It’s an excellent time to be a Realtor, with short listing periods and house prices continuing to rise. Standing out is not easy in this market, there is a lot of competition, and many established Realtors are already assisting clients in a busy market with low inventory.
It’s great to work for a large realty group that has a solid brand presence in a market segment, but your personal brand is much more important. Your personal image is the client’s brand perception and becomes what you’re known for. When personal branding is implemented, this is how you will be able to gain new clients that bump into your brand digitally, or in print, and will result in more referrals and recognition in the community.
The team at William Raveis in Providence partnered with a local agency to create videos involving their actual Realtors in the videos. The first one was completed for Valentine’s Day and was as simple as Realtors reading real client reviews in a themed setting.
The video received a couple thousand views and received more interaction than any other video they had posted in the past. It gives you a glimpse of the genuine personality of each Realtor and reinforces their brand image.
Another video they released gave Realtors the opportunity to provide a short piece of helpful information to buyers that they are commonly asked about. If a potential client hears something helpful from you, you’re building trust with them and your brand before you even meet. It’s not a new concept, and most of the top-performing Realtors have already nailed down their individual brands.
There are many ways to start, if you’re an existing Realtor looking to strengthen your personal brand. If you think about what your past clients had in common, you can identify some characteristics of your ideal audience. That information can show you who you are helping to reach their goals.
You may find you’re an expert in luxury, family or a local expert on a specific area. Your mission should state who you are helping, how are you helping them and why you are helping them.
You may also have one aspect of your service that is continuously complimented on, showing that among the average Realtor, you do something better. This is known as your Unique Selling Proposition, and it’s important to incorporate this into your brand. The most important step to building your personal brand is your story. Everyone has one and even though it may not seem interesting or memorable to you, people remember stories.
Telling someone something in the form of a story will increase their retention of the information. Stories are used in most brands, and it continues to be a driving force of their brand messaging.
Practicing telling your story and hearing reactions to it will help you discover the parts of your story that are most valuable to your audience. This is most likely the area that will differentiate you from other agents and make you easily identifiable. Completing your brand with your own logo, specific fonts and copy that matches your brand will help visualize your brand with content that clients will remember.
If Realtors rely on the company they work for to bring all of the business, they will not see the growth they are looking for. Some agents’ individual brands come out naturally without much forethought, but most will have to take the time to identify and build that brand to be known for their name, and not for the company they work under.
Branding is powerful, but all brands will take time to develop and increase their recognition. That makes it important to be established early on, so the power of branding can help grow an agent’s client base.
Ryan Buttie is co-founder of Providence-based Luminous Creative Agency.
