The importance of branding: Part 2

Defining and Outlining your Brand

In our last post, we talked about the competition in the real estate industry, the importance of branding yourself and differentiating yourself from the other agents competing in the same arena as you. While branding is not all about you, your goals, your strengths, your knowledge, your integrity, and the value you bring to the table, it is a very necessary part of the branding process. Also critical in establishing your brand is being able to pull all of your attributes together in a manner that attracts the clientele you want to serve and create the trust that you will meet their needs in such a profound way that your clients are left with such a positive experience that they then share their experience with others. The impact you have on your clients will then return to you in the form of referral and repeat business!

What are your goals?

As a real estate agent, what are your business goals? Where do you see yourself in five years … ten years? What drives you? If being a real estate agent is your passion, define what you enjoy most about it and know what are you best at? What are your strengths? What types of transactions do you love to engage in? If you have some experience, you have probably been on both the listing side and buying side of home-buying transactions. Do you have a preference? Maybe you have dealt with high-end sellers and buyers who are experienced in the buy-sell process and modest or lower-end sellers and buyers who don’t really understand the process. Which do you prefer? Maybe you want to become an expert in a specific niche market like commercial real estate, property management or helping distressed homeowners. What matters here is what kicks your adrenaline into high gear. Whichever it is, you need to know what motivates you to get up and out of bed each day ready to meet your goals.

Having a personal brand for yourself defines who you are in the marketplace and why people want to do business with you. It makes a statement about you and what you have to offer. It is important to understand that establishing a brand for yourself is a process and it takes time, soul searching, and hard work and will probably need to be tweaked over time. If you do the hard work, your return on investment will pay off. You can’t fake it until you make it because any falsehoods will eventually become transparent. In order to be successful, you have to be true to yourself.

If being a real estate agent is your passion, your success will follow if you know what your goals are and how you can uniquely meet the needs of the people you want to serve.

Know your Clientele.

Determine what area of real estate you enjoy most and are most comfortable with based on your personality, your knowledge and expertise. Considering your best attributes, where will your talents benefit your clients the most? Whether it’s being a listing agent, a buyer’s agent, a commercial property expert or a property manager, you have to understand the needs, dynamics and demographics of the clientele you want to serve. What are their goals? What are their needs? What obstacles and challenges do they face? What unique strengths, values and experience do you have that will leave them with that lasting impressing that not only keeps them coming back, but causes them to refer YOU to other clients? As a real estate agent, you have a choice. You can either simply be the means to the product you sell or you can be the professional that provides your clients with the answers they need and the service they are looking for? Understanding your clients and knowing how to meet their needs will differentiate you from your competition.

Real estate is about buying and selling real estate and it is a highly competitive industry. Being able to offer your clients an experience they won’t forget will put you one step ahead of the next agent. But you have to do your homework. You need to understand your own personality, passion, motivation, strengths and skillset AND the dynamics, demographics, needs and goals of your clients in order to exceed their expectations with a bang!

What is your Unique Personal Statement?

To move forward with your personal branding, you need a unique personal brand statement that is authentic and unique to you. You can’t be everything to everyone – nor does anyone expect you to be – so target the specific audience you want to reach. Your personal brand statement should be short and to the point – two or three sentences – and it should sum up your unique ‘promise of value’ to your clients. State what you are best at, who you serve, and how you uniquely meet their needs. It should be meaningful and memorable and establish trust. Your unique personal statement is a critically important part of your own personal branding, so it must be well thought out, authentic and honest.

Once you have a solid bearing about what we have discussed here, you are well on your way to defining and creating your own personal brand. These steps that you have taken are the hardest, so when you have gotten to this point, you should to congratulate yourself!

Coming up Next . . .

In Part Three we talk about taking your personal brand to print, one-line and with social media and discuss the importance of consistency in all that you do and in all that you print! Stay tuned.