Over the past several years, through real estate purchases of my own, referral of friends/families to agents, and with the knowledge I've gained directing the technology operations of a 300+ agent brokerage an idea came to me:

Clients DON'T have a good way to find agents.

Look at everything you're doing as an agent. 95% of it revolves around your current listings. What do you put in the Real Estate Book? Listings. Newspaper (if you still do that)? Listings. Even in your online marketing, it's listings everywhere. Think about it: your website, your brokerage website, your franchise website, Google Housing, Trulia, the list goes on and on. It's your listings.

But everyone has access to those same tools. So, as a buyer - I can find that house with any agent. As a seller, I can choose any agent to put my house up for sale, because they all put them in the same place (or at least have equal opportunity to do so).

We need to personally connect with potential clients.

It's a bit hard to connect with someone personally if we don't know them yet, though - isn't it? After all, I did say "potential" clients. We could tell people about ourselves on our website - but even my brother is a real estate agent, and I won't read all that text (heck, this post is even getting too long). Plus, I'd have to know that the agent exists before I know to go to their website. The same goes for brokerage websites, and to a lesser extent exists even with franchise websites. There are web marketing tools out there, and plenty of places online have your contact info already posted, but they don't provide any service to buyers and sellers - so they aren't used.

Here's how you connect with clients on a personal basis.

It starts with matching buyers and sellers to an agent who means something to them. Shares the same ideals, speaks the same language, has kids the same age, has a deep cultural tie to them. That's what I have created at Pinpoint Agent (www.PinpointAgent.com). It is a unique patent-pending search application that's free for the consumer and (for at least the next 6 months) free for agents that use the promotional code 'activerain' when they register.

I really want your feedback on this system. I want you to sign up, look around the website, and tell me if I'm on the right track with how buyers and sellers can find you. I want to know what other technology knowledge you need to be effective, so that I can help you with that too.

Thanks for reading...

Jonathan