Get to the heart of what your client actually wants.
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Archive note – updated 19 September 2026: first published on Elite Agent in April 2025. I’ve refreshed the prompts to start with what clients tell you and to label assumptions clearly. An AI-generated persona is a preparation tool, not evidence of how a particular person thinks or feels.

Understanding what motivates your clients is essential for connecting with them.

While it’s easy to focus on property features, the reasons a client gives for buying or selling also matter when it comes to building a relationship with your prospective client.

This is where empathy mapping comes in – a powerful technique that AI can help streamline.

For more on checking communication preferences, read the refreshed communication guide.

What is Empathy Mapping?

Empathy mapping is a framework that helps you understand your clients’ perspectives by exploring:

  • What they’re thinking and feeling
  • What they’re hearing from others
  • What they’re seeing in the market
  • What they’re saying and doing

Start with conversations, feedback and questions clients have actually shared. AI can help organise that material and suggest what to ask next. It cannot replace listening to the person in front of you.

Practical Prompts for Real Estate Empathy Mapping

Here are some effective prompts to try:

Creating an evidence-based empathy map

Using the fictional scenario or authorised, de-identified client feedback below, draft an empathy map for someone considering selling their home.

Separate:
1. What they have explicitly said or done.
2. What remains unknown.
3. Possible concerns to check with open questions.

Do not infer feelings, motives or financial circumstances from age, gender, suburb or relationship status. Label every suggestion that is not supported by the feedback as a possibility, not a fact.

[SCENARIO OR FEEDBACK]

For practice, try a fictional seller who has told you they want a smaller home but is unsure about the timing. Ask the AI what is known, what is missing and how you could explore the gaps without making assumptions.

Uncovering Client Concerns

Next, use the map to prepare questions you can check in a conversation:

From the feedback and empathy map above, identify up to ten possible concerns worth checking. For each, show the supporting statement or mark it “not yet supported”, then write a respectful open question. Do not invent quotations or present a possible concern as the client’s actual feeling.

This is a way to prepare for possibilities. The following are illustrative concerns – not quotes from a client or findings from research:

For example:

  • “I’m afraid the agent won’t understand the emotional value this home holds for me.”
  • “What if they push me to accept a lower offer just to make a quick sale?”
  • “I worry about strangers walking through my home and judging my life.”

Use these possibilities to ask better questions, then listen for what matters to that client. They may tell you something completely different.

Building a Strategic Meeting Agenda

With these concerns in mind, you can now create a client-centred meeting approach:

Using the client’s confirmed priorities and unanswered questions, draft a first-meeting agenda. Start by inviting them to correct our understanding. Include time for their questions, the information we need to verify, and a next step we can agree together. Do not assume unconfirmed emotional needs.

Creating Client-Focused FAQs

Perhaps my favourite application is transforming some of these insights into website content:

Turn these recurring, de-identified client questions into a helpful website FAQ. Use only the supplied business facts and services. Flag missing information rather than inventing answers, fees, guarantees or market claims. Keep individual clients unidentifiable and mark every answer for my review before publication.

Putting It Into Practice

Try an empathy map based on a fictional scenario or feedback you’re authorised to use. Check the suggestions before using them to:

  1. Update your website’s FAQ section
  2. Refine your listing presentation
  3. Create more resonant marketing content

The value comes from checking your understanding and responding to what the client actually needs. A thoughtful question is more useful than a confident guess.

You can also review a training conversation with the Favourite or Fool coaching prompt.

Happy hunting 🚀

Empathy Mapping and Favourite or the Fool are now included in Elite Agent Insiders. If you’d like to use them as part of your client preparation, explore what’s included. Insiders is our separate paid membership; Samantha’s Substack remains free.

This article first appeared in Samantha McLean’s AI Powered Agents newsletter. Read the refreshed version on AI Powered Real Estate by Samantha McLean, now on Substack.