The most expensive phrase that you don’t want to hear in real estate is: “I didn’t know that you would do that.”

I don’t want anyone to say, “I didn’t know that you would sell a fourplex in Westchester because I thought you were a luxury agent in Manhattan Beach.” I don’t want anyone thinking that when they say, “I sold this $2 million townhome over in whatever little neighboring city outside of Lower East Side Manhattan — I didn’t know that you would do that.”

That’s the fundamental unlock of services undefined.

Why Most Real Estate Marketing Doesn’t Work

Most of you know one of the big challenges in the industry is when we talk about marketing — whether it’s online or offline — two things happen consistently. About 90% of the marketing, in my opinion, falls into two categories:

Category 1 — I refer to as Sales Tourette’s. What is Sales Tourette’s? “Call me, now’s a great time. The market is hot. Call me.” Sales Tourette’s.

Category 2 — Social proof. “I just sold something. Call me. I sold another one. I sold a lot. Call me, call me, call me.” Or a legal ego brag show: “I sold a billion. You should call me. I’m number one. You should call me.”

Generally speaking, it’s about 90% of the marketing online and offline in the industry. And so it’s no wonder that so many of you have almost a negative association with marketing — because both of those mildly work. I don’t say that they don’t work. They mildly work. Not something that makes you excited. Not something that drives enthusiasm and creativity to your marketing.

For me, there was a huge moment where I realized that the truth was, we’re not really marketing our true services. The services that you all do and perform on a regular basis — that’s the stuff that we really need to be creating marketing campaigns for.

The Golden Era of Value-Driven Marketing

Today, with the unlock of AI as our partner in creating — (A) defining the services, and then (B) identifying the right target audience for that service, and then writing extraordinary copywriting to produce appointments — it’s unbelievable. Prior to having AI as a partner to help us unlock all of this, it was really hard to do.

I need you to realize that today is the golden era of value-driven marketing that literally books appointments for you at will.

The Season and Services Framework

The season helps us unlock these different services. If we go into the season at the beginning of the year and we’re moving towards the spring market, what is the service that we should be marketing aggressively right now and booking appointments?

The service is answering what all of your future clients, friends, and geographic farms are thinking about in January, February, and March. If they’re considering selling in May, what are they thinking about right now? “What should I do to prepare the property?” That’s what’s in their mind.

There are a variety of ways they think about that too:

• Some people just want to get a cash offer fast.
• Some people are thinking, “What are the DIY, what are some of the cheapest and easiest ways that I can prepare the property so I can get a little bit of a better result?”
• Some people are thinking, “What can I do to invest $20,000–$30,000 so that I can make $200,000 on the back end?”

My question to all of you is: do you have a service for those consultations? You need to name it — name this service — and then start telling and signaling to your community that you have this service and that if they need it, here’s how to do it with you. That’s the missing piece. We’re not marketing the services.

Don’t Forget the Buy Side

All of the buyers considering buying a home in January, February, and March have been prepping themselves to purchase in April, May, and June. Consider offering these services:

• Buyer consultation services
• First time home buyer services
• Trade up services
• Relocation services
• Downsizing buyer services

These are the services that your consumer is wanting right now. But our marketing is: “Are you ready? Now’s a good time, call me.” And they’re over here, needing you. So when we lose business, this is the big problem.

How You Lose Business Without Even Knowing It

Thousands of times a year, a great real estate agent will have a friend, a previous client, or a lead in their database right now. That lead wants to sell. Someone in their neighborhood lists the property with a good agent. That lead, friend, or client goes over to the open house, meets the agent — just doing their own research, their own due diligence.

And that agent, if they’re good, will close your opportunity with two statements:

1. “Would you like me to walk through your property and give you a plan of how to prepare your home before you put it on the market?”
2. “Would you like me to give you a little bit of insights into where today’s buyers are willing to pay for your unique property?”

And your client — your friend, your person in your database — is going to say yes to that offer. The person who was planning on calling you when they were ready — that other agent just earned the business.

There’s that statistic from the National Association of Realtors: when they work with you, about 90% of buyers say they will absolutely work with you again. But when we do the survey of all sellers every year, only about 20–25% actually worked with the same agent that helped them buy the home. So there’s a mismatch in there. We have to solve this problem.

Using AI to Define Your Services and Target Audience

Here’s a prompt you can copy and paste into your preferred AI tool (ChatGPT, Gemini, etc.):

Act as a real estate marketing analyst. I want you to identify the top three types of home buyers (and/or home sellers) currently active in the [city name] real estate market. For each group, include their situation, their biggest frustration, and what type of help they need as a real estate agent. Keep the answers concise and practical.

You’ll get results like: lifestyle relocation buyers, move-up local families, second home lifestyle investors — and on the seller side: long-time equity sellers, lifestyle change sellers, and strategic trade-up sellers. For me, it’s the confirmation. I’m the local expert. Are they confirming the right patterns here?

Define Your High-Value Services With AI

Once you’ve identified your buyer and seller personas, use this follow-up prompt:

Based as a top real estate strategist, based upon the buyer and seller opportunities identified above, list eight specific services a real estate agent could offer that would genuinely help these consumers. Examples of services might include: preparing a home for sale, trade-up buyer plan, property preparation strategy.

Examples of high-value services AI might surface for you:

• Home value equity strategy review
• Home preparation and listing optimization plan
• Buy before you sell strategy session
• Off-market property search
• Lifestyle relocation consultation
• Second home and investment analysis
• Downsizing next-chapter planning
• Keep vs. sell wealth analysis

The StoryBrand SB7 Framework: You Are the Guide, Not the Hero

One of my favorite marketing frameworks is Donald Miller’s StoryBrand — specifically the SB7 framework from Building a StoryBrand. The concept is simple but powerful: the goal of your brand, services, and marketing is that you are the guide, not the hero.

When we look at 90% of the marketing in the industry — “I sold the home fast, I sold the home for top dollar, call me” — who’s the hero? The agent. But who should be the hero? The homeowner.

When we send marketing signals that say “I’m number one” and “I sold a billion in sales,” we’re signaling that we’re the hero, not the homeowners and the buyers.

Here’s how you can apply the SB7 framework with AI. Just go to your preferred AI chat and ask: “Do you know the StoryBrand SB7 framework?” — and the AI will know exactly what it is. That is incredible marketing genius that we all now get to use for every one of our services to create extraordinary, amazing marketing assets.

Creating a StoryBrand Marketing Email With AI

Here’s the prompt:

Act as a StoryBrand copywriter. Write a marketing message for [your company name] real estate agents offering the service of preparing the home for the spring market. Use the StoryBrand SB7 framework — the customer, their problem, the agent as the guide, the plan, the call to action, and the success outcome. Write this as a short email that would encourage homeowners to schedule a consultation.

The AI will produce an email with a subject line, the customer’s problem, how you (the guide) help, a simple 3-step plan, a clear call to action, and the success outcome — like selling faster, for a stronger price, because buyers see the value immediately.

Campaign Maximization: Easy, Intermediate, and Advanced

Once you’ve got a great service and a great message, it’s time to maximize the campaign. Here’s how to think about it:

Easy (Do These First)

• Email blast to your database
• Facebook post (simple text + image)
• Instagram post
• LinkedIn post
• Google Business Profile post

You can even use a simple prompt to repurpose: “Convert this email above into a Facebook post, a LinkedIn post, and a Google Business Profile post. Keep each concise and engaging.”

Intermediate (More Engaging, Better Response)

• Short-form video (Instagram Reels, Facebook Reels, YouTube Shorts, LinkedIn short video)
• Carousel posts — Gary Vaynerchuk says carousels are performing the best after video
• Blog post — try a prompt like: “Write a 1,700 word blog article titled ‘How to Prepare Your Home for the Spring Market.’ Make it educational and helpful for homeowners.”

Advanced (High-Impact, Long-Term)

• Long-form YouTube video (5–10 minutes, fully SEO-optimized)
• Ultimate guide custom to your marketplace — fully SEO and AEO optimized. This is a huge unlock for getting AI recommendations. You can host it as a page on your website and also use it as a lead magnet.

Your Total Addressable Market

Now that we know we’ve got unbelievable services to offer, we can know exactly who in your marketplace we need to be sending these messages to. Let’s talk about what I refer to as your total addressable market.

Here’s a quick example:

• Facebook friends: 1,000
• Facebook business page followers: 200
• Instagram followers: 500
• LinkedIn connections: 500
• Email database: 4,000

That’s 7,300 people you have access to right now — for free. That’s your total addressable market. The purpose of marketing is to book appointments. Do you think you can get maybe two, three, four appointments out of your 7,300? That is where this becomes fun.

Build Your Marketing Calendar Around Seasons and Services

If you’re practicing good pattern recognition, you would be able to go, “During this month, this season, this is the service that I should be signaling to my market to book appointments.” Seasonality and services.

Right now, looking at March, April, and May — it’s time to think: what’s the one service you’re going to run a campaign maximization on this first two weeks of March to book appointments? And then what about March 15th through the end of the month?

If you’re new to this, maybe it’s two marketing campaigns per month. If you’ve made it this far in this training, it’s probably evidently clear now that yes — hiring a virtual marketing assistant to help you with all of this is a great idea.

If you are a solo agent struggling with how to accomplish all of this and you don’t really have a huge GCI volume business yet, yes — hiring a lower cost virtual assistant that can, with an AI tool and this training, create a marketing campaign for you for the next 90 days, the next six months to a year — that one marketing assistant could absolutely help you increase your income and results.

Ready to Stop Leaving Appointments on the Table?

If you are not a part of the Leveraged Marketing Mastermind, join us live for free and get on the email newsletter so that you can get live recordings, summaries, and any of the playbooks we’re developing. All you have to do is sign up for the Leveraged Marketing Mastermind newsletter and live training. I would love to see you on the live training so that we can interact and you can ask questions.

Stop letting clients say “I didn’t know you would do that.” Start marketing your true services — and let the appointments come to you.

Join the Leveraged Marketing Mastermind — live training, playbooks & ongoing support: https://patrick-ferry.kit.com/lmm

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