Jim Cronin: ReadTomato.com Real Estate Website Expert

REE #285 Transcript

[00:00:00] Jim Cronin: There's no excuse for why you can't create a lot of great content, but it just goes back to—do you understand your target audience's interests and questions and concerns and objections and, you know, anxieties? And can you build enough content to prove to them that you're the best answer? That's it. That's the formula.

[00:00:41] Tracy Hayes: Hey, welcome back to the Real Estate Excellence Podcast, where we bring you the voices behind the strategies that drive success in real estate today. In this episode, we're diving into the world of real estate websites, content marketing, and digital visibility. Our guest has been at the forefront of helping agents create powerful online platforms since the early 2000s. He's a pioneer in real estate blogging, a master of brand storytelling, and a driving force behind systems that turn static websites into lead-generating machines. From building irresistible brands and ensuring they're found on Google and AI search results—and by the right people—this expert leads a team and creates content your customers can't help but click. He's also passionate about delivering not just results, but a client experience built on excitement, happiness, and growth. Let's welcome Jim Cronin to the show.

[00:01:35] Jim Cronin: What's up, Tracy?

[00:01:36] Tracy Hayes: Jim, I appreciate it. And I put a little note hidden here—full disclosure: Jim and I grew up together, basically. And I have a picture here—I'm gonna put myself on full screen so I can get the whole picture in here. But this is a picture right here—this is the greatest Little League team ever created. Let me get that in the camera correctly there. Yeah. Jim is right there beside that—that's my dad as the coach. I'm at the other end, at the top right, I guess, of the screen.

[00:02:00] Jim Cronin: Yeah. Yeah. You were the Reds, right?

[00:02:02] Tracy Hayes: That's right. Good old days there.

[00:02:04] Jim Cronin: And I have that picture framed, and it hangs in my home office, and I just wanted to bring it in today and share that with you.

[00:02:10] Jim Cronin: That's so cool. Yeah. You also shared the same school bus for several years. Two for life, babies.

[00:02:21] Tracy Hayes: For life. Every—yeah. I mean, ever since elementary school, all the way until we were driving, basically, and weren't taking the bus anymore in our little township of Orleans. But Jim and I—both of us—have gotten into the real estate industry: myself in mortgages, but Jim has dabbled—has gone in and really focuses his company, RE Tomato. I always want to call it Red Tomato 'cause it's natural to drop that.

[00:02:46] Jim Cronin: We do pronounce it Red Tomato, but it's—you know, phonetically, a lot of times you hear RE Tomato as well.

[00:02:51] Tracy Hayes: Alright. I was correcting myself—I was going through my notes this morning, preparing for the show. Jim, tell us a little bit—you graduated from Colby. Jim was also a great tennis player as well, and you did some instructing, but eventually you got into the real estate industry, marketing, and the online presence. Tell us how you—what you were doing after Colby, and then what led you into the business?

[00:03:15] Jim Cronin: Yeah, I mean, the quick story is I was always a little bit on the geeky side of the tracks. I went to computer camp and, you know, tennis camp, and always was looking for an opportunity. Right around that dot-com bubble in the early 2000s, there were all kinds of job opportunities, and I got a little tired of, you know, waiting tables and that kind of thing in San Diego. So I answered an ad—and what do you know? I was actually really good at helping this company build websites and sell websites to real estate agents. And I really liked the connection to real estate agents, 'cause my dad had been a broker for about 42 years. So I had some understanding of the business and the ins and outs and how it all worked. So it was a natural fit for me to speak to real estate agents. I could translate the tech real well.

[00:04:00] Jim Cronin: And, websites were a new thing back in 2000, 2001, 2002. And I really just loved it and took off with it. Then, WordPress came out in 2006 or so, and I saw it as a better mousetrap to work and generate leads and build websites for people. So I started my own company at that time called Real Estate Tomato, and we leveraged blogging—which was super new at the time—as a marketing strategy, as a way to be found. It was amazing. You wrote it and they came. And it worked for years.

[00:04:35] Tracy Hayes: Dig a little bit into it, 'cause I've heard you say that before. When we were talking with Lyman in a previous call, you mentioned that blogging was big when you first got started. And it's still around, right? Is it still important in your strategy?

[00:04:47] Jim Cronin: It's back bigger than ever, actually. There were many years in the mid-2010s there where it became less important because everyone was trying it, and the clutter was there, and the results weren't quite as good as they used to be—and the promise that came with it.

And it was also hard. Blogging is something that, if you don't keep your foot on the gas, then it doesn't work. So having to put that commitment in—when you started to introduce things like social media, people were already trying to post every day on Facebook, and then on Instagram—and they couldn't keep up with blogging too. It was just too much to ask, right? Of an agent or a business to do. But the reason I say it's so back is because AI overviews, AI conversation, the consensus that they're building for answers—when you do AI chatbots—a lot of that content is coming from people's blog articles because that's where the authority is. People who take the time to explain and build their knowledge into, you know, chapters and chapters of information on their site through the blog—is how AI is determining who's the authority on which topics, and they're building the consensus off of that information. So it's back, baby. It's huge.

[00:05:55] Tracy Hayes: Well, what's interesting—and I mean, it's 'cause I don't understand it, and I'm sure if I don't understand it, there's probably listeners here that may or may not understand it—finding blogs. Like, I'm blogging my website for the show. It's a company that specializes in websites for podcasts, and one of the options is blogs. And I didn't do it at the beginning, but I'm going back now through all my episodes and creating blogs off of each of those, and obviously mentioning the agent and how great they are, you know—all those kind of things. But is someone actually—or where are they popping up? I don't even know where to run into a blog unless I like go on your site and hit blogs and read your blog.

[00:06:34] Jim Cronin: Yeah.

[00:06:35] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[00:06:35] Jim Cronin: Yeah. So the way blogs are being found—and the way they've always really been found—is through long-tail searches. And what I mean by that is, it's not the top searches like "homes for sale in San Diego" or whatever. It's the search where you've got a string of words together...

Jim Cronin: …is very unique. So it's like a one-to-one, like, "Is this community," you know, "or this building in Miami pet-friendly?" or whatever. And asking questions where it's much more detailed in the situation. And blogging is where you're trying to— I always define it as this: if you wanna be a good blogger, you just gotta get in the shoes of who your target audience is and find out what questions they're asking of the internet. Yeah. If you can figure out what those questions are and you can build blog articles that are the best answers to those questions, it's a one-to-one match. You're going to be a competitive placement for those answers. And that was true back in the early 2000s when we did it and it was kicking ass. And now it's even more so true. If you wanna try to get into those AI overviews and into the AI consensus— The questions are much longer now. We build context when we ask questions using AI. Where, when we used Google before, we would just search with keywords. Now we're trying to build storyline, and you're trying to explain yourself better to the AI so that you get a better answer. And that's when we start finding that the blogs are really pumping in there— 'Cause people have taken the time to consider: What are the questions of my target audience? And how can I build great answers around them?

[00:08:02] Tracy Hayes: So AI is going out there researching, it's seeing the blog and almost matching apples to apples. Like, "XYZ Apartments are pet-friendly," and so the customer's asking, "Is XYZ Apartment pet-friendly?" And boom—it's finding that word-for-word match, per se, in that blog, and then leading that.

[00:08:24] Jim Cronin: That's 100%.

[00:08:25] Tracy Hayes: Okay, now I understand the strategy. Okay?

[00:08:26] Jim Cronin: So in the old days too, when you had to pump out all this content by yourself without machines helping you, it was harder. But there was less competition. So you would see great results. Now anyone can create content, and the machines can help you so much. So there's no excuse for why you can't create a lot of great content. But it just goes back to: Do you understand your target audience's interests, and questions, and concerns, and objections, and, you know, anxieties? And can you build enough content to prove to them that you're the best answer? That's it. That's the formula.

[00:08:53] Tracy Hayes: Alright, so you start—websites are, you know, you're breaching that gap. Breaching that bridge for agents going from, as I'm sure your father used to talk...

about, where we all saw the magazine by the MLS that would come out every couple of weeks with what was being listed—to now going real-time.

And then when did the MLSs start to come online to where we're starting to go on people's individual websites and searching for homes?

[00:09:18] Jim Cronin:
Yeah, actually, back in 1999, when I first started sniffing around a company called Z57 in San Diego, which was a real estate website provider—

HomeFinder had just hit the scene.

And by 2000, they had signed an agreement with them to be able to showcase properties on the site.

And that was our main hook to getting realtors to be interested in having a website back in ’01, ’02, ’03—
Was: We can automatically display your listings on your website.

You don't have to do any extra work.

And we can also offer a search, you know, with the basic things: bedroom, bathroom, price range, etc., location.

And it's been around for quite a while.

It's a little bit more nuanced now, and there's a lot of cool new tools coming down the pike for that.

But yes—putting an IDX on your website’s been one of the main hooks all along.

[00:10:03] Tracy Hayes:
So as you start your business in the mid-2000s here, what are the types of things that are attracting agents? And then give us kind of a timeline—like, what were the hot things then versus what are the hot things now that you're doing for agents to move the needle for them?

[00:10:20] Jim Cronin:
Well, in the beginning, you know, you didn’t have a lot of people who believed that the internet was actually an effective place to attract an audience.

Right. They thought it was kind of a—not necessarily fad—but more work than it was worth.

Jim Cronin:
So, just getting a great website up and getting your brand on it and having some claim on there was really effective.

And then blogging was the fuel for us that we saw was how you could compete against a lot of the big-box websites because they couldn't cover all these little topics.

So you were being found for all kinds of things.

And the neat thing about blogging—and this is weird, I'm thinking about, I haven’t thought about this in such a long time—like 2006, ’07, ’08, the conversation was actually on your website.

And this was so unique, where you could build a community on your site.

So you could write an article about whatever, and then the comment section wasn’t full of spam. It wasn’t full of fake Rolex watch opera do, or you know, Viagra pill or whatever that you see in there now, which is insane.

We shut all comments off on all websites now. We don’t even bother.

But for three or four years there, it was the community.

And there was a lot of feedback from your audience, and you were building leads and getting that like endorphin rush before social media—where, hey, people are seeing my stuff, and they're commenting on it.

Then Facebook came out, and you know, YouTube, and all this stuff, and all of the conversation just moved into these social spaces.

It was easier to post on there. You could build a community of your friends and your sphere automatically—you didn’t have to hope they came to your website.

Everyone was sort of on it together.

So the shift moved off of your website from having that conversation, and I think there was sort of a dark period of ineffectiveness of a website, where social media injected itself…

[00:12:00]
…as the thing that everyone wanted to do.

And your website just became more of a brochure for you.

And that was why I actually changed brands. We decided to build a model around how to create effective content when there’s so much noise on the internet.

And they’re all—it’s a war zone. They’re clamoring for attention.

How can you cut through with a strategy that’s gonna make sense?

How can you build better brand messaging? Tell better stories?

How can you relate to your audience better? How can you cut to the chase and build: a statement of claim, empathy, visual proof, calls to action…

All of these things were really evolved into building a much more effective way to communicate.

[00:12:39] Tracy Hayes:
Well, you're competing against social media, right? I mean, all those things that you just talked about are all the things that social media tries to do.

[00:12:46] Jim Cronin:
Yep.
And we didn’t necessarily have to fight that way early.

It was just a matter of just getting something up—a nice brochure.

And now we have to try to build that content as a strategy and brand as an effective way to connect.

[00:12:57] Tracy Hayes:
Mm-hmm.
I'm noticing just on your website—and I imagine this is probably your guys—there’s a lot of color, a lot of, obviously, people's faces on there.

ReadTomato.com, for the listeners—R-E-A-D Tomato dot com—is Jim’s company site.

You know, obviously, this is what you do.

So if everyone's got a critique—"Hey, do I want a site like this?"—and it is amazing.

A lot of color, a lot of images that pop out to you, and it's alive.

And obviously, you know, stimulates our senses, I guess, right? Is that really the goal?

[00:13:33] Jim Cronin:
Yeah. And our website isn’t meant to be a reflection of what we would do for you.

I specialize in the real estate industry, as well as a few others that we straddle...

Jim Cronin:
We build sites that don’t look anything like what we’ve built for ourselves.

It’s about understanding your audience and how to get their attention—
And then doing the same for the realtor.

You know, mistakes people often make is they try to build the site for themselves, almost as if it’s a room in their house.

[00:14:00]
Right? Instead of trying to build it as an inviting place for connecting with their own audience.

[00:14:02] Tracy Hayes:
Interesting. Well, you said one of the mistakes people do is—
What are some of the mistakes you have made over the years?

Because, you know, I think any great entrepreneur—there’s a little bit of failing forward.
If you haven’t failed, you really haven’t gone far enough. Right?

What are some of the things that you’ve, you know, come across and evolved your company to be as recognized as it is?
Because I—in our previous conversations we've had—you’ve got clients all over the country.

[00:14:29] Jim Cronin:
Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Always have. Yep.

So I’d say that some of the mistakes that I see I’ve made—and that I see people make over and over and over again—is just the messaging is unclear on how it is that you’re able to serve the audience that you’re attracting.

You start making it about yourself.
You start making it about what you’re capable of.
Start making it about awards, or about the community, even.

You know, in real estate, it’s not about that.

The buyer or the seller who’s on your website—they’re looking for solutions to their challenges. That’s why they’re there.

They’re not there to search for properties or necessarily learn about one community versus the other.

[00:15:00]
At this point, they have challenges.

They’ve found you through—hopefully—a blog article, or some sort of brand, or some sort of connection: a newsletter, a referral, whatever it is.

But when they come into the website, if your first message isn’t:
This is how I can help you.
I see you, you know, visitor, and I understand what you’ve come here for.
I recognize your challenges.

I empathize with those challenges.
I’m capable of solving them and helping you—guiding you—through the process of getting from where you’re at to a solved problem.

Here’s some solutions I offer.
Here’s some proof of how that happens.
And people really like how I’ve done that for them—that are very much like you.

Let’s get started.

If you don’t have that messaging—and I’ve failed in that way many times—
And the cheese moves all the time, like—
Are you targeting the right concerns? What are their challenges?

If you stick on the same one for too long, then your site isn’t as effective as if you were paying attention to…

[00:16:00]
…you know, who your target audience is and what their main concerns are.

So if you’re failing on making that connection, then your website just won’t work.

[00:16:06] Tracy Hayes:
How do you evaluate?

Because you’ve got customers in Miami, you’ve got customers in Chicago and Dallas, California—
Everybody’s a little different.

Obviously, customers are coming to your site with different personal issues of why they’re moving.

When you’re sitting down with an agent and you’re going to create this site for them—or help them create this site for them, however you put it—

What are some of those things that you’re asking them to kind of dig out, the important things, so you can match the site to them and their personality and, obviously, their customers that we were just talking about—and their needs?

[00:16:43] Jim Cronin:
Yeah. So it starts with persona building.

Like, we want to know—who do we really want to target with this website?

Jim Cronin:
Who are you willing to work with?

Because in real estate, you are working with, you know, all age groups, all credit scores, all budgets—
Anywhere in a 15-mile-out direction you go...

[00:17:00]
…right? Then again, whatever—or further. That’s your business plan and availability.

Your website cannot be a reflection of that.
Your website needs to be targeted to a couple—at most, maybe a few—particular personas.

Because if you spread the message too thin, you're trying to please everybody—
You know the statement: You end up pleasing nobody.

Right?
You just—you don't really seem like you're the jack of one trade; you're the jack of all trades.

And someone’s looking to find an expert specialist who connects with them.

And that again goes back to that beginning message:
If you're not building a brand message and a story from the beginning that says, "I see you, and I’m here to help you," then the site's not gonna be effective.

So we need to back the bus up, figure out:
Who is the who?

And let's start trying to figure out what are their concerns.

You know, and if you’ve been in business long enough, you obviously know who you want to work with—
Who you enjoy working with,
The most rewarding,
The people who you connect with best,
How you serve them better.

And we build that profile.

And then from there, we start to pull it apart and analyze their behavior,
Analyze their habits,
Analyze their current situation,
And how they’re going to be searching out someone like you.

And at what point do they ask for help?

And then we build solutions around that moment.

So if you’re not taking that into consideration, I think you've gotten off on the wrong foot.

If you’re like,
"Oh, I want a website that’s pretty, that has my awards and my headshot and all this stuff,"
You’re thinking about you—not,
"Hey, I want to build a website that serves this particular audience."

And then you've got yourself off on the right foot.

[00:18:28] Tracy Hayes:
I have not done so, but obviously when you’re talking there, I’m like, hmm.

I'd love to go on some of these sites.

And on your Read Tomato site—which I've got up here in front of me—
Yeah, under “Everything Tomato,” it has “Customer Love,” obviously, and you have pages and pages of your customers saying great things about you and your company.

[00:18:46] Jim Cronin:
I’ve been doing it a long time.

[00:18:48] Tracy Hayes:
Yeah. But I’m just gonna—

[00:18:51] Jim Cronin:
Let me give you an example.

Here’s a site that I think knocks it out of the park in so many ways.

And it's not pretentious, and it's not overwhelming.

And it's what you can expect by doing it right.

It’s—
TheLakeLife.com

Pretty simple domain—The Lake Life—remember? Alright.

They’re not selling mansions. They’re not, you know—
They don’t have an unlimited marketing budget.

They’re just doing it right.

TheLakeLife.com

[00:19:17] Tracy Hayes:
Alright.

[00:19:18] Jim Cronin:
It’s just such a good example of doing it right.

[00:19:23] Tracy Hayes:
Alright, well obviously this site’s on your mind.

You know—Lake Life—“Discover yours in Southwest Michigan.” Right?

[00:19:29] Jim Cronin:
Yep.

[00:19:30] Tracy Hayes:
Okay. Walk us through, if you can recall, working with this client—
You know, and obviously coming in and developing this—
Versus, you know, I’m sure you have other sites that might look totally different.

But what were they telling you the needs are, and so forth?

[00:19:51] Jim Cronin:
So their target audience is typically people with some money in Chicago that are looking for a second home, a vacation home, a place where they might, you know, raise their family during the summers, and then eventually probably sell it as an investment later.

Mm-hmm. Or they’re also looking for people who are retired.

Right. And they’re just—this is it. “I want the lake life as I, you know, fish my golden years away.”

Mm-hmm. And then there’s a new audience too they’re targeting with remote work, where—you know—people who can afford it, they’ve got a little bit more money, they’re in tech or something, and they can do Zoom calls instead of in-person calls, and they can just work on their computer and love the lake lifestyle.

So knowing that, right, we want to give an opportunity for the audience to feel like they’re dealing with people who get the lake life.

What’s it like to live at a lake?
There’s over a hundred lakes in the Southwest Michigan area—
And everyone is confused.

No one knows where to start:

• What’s good for me?
• What’s going to serve my family’s needs?
• What’s in my budget?
• What is the right home?
• What’s the best investment decision?

All of these questions. It’s insane.

[00:20:54] Tracy Hayes:
So they want to find an agent who can deliver them those answers, right?

Because they—if they can’t necessarily find all that online, per se—directly, specifically what they’re looking for, they need someone who’s on the ground.

The real estate agent that knows these lakes. Am I right?

[00:21:09] Jim Cronin:
Well, exactly. Yeah.

And in this case, you know, some of these lakes are very tiny, and there’s only 15 or 25 properties around the lake.
Others are much larger, and there’s hundreds of properties around the lake.

[00:21:21] Tracy Hayes:
Right.

[00:21:22] Jim Cronin:
And some of them offer no wake, you know, with your boat.

Others have a particular kind of fish that is endangered—you’re not supposed to fish, you know?

There’s all these different rules—about frontage, and dock rights, and water rights, and all these things that if you don’t have someone that you’re working with to help you make good decisions, you’re just not gonna have a good time.

Or you’re gonna get paralyzed trying to figure out what is best for you and you won’t do it. Right?

So these guys, the site—I know there’s a homepage, and that’s interesting. But the real meat of this website is if you go into the “Search Lake Properties” and go to the Area Lake Directory—

They don’t cover all 100 lakes.

They have like 30 favorite ones.

And they’ve built this entire directory all around—yes, around—and shot aerial shots with drones.

[00:22:00]
And then put all of this content together around these different lakes.

And each page has the amenities, and drive times, and the types of properties, and why it’s great, and, you know, the statistics about the lake’s depth, and the fish, and all this stuff are on each page.

It’s sort of a template of content.

And we worked with them to do all this research and build all this content.

And then they’ve got the listings on there too, right?

Because people come in because they’ve got questions.

The listings are a great way to keep them on your website.

But I’m not necessarily coming to you—
I’m trusting Zillow because I’m silly. You know, I don’t know where to start.

So I go on Zillow first, or Realtor.com, or I just, you know, find the top few things in the search results and I end up on Redfin—whatever.

I’m not coming to The Lake Life necessarily, right, to start searching for properties.

But once I get here—because I’m asking questions about the different lakes, or I’m trying to find an expert—

Now that they’ve broken all these different lakes up and they’ve explained them, and they’ve got all the listings tied to it—

[00:23:00]
Oh my gosh.

The context of that situation is so much more powerful.

Mm-hmm.

And that’s where they generate leads—crazy leads—off of this, just because they’ve taken the time to prove that they’re experts.

Lead by lake by lake.

[00:23:09] Tracy Hayes:
Because if I—and just from a simple, you know—your field is not my expertise, but what you’re saying makes total sense.

They’ve broken down every lake—at least, probably the 30 most popular or 30 closest to their office or whatever it is—

And you can look on the picture and see if it’s a small lake or if it’s a big lake, and then you’re clicking on it.

And I would imagine—just like we were talking about the blogs—the keywords that people are looking for, naturally: deep, or, you know,

"We just want..."
I know some of these lakes probably you can only have an electric motor on—

Tracy Hayes:
…probably ‘cause it’s no wake, that type of thing.

And because they’ve taken the time and inputted that information, as we’re gonna take this conversation into the AI natural language world—

When they start saying, “I’m looking at Southwest Michigan and around whatever town,” I’m sure—

[00:24:00]
“And I want a really big lake that’s naturally deep ‘cause I love to fish and water ski and all that stuff,”—Indiana Lake is possibly gonna pop up because it’s gonna have those phrases, those words: “deep lake,” “fishing,” maybe the type of fish, or whatever it is.

And because they’ve put all this on their website, AI is gonna track them to this—
To the site, and these agents.

[00:24:25] Jim Cronin:
Exactly. Yeah, yeah.

So AI doesn’t know which lakes have all those things.

They can only build a consensus based on the content that already exists on the internet.

So these guys have staked themselves as the authority on each of these lakes’ identifiable features—
And reasons that people love it, and proximity to Kalamazoo or Chicago or whatever.

And as you start to build your question in AI, you’re not just talking about “homes for sale”—you know, “lake homes for sale in Southwest Michigan.”

You might search that,
but more likely—because we now have these relationships…

[00:25:00]
…with our AI—where we understand that if I build a lot of context, I’m gonna get a really great answer and it’s gonna help me get to my needs, a better answer.

Yeah, I could click through all the blue links and try to do all my own research—
But it’s doing the research for you.

You just gotta give it enough info up front to get great results.

Mm-hmm.

And that’s where it’s pulling that authority from—is websites like this.

So when you do get your answer, it might not take you to this website,
but it cites this website.

So it says, “Oh, Indiana Lake is great for…” you know, “for your needs. You’ve described that you want to have a half-acre parcel, you know, with fishing and this, that, and the other thing.”

Indiana Lake is a great opportunity for you.

And then they see there’s a little link down there in that thing, and if you click that, it takes you to the Indiana Lake page on Lake Life.

So it’s a portal to them.

They’re the ones being chosen as the authority to answer that question—via AI.

[00:25:50] Tracy Hayes:
This is such great—anyone listening right now, just breaking this portion down of what we’re talking about, and obviously the importance of RE Tomato and what Jim’s doing to create websites like this…

That natural language is—you know, I don’t know what the statistics are this morning.

I know a couple weeks ago, 700 million people were using ChatGPT—
Let alone the other sites: ROK, and all the others.

And there’s this transition, ‘cause they don’t want to have to go through the links, as you were just mentioning.

They want to just go—take me directly to the site that’s gonna give me the answer, right?
Or give me the answer…

[00:26:28] Jim Cronin:
Give me the answer first—and I’ll decide if I want to click.

[00:26:30] Tracy Hayes:
Yeah, yeah.
Or you’ll go deeper. Yeah, exactly.

It’ll recommend the website to go to.

So I’m thinking here in Northeast Florida, as you were talking here and describing this website—

This is the perfect example to literally start with the top 20, 25 subdivisions that are going on.

Maybe you split ‘em into existing subdivisions versus new construction—
You know, type of thing to narrow it down.

‘Cause some people are just looking for new construction.

But breaking down—

We have community development districts here in Florida.

So that’s a different type of community with a lot of amenities.

So you want to put those details in there:

“This has a splash park, this has this, this has this, this has this…”

But here’s all the fees.

And it’s got—you know—versus the one that doesn’t.

And you’re basically educating AI.

[00:27:00]
And that’s why AI is gonna turn that person back toward you when someone’s asking about it. Am I—?

[00:27:24] Jim Cronin:
100%. Mm-hmm. Yep.

And then, you know, there’s another example—
You don’t have to pull it up now, but for the listeners or whatever—
If they want to see someone who’s doing exactly what you just described, where you break down subdivisions and new construction—

Summerlin, Nevada.

The team that almost just won the Little League World Series—
Speaking of Little League—
Throw a callback, right?

We were never even close.

Summerlin, Nevada—they just went to the championship and lost.

But that area is just outside of Las Vegas, and constantly doing all kinds of new construction.

And there’s dozens and dozens of tiny communities all around that area.

[00:28:00]
And there’s a client of ours—her website is NeighborhoodsInLasVegas.com—
And she’s taken the time, similar to this, to profile every single community exhaustively.

And she always updates this stuff.

And it’s a lot of work,
but it’s unreal how effective it is.

She’s everywhere you search—especially using AI—when it comes to trying to learn about these communities.

Someone who’s taken the time to put the content together is going to get the reward—
The spoils of the searches.

For sure.

[00:28:24] Tracy Hayes:
So if someone—as these customers—called you, I mean, was this a thought they had?

Or how did they approach you? What was their, I guess if you want to call it, their problem or their challenge they had?

And was it their suggestion, or was it something that you guys, over consultation and talking through it, decided this was the type of website we needed—with all the lakes broken down?

[00:28:48] Jim Cronin:
So, you know, people have mostly come to us through referral, or they see a competitor—
A client of ours—doing extremely well in ways that they’d like to do well.

So they ask us: How did you do it?
You know: What’s the formula to occupying those search results?

And content is needed. You can’t be there without it.

Mm-hmm.

So then we try to, again, go back—back up the bus, figure out:
Who we’re targeting,
What are their questions,
How is it that we’re gonna get in front of them with great content?

And then we come up with a game plan.

We call it a content mapping strategy, where we map out exactly how much content we’re gonna need in order to satisfy our strategy.

And in this case, it’s 31 lakes, you know.

In the Neighborhoods in Las Vegas lady’s website,
It’s probably somewhere around 115 communities—
But it’s taken like 10 years to build that for her.

She started with 15 communities.

[00:29:39] Tracy Hayes:
Right—well, new ones coming online all the time, right?

Jim Cronin:
Yeah, yeah.

[00:30:00] Tracy Hayes:
When you say—you mentioned content—obviously I’m looking at the lakes here.

After you get the basic information of everything about the lake—obviously the listings change, but you’re connected to the MLS, or the IDX feed or whatever to do—

Are they putting additional con—are they doing—are you suggesting that they do a blog behind this?

[00:30:05] Jim Cronin:
Yeah. So this client is actually a unique situation.

We are working with them right now through—so we've done a lot of research on what comes up when their target audience is asking AI questions about this area.

Mm-hmm.

The real estate market stuff:

• What’s available?
• Is now a good time to buy?

You know, all the typical questions where you might be digging deeper inside AI to get—you know—an answer that makes you feel comfortable about a decision that you’re trying to make.

And we’re starting to see so much information about:

• Market reports
• Drivability
• Types of real estate

Like, AI loves to try to break down all these things.

Mm-hmm.

So we reverse-engineered those results and said:
Okay, you’re coming up great for lake properties, you know—what’s available for sale and all that—
But you’re not coming up great right now for what’s going on in the market today, for example, in the AI searches.

[00:31:00]
Because AI wants what’s fresh.

They’re not gonna show a market report from 2024.

If they don’t have it, then they’re gonna default to using like Redfin or Zillow data.

But they don’t get down into the value of the lake.
They’re just telling you:

• This is the amount of homes that sold
• Price per square foot
• Days on market
• Blah blah blah

Mm-hmm.

So we figure:
Okay, great. Now that we can use these tools and create content faster—
Our goal with each of these pages, all 31 of them, is we’re going to carve out a market snapshot that’s going to be on each page.

So we’re gonna have the August market snapshot.

Then next month it’ll be the September market snapshot, and someone’s gonna come back in and update those numbers on each one of these pages.

We’re also gonna make sure we have all our drive times in place, because that’s a common question.

Also the types of properties—even though it’s kind of silly.

But here’s the big one:

Frequently Asked Questions for buyers and sellers.

We’re gonna bake ’em right into these pages.

So—
Current situation: What are the most frequent five questions we’re hearing from buyers about, you know, Baldwin Lake or whatever it is that I’m looking at right here?

[00:32:00]
And the same for sellers.

So we’re gonna pack all that new content into this website—
With the intent of coming back and changing a lot of it.

The FAQs will change seasonally,
And the market snapshots will change on a monthly basis.

Our—

[00:28:24] Tracy Hayes: So if someone, as these customers, called you and I mean, was this a, a thought they had or. how did they approach you? What was their, I guess if you wanna call it their, their problem or their challenge they had and was it their suggestion or was it something that you guys over consultation and talking through it, that this was the type of website we needed with all the lakes broken down.

[00:28:48] Jim Cronin: So, you know, people have mostly come to us through referral or they see a competitor, A client of ours. Mm-hmm. Doing extremely well in ways that they'd like to do well. So they ask us, how did you do it? You know, what's the formula to occupying those search results and content is needed? You can't be there without it. Mm-hmm. So then we try to, again, go back. Up the bus, figure out who we're targeting, what are their questions, how is it that we're gonna get in front of them with great content? And then we come up with a game plan, we call it a content mapping strategy where we map out exactly how much content we're gonna need in order to satisfy our strategy. And in this case, it's 31 links, you know, in mm-hmm. the neighborhoods in Las Vegas ladies website, it's probably somewhere around 115 communities, but it's taken like 10 years to build that for her. She started with 15 communities.

[00:29:39] Tracy Hayes: right. Well, new one's coming online all the time, right? Yeah, yeah, when you say, you mentioned content, obviously, yo, I'm looking, obviously looking at the lakes here, not. After you get the basics information of everything about the lake, obviously the listings change, but you're, you know, connected to the MLS in, or the IDX feed or whatever to do. Are they putting additional con are they doing, are you suggesting that they do a blog behind this?

[00:30:05] Jim Cronin: Yeah, so this client is actually a, a unique situation. We are working with them right now Through. So we've done a lot of research on what comes up when their target audience is asking AI questions about this area. Mm-hmm. The real estate market stuff, what's available is now a good time to buy, you know, all the typical questions where you might be digging deeper inside AI to get. You know, an answer makes you feel comfortable about a decision that you're trying to make. And we're starting to see so much information about market reports, drivability, types of real estate. Like AI loves to try to break down all these things. Mm-hmm. So we're reverse engineered those results and say, okay, you're coming up great for lake properties, you know what's available for sale and all that, but you're not coming up great right now for what's going on in the market today. For example, in, the AI

[00:31:00] Jim Cronin: searches, 'cause AI wants what's fresh. They're not gonna show a market report from 2024. If they don't have it, then they're gonna re result, result to using like Redfin or Zillow data. But they don't get down into the value of the lake. They're just telling you, oh, this is the amount of homes that sold price per square foot, days on market, blah, blah, blah. Mm-hmm. So we figure, okay, great. Now that we can use these tools and create content faster, our goal with each of these pages, all 31 of them, is we're going to carve out a market snapshot that's going to be on each page. So we're gonna have the August month market snapshot. Then next month it'll be the September market snapshot and someone's gonna come back in and update those numbers on each one of these pages. We're also gonna make sure we have all our drive times in place, because that's a common question. Also, the types of properties, even though it's kind of silly, but here's the big one. Frequently asked questions for buyers and sellers. We're gonna bake 'em right into these pages. So, current situation, what are the most frequent five questions we're hearing from buyers about, you know, Baldwin Lake or whatever it's that I'm looking at right

[00:32:00] Jim Cronin: here. And the same for sellers. So we're gonna pack all that new content into this website with the intent of coming back and changing a lot of it. The FAQs will change seasonally and the market snapshots will change on a monthly basis. Our expectation based on our testing is that that's gonna dominate because he already does so well when it comes to being found through AI and, and SEO. Just from the content that we've created that we thought, Hey, there's some gaps here. Let's fill those gaps with regular, changing, really authoritative content because it's not that AI doesn't want to choose Zillow, it's just their only opportunity When people are asking about how's the market right now? So it pulls the data. If you can leverage a boots on the ground realtor who's actually got experience in dealing with buyers and sellers in the area, AI recognizes that connection to the market. And if you're putting updated information, here's August numbers, here's September numbers. These sites are going to be the ones that are showing up when people are asking ai, how's the market in southwest Michigan for Lake homes? Et

[00:33:00] Jim Cronin: cetera, et cetera. So the short, the long, the short answer is yes. we're doing regular content changes to the site and they're going to be doing market reports on a monthly basis. they break down the different. General areas, so not per lake, but like, hey, this area has 12 lakes in it. This area has 17 lakes in it. And do market reports for those as blog articles that will then tie back and forth to these lake pages. So this

[00:33:24] Tracy Hayes: may be simple, but I think it needs to be understood. in the use of ai. And you know, we're gonna talk about the importance of the website as we basically have been for the last few minutes. But because you're regularly going in there in your, your content or the, the numbers that it may be looking for, like the depth of the lake is not likely gonna change too often. Don't need to, don't need really need to update that. But the market report time on, you know, listing time, you know, speed of sale, average, you know, average homes, whatever, all those are that market data, price per square foot,

[00:34:00] Tracy Hayes: whatever you want to, the data that you're putting in there because you're being, you're updating that regularly. In this case you were talking monthly, which, you know, most of 'em can get those reports from their, I know here in Florida, Florida realtors, for the state. Provides that information. You, you know, everyone's a member. If you're a member of your local association member there, you could pull that data and you're going in there and updating those numbers. So when AI is looking going, well, oh, well, this, this site here with, Sally, she's updating every month, we're gonna go there because we know the information's most current.

[00:34:33] Jim Cronin: It's current, and comes from a resource that they can trust as an authority. They know that this is an agent that's built an entire, you know, network of lake, you know, up, encyclopedia of all the lakes. Mm-hmm. You know, 20 years of experience. All kinds of reviews in Google. It's all a big picture too. Yeah. This is a trustworthy agent. also bringing us the market data that we're looking for. They want that as their result, not just some, oh, Zillow says.

[00:34:59] Tracy Hayes: [00:35:00] Well, what's interesting how you say that, and I think that, so I've had different discussions of people about ai. there's some people that are just touching the surface that, I, I use the example that you have to dive into it and start using it to start to realize what it's actually doing. And there's this dark side of the moon that you don't know about, and you were using the phrase, as if you were talking about, a human was making some sort of decision. when we're really talking about the technology here in AI is actually going, oh, we'll do it, lake Life website provides a lot of good information and always has updated stuff. I'm gonna go there first. That sounds like a human, but it's actually, AI is making that decision in my, based on what you just said.

[00:35:46] Jim Cronin: Yeah. I know. I'm Anth anthropomorphizing or whatever. Yeah. To get that out on a, you know, in the meeting here. But, the algorithm is looking for trusted, authoritative sources. Mm-hmm. like I said, it's not that they don't want to

[00:36:00] Jim Cronin: pick Zillow or Redfin for the data. That's all that is showing up right now. If we inject that same kind of data into these websites, this is a better result for them. It's a more, it's more what they think. They're so Google and Chat, they're in the business of trying to give their audience what they're actually looking for. Right. Right. And they want to find an expert on these answers. These does these numbers, these lakes. So here we're providing you with that expert and stealing. Right. It presented as part of the consensus, hoping, you know, and then the agent hopes that they they see the value in that info and click through to their website.

[00:36:35] Tracy Hayes: So being, because this agent obviously is more specific, more detail oriented than anything Zillow or any of those others could be.

[00:36:44] Jim Cronin: Exactly.

[00:36:44] Tracy Hayes: And therefore they're gonna start, they're gonna start making their way up the chain.

[00:36:48] Jim Cronin: Yep. Yeah. And there's no excuse now because we can create so much content so quickly. Mm-hmm. you know, the, you give me the data and I'll have a template that I've already generated where we know we need an introduction. We need to cut to the chase on what the

[00:37:00] Jim Cronin: market's going on. We show the numbers, we break it down by property type. we talk about the FAQs. We, we talk about an, realtor insight. We talk about the lake itself or the region. We have that as a template. We just jam the numbers in there and then it'll rework the entire market report based on those numbers.

[00:37:25] Jim Cronin: And then we just go back, we have a realtor on staff, plus the client is obviously an agent, and we just make sure all the claims seem to be in tune with what we're expecting. And then there we go. We didn't have to spend, you know, six hours on a market report. It was more like 30 minutes. And it's insane. It's insane.

[00:37:31] Tracy Hayes: I'm looking at this website and obviously, you go on 99% of the websites out there right now for real estate agents, I believe, and correct me, and maybe you might believe, just do it a different way. You know, here in Florida, especially northeast Florida, we got a lot of people moving, you know, from the Northeast, Michigan, California moving into this area. So when they go on and they want to, you know, maybe they get referred to somebody or they're just, they're looking for an agent and some people actually do look for, they go on Rate My Agent or whatever and look at reviews and try to find a quality agent on their own. When, if someone's Googling a specific agent or just even in the sense of AI, how much of the website have you found should be focused on something about that agent? So it resonates with the person searching. You know what I'm saying?

[00:38:32] Jim Cronin: Yeah. Hey, real quick, I noticed I'm a little pixelated here. Are you seeing it as well or no?

[00:38:36] Tracy Hayes: You're, you're fine. It's probably just, it's probably delayed. You're fine on this side. You are, I've got it on TV. So on the YouTube screen and you have frozen a couple times, but on my screen here, you're, you're going through, so it's just compressing.

[00:38:50] Jim Cronin: Yeah. Alright, great. Yeah. So yeah, so how much should we make the website about the agent? Alright, well it depends on, you know, the agent for sure. If you're new and you can't hide behind, you know, all these years of experience and testimonials and all this other stuff, mm-hmm. you really need to make the website about how you're capable of helping and how well you connect with the audience you're at. And probably very little about you because it would be kind of revealing. If you've been at this for a long time and you've got a lot of social proof where we can prove that the audience that you work with loves working with you because you build solutions to their needs. That's gotta be front and center. That's gotta be something that people understand and then as little as possible about you, really. 'Cause it's not about you. You know, the website should always be centered around what is your core brand messaging. You know, why do you do what you do to help people besides for the paycheck? Right. How is it that you're able to serve them better than your competition? For example, these things are your brand messaging, and that's where anything about you—other than maybe, oh, you know, I'm from the area, so I'm a local, yada, yada, yada, or you know, I went to school here and loved it and fell in love and never left, you know, or whatever. Those are fun. Mm-hmm. But ultimately, you know, why are you doing this? How are you able to do it in a way that better serves the target audience that you're after? That's really the only "about" that you should have in here. All of your people on your team should keep that in mind too, is how are we all working together for that common brand goal, that common brand messaging. And what you like to do on the weekends and your hobbies and, you know, traveling and the hiking picture of you—none of that matters. The client doesn't give a crap. The client wants to know how is this person going to help me make better decisions, sell my home fastest, get the most money for it, get the best deal, you know, get my dream home, negotiate better. All of that stuff is what they want to know. They don't care about your hiking affinity.

[00:40:49] Tracy Hayes: Right. You've been doing this long enough, so obviously, you know the service you delivered obviously is to drive people to these sites, right?

[00:41:00] Tracy Hayes: Whatever it may be. If they're searching lakes in Southwest Michigan or whatever, what are the different ways—because there's more than one reason why someone may end up on one particular site. You know, a particular agent's personal site or their brokerage site or whatever it is. You know, I think the Lake Life Realty obviously looks like a family here, 'cause I'm looking at their "About Us." There's Paul and Matt—both have the same last names, so, and looks like—I assume, I don't know if these are their wives, but they have two different last names, so maybe they're not, but nope, they're not. But there's different reasons why people get to any individual site. What are some of the key—you know, I don't know how many, is there thousands or just—what are, is there three or four reasons why someone may end up on a particular site?

[00:41:46] Jim Cronin: Well, you got searching. That’s the number one. We’ve talked about that.

[00:41:49] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[00:41:50] Jim Cronin: We’ve been beating that horse down for quite a while.

[00:41:52] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[00:41:53] Jim Cronin: Where it’s either an AI result or SEO.

[00:41:56] Tracy Hayes: Right.

[00:41:57] Jim Cronin: And those are pretty much the search behavior of your audience. A couple other opportunities would be social media.

[00:42:00] Jim Cronin: Social media’s the megaphone. It’s an opportunity for you to try to get some attention—to stop the scroll, to try to test out, you know, calls to action and offerings and—

[00:42:09] Tracy Hayes: Well, I, I think—let me clarify what I’m asking. There’s some people that really actually search out the best agent they could find.

[00:42:15] Jim Cronin: Right. Yep.

[00:42:16] Tracy Hayes: There’s others, like you said, they go on and don’t even look at the reviews. They're totally about themselves and, you know, "What are you in for me?" and they just, you know, "Oh, you’re the listing agent, so I think I can get the best deal. I’m gonna go directly to the listing agent," for example. But research, you know, especially people moving outside the area that really don’t know, are not experts in the area they’re looking to move to, and they don’t know any real estate agents.

[00:42:48] Tracy Hayes: What are different ways that they're searching above and beyond just a property search?

[00:42:48] Jim Cronin: Yeah, so they're searching—obviously, unfortunately to the realtors because of, I think, the amount of money Zillow takes off their plate. Mm-hmm. They're searching in Zillow, they're searching in realtor.com. They're using these tools because that's where they think, "Oh, I want to start searching for properties in, you know, again, Southwest Michigan." Mm-hmm. "I don't know where to begin, so I'm gonna start at the top of the funnel and find Zillow and realtor.com." And then inside there you're advertised to. You've got profiles that are showing up for the five-star agents, for everything. I think that’s gonna be a big exposure. Mm-hmm.

Then you've got this whole local SEO thing, right? Where you do a search for realtors in, you know, Kalamazoo or whatever, you're gonna see the local pack it's called, right? Where you've got a few results right here, you've got the map, you've got the pins on the map, and they're saying these are your sort of star agents based on reviews, profile strength, and potentially their authoritative value based on their website and other things. Mm-hmm.

You know, coupled with a map. So you're gonna get that exposure. You've got the ads above that a lot of times as well. And then you've got the people who are super strong with their SEO below that, that are able to come up based on keyword searches as well. So I think you're gonna see a lot of positional placement there, where there's a lot of fighting for those spots. And that's a whole different, you know, ball of wax—local SEO versus general SEO—and all the things that you have to take into consideration to try to compete in that little teeny piece of real estate on Google.

[00:44:13] Tracy Hayes: So what—so how do you, when you're building these websites for these individuals, are you—obviously you're thinking through this—what are some of the things that you might add or suggest that they put on, you put on these sites to grab some of those? You know, or should they have a page posting all their reviews like you do on your site?

[00:44:33] Jim Cronin: Yeah, 100%. Social proof is huge—especially if you can prove it. So mine, unfortunately, are hundreds of reviews that have been emailed to us or posted to us in comments or whatever. Mm-hmm. Before the days of the Google reviews. Now I have dozens and dozens of five-star Google reviews, but I don't have hundreds and hundreds like I do on the website of written ones.

Right. Those offer very little value in terms of the algorithm. It can help to some degree, because you do want to try to mix. If you write a blog article all about how, you know, you're able to solve this particular issue because of your experience, having a claim of a client in there as a little testimonial is huge. That's part of building great content and showcasing to the algorithm that people trust you for this solution. That's great. But building strong reviews on Google right now is your best bet if you want to compete for the social proof angle. As many of those as you can get. It's the heaviest weight right now in terms of "Why are other people coming up over me?"

When people—when I'm doing searches and I see that local pack coming up, you're gonna see most, more times than not, the top one has more five-star or higher star count than you have below you—or the one below the next one, below the next one. Now it's not always the case because there's other factors that work on that ranking.

If there's a lot of competition for an area, the reviews—not all reviews are the same. You could have a hundred reviews saying, "Oh my gosh, Tracy's the best realtor in town. I would always work with him and recommend him to everybody." That's not a great review. It sounds great, but it's not. Tracy went—

[00:46:00] Jim Cronin: ...Tracy went above and beyond and he really helped us find the three bedroom, two bathroom, you know, condo of our dreams that we were looking for in X, Y, Z community.
Mm-hmm.
You know, we were moving from California and we were coming sight unseen, and Tracy walked us through everything, did some virtual stuff, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It was amazing how great a job he did helping us find our condo, you know, or whatever. That is a freaking testimonial, right? Dropping keywords in there, usefulness, telling stories, building value behind it, and then connecting it to the same kind of content that you have on your website, meaning, oh, Tracy specializes in exactly what this person said that he did so well, that's a win. That's, that's, that's kind of—you don't see that in the rules. You know, you don't see that in the value when you see the number of 162 star reviews versus 35, you know, reviews. Why is that 35 above the [00:47:00] 162? 'Cause those reviews are money. Like, someone took the time to really tell stories and build value inside the review, and didn't just hit five stars and move on with their day.
So there's ways that it changes and it gets, you know, interesting in there. And we can talk more about it, but I think you get the idea.

[00:47:16] Tracy Hayes: Well, I don't want to take up too much time. You from—I want to take this last—to keep this to an hour here for you. Gearing up, you know, one of the topics—and I don't know if we missed any other topics—but I thought one of the most important topics was we're moving into the AI world. And what you're seeing now is, you know, again, many agents, many agents—everybody you're listening right now—are hopefully going on your websites, going, "Does my website have all these things that Jim is talking about?" Or, you know, go on some of these—the samples that he gives, you know, some of the reviews you can go, and there's lots of websites listed there. Do your—does your website have these things? Or is it just really just a [00:48:00] landing page-type of thing?

And now that we're going into the AI and natural language world—and I know you're way out in front of this already. It's your business and your professionalism that you have, you're way out in front. What are these agents that are listening to have the opportunity to get out in front of the wave right now and build the—I don't want to say perfect website—but build the website for the AI world that we're moving into every day?

[00:48:30] Jim Cronin: Yeah. So, with the tools that are available to us, I literally think there's no excuse. You know, what used to take hours to generate maybe one blog article or two blog articles a week, if you were interested in trying to be found because of your content—you can generate dozens now. And it's about—so creating the content shouldn't be an excuse.

Now, you don't want to just copy and paste out of GPT because it looks that way. You do need to proofread it. You do need to make sure that the content has got a great voice to it, that it's well structured, et cetera, et [00:49:00] cetera. And there's rules to, you know, understanding that. But still, once you understand what I'm trying to create and you can get the machine to work with you to generate incredible content and then just revise it to your needs, you should be able to publish content every single day. There's no excuse.

Now, the real hook here though is—what content do I create? How do I make sure that if I'm gonna go through this, I'm not just adding to the noise—
Mm.
I'm actually cutting through.
Yeah.
And having an effect and being found and connecting with the audience that I'm after.

And that kind of goes back to the—really listen to your audience, your target audience, their questions, their concerns, their challenges. Think about the current projects that you're involved in right now. Ones that are going sideways and why did they go sideways? You know, what could you have done to fix it earlier? Or what did you do to solve it in the end? Or did you lose it? You know, all of this stuff is fodder where you can build content around it to educate your audience and be the answer to the questions and the concerns and the challenges that they're having.

Right now we're doing a thing—oddly [00:50:00] enough, Tracy—internally we call it Coffee Chats, but ultimately, it's like a hot take engine. And we'll have a call like you and I are doing for one hour. And they've got a preset series of questions that were geared specifically to probe into what's going on right now in the market. What's going on with your clients right now? Tell me about some of the projects. Tell me some stories. What are some myths that we need to bust? What are the first questions that you're hearing?

And that cheese moves every month because the seasons change.
Mm-hmm.
The market changes, the rates change, the laws change, the temperature changes—all of that happens, and the questions move. And we have an opportunity where we can just listen to the client or to my client, you know, the agent.
Mm-hmm.
And just unload on us for an hour. And now we use tools that we've built to find all the hot takes.

[00:51:00] Jim Cronin: In that hour long conversation and pull out just these awesome nuggets where we can generate content that we know is fresh, we know is relevant to their target audience now. 'Cause we're talking about deals that they're dealing with now and what's going on in the market and how they see things. And if you're a great agent and you're paying attention to all this stuff and you're staying in tune with your clients and their needs and the market and all that, you should have a head full of this to unload. And instead of you having to crank out all this and manage the machine and all that, you know, that's where we come into play, where we just extract it outta you. And then we build incredible content around those nuggets. And we do it in the form of blog articles and we do it in the form of market reports. And more importantly, we actually build it in all kinds of social drafts. So you can just push this stuff out onto Instagram and Facebook, et cetera, et cetera.

[00:51:34] Tracy Hayes: Jim, you're doing a podcast. That's what I'm doing here every week. You know, when I have an agent sitting here in front of me and we're talking about shop and we're talking stories, and then obviously why they love real estate and we get all through all that good stuff. That is brilliant. Not rocket science. It's very easy to do, to sit there and have a conversation and say, you know, hey, what's going on with your current deal that went sideways? And when you were saying that, obviously I'm in my mind [00:52:00] I'm popping off of every agent that I've had on just recently that told me a story about, you know, a deal going awry and how they fixed it and what are they doing to fix it and oh, that's great. That's huge content.

[00:52:12] Jim Cronin: Yeah. Yeah, that's huge content. Yeah. And instead of it just ending up in a podcast that people can listen to and the audience sees, we can get it into the search engines, we can make it part of the consensus that AI's building by publishing these in, framing it in a context outside of the quote podcast, right?
Mm-hmm.
So the podcast tells a story and then we're able to pull all the value in the nuggets and the 800 story contextual breakdown of why that was important and how it answers all these other questions and concerns. And that's where we hit on with the target audience that we're reaching to. They have a similar concern and we've pinned the tail on the donkey six different ways in the blog article, all because of a little story that was told in the podcast, in the coffee chat, right? That's where I see the value in that. That's exciting.

[00:52:54] Tracy Hayes: So just as simple as creating a blog off of, you know, a statement or story that they made, you know, focusing in on [00:53:00] that, then you're obviously quoting them, you're putting it on their site, you know, maybe giving some color contact and links to other things that'll help them. Someone who's searching that issue or has that issue is gonna be led to that site to help solve that problem.

[00:53:14] Jim Cronin: 100%.
Mm-hmm.
You have calls to action everywhere, social proof inside there. A little bit of testimonials from it, the whole thing.
Mm-hmm.
You know, you build a template of content that you want. This is how we wanna deliver it, and then we build the answers from their questions into those as blog articles, and it works phenomenally. It's great. And we couldn't have done this, even a year ago. It's just impossible to create the content that we needed fast enough to make it a viable business model.
Mm-hmm.
Model for us to work together. You know, the, the amount of notes we'd need to take, the amount of content we need to create, the amount of editing that would've had been done, and just insane.
Yeah.
Now, now our conversation can generate 16 blog articles and 24 social media...

[00:53:53] Tracy Hayes: Posts.
A hundred percent. A hundred percent.
I mean, that's one of the things that I, like I said, I've been doing now with the show. For those [00:54:00] listeners, those that have been on, I'm going back through my episodes, taking those transcripts, AI's helping me—if I don't already have a blog created—creating blogs. But I'm working in reverse order and adding blogs to my, you know, Real Estate Excellence site of everyone that's been on.

[00:54:18] Jim Cronin: Strategy.
Yeah.
Yeah. That's exactly what you need to do.

[00:54:19] Tracy Hayes: Yep. And then, uh, the beautiful thing about AI too, you could turn around and just say, hey, take that blog—because I also have my newsletter on LinkedIn, where I write an article and it writes the article promoting that agent. So someone's looking for a top agent in Jacksonville, there's probably—right now there's probably 20 of 'em on my LinkedIn, and I'm adding every day because I'm going backwards into the, into my content. But like, that's just brilliant.
Yeah. The technology's there as soon as you have the transcript.

[00:54:48] Jim Cronin: And another neat thing just to add to this is that what I think a lot of people who don't use AI a lot don't realize is that you, like me, now I'm Jim plus AI. Like I'm not just Jim.

[00:55:00] Jim Cronin: Yeah. Like I have this entire suite of tools that you get with me. Now I am a powerhouse of extra — I'm a superhero of tools that I didn’t used to have. But more importantly beyond that is just that AI has come to understand what I'm looking for. So the more articles that I use to write it and tinker with it and build guardrails and set expectations and try to get these things right, the better it continues to output.

If you just put in a little bit and try it and you might get, “Oh, that’s magic! Look at it, wrote an article, that’s really cool,” vs “Oh my gosh, I've honed this thing to literally sound like me.” I've given enough examples. I've tinkered with it enough. I've put enough guardrails and rules into its place that it generates content that I really appreciate and I really feel like it sounds like me in many ways.

[00:55:45] Jim Cronin: Now, I do change things all the time, but the neat thing is just that the more you use it, the better it works for you. So if I'm doing these coffee chats with a particular client, maybe the first couple of ones, we struggled through it — still ended up with incredible content, incredible results — but the [00:56:00] work that had to go into it was tougher in the beginning. To where three months down the road? Transcript in, content out baby. Here we go.

[00:56:07] Tracy Hayes: Because it knows everything about… Well, I created — I actually created a GPT for — 'cause I was just individually just doing chats, not knowing how to — and I said, “How do I create a GPT?” I don’t know if you know Carrie Vey, she's out of Canada, but she's EXP’s certified consultant or whatever title they've given her. But she's creating all these things for the agents, the tools that they can use through AI, right?

And all the GPTs. So I created a GPT for each of my sites. So as soon as — like for instance with you — I uploaded your bios, it helped me create the intro. Then when I get the transcript from the show, I’m gonna upload that. I throw in all your social media links and the website and all that kind of good stuff. All that’s in there. And then now anything I say about, “Hey, I need this about Jim Cronin,” “I need a LinkedIn article about Jim talking about this on this reel,” boom boom boom boom. And it’s putting [00:57:00] those things out there at a much more rapid pace.

And like I said, as soon as you have a system down and learn what it can do — like, and it’s obviously gotten better and better. 'Cause I’ve got so much content in it right now about the show. And I’ve pretty much been — like I said, I’m working backwards and feeding it some old episodes.

I would say I’ve been… I don’t know if I’ve been doing it a year now using GPT or ChatGPT exclusively for the show. 'Cause it creates a lot of my captions real quick and easy. Boom, boom, boom. Puts the links in there, you know, says what I need to do. Some keywords. Helps me create titles. I just use it for all that stuff just to move the day faster 'cause of the amount of reels and stuff that I’ll pour out.

But I would suggest anyone listening right now — I know a lot of you do not have websites. Many — if not 99% of you — are using some sort of landing page or, as we mentioned earlier in the show, you're using, you know, you're just attached to the big brokerage — Keller Williams, sallysmith.com [00:58:00] type website. Jim is here to move the needle for you.

And those, I know specifically here in Northeast Florida — but this could be anywhere — 31 lakes? There’s 31 neighborhoods in Northeast Florida you could specialize in right now and really focus down and create a website like that. And I, it will move the needle.

And Jim, how important is it right now? I know agents do not like Zillow and Realtor.com. The importance of creating a website — if you make a comment on this — going into the AI world, it's now. And, you know, the AI search is coming. As you know, we're talking with Lyman, doing a true AI home search. That building a website like this to pull some of your clients away from the Zillow and Realtor.com?

[00:58:45] Jim Cronin: I mean, you're giving away so much money now. I think they just announced that Zillow's doing some sort of flex plan now where you're not buying the leads, but you're giving up a percentage of the commission...

[00:58:54] Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

[00:58:54] Jim Cronin: ...to it as well. Now it's just like, oh my gosh. It's just unreal.

[00:59:00] Jim Cronin: This is — I don't know why there isn't an uproar about that though. Maybe there is. I'm just not hearing it or looking for it. Right. But yeah, anything you can do to get one-to-one leads through the internet is going to be well worth your time. It certainly is. And so many agents just aren't gonna do it.

They get started, they do the minimum stuff. They get all head full of steam. I've seen it a thousand times. I've built a thousand of those websites where the agent’s super excited. We get 'em on board, they're ready to go, we do the design work, we get some of the pages built — and then they just, eh, they got other things they'd rather go do. And they just kind of start ghosting you.

The site's up, but it...

[00:59:56] Tracy Hayes: I know you have an answer to this, 'cause this has gotta come up in circles that you're in — building a website like these people here in the Lake Life, and the leads that they're generating because they've created it with AI and search and SEO, all that stuff that we've talked about for the last hour. They've built the site around — you've built the site around — that, versus those who are out there trying to… spending the time that you were talking about that they're no longer spending and keeping their website up to date, or giving you the content to keep it up to date, I should say…

That they're spending it on doing silly social media reels or, you know, the — we see 90% and very few people are getting… some are getting some leads off Instagram, but it's more staying top of mind with their — I think the leads they're getting from social media is because they stayed top of mind using social media with their circle of influence, reminding them that they're in real estate, and they're posting all the time. So they remind — “Oh hey! Oh yeah — real estate. Yeah, okay. I now need to do something.” 'Cause no one buys real estate every day.

[01:01:00] Tracy Hayes: Versus spending a little bit more time, focused energy on building a solid site like this. I imagine you get that question — the battle between social media and the website?

[01:01:12] Jim Cronin: You know, social media has so many… I guess negatives to it in the sense that like, it's relentless. You gotta keep up with it all the time, right?

First of all — in order for you to — it's like, “What have you done for me lately? What have you done for me lately?” Right? Otherwise, you're not in the quote algorithm. You're not in that day’s scroll-through.

And your buyers and sellers are not on social media looking for a realtor. They’re not looking for answers to their questions. They’re on there to be scrolling through and just being entertained.

And sure, maybe they're entertained by your real estate shtick or whatever — but your website is your resource to educate them, to prove to them that you're there to help, to build your brand messaging, to really incubate and nurture that relationship.

Not just to be a megaphone and screaming at them through social media saying, you know, “Just listed,” or “Here's some cool new home,” or “I'm being funny,” or “I'm being cute,” or “I'm being…” whatever — but it's actually an opportunity to prove to them that you have their best interests in mind, and that you're built to serve them and to build the solutions for their challenges and their needs.

Not just, you know, “Oh, social media, here I am.”

[01:02:00] Jim Cronin: I really think that Instagram's where the party's at. And you're gonna have a lot of conversations on there. But the website's your home. That's where the business gets done. That’s what’s going on here.

[01:02:27] Tracy Hayes: Right. Is there anything we missed — anything I didn’t ask — that you want to make sure that our listeners know?

[01:02:33] Jim Cronin: Oh gosh… you know — which route to go down?

[01:02:36] Tracy Hayes: Because my next question actually — I was gonna kind of lead this list. If someone's listening to this right now or, you know, whether they’re listening to it today, August 26th, 2025, or they listen to it three months from now, whatever…

They obviously — Reed Tomato. READ, red — you call it Red Tomato, but it’s spelt READtomato.com.

[01:02:55] Jim Cronin: Reed, red — whatever.

[01:02:55] Tracy Hayes: Yeah. Jim Cronin — look him up on LinkedIn. The link’s there as well. But obviously, this will be in all the show notes, so anybody seeing any of the materials from the Real Estate Excellence Podcast will have those links.

What’s the first step? I assume it’s some sort of consultative discussion that you have. What would be the — if someone’s interested, what should they do right now?

[01:03:17] Jim Cronin: Well, first they need to realize, you know — I think — how much is this kind of investment in terms of time and money, and how long does it take to actually work?

First thing you just — I think you just gotta understand is that no one else in your market is probably gonna do it the right way if you’re willing to put in the work. And that’s right — so many different things.

You know, you're an incredible realtor because you’re putting in the work. You’re gonna have an incredible website because you put in the work. And other people just aren’t willing to do that.

So being found, being successful with the website — it's not that hard on paper. It just takes some discipline and understanding the goals, and then putting in the work.

And what’s the work? It’s helping us understand how to reach your audience. I’m not a realtor in Northeast Florida. I'm just not. But I can help you connect with your audience if you can help me understand who they are.

I would not expect results right out of the gate. It's something where, three months in, you're gonna start to see a buildup.

I would demand that you've got analytics on your website so that you can start to see that growth, and you have a key understanding of key performance indicators — KPIs — like traffic, time on website, number of pages they click through, where they left from, where they came in from, what keywords are they finding you for.

All of these things that you’re gonna want to at least know about. You don’t have to track them compulsively, but someone, once a month, can say:

"Here’s where we were in August, and now here’s where we are in September — and they’re improving because of the following."

So that you know that your investment is definitely catching some tread and it’s working for you.

That’s definitely an expectation — that it’s not gonna happen overnight. Spending less than $10,000 is probably what your total investment would be before you start to see results. And that would be building a website, paying for content, maybe a little SEO work, tightening up your brand, and a few other things that you could do.

After that, I think a typical budget — if you were thinking, “How much is it to just continue to keep my foot on the gas and really kick ass with a website?” — probably somewhere under $2,000 a month. Probably no less than about $600 or $700 a month.

Once that gets spent on content creation, market reports, blogging, SEO, inbound links, managing your social profile, reviews, managing your Google profile — things like that — that if you’re not keeping up on, then…

[01:05:34] Tracy Hayes: You're not going to.

So if I'm hearing you correctly, there are a lot of agents who don’t do social media…

[01:05:40] Jim Cronin: Yeah.

[01:05:41] Tracy Hayes: But by doing those things that you just listed off — you know, keeping their… providing you with the information so that you can put it into the website in a proper way and that sort of thing on a regular monthly basis…

You know, there’s agents that are paying to have videos done and all this stuff on social media — but what you’re saying is, for $1,000–$2,000 a month, depending on how much you’re doing for them, they’re going to keep their website — and actually going to capture leads.

Where Instagram isn’t capturing leads for you — you’re hoping they click on a link and come and follow you. Someone’s going to your website — they’re going there for a purpose.

[01:06:18] Jim Cronin: And there’s so much more that can be there — like your brand. You have control of the messaging, the story, how you walk a client through experiencing what you can do for them. A wealth of information on maybe neighborhoods, maybe lakes, maybe, you know, subdivisions or whatever it is.

[01:06:55] Jim Cronin: ...you know, a series of blog articles targeting a very specific concern where you're gonna attract an audience and prove to them that you're there to help.

This — you can't really do that in social media, because you know, the half-life of all the content you've created — it just disappears. And if it's not being constantly updated, it's out of sight, out of mind.

AI isn't citing your Instagram post. AI isn't finding your Facebook update and thinking, “Here's a great resource to answer your question.” All of that is coming out of...

[01:07:00] Tracy Hayes: ...published content. That's brilliant, actually. I did not ever think of that, but that is obvious.

You may be putting out great little shorts on there. Now I don’t know — do they actually — how about YouTube? Is YouTube something that AI is looking at?

[01:07:12] Jim Cronin: 1000%. YouTube? Yeah, they love YouTube. Yeah. They love Reddit. They love YouTube.

They love blogs. You can look it all up — like, “Where is AI sourcing?” And there's like a chart of what percentage are they really referencing. But they love the written, published content. And they also love YouTube. 100%. YouTube is insanely cited.

[01:07:33] Tracy Hayes: Well, I’ve told agents for the longest time — because everything I do, YouTube is my library. It’s gonna have this long-form video. It’s gonna have the shorts that are cut.

It’s there. To me, it’s a library. Because people will go back and do a search, and if that video that’s three years old actually fits that search — it’s gonna pop up. Right? And it’s that library there.

And if you’re dumping all your content — video content — into YouTube, it’s readily out there for AI to pick up. I’m glad you said that. That makes total sense.

We’re having a seminar here in a couple weeks where we have an agent — who I had on — actually I think she was the last show I did. I think it was the last show — where she has 64,000 YouTube followers and gets leads because she just focuses on providing the listing agent — or not the listing, but people who want to sell their houses.

That’s all she focuses on — selling houses. And she gives that information, and she’s niche. And she’s got 64,000 followers.

Well, I’m sure AI is going in there. When someone’s talking about selling their home, her stuff is popping up in front of them. Because she’s provided so much information and it obviously has the credentials behind it.

[01:08:41] Jim Cronin: Yep. Yep. It’s content, baby. It’s king. It really is. Yep. And more so than ever.

Because it was starting to get kind of bleak there. You look at the Google results, and there’s all these sponsored results, and then you get the big box websites up ahead of you. You just can’t break through to get any kind of visibility.

And now — AI doesn’t care about all that. Right now, they're not using any sponsored stuff. They may eventually, but currently it’s all just consensus-driven — looking for authoritative websites with fresh content that is relevant and contextual to what their audiences are asking of them.

They don’t care if it’s Redfin. They don’t care if it’s Tracy Hayes’s website. They don’t. They’re just like — is this the authority? That’s the most fresh content? That can also be trusted? Great. Let’s put that there.

[01:09:27] Tracy Hayes: I love it. I love it. Jim, I appreciate you coming on today. If anything new comes up — because we know this AI world, things change — maybe we get on and do an update. But what I’d like to do — obviously, you're going to be tagged on everything that I do — but I’m really passionate about this.

Send me some material. I don’t know what you have — send me some swag. I don’t care. Send me something I can put on my wall here.

[01:09:55] Jim Cronin: Get me...

[01:09:56] Tracy Hayes: ...But every agent that comes in, they go, “What’s that?” It’ll remind me to talk to them. Because one thing I do with every agent that comes on is I comb through all their sites — website, social media, LinkedIn. A lot of them don’t have LinkedIn squared away. Many of them do not have a solid web presence.

They're relying — too many are relying — on social media. And to me, like you said, unless you're going to pour in a lot of energy — where you could take that same amount of energy and pour it into a website that’s actually going to create solid leads, that people are going to click on, and you’re going to get information — someone to call.

Versus hopefully, someday, someone sees something on Instagram and says, “Oh, I like what she looks like. Let me call her,” or “She’s showing a house in a neighborhood I want to...” I mean, the rarity of that is so rare.

There are agents making — they claim they’re making — money on Instagram. And I do believe it’s a top-of-mind thing. But anyway...

[01:10:50] Jim Cronin: Yeah. I mean, you know, if you’ve got a shtick or whatever, great. Roll it. If that’s your personality or that’s how you like to generate content, do what you’re good at and do a lot of it. Really.

We can help in terms of just pulling it out of you with very little friction. You don’t have to generate it yourself. You’ve got a company like ours — we’ll help build the content, build the platform, and then just make sure you’re being found.

My first question is always: “What does a happy Tracy Hayes look like in six months?” Let’s figure out how to reverse-engineer and get you there, right?

[01:11:19] Tracy Hayes: Yeah. I can imagine some of the lead flow that some of your clients — who have been readily playing your play, who have been doing it for a year, two years with solid websites like this — are generating. Really specializing.

The beautiful thing about northeast Florida — you could probably focus on the 10 neighborhoods around you and never travel more than 10 miles from your house, and really hammer home those things, because you’re really hammering on providing that content, as we talked about.

[01:11:48] Jim Cronin: Yeah. There’s always something new to talk about. There’s always something new. Well, if you don’t think so, let’s just talk for an hour and I’ll prove it to you. Right?

[01:11:57] Tracy Hayes: Crazy, for sure. Jim, I really appreciate you coming on today. Like I said, send me something — I’ll shoot you my address. Send me something to stick on the wall. I don’t know what you have, what kind of swag you got.

The t-shirt I probably wouldn’t wear, but if you’ve got... I don’t know, think of something. I don’t know if you’ve got... You probably got a mug that says “Red Tomato” on it. Something.

[01:12:12] Jim Cronin: Oh yeah. Some stickers or a button or something.

[01:12:15] Tracy Hayes: Yeah, something. I’m going to stick it right here. Everyone’s going to talk — 'cause I’m going to be talking to people about you and lead them to your site and hopefully get some phone calls to you, and get some consultations done and move the needle for some people’s business here.

[01:12:28] Jim Cronin: We're here to help. That’s really what it is.

[01:12:29] Tracy Hayes: Yep. I appreciate you.

[01:12:30] Jim Cronin: Alright, thank you very much Tracy. This was fun.

[01:12:32] Tracy Hayes: Alright, talk to you soon.

[01:13:00] End of Recording