This week's contributor profile is Kathryn Royster. Check out her work on her Inman profile. I had a little q-and-a session with her, and here is what she had to say: KATHRYN'S INMAN BIO Kathryn Royster is Marketing Director for HouseLens, the nation’s largest provider of visual marketing solutions for the real estate industry. She has also served as a contributor to Livability.com, Business Climate and numerous community and economic development magazines nationwide. Kathryn’s person real estate passion is old houses: living in them, renovating them, and advocating for their preservation. | How long have you been a contributor? Almost 2 years -- my first article ran in January 2014. What made you want to contribute? Before coming to HouseLens, I wrote for Livability.com and BusinessClimate.com. I really loved delving into community stories and industry subjects and explaining them in a clear way to people who are eager to learn. I felt like Inman would be a similar experience, just focused on real estate. What has been your favorite article to write so far? “12 ways not to do listing photos.” It was a great excuse to pore over blogs of bad real estate photos (research, right?) and just super-fun to be a little sassy but helpful at the same time. What has been your favorite piece of feedback so far? This one, on my “Video vs. 3-D: Which should you use to market your listings?” Whit Suber: "Why not use both?" It was just one little sentence, but it showed that Mr. Suber really got it. It scratches my educator’s itch when smart readers connect the dots. What do you do in your spare time? Try to avoid being pulled into mischief by my husband and 10-year-old daughter. And read, read, read. My perfect moment is a quiet room, a comfy chair and a good book -- with maybe some chocolate and a good cup of coffee within reach. What is your passion? Words. Reading them, writing them, studying them. I’m very thankful that I got into marketing when I did, because right now it’s all about producing helpful content -- which means I get paid to play with words. Our COO asked me once, “Is there anything you don’t like to write?” I had to say no -- even an email is fun to put together. So whether I’m doing a blog post or just a video script or a photo caption, it’s all fun. What advice would you give to other aspiring real estate professionals? I’m not a real estate professional per se -- I work for an industry vendor. But based on what I’ve seen and learned from our customers, I would say: be a speedboat, not the Titanic. The value proposition of agency is in question because the industry as a whole hasn’t been willing to learn and change with the times. It has been like turning the Titanic. Speedboat agents -- the ones who are nimble and can quickly adapt to changing buyer and seller demands (like the voracious hunger for free access to data) -- are the ones who will thrive. What advice would you give to new contributors? Don’t worry about what everyone else is writing. Write about what you really know, and what you really care about, and you’ll naturally bring a fresh perspective and a distinctive voice to the conversation. Oh, and always have a proofreader. |
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I haven't had a whole lot of response with the profiles. Is there something else you'd like to see here? Is there some other way we could provide more value to you? If you have thoughts, please shoot me an email ([email protected]). If you'd like to save the profiles, please let me know -- and maybe even volunteer to be profiled. I look forward to your feedback.
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