Creating Your Brand Awareness

One of the opening lines that my previous podcast guest opened up with, when asked about branding efforts was, "you start really from the basics", he said that you need to look at what we're dealing with, if you are dealing with an individual let's say, you're an investor, for example, the first step that he would have if he just getting started in this arena is, he wants to make sure that everybody who is a player and a decision-maker in that field is aware that he is now a player and that's the very first step, that is the basics.

There you want to make sure that everybody that needs to know, knows and so certainly, that is a driving force and a factor behind every marketing decision that he makes, whether it's his brokerage services or whether it's an investment opportunity from a multi-family or commercial real estate standpoint. Let's just say you've got an apartment for lease, we need to have awareness, we need to be exposed and we need to understand what are the different networks, where are the eyeballs, where are people talking and certainly you got to understand the nature of your business.

You need to understand the different avenues, this is a referral business, it's a relationship business, so he thinks it's very important to focus on the fact if you are marketing and different avenues, let's just say you're doing social media, you're doing a lot of digital marketing, that needs to be tied in with your personal brand, as well you need to be building those relationships, one on one relationships in addition to exposing your awareness across the board.

You really need to be an extension of yourself in many different areas, create that awareness first and then once you're able to create that awareness, you want to build some brand equity, the brand equity that he is looking for is an expert in commercial real estate, someone who's going to help you maximize his value, either going into an acquisition or disposing of an asset. That's the brand that he wants to have and that's the brand that he believes that he have built and continues to build. So take a look at yourself and ask, "who needs to be aware of me and what I'm trying to do?" and then what kind of tag I know, what would be top of mind qualities that they want to know about me, because once you have built that awareness, then you've got an opportunity to really deepen the understanding of what your brand means.