KGCI: Real Estate on Air - How to Get a 5-Star Raving Review Every Time

Episode Date: March 2, 2026

Summary:This episode is a tactical deep dive into the final and crucial stage of the client journey: securing consistent 5-star reviews. As part six of a "Buyer Checklist," the discussion outlines a systematic approach to the closing and post-closing process that guarantees a positive experience. It emphasizes the importance of setting clear expectations from day one, having a "surprise and delight" moment at closing, and providing a simple, easy process for the client to leave a review. This is an essential listen for agents who want to leverage social proof to attract more high-quality leads and build a bulletproof brand reputation.

Welcome back to the Agent Goldmine, guys. This is part six. This is the last part of our six-part buyers series from the Ali Garzad. And we just went over in part five. We went over what to do to prepare for closing the week before all the preparations leading up to closing and closing day and a little bit after. But today what we're doing is we're going over the exact email that you need to be sending everything literally the exact email to get a five star review 100% of the time right alley is that what we're doing that's exactly what we're doing and more and more and more baby so the last episode again this is part part six so in case you're catching this at part six watch the other parts first come back we are giving these checklists away so text us the word checklist

and let's book a call let's go through these checklists and we'll give it to you Welcome to the Agent Goldmine, the only podcast in the world, specifically for real estate agents who are stuck at five transactions a year to help them get to 20 plus. Your host, Alligarsed, and Shelby Johnson, two EXP icon agents each do over 40 transactions a year and interview others who are crushing it. In this podcast, you'll receive the knowledge to help you scale your business using systems and processes with our interviews and monologues twice a week. If you want to be a part of our community, reach out. Welcome to the show. Okay, so starting with the after closing checklist. Your buyer clients have closed. They are now freaking homeowners. Emotions are high in a good way. And you're pumped for them because you've negotiated the shit out for them out of them for them. So buyer email number six is what I call, can you leave me a review? And let's go to that right now.

Okay, so this is the exact email. Byer email number six. Can you leave me a review? Once again, I started off with a bomb bomb and a little bit of text before that where I say there are thousands of realtors in Tucson. There really are. There are so freaking many. And you chose to work with me. Thank you so much for that. I am super, super thankful. Can you let me know what I could have done to make it a better experience? And two minute bomb bomb, keep it nice and short. I'm covering what I'm about to say. And let's get to it. Can you make a video review about how I helped you? It would help me tremendously if you go over any specifics. Feel free to text me or email it to me.

A great way to start is, quotes, IPCS to Davis-Montan Air Force Base and Ali Garcet helped me buy or sell a home here in Tucson or Vail or, you know, insert city here. And working with Ali was XYZ. The reason I have this starter sentence is for SEO. It's for Google. I literally have PCS. I have the Air Force Base.

I have my full name. I have buy a home. I have the city of where I'm working. And then I mention my name again. Do that as much as you can. The more SEO key terms, the specific cities that you're helping your buyers or sellers with that you want to promote. Again, what you put out is what you're going to get back. Then, you know, do that.

And your buyers will help you do that, especially if this is a company with like a phone call or a text message or in person saying, I'm going to start it off with a specific line. If you could just copy and paste that line, then fill in the blank. This also helps too just because I know that so many people are like, I'm willing to help. But first of all, I'm very uncomfortable with video and I don't know what to say. So if you give them exactly what to say, at least you're eliminating one of those hurdles, you know, so. Yeah. Yeah.

And sometimes I don't even. So this is like obvious I'm asking them for review. When we, when I jump back into my closing checklist, I'm going to show you how I just show up with a camera. They don't really have a choice. but they're cool with it. Okay. So here are some examples if you were a buyer. And I have bullet points of like stuff for them to start refreshing their mind. Because at this point, it's been 30 days. It's been 60, maybe even longer. So maybe we've been working together for a year. You know, how long have we worked together? What type of loan? So that way again, more SEO type keywords. So VA loan or conventional loan. That's F what X, you get it. If you were remote during. the home buying process, you know, Allie helped me buy while I was stationed in Japan. Did I face-time you? Did I send you videos? Negotiations. Did I help you get under contract for a price under the list price? Were you able to get any closing costs covered? The next bullet point is how many other

offers were on the table when the sellers chose ours? And if there weren't any, how far under the original list price did we get under contract for? Was my team helpful in providing? you guidance throughout the process. Then I have two links which go directly to my Zillow and my Google. I do not recommend sending out your Google link. So and because I have, I personally, I don't know if my settings are weird, but I personally have found that when people use a link for a Google, I am not able to see it. And they have screenshoted me showing proof that they have sent me that they've put a review, but I think it's something that Google has implemented where they don't want spam.

They don't want one link and you sending it to thousands of people like your entire database saying, hey, review me because it can look kind of spammy. So typically I accompany this with a text message and I tell them exactly how to find me on Google. So I do have my Google link here. I definitely have my Zillow link here for sure. And I tell them that they can just copy and paste and do. you know, if they want to do Zillow first, copy and paste on it to Google. Then this is the part that will get you the five-star review every freaking time with a ton of keywords.

If you want to even freaking copy this, I mean, it has my name on it, but this is an example of a kind of review that you want. This is from one of my friends, GS-14 that I helped her purchase in Tucson. She left an outstanding review. Okay, obviously all fives. This is on Zillow. And she has paragraphs. Like, Ali's a master of her craft. She says my name.

She says Tucson. She says military families. She has, we had a complex set of requests, Ali easily handled all them. Military family movement in Tucson. This is like a short novel. And it's exactly what you want. So does every client leave a lengthy review, you know, of this length?

Absolutely not. But I want to show them what other people have reviewed and what I expect of them. So that way they get a sense of, hey, we're not looking for, I'm not looking for one-liners. And I am looking for a little bit of effort because my business relies on this. So I've told the clients this via email, via text, and either over FaceTime or in person, that like the review means the world to me. So please believe specifics. As I scroll down, obviously, if you're watching this on YouTube, you can see the entire review.

I'm not going to read all of it. Again, it's a short novel of amazingness. So at the end, I have my business runs on referrals, meaning, because people don't know what the hell that means, and it's such a cliche term that no one knows what that means, meaning, I rely on your word of mouth and telling other buyers and sellers to continue making the living. I would truly appreciate it if you start a group chat. Again, this covers exactly what I put in buyer email number five in the last episode. Check that out.

And I can help buyers and sellers anywhere in the States. Thank you so much. That is the email. And we can go back to the checklist unless Shelby you want to mention anything. No, I just, and I said this in the last episode, but I'll say it again here, is that I really love the, there's a word, it's assertiveness, maybe. Like, kind of aggression, but it's not aggressive because it's not off-putting. But you really, really go for it. You go for it.

You remind them, you put yourself out there and you ask for what you want. And there are so many agents who are scared of doing that. And I find myself at times also being hesitant, like, I hesitate. But you're like, nope, this is, I make my living. here guys this is so important please you know and you tell them what you want you have a standard and yeah it's just impressive if you are looking to change brokerages this year so you can increase your business and you want to join us at ex p realty and would like either myself aligar said or shelby johnson to personally sponsor you in so that way you have access to two icon

agents text the word join to either my number nine one four nine four nine one eight four nine or shelby's number 703-39-4332. If I sponsor you and you have access to the both of us and everything that's Five Pillars Nation, we have the checklist, the systems, the process is to help you scale your business, and don't take our word for it. We've had agents switch brokerages to join us that were stuck making $300,000 GCI, and they join us so they can scale. So text the word joined to those numbers, and we'll take the next steps.

And I feel comfortable asking for it several times. I will text them. I'll call them several times because I've told them that I'm going to beforehand. And during the process, while we're working together, not on the first call, not even on the second one. But as we're looking at homes, I am sharing my reviews with them or I'm posting something. They see me on my social media. They see my YouTube.

They've seen other people do testimonials. So that's why I feel more comfortable. I'm like, you found me because of a testimonial. Can you help me do the same for others? But yeah, at the end of the day, it's like, how bad do you want business? and I want business. That's it. So I'm back on the checklist now. And bullet point number three for the after closing checklist is in bold. Some of these stuff that I have in bold is for a VA to do. This is what you can outsource. So for cheap too. It doesn't have to be someone in the States. It doesn't

have to be, you know, it can be someone that doesn't even really need to be on your time zone or need to be super, super fluent in English. So here I have. the my VA to add the client photo and testimonial to the website and social media whether or not we have already taken photos in in person in front of the house or you know inside the house and when I arrive I will come with my phone and a mic I don't have anything fancy you don't need anything fancy I do suggest a mic though because audio is everything even if you don't have a mic definitely use captions or cap cut where they have an AI feature to filter out the wind to feed to filter out the background noise but a mic is best if you're going to pay anything pay for a mic

and just have it Bluetooth to your to your phone that you already use question real quick that where are you I missed it what is this at the closing table this final walk through where is this I'm going on tangent so good question I'm still this bullet this bolded bullet point here I'm going ahead of myself well no but oh did you not cover it yet like I'm talking about when you Yeah, I didn't cover it yet. My bad. So because not everything here is like in the same order every time just because sometimes I'm going to show up first.

Sometimes I'd ask for review first. So everything is done here, but you may want to rearrange the order of what you do it. So the next bullet point, I'm going to go back into what happens when I meet them in a bit. So the next bullet point, add the client to HomeBot using the information in the description. And if you use HomeBot, I'm kind of, you know, give or take with HomeBot. HomeBot doesn't have accurate information. I would rather, instead of me giving them a response, an automated response from an algorithm that doesn't quite pull everything, I don't want to say, hey, your house is worth $300,000 because it may not be. And I don't want them to then say, oh, well, if Ali is showing me $300K, maybe another realtor can show higher.

I don't want that. So I personally don't use it. But I've heard good experiences from other agents that do use it. So once you have recorded in Arizona, that's when you're legally able to give the buyer, the keys, at that point is when. I like or my team goes to the property to congratulate them, you know, go with a balloon, go with a couple of balloons, go with some essentials like hand soap, toilet paper, shit that the property doesn't already have. We like doing that for especially again, military buyers that are not thinking about the toilet paper that they need to bring, the paper towels, the paper plates,

you know, something while they're waiting on their household goods. So we go there with some stuff, which is like our closing gift, stuff that helps them get through during the time until they get their household goods and get everything. So we scheduled the call or we scheduled the appointment to meet at the house. Shelby, congratulations. You are now the homeowner. The key is already at the house. What time do you want us to meet you there? What time are you going to be there? And so we get the time. Okay, awesome. It's four o'clock today. Let's go. As either I go or if my teammate goes to, as, you know, representing one of my clients, they're going to get a video test. Do the clients know that all the time? No. If I know that they're super outgoing, then they probably

know it and they're cool. They're excited about it. If they don't seem, if we haven't already spoken about, hey, you're going to be, I'm going to ask you for a video testimonial. I'm going to surprise them. Because never once, and maybe this is like very aggressive on my end, but never once has a client been like, Ali, no, I don't want to do this. You're at the house that they just bought. And they're excited, you're excited. That is the peak moment to be able to get them capture their excitement and send them a photo, you know, get that photo framed or whatever it is, again, that whatever you want to do for gifts, I think it's the perfect time to capture those like positive emotions. So phone, I bring my little mic, my Bluetooth mic, and I give them the key.

have them open the door and I do this kind of differently. I'm testing different stuff, but I'm recording. So in that way, you can send it to your editor, either all the raw footage of them opening the door and the inside and their facial expressions. And after I will wrap it up and I ask them three questions. Number one was how is it like working with me? And I physically say this. I mean, I say this out loud and I don't always have it in the actual video post editing. So they'll started off by regurgitating saying working with Allie was XYZ. Sometimes I'll coach them a little bit more. I'm like, hey, can you say the city too? And they're usually cool with it. Working with Allie to purchase in Vail, Arizona was, and then they insert the blank, I will have, I will be pulling up the specifics.

So I am also going to be reminding them that we got this property, $4,000 below list price, uh, $4,000 in instant equity because of the appraisal came in 4K high. Uh, we negotiated 20,000, thousand dollars of seller concessions you know like i will remind them of all of that and i'll ask them to just state it they don't feel i've never once had someone be like i don't feel like i don't feel comfortable saying that because it's the work that we did you know like they're they're excited so they'll say that that so that's question number one question number two is the specifics and question number three is would you recommend me to work with anyone else in helping them buy or sell a home in vale in tucson in sauritah in pima county and so they just

start the sentence after that. And it's super short. It doesn't need to be a lot. We get a little bit of B roll of them in the house, opening the house, then with their family, they're smiling. Even if you don't capture that, at a minimum, just those three quick questions, even if it's a 20 second testimonial goes such a long way. What I do with that is I posted on my Instagram.

I then highlight it as a story. And I add that story into my client win pinposts. What is it called? I think they're called highlights. Highlights. Yeah. Yeah. I added to my highlights.

I posted on YouTube shorts, if it's a short. I post it on TikTok. I post it on LinkedIn, threads, Facebook. And I'm now switching to only post on my personal, I mean, on my business page for Facebook. And you can also post that on your Google page. So that way you have photos of your listings and also video testimonials of your clients. you can also then turn that into just a script that you can post onto your website, your blog,

your Google page again, et cetera. You can use that so, so many ways. So I have learned that I do not ask to, I do not ask if they're comfortable making a video before closing because I have gotten a lot of nose when they could have been yeses. Because they're thinking the cameraman's going to be out here. you know, they're going to come with lights and audio and all of this. And it's not. It's low threat. It's literally me or whoever you've been working with. We've developed a relationship. So don't be afraid to get these video testimonials. They work so much better and are way more powerful than

just written text. Anything on that before we go to the next checkpoint checklist? Question. You said you sent it to the editor. Do you send with guidance or do they just get it by this point for editing? If you are looking to change brokerages this year so you can increase your business and you want to join us at EXP Realty and would like either myself, Ali Gar said, or Shelby Johnson to personally sponsor you in. So that way you have access to two icon agents, text the word join to either my number 914-318-49-18 or Shelby's number 703-39-4-332. If I sponsor you and you have access to the both of us and everything that's Five Pillars Nation, We have the checklist, the systems, the process to help you scale your business, and don't take our word for it. We've had agents switch brokerages to join us that were stuck making $300,000 GCI, and they join us so they can scale.

So text the word joined to those numbers, and we'll take the next steps. Question, when you said you sent it to the editor, do you send with guidance or do they just get it by this point for editing? Yeah, it's usually so short that they don't need a lot of guidance. and my actually my next step is to potentially send out a professional videographer. And because I know someone that's not, they wouldn't come with, you know, the get out to intimidate the clients. It's someone that dresses like me. Like he just happens to be way better.

He would have better audio quality, video quality and can think. He does the thinking. Right now, I'm doing the thinking. You know, I have the three questions. I'm like, hey, let's get them walking into the house. Let's get their smiles. but a videographer does this for a living. So I would much rather pay someone to do a quick 20-second professional video

than mine that are like, janky, and you hear the car, you hear it works. So we'll see. We'll see what it's like getting like an actual videographer. But as of right now, I just give it to my editor and it's so short. They're just like, they just chop out the ums and the parts where I am leading them with the question on how to respond. And that's it. Easy.

At this point. then you want to reconfirm that they have reviewed you in written testimonial. Then you want to find out the status of the closing gift. This is back when I used client giant. So you want to make sure that they didn't already get the gift or that the gift is going to the right spot. Again, those buyers are moving. Maybe they don't even want to get the gift in their new house yet because they're not going to physically move there. So figure out the status of the gift.

If the cross agent was exceptional and you liked working with them, leave them a good house. Google review. So many agents do not do this. And it helps so much. You know, it helps them in their business. And it puts you in such a better light in their eyes because now they love working with you. Because when was the last time you left a five star whopping review for a competitor? Likely, rarely. Yeah. So I didn't have that in my checklist before, but I was going to say, so there's this agent. Her name's Lisa Rommel. Shout out Lisa. She doesn't listen to the podcast yet. but she's an icon here in Kentucky and she was one of the ones

that I reached out to and got coffee with her and that's what I did for her. She didn't ask for her anything. Like I didn't even tell her I was doing it. I just went and I found all of her different places and left her reviews. And I'm not sure she's really into reviews because I don't even know she knows it's there.

But Lisa, if you ever do see this, my thank you to you was the gift of a review, which is I think if you're an alley or me, like that's the best gift that you can give us. One thousand percent. That's amazing, yeah, because it helps them get even more business. And this is also, in case you really, really liked working with them and you want them on your team or you want to recruit them, that's a perfect opportunity to do so. Dude, Shelby, it was awesome working with you and just start that conversation.

Find out their pain points if they're out of brokerage where maybe they're not getting enough love or they don't have the culture. They don't have the career progression, the growth possibility. So love on them. Then the next bullet point is invite them to an annual party or any sort of in-person event. And I am not, I actually don't do a lot of in-person events. Actually, I rarely do any in-person events. I am, you guys know me. I'm an indoor cat, baby, virtual all day.

But in case you do, this is there for those, because there are a lot of people in my crew that that like in-person way more than, you know, virtual. So invite them. you know, start treating them like a member of your crew. And, yeah, that also helps with recruiting as well. Next bullet point is I have a sites.gov.com website of all of the properties that I have helped on the listing side and on the buyer's side. So tell your VA to update and upload this new property that you just closed on to your website.

You can link this website into your actual website. this can also be used as testimonial. So say you're working with a client that isn't yet 100% bought on you, you can give them this link and say, hey, these are all the properties that I've helped buy and sell. And then the last bullet point of this is check that 80% commission, or if you're already capped, check that 100% commission, make sure it's correct.

And we do the profit first system. So that's where I have here put three or whatever your percentages. I put 10% for profit, 35% for operating. expenses, a percentage for owner compensation, all of that. You want to make sure that you're running a profitable system, a profitable business. So if you haven't read this book and if you have no idea what I'm talking about, read profit first by Mike McAulowitz. McAulwix. I never know how to pronounce his name. It's such a good book. It's such a good book. We have in Five Pillars, we have a ton of training on this. Dude, yes. And we're also just book nerds, which is so fun. I love that everyone

is like into reading. And we have a book exchange at Pillars Retreat every year. And it's just beautiful and I'm going to bring it back because we just left here we are we're on follow up what are we do now ally my favorite part now I'm going to bring it back to the book exchange and my favorite part is that is when everyone writes in the book you know like what they've learned from it or how they hope that it's going to help their other pillar member that's dope dude I was just looking at yours the other day like I was scrolling through my photos and I saw what you wrote in someone's book and it was something like fucking retorty was like read the book commit to memory and speak it out loud and then go in and say it to everyone you know and pretend you're better than them. And it was like a checklist.

It was literally like a checklist. It was a checklist that I wrote. It was the book that I, that Mike Glasby ended up picking up. And it was the Harvard Business Review. One of those books on like emotional intelligence, something like that. I ended up not really liking it too much, but I can see how other people would super benefit from it. So I'm like, hey, it says the word Harvard, pretend you're Harvard educated and go tell everyone. I think it's funny. That's what I'm like. Pro tip.

Yeah. And if you guys are like, wow, this is super helpful. Well, this is literally what we do. This is these type of systems built out in every lane of your business, whether it be, of course, this is for the buyers, deep dive. Of course, we have one for the sellers, the same type of detailed process with the emails, the checklist, the step by step. And then we also have it for our virtual assistance and for transaction coordinator. enlisting coordinators.

And if you have interns coming into your business or literally the investor world, which Allie and I aren't, you know, in love with anymore, but we have lived that life. And we have all of the checklists and processes for all of the things. So if you're sitting there and you're like, wow, this is really helpful. Like I can't believe this exists. Then maybe reach out. Reach out to us because we do have this in every aspect of the real estate journey. And that's all.

That is all I have. Okay. And then next up is the follow-up checklist. And even though we said this was the last part of the checklist, we're going to save this follow-up to make sure that the clients can continue referring you and you will become their agent for life. We're going to have another last buyer checklist of this series. Let us know.

Hit us up if this is helpful. We have gotten texts from others saying that it is helpful. So I'm super, super grateful for that. Hit us up for it. We're here. Be a bro. and share this show.