joanne wanted her name to mean calm in the chaos. The Discovery Every Post & Beam brand starts with discovery. We never make assumptions. We interviewed Joanne and two of her longtime clients to understand not just what she does, but how it feels to work with her. What emerged was a portrait of an agent who operates from a fundamentally different set of values than most. While other agents are hunting their next deal mid-transaction, Joanne is thinking about the next five years of that relationship. She proactively walks clients through every next step so they never have to wonder. She shows up with information no one asked for. She negotiates without raising her voice, ever, and still wins. She's an introvert who genuinely loves people. She's process-oriented. She requires exclusive agreements and only takes clients who trust her. Her clients said things like: "As soon as you open the door, your blood pressure drops." One described her as an English cottage - beautiful, full of flowers, and the kind of place where you already feel like you're sitting down for a cup of tea before you've even walked through the door. That's the brand we were designing toward. From the discovery, we distilled her brand story into a single guiding idea: She doesn't chase the deal. She tends the relationship. Color Joanne knew purple was hers. Not a fake pink-purple, a real jewel tone. Deep. Rich. Grounded. We built her palette around Deep Violet as the primary, supported by Thistle, Buttercream, Garden Sage, and Fog Blue. The result is a color story that feels simultaneously feminine and authoritative. It's warm enough to be approachable, sophisticated enough to command trust. The Logo The hummingbird was non-negotiable. It carries personal meaning for Joanne, and it does exactly what a brand mark should: it says something about her without words. Hummingbirds are quick, purposeful, and rarely where you expect them, just like Joanne in a negotiation. But we didn't stop there. Every detail in the wordmark earns its place. The E and L in her name tip into a gentle peak, a subtle nod to the mountains that define her Pacific Northwest market. It's the kind of detail that locals feel without necessarily being able to name it. The tilted O is a wink. Joanne's people call her Jo. That small typographic lean says, I know you. It's the kind of design decision that turns a logo into a relationship. The typographic pairing of Cormorant Garamond with Montserrat gives her identity both elegance and accessibility. The Full Identity System From there, we built out the complete system: primary and secondary logos, circular stamps (one with the hummingbird mark, one with the JP monogram), lockup versions for use alongside the Berkshire Hathaway brand, signage, a business card, a newsletter masthead for her Pacific Northwest Property Pulse, and a pattern suite using the hummingbird mark across all her brand colors. Everything was delivered with a Logo File Format Usage Guide, so Joanne always knows exactly which file to use and when. What Joanne walked away with isn't just a logo. It's a visual identity that finally matches the agent she's always been. For 19 years, the experience of working with Joanne has been calm, warm, steady, and deeply relational. Now, the first impression she makes looks and feels exactly the same way as before she's even walked through the door. A personal brand closes the gap between who you are and how you show up. Post & Beam Creative helps real estate professionals build brands that are seen, heard, and impossible to forget. If you're ready to invest in your visual identity, let's talk.

Your Team Is Your Brand - Whether You Know It or Not I recently had an experience at a big-box pharmacy that got me thinking about how your brand shows up when you least expect it. There was chaos behind that counter, frantic energy, and zero eye contact. It was a masterclass in what happens when employee experience goes untended. I wrote about it in my SunBeam newsletter, and that's what brought today's guest back to the show. Valerie Alexander is a happiness expert, keynote speaker, attorney, and author of Happiness as a Second Language. Her TED Talk has over a million views, and she's spent years studying workplace happiness across industries - including real estate. The $700 Billion Problem Gallup has been studying workplace unhappiness for over three decades. Their most recent State of the American Workforce report puts the cost at $700 billion annually - just in the U.S. In medical settings, unhappy workforces lead to 58% more malpractice incidents. In manufacturing, there are 40% more product defects. The numbers are staggering, and the root cause is almost always the same: culture flows from the top down, and most leaders aren't trained to manage people well. Valerie calls this the "accidental manager" problem. Some people are naturally great at leading, and because it comes easily to them, they don't see why anyone would need training. Others have never been great at it, but no one has ever told them, so they assume they're fine. Neither group gets the soft-skill development they actually need. The Three Things People Need at Work According to Valerie, three things drive engagement: accomplishment, autonomy, and acknowledgment. People want to feel like their work matters. They want to be trusted to do the job they were hired to do. And they want to feel seen when they do it well. These aren't nice-to-haves. They're the difference between a team that walks through walls for you and one that's running ragged and phoning it in. What This Means for Real Estate Here's where it gets personal for us. I believe deeply that as a real estate professional, you are your brand. But Valerie made a point that hit differently: as you grow, you are not your brand anymore. The person your client meets at the door is your brand. The person your assistant reports to is your brand. Every agent in your brokerage is your brand to the contractors, the inspectors, and the stagers they interact with. If you allow toxic behavior - even from (especially from) your top producer, you are building a culture where that behavior is the standard. And that shows up. In the lobby. In the experience clients have. Those who choose to work with you and those who quietly walk away. What You Can Do Today Whether you're a solopreneur with a transaction coordinator and a VA, or a team leader managing a large team, the framework is the same: give the people in your orbit a sense of accomplishment, respect their autonomy, and acknowledge them publicly, specifically, and often. Call your inspector when they catch something that saves your client money. Thank your stager by name in your closing post. These aren't soft gestures. They're brand strategy. Valerie closes the episode with this: Start with yourself. When you feel tension rising, pause. Take three deep breaths. Dissipate the cortisol. The happier you become, the more of that happiness ripples outward to your team, your clients, and yes, your brand. This is the work that most people skip because it doesn't show up on a spreadsheet. But it shows up everywhere else. Listen to the full episode, and... Make sure to follow Valerie on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/speakhappiness-keynotespeaker/ Visit her website: https://www.speakhappiness.com/ Rate, Review, Follow & Share! "Christine has a warm and welcoming style that brings out the best of her guests and shares it brilliantly with all her listeners." - If you're feeling all the feels too, please stop by the podcast, rate it and leave us a review. It really does help boost the show. Apply now for a free coaching session on the Know Like Trust for Real Estate Podcast and get personalized help with your real estate business. Here are all the ways to connect: Christine George Instagram Sign up for The Sunbeam newsletter: postandbeamcreative.com Post & Beam YouTube Channel

You're Sitting on a Goldmine, and It's Called Google Most real estate agents have a Gmail account. A lot of them have a Google Business Profile. Some even use Google Docs or Sheets to manage transactions. But very few are using these tools in a way that actually moves the needle. That's exactly what Episode 137 is about. I sat down with Tasia Custode, Google expert and creator behind the YouTube channel and podcast Talk Techie to Me, for a deep dive into how the Google ecosystem can function less like a set of basic utilities and more like a full-time administrative assistant, one that's mostly free. Start With Your Google Business Profile If you haven't claimed and completed your Google Business Profile, that's your first move. According to Google's own data, a complete profile makes you 2.7 times more likely to be considered reputable by potential clients. In a business built on trust, that's not a small thing. For real estate agents, local discovery is everything. Your Google Business Profile is the tool that puts you in front of someone searching in your market before they ever visit your website. It's a zero-click experience: one search, and a prospect already has your phone number, your reviews, and a reason to call. Tasia's tip for reviews: build a "Google first funnel." Send clients a direct link right after closing, within 24 hours, while the experience is still fresh, and ask them to mention specific neighborhoods or areas. That keyword-rich review becomes a discovery tool that works for you long after the transaction closes. The Missed Opportunity Inside Gmail Tasia's take on the biggest mistake people make with Google? Using each product only for its most obvious purpose. Gmail isn't just email. Google Drive isn't just storage. When you use these tools in concert with each other, the way they were designed, the cumulative effect is something close to having a real assistant. On the AI side, Gmail now includes two features worth paying attention to. AI Overviews sit at the top of your email threads and give you a quick summary of everything that's happened in that thread, flagging follow-ups, upcoming appointments, and shared links so you don't have to dig. The AI Inbox (currently in beta and rolling out) goes a step further by breaking down your action items and to-dos each morning, so your inbox functions more like a daily briefing. The search experience inside Gmail has also been upgraded. You can now ask Gmail questions in plain, conversational language, the same way you'd talk to any AI tool, and it will surface the right email and link you directly to it. Google Workspace, Simplified A lot of people conflate Google Workspace and Google Drive, so here's the quick version: Google Workspace is the full ecosystem (Gmail, Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, and now Gemini). Google Drive is the storage hub within that ecosystem. Think of it as the garage where everything is parked. If you're running a business, Tasia recommends paying for a Pro version of Google Workspace to unlock the full Gemini-powered features. For real estate agents managing teams, the ability to create a personalized domain email through Google is reason enough on its own. For agents who want to automate the complex task lists involved in getting a client from contract to close, the tool to know is Google Workspace Studio. It lets you build custom automation flows triggered by specific emails, form submissions, or other inputs, handling repetitive steps so you can focus on the people. What to Do With the Next 30 Minutes Tasia's recommendation for one action item: go in and play. Pick one Google tool you already use and spend 30 minutes exploring it beyond the surface. That's how basic users become power users, and that's where the real time savings live. You can follow Tasia on YouTube at @TasiaCustode and find her full Google ecosystem course at tasiacustode.com. Rate, Review, Follow & Share! "Christine has a warm and welcoming style that brings out the best of her guests and shares it brilliantly with all her listeners." - If you're feeling all the feels too, please stop by the podcast, rate it and leave us a review. It really does help boost the show. Apply now for a free coaching session on the Know Like Trust for Real Estate Podcast and get personalized help with your real estate business. Here are all the ways to connect: Christine George Instagram Sign up for The Sunbeam newsletter: postandbeamcreative.com Post & Beam YouTube Channel

Angie Javier, who has spent nearly a decade at realtor.com speaking with agents across the country, says that when she pulls up an agent's online presence in real time at events, on Zoom calls, she can't find 98% of them. Not their website. Not their profile. Not their social media. If a realtor.com spokesperson can't find you online, your potential clients definitely can't. So what's going wrong? The Online/Offline Divide According to Angie, most agents fall into one of two camps. The first group has been working in their sphere and doing traditional marketing for years, open house signs, flyers, mailers, and sees digital as unnecessary or intimidating. The second group went all-in on their website and online leads, but let their community presence go quiet. Business has slowed, and they don't know why. The agents who are consistently winning, Angie says, are the ones who have figured out how to blend both. It's not either/or, it's and. Start With a Plan That Actually Excites You When agents come to Angie feeling overwhelmed, her first piece of advice is always the same: make a plan. But not the kind of plan filled with transaction targets and lead counts. She shared the example of one of her top-producing clients who doesn't write "close 50 transactions" on his annual plan. He writes "take my family to Disney World" and "get my son a car before college." When you start with the life you want, the business strategy to get there starts to make sense in a different way. You're not just checking boxes, you're building toward something. Once the big vision is in place, Angie recommends using AI tools like Claude or ChatGPT to help break that plan into monthly and quarterly priorities. Stick it next to your computer. Follow it. Print Isn't Dead - But Spend It Wisely Before joining realtor.com , Angie worked at CoreFact, a print marketing company that specializes in hyper-local, geo-targeted farming. Her take on print is nuanced: she doesn't believe in dropping thousands on just-listed and just-sold postcards. But strategic, consistent print marketing in a defined geographic area? That still moves the needle. The key is understanding what you want to accomplish, what budget makes sense, and then committing to it long enough to see results. Print is a slow ROI, but it keeps your name in front of the right people. Your Online Presence Needs to Work for Humans and AI If you're not findable, you're not relevant. Angie's starting checklist for every agent: A free profile on realtor.com Your own website or landing page (not just a brokerage profile) A presence on at least one social media platform A bio that's been updated and optimized not just for buyers and sellers, but for AI tools That last one is increasingly critical. We're past the era of SEO. Today, Angie is talking about GEO (generative engine optimization) and AEO (answer engine optimization), the emerging disciplines around getting your name recommended by AI tools when buyers and sellers are searching. If an AI can't parse your bio and connect you to your market, you won't show up in the conversations that matter. Don't Let Technology Take Over Angie's human-centric philosophy is simple: don't forget to be human. Pick up the phone. Not to pitch, but to genuinely check in. Notice when someone has lost a family member. Celebrate when their kid gets into their dream school. These are the moments that create the kind of trust that no algorithm can replicate. She keeps coming back to a Maya Angelou quote: people won't remember what you said, but they'll never forget how you made them feel. Use AI to get more efficient. Use that efficiency to be more present. That's the formula. Angie Javier is a content creator and national speaker at realtor.com . Rate, Review, Follow & Share! "Christine has a warm and welcoming style that brings out the best of her guests and shares it brilliantly with all her listeners." - If you're feeling all the feels too, please stop by the podcast, rate it and leave us a review.  It really does help boost the show. Apply now for a free coaching session on the Know Like Trust for Real Estate Podcast and get personalized help with your real estate business. Here are all the ways to connect: Christine George Instagram Sign up for The Sunbeam newsletter: postandbeamcreative.com Post & Beam YouTube Channel