Say Hello To: The Buyer & Seller Guide Templates for Realtors

April 17, 2020


TL : DR – THE BLUEPRINT TEMPLATE COLLECTION FOR REALTORS IS NOW LIVE!
 Today we’re continuing our weekly blog series of “new template previews,” showcasing our latest addition to the Realtor marketing template line. Read on to meet the Buyer & Seller Guide templates, and the intention behind them.

.

.

I know how it goes. You make plans to upgrade your real estate marketing materials in the off-season (or, eh, while quarantined during a global pandemic?). But before you know it, May is nearly here and you’re staring down the barrel of another four months hoping your clients can do without your unfinished resources. Or you’re hoping they won’t look too hard at the Word Document or PowerPoint slides you quickly DIY’d the night before your last showing or listing consult, until you’ve had a chance to fix them.

Which you totally will. In November. Probably. Maybe.

Right? 

Well, I disagree. It doesn’t have to be this way. 

What if you had beautiful and professional new materials to present to clients next month? How would it feel to go about business this spring and summer with total confidence in your client experiences + the way your brand is being seen by your people?

Because for a successful business, the future is always part of the present. Now is the time to pull your materials together and prepare for a busy season at its on-brand best.

Last week on the blog, I shared a detailed preview of the Welcome Guide for Realtors. The Welcome Guide is the first template in the BLUEPRINT Collection: high-end, lifestyle-driven, fully customizable client communication templates made exclusively for Realtors. Crafted with the savvy of a former agent and the heart of a designer.

Your beautifully winning introduction piece (or “media kit”), the Welcome Guide opens wide the door to your personality + story and invites new leads into conversation. New Lead walks through the door. New Lead likes you. New Lead commits to working with you.

What happens next? 

From the experience standpoint, THIS is where I see most agents drop the service ball on client communication materials. They don’t mean to — embarking on any new buyer or seller relationship is a whirlwind and demands of the transaction life cycle begin immediately. Amidst the flurry, important client-facing resources are usually put on the back burner, if they are shared with the new client at all. But the beginning of a transaction signals another moment where your clients need extra inspiration and reassurance. So impress them. Inform them. Equip them to move forward peacefully and with ease.

How do you transition to this next step?

Meet The Buyer and Seller Guide templates: the next resource in your Realtor client communications toolbox. 

.

.

.

WHAT ARE THE BUYER AND SELLER GUIDE TEMPLATES?

.

The overarching goal of my template Collection for Realtors is making it easy for you to lead clients down an effortless journey of milestones — from New Lead, to Committed Client, to Closing Day.

01 – the Realtor Welcome Guide template helps move your people from New Lead to Committed Client.

02 – the Buyer and Seller Guide templates step in to guide them seamlessly from Committed Client to Closing Day.

These “next-step” templates are tailored to the specific transaction experience. They dive deeply into buyer or seller-specific services, processes, and much more, setting your collaboration up for success and educating + preparing your clients where it matters most. 

.

.

WHO ARE THE BUYER AND SELLER GUIDE TEMPLATES FOR?

.

Any professional agent, broker, team leader, or larger company in the real estate business. For personality-driven real estate brands who crave stylish identities and modern, high-converting client materials to grow and convert business.

In particular, these templates are for real estate professionals who take a holistic approach to their client experiences. Rather than juggling shuffles of disconnected, unbranded PDFs and document to share with clients? They see the value of a cohesive, meticulously thought-out suite of communication documents to guide buyers/sellers through the transaction with intention.

.

.

.

WHAT ARE THE ELEMENTS OF A SUCCESSFUL BUYER AND SELLER GUIDE?

.

Explanation of value. The Welcome Guide template begins this conversation with special focus. But it’s important to keep reminding your clients of what makes you valuable — even after they’ve signed the representation agreement with you.

A great Buyer and Seller Guide will reinforce the qualities and credibility that makes you unique. What are your vision and values? How is your client about to benefit by working with you as a truly professional and licensed Realtor, rather than the average agent (or, god forbid, no agent at all)?

.

Explanation of transaction processes, factors, and expectations. It’s no surprise that this content should comprise the bulk of your Buyer and Seller Guides. Whereas the Welcome Guide aims to streamline information, and avoid bogging new leads down with detail, your Buyer and Seller Guides should dive deep: answering client questions, addressing common fears, and outlining key transaction knowledge points from the very beginning. 

What do agency terms mean? What goes into a mortgage payment? How does closing work? What are important costs to consider? What is the process chronology and what mistakes should be avoided along the way? Etc.

.

Relationship reinforcement. All the elements that make the Welcome Guide template feel so personal, welcoming, and on-brand — remember those? You want to keep that personality momentum going in your Realtor Buyer and Seller Guides. Never lose the integration of your own voice across the client experience journey. It’s compelling and comforting. And, it’s added evidence that you are present and engaged. “Old-fashioned customer service” style.

You reinforce your brand and personality through a heartfelt welcome and concluding message, a page or two devoted to your story, and a cohesively branded design approach that reminds the client of your unique personal touches.

.

Pure professionalism. I said it in last week’s template post, and I’ll say it again. No sloppy margins. No dense or complicated type. No low-res images. No inconsistency in color palette and tone of voice. Don’t allow clients to question your intentionality or presentation standards, especially now that they’ve hired you. Go pro, because you are one.

.

.

Now that you’re convinced of what a successful real estate Buyer and Seller Guide looks like, and why they are critical to your client experience journey? Let me introduce you to the Buyer and Seller Guide templates exclusive to the BLUEPRINT Collection.

.

THE BUYER AND SELLER GUIDE TEMPLATES ARE 30+ PAGES EACH, BOTH FULLY CUSTOMIZABLE MAGAZINES IN CANVA.

.

THE BUYER GUIDE INCLUDES:

.

+ Cover Page (3 designs to choose from)

+ Welcome

+ Vision & Values

+ My / Our Story

+ Advantages of Working with a Realtor

+ Guide to Agency Terms

+ Benefits of Home Ownership

+ Mortgage Qualification

+ The Mortgage Payment

+ Buyer Costs to Consider

+ Home Search Factors

+ The Buying Process

+ Common Buyer Mistakes to Avoid

+ Staying Connected

+ Heartfelt Thank You

.

.

.

THE SELLER GUIDE INCLUDES:

.

+ Cover Page (3 designs to choose from)

+ Welcome

+ Vision & Values

+ My / Our Story

+ Guide to Agency Terms

+ Marketing Your Listing

+ The Selling Process

+ Preparing Your Home for Showings

+ Common Seller Questions

+ Staying Connected

+ Heartfelt Thank You

.

.

SPECIAL TEMPLATE EXTRAS:

.

+ Professional copywriting built-in

I’m out to provide as much immediate and long-term value as I can in your template purchase. A turn-key experience.

So, as a former Realtor and former journalist both, I’ve invested the time up front to craft + integrate all the template verbiage for you. This means the customization process will be totally seamless for you, no matter how much time you wish to contribute. 

With expertly crafted copy already in place, your only task upon purchase will be to customize any branding and images, and tweak minor verbiage as needed to reflect your personal and/or contact info, any market-specific terms or definitions, case study info, etc. You can customize a 30+ page magazine in an hour or less. 

.

+ Free high-res stock imagery

Each template in the BLUEPRINT Collection for Realtors includes a highly curated collection of quality photos that you are 100% free to use in the templates and elsewhere in your marketing if you choose. 

(I even filtered all the images in Lightroom, so they present as a perfectly curated collection within each template, as if they were all shot by the same photographer or purchased from the same image bank. Type-A much? I’ve got you.) 

.

+ Free font links

Each template is designed using quality free fonts. I include links to each font in your template download package. (You are, of course, welcome and encouraged to bring in your own brand fonts as wanted, if you already have a set font system in place within your marketing.)

.

+ Instructions PDF

Just a quick video and a few helpful tips to help you customize your template with efficiency and ease.

.

.

.

SOME OTHER FAQs

.

“Will the Buyer and Seller Guides be offered separately or together?”

To be clear, the Buyer Guide is its own 30+ page PDF magazine template, and the Seller Guide is its own template as well. As you can see from the table of contents outline for each, they are individually tailored to the nature + needs of the transaction experiences they’re designed to support. 

To keep things simple, and ensure that you have both transaction experiences covered, I have bundled the Buyer and Seller Guide templates together as one “duo template” product in the Shop.

.

“I can find Buyer and Seller Guide resources for agents online already. What makes these templates different?”

First off, exactly that: they’re templates, designed specifically with your ease of use and customization in mind. There may be “client guides” just for agents out there on the web, or offered through some big-box agent marketing mill, but these resources are typically not easy to edit or catered to your personal brand application in mind. (Unless you enjoy slogging through dense Microsoft Word documents or boxy pre-made PowerPoint slides. Nah. #pass)

Second, pardon my humble brag, but aesthetics matter. In my years of working in this industry — first as an agent, then as Marketing Director for an RE team, then as a brand consultant + designer for other Realtors — I’ve yet to find a Buyer or Seller Guide template for agents that actually does it all and does it beautifully.

Clean and minimal design is what I swear by. It’s woven throughout every one of my templates. Each Guide is powered by that simple, refined, high-end style that BLUEPRINT is known for in the real estate world, and I’m extremely proud of that. Why present clients with materials that look like they’re stuck in the 1980s, mired in mismatched layouts, poor fonts and an overall aesthetic vibe that screams “salesy” and “big box,” when you could look like an expert and feel truly personalized, handcrafted and elegant instead?

I rest my case. 😉

.

“Just how adequate is the built-in copywriting in these Guides?” 

Thankfully you can be confident in the investment here, too. I created my own extensive Buyer and Seller Guides during my second year as an agent. I carried these materials into my Marketing Director role for a real estate team, honing the content and verbiage again. Then, as I’ve worked extensively with BLUEPRINT clients seeking these kind of materials (since the inception of my studio), I’ve had many opportunities to refine the copy and make it even better.

When there’s a LOT of information your buyers and sellers need to know, striking that balance between “thoughtful” and “concise” takes hours of writing time. I’ve done it all for you. So: Buyer and Seller Guides professionally written by a former journalist who also happens to be a former agent, and works exclusively with agents? #winwin

“What size are the Buyer and Seller Guides?

Each template in the BLUEPRINT Collection  is A4 size. I chose A4 for different reasons. Most notably: most agents I talk to wish to send out their media kits via email (faster delivery and saves expense). A4 showcases beautifully via email, whereas a more standard magazine size usually fails to display as two pages. And if you are investing in quality communication materials, then I want to guarantee that these magazines will display easily and beautifully.

.

“But what if I don’t have a team?”

No worries. I’ve created both “solo agent” and “team” versions of all templates in the Collection, so at time of purchase, you can choose the option that best serves your model. 

.

“Are the templates fully customizable and easy to use?” 

Oh, you bet. These templates are designed with absolute “non-designers” in mind. I know there is no “one-size-fits-all” solution. This is why each template is unbelievably easy to edit to your business branding, colors, and fonts, to make your client materials look and feel expertly built + beautifully designed.

All of my marketing templates for Realtors were created for full customization in Canva, which is quite possibly the most easy, user-friendly design software out there. Perks include loads of free fonts and images, and a simple drag-and-drop interface. If you’re brand new to Canva, you may spend a few moments of poking around to figure it out, but no heartburn involved, I promise. Your template purchase will include an Instructions PDF + Video to guide you through the customizations, too.

.

.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is dominguez-sig-black-300x120.png

BLUEPRINT is a boutique creative studio serving the real estate industry. Visit our website for information about our services and to learn how our team can support your real estate branding, social media and editorial needs.

  1. Denise Brown says:

    Hi
    J am in Canada and there are differences in the process and Terminology. Will there be one for us?

    • Caroline Dominguez says:

      Hi Denise — Thanks so much for your comment + question! I actually have created custom Buyer and Seller Guides for quite a few CA agents up to now, and have structured things so that the content doesn’t have to shift drastically between the U.S and CA markets. I have kept both agent categories in mind in designing these templates. Most content carries over quite successfully. Transaction processes and milestones are essentially the same, thankfully. You are right about some terminology differences, but the only major terminology differences I’ve dealt with between my CA and U.S. clients — when it comes to Buyer & Seller Guides for them — is in terms of agency role definitions, definition of a contract/purchase agreement, and the closing day process and terms. Content areas like these are quite easily tweaked. In the templates, I include just enough “technical terminology” that making those little edits on your end will be quick and easy. 🙂 I think you’ll be pleased!!

  2. Winnie pak says:

    Will you be doing a listing presentation template?
    Also what will the price range be for all these templates?

    • Caroline Dominguez says:

      Hi Winnie – thanks so much for the questions! Yes, you are in luck — I have created a separate Listing Proposal/Presentation template, and will be sharing a special in-depth preview of it on the blog next week. So definitely stay tuned for that. 😉 And the price per template will run about $350 (unless it’s a larger template “bundle,” which will be available, so you can save a percentage by investing in multiple templates you need up front!). There will be a 24-hour discount code on launch day, though! Let me know if you have any other questions!

  3. Hey lady! Beautiful work! If I’d like to have it in InDesign format (I’m assuming that’s where you crested it) could it get it that way? I know that much better than Canva.

    • Caroline Dominguez says:

      Stephanie — Thanks for the question! Shoot me an email about this once we launch, and we’ll chat about it. 😉

  4. […] it comes to branded client resources in your real estate business, the idea of Buyer & Seller Guides gets a lot of love. My recent previews of the Realtor Welcome Guide and Listing Proposal templates […]

Leave a Reply to Stephanie Hampton Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

something for you

what's your real estate brand personality?

How to own your personality, rise above the sea of agent sameness, and discover a tailored blueprint for what makes you unique.

take the quiz >