Tip Tuesday: 5 Ways Build Your Personal Brand the Right Way
Nobody likes someone who is an ego-maniac. However, a lot of real estate agents get a bad rap, because some agents think that to build a great personal brand, they need to talk about how great they are. This is very off-putting for many people – especially your Gen X and Gen Y clients who are slow to trust and quick to judge anyone who calls themselves an ‘expert.’
Personal branding – the art of packaging and presenting yourself has become so vital to both career and business development – especially as a real estate agent.
Here are five simple strategies that real estate agents can use to instantly set themselves apart from the pack:
1. Craft a Compelling Pitch. You need to be able to clearly define yourself, and sum up precisely what it is you do, in 30 seconds or less. When in doubt, make a simple bullet point list of the skills you excel at. Ask yourself: How do I see myself? Your pitch needs to be brief, to the point.
2. Take Control of Your Your Name. Input your name or your business’s name in Google, and see what comes up. It’s vital that the majority of results that appear – especially the first ones, all speak to the same clear message. You should not only own a website with your personal name as the domain (a given, right?!) – you should also have profiles on all major social networking services (Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn) under the same name. Even if you plan to do nothing else on social media – as a minimum – set up your profile.
3. Create Strong Branding Platforms. Personal branding is about establishing yourself as someone that brings unique, indispensable real estate services and skills to the table. You need to create platforms (blogs, Facebook pages, online video channels, etc.) that can help broadcast your skills and experience to as many people as possible. All of these platforms should also be stamped with your signature name, logo and imagery. Once built, it pays to pump out content through them that illustrates your expertise.
4. Be Generous with Your Time. Acts of kindness and generosity serve to generate goodwill and help build invaluable relationships and contacts that can pay off immeasurably. Charitable work presents great opportunities to establish trust, grow your personal/professional network and make a positive impact – you never know when it might lead to a vital mention or referral. Go above and beyond the call of duty. It doesn’t just speak to personal values and work ethic. It also presents a prime opportunity to demonstrate your expertise.
5. Accessibility is the Name of the Game. Whether using blog posts, tweets or your professional Facebook page, accessibility is the name of the game. Not only do people need to know you’re out there – they also need to know where and how to reach you, that you’re available to connect as needed and will respond to requests for outreach in a timely fashion. This doesn’t mean having to broadcast your personal information to the world or staying up until 3 a.m. responding to 200 e-mails 
. But it does necessitate that you not build too many layers of insulation between yourself and incoming queries, and be respectful of acknowledging people’s questions and feedback (even if it’s just through a series of blog posts).
The bottom line: If you want to be a go-to real estate agent, you’ve got to earn people’s trust. That means being genuine, listening and responding quickly!
Bonus tip #1: At some point you will want to work with a professional designer to help create your brand for you – i.e. your look, logo, imagery, etc. Don’t take a short-cut! Hiring a designer will help save you time and money in the long-haul!
Bonus tip #2: Be respectful of your brokerage’s brand and image. Although you are independent, pay attention to style guides and/or branding standards your brokerage has published. There are so many ways to differentiate and brand yourself but still stay within your brokerage branding guidelines.
Would love your comments and feedback – please leave me a comment below!
Written by: Katie Lance, Marketing Manager, Inman News
Kelly | May 25, 2010 | Reply
Excellent article. Will happily share this as it’s a great read for agents in Australia.
Colleen | May 26, 2010 | Reply
I think #2 is often neglected until it is too late. It’s better to have your name ranking well, before someone decides to post something unfavorable. Fortunately, this has never happened to us, but I think we are ready if the day comes.
Alex Cortez | May 26, 2010 | Reply
Great post, Katie. It is becoming more and more critical that agents use their online presence not only to establish a level of expertise/authority, but also to engage their audience. Social media outlets like twitter and fb allow users to show more of their personality and build trust by maintaining relationships with clients (as opposed to using it to spam their listings, which way too many agents do).
Roscoe Properties | May 26, 2010 | Reply
You cannot expect conversions to happen if you only post your listings. Building trust within your social media circle will create a more branded and trusted ’sphere’. People tend to spend money where they are comfortable, so get to know them!
Desert Mountain Arizona Real Estate | May 26, 2010 | Reply
I agree with owning the url of your name but I don’t agree with using it as a website. Websites should be client-centric and focus on a real estate area, not be focused on the agent. Clients are turned off by websites that are all about the agent. Also a website with your name as a url is more difficult for seo than using a community name and real estate term in the url
Colin | May 29, 2010 | Reply
Great article, and excellent comments.
Clients generally select an agent, not the company, which makes it vital for agents to be branding themselves and not relying on the office branding for them.
John Arquette | May 30, 2010 | Reply
Bravo! Too often brokers supress the agents name as a way to control the agents activities and to keep them from considering alternate business models. My wife and I launched our new company John Arquette Properties in 2/2009 and since the beginning we have had success by encouraging and assiting agents in their personal brand building efforts. We are sure to place agents photos and cell phone numbers on everything from yard signs to personal websites. Personal branding works for both the agent and the broker!
Katie Lance | May 30, 2010 | Reply
Thanks everyone for your comments – I love hearing from our readers!
Kelly – absolutely – this is info that could be used world-wide
Colleen- that’s true, someimes you don’t notice until it is too late – but better late than never right?
Alex – thanks! I agree!
Roscoe Prop – I 100% agree!!
Desert Mountain – I think its good for an agent to have both – a URL with their name and then the community they serve (if possible). You can always purchase multiple URL’s and point them to your main URL. Many people will google an agent’s name which is why I think you should own your URL.
Colin- agreed!
John – thank you for the ‘bravo!’
Great comment and great example. Where is your brokerage based?
Katie
Lucy LaVoulle | May 31, 2010 | Reply
I enjoyed reading this article and I took notes. Several of the items were confirmations. I will implement one as I retool my real estate practice. Thanks Lucy
Real Estate Farmington Utah | Jun 3, 2010 | Reply
Very informative! I’ll sure put into practice some of these and I absolutely agree with number 5. As much as possible you really need to respond to people’s queries. You need to reach out to them so to earn their trust.
Dotti Berry | Jun 10, 2010 | Reply
This is fantastic info…absolutely great tips! I just finished a blog post about a free tool for marketing your UBB (Unique Business Brand). here’s the blog post at http://xr.com/DigitalBusinessCard and here’s mine. This free tool really does tie together everything you mention. I just discovered it which is why I blogged about it.
I am a real estate investor and am very interested in the market, and have a lot of real estate agents and realtors with whom I work. http://www.MobileMediaRevolution.com is a blog post where I use examples of a couple of my agent friends to show how they can brand and market in the new mobile media revolution. Hope you find it helpful.
I will be bookmarking this site and sharing with all of my real estate friends in the U.S. and Canada (I live only 5 minutes from Canadian border in WA)
Dotti Berry | Jun 10, 2010 | Reply
oh, here’s mine … shows you how it works to pull it all together.
i just made the longer url they gave me into a short url..
http://xr.com/DottiBerry
Dotti Berry | Jun 10, 2010 | Reply
I am putting this on my FB page right now after giving you a tweet since I don’t see your FB button.