What Is Your Real Estate Practice’s Brand Value?

One thing that I always find curious when speaking with a prospective client about their marketing, what they are currently doing, and how things are working, is the concept of "brand."

Brand has become this white washed word that people apply to just about anything these days. The vast amount of Realtors® we work with, in fact, at first have absolutely no idea what a brand is. As a result, they're thinking of things in the wrong terms and completely missing the mark on this.

Today I would like to share with you what a brand IS NOT in real estate, and what a brand actually is. Hopefully you'll find the information helpful, and useful in building the brand of your own real estate practice.

WHAT A BRAND IS NOT

1) It's not you using your brokerage's templates

This should be an obvious one, but you won't believe how many people come to us, show us their marketing (which is made up of templates provided by their broker), and use statements like "I've branded myself like this...", "Here is my branding...", or "What do you think of my brand?"

This is not your brand. This is you promoting your brokerage's brand. I am not slamming brokerages here. They spend hundreds of thousands of dollars branding themselves. They've done a brilliant job. Heck, they're even convincing agents to promote it for them, free of charge. At the end of the day, though, this is NOT your brand.

Remember, you are not an employee of your real estate brokerage. You are your own company. You are an independent contractor. As a result, there is no value in marketing yourself with your brokerage's brand. Why do you want to look like "one of many"? You want to stand out from the crowd. You want to show homeowners your value proposition. You want to draw direct lines to how hiring you to sell their home will benefit them. In other words, you need to sell them the sizzle.

The steak (your actual brokerage) can always be sold secondarily. After all, they are hiring you, not your brokerage. Yes, it's true that working for a great, well respected brokerage is helpful and attractive in the eyes of the home seller, BUT you come first. Don't get it twisted. What the homeowner thinks you can do for them and how you'll perform when getting their home successfully sold is their primary concern.

2) Your Brand IS NOT Your Name in a fancy font

We can all agree that you are your own person, and technically, you are your company. The thing is that having your name in a fancy, decorated font--even with a slogan under it--really isn't a brand. A slogan is at least getting close, but this really doesn't tell a prospective seller anything about you. What do you stand for? What do you bring to the table that other Realtors® in your marketplace don't? How can you get done what others can't?

WHAT A BRAND IS

The technical definition of a brand is the following:

A brand is a known identity of a company in terms of what products and services they offer, but also the essence of what the company stands for in terms of service and other emotional, non-tangible consumer concerns.

So right off the bat, you can see that branding is much more than your name turned into a logo. It's also much more than you using your brokerage's templates. Again, you need to sell the sizzle. Your brand needs to precisely and distinctly be descriptive of what you stand for, the kind of person you are, and what you can do for your clients.

Every marketing message you send out is in sync with these messages, deliberate, and telling a consistent story. Your brand messaging is meant to evoke reaction from potential sellers in your marketplace.

There are lots of moving parts to setting up a strong, consistent brand. The trick to getting started off on the right foot is thinking of things in the terms I've detailed above. If you can concisely do just that, you will be on your way to building a brand that will be strong--and unique to just you.

To view the original article, visit the Leading Agent blog.