Why don't real estate agents reply to my cold messages?

Because the message is about you and the list is random. A four-sentence intro with a portfolio and rates reads as homework and marks you as the discount option. Send one observation about her listing and one question, to agents with active listings.

How many realtors should I message to get real estate photography clients?

Twenty-five right ones beat a hundred random names. Pull agents with active listings in your area and send ten a day. An agent listing this month needs photos this month.

Should I include my rates and portfolio in a cold message to a realtor?

No. The rates line tells the good agents you're the cheap option, and the link is work she has to click. Pricing comes in the close, after she's replied.

Answers › Getting agents

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I messaged 100 realtors and nobody replied. What now?

I’m in Dallas. I cold-messaged about a hundred realtors with my portfolio and rates and got nothing. Not a no. A couple of ’seen.’ Do I need to send a thousand?Asked by a photographer on Reddit, r/RealEstatePhotography (Dallas)

No. A thousand of the same message gets you zero a thousand times, and you burn through the agents in your own city doing it. It wasn’t the volume. It was who you messaged and what you said: a message about you, sent to a list of names who were never going to reply.

Your message was about you

Read the message you sent a hundred times. It went something like: "Hi, I’m a local real estate photographer, I’d love to work with you, here’s my portfolio, here’s a discount."

Four sentences. Three of them about you. Her listing doesn’t appear once.

And the rates line did its own damage. The good agents in Dallas read it and filed you as the discount option. The ones who shop on price were never going to pay you properly anyway.

The couple of ’seen’ you got are the honest result. She opened it, saw four lines about a stranger, and went back to her day. Nothing in the message asked her anything she could answer.

Twenty-five right agents beat a hundred random names

The part nobody wants to hear: most of your hundred were never going to reply. Not because of the message. Because of who they were.

Most of the hundred had one stale listing, or sell two houses a year. A two-deal agent doesn’t need a photographer this month, and she won’t next month either.

An agent listing this month needs photos this month. That’s the whole filter. Pull 25 agents with active listings in your area tonight. New Dallas listings on Zillow, narrowed to the listing agents, gets you there in an evening.

Twenty-five is a list you can actually work. A hundred is a list you blast once and never touch again, which is what happened.

A hundred random agents is a worse list than twenty-five right ones.

One observation, one question

Here’s the message that gets answered. It’s shorter than your old first sentence.

"Saw the Oak Street listing went up with phone photos. You shooting those yourself, or is that the brokerage’s guy?"

I got those messages for ten years on the agent side and deleted almost all of them. Not because I had a photographer. Because answering meant work. This one she can answer in four words.

That’s the whole difference between your hundred and these twenty-five. Your message asked her to review a photographer. This one asks her about her own house, and the answer is already in her head.

No pitch, no link, no price. And before you send it, five minutes of warming: follow her, like two posts, leave one real comment, so she’s seen your name before the message lands.

Ten of the twenty-five tomorrow. Not all of them at once. The list is for working, not for blasting.

The line

Saw the Oak Street listing went up with phone photos. You shooting those yourself, or is that the brokerage’s guy?

The big lesson

Volume doesn’t fix a message nobody wants to answer.

Do this

Tonight, build the 25-name list from active listings. Tomorrow, send the opener to ten of them.

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 scripts Get my roadmap

Straight answers

Why don’t real estate agents reply to my cold messages?: Because the message is about you and the list is random. A four-sentence intro with a portfolio and rates reads as homework and marks you as the discount option. Send one observation about her listing and one question, to agents with active listings.
How many realtors should I message to get real estate photography clients?: Twenty-five right ones beat a hundred random names. Pull agents with active listings in your area and send ten a day. An agent listing this month needs photos this month.
Should I include my rates and portfolio in a cold message to a realtor?: No. The rates line tells the good agents you’re the cheap option, and the link is work she has to click. Pricing comes in the close, after she’s replied.