Ask the agent
I have a website and no clients. What am I missing?
You built the thing that waits and skipped the thing that goes. The site is where an agent checks you after she hears your name, not where she finds you. Six months polishing a site nobody was sent to, while the listings went to whoever texted first.
The site is where she checks you, not where she finds you
She hears your name from a text or a broker open. Then she looks you up. That’s the order, every time.
The site’s one job: prove you’re real in thirty seconds. Not win her over. Confirm what the text already started.
Ours is average today. I’ll say that plainly. The site doesn’t book shoots. Outreach does, and the site just has to not get in the way.
Six months in, the site has done its job every time an agent looked. The problem is that nobody looked, because nothing sent them. A portfolio with no traffic is a gallery in a locked room.
Fix the first screen in twenty minutes, then close the laptop
Those thirty seconds still count. Here’s what she needs to see without scrolling.
Twenty minutes. Not a redesign, not a new theme. The first screen, and then close the laptop, because every hour after that is an hour of outreach you didn’t do.
Your packages and prices on the first screen, so she can pick without a call. Your delivery promise above the fold. Ours: photos by 9 a.m. the next morning. A photo of you, because she’s hiring whoever shows up at her seller’s house.
And the word to delete from the headline: "photographer." Ours says "Real Estate Marketing." She’s not shopping for a camera. She’s shopping for a listing that sells.
I never hired a photographer off a website in ten years. I hired the one who texted back in nine minutes. The site just had to not scare me off once I got there.
Send agents to the site on purpose, every weekday
Now the part that books shoots. It doesn’t happen on the website.
Ten one-observation texts or DMs a day, to agents with ten-plus listings last year. One thing you noticed about her listing, one small question. That’s the whole message.
No link in the first message. The link goes in the second, after she answers. Calls Monday to Wednesday, broker opens Tuesday. Each one ends on your site, where the prices and the face are already waiting for her.
The order matters. A link in the first message turns an observation into a pitch, and a pitch gets ignored. The link in the second message is her checking you out after she already answered. That’s the thirty seconds the site was built for.
The website closes the deal your text opened. It can’t open one.
Today: twenty minutes on your first screen: headline, prices, delivery promise, photo. Then ten one-observation messages every weekday for two weeks.
The agent opener scripts
One observation, one question, and the day 3 and day 10 follow-ups. Free. Then take the sixty-second roadmap quiz and I tell you what to fix first.
Get the scriptsGet my roadmapStraight answers
- Why isn’t my real estate photography website getting clients?
- Because agents don’t find photographers on websites. They hear a name from a text or a broker open and then check the site. Fix the first screen, then send the messages that bring her there.
- What should a real estate photographer’s homepage show?
- Packages and prices on the first screen, the delivery promise above the fold, and a photo of you. Drop "photographer" from the headline; ours says "Real Estate Marketing."
- Should I put a link to my website in a cold message to an agent?
- Not in the first one. One observation about her listing and one question. The link goes in the second message, after she replies.
Related questions
Julian Lundgren sold real estate for ten years before he shot a listing for money. He runs Cineminn, a Minneapolis real estate photography studio, and writes these answers from the agent’s side of the table. Send a question to info@cineminn.com.