One of the biggest mistakes I see agents make is failing to build a personal brand. Instead, they choose to rely on their broker’s brand. That’s a huge missed opportunity because, when done right, it helps generate more consistent revenue and often leads to more repeat business, which is the holy grail for agents.
That’s why in this article I’m going to outline how to build a powerful personal brand that will help you attract and retain customers.
What is (and isn’t) a personal brand?
First of all: a personal brand is much more than a nice logo and a sleek website. That’s just the basics, and while it’s a crucial part, there are some other crucial components those are even more important.
Your personal brand is a distillation of what you specialize in, what you stand for and why you do what you do. It should also convey your personality, which helps attract the right prospects and repel the wrong ones. The latter is more important than most people realize, because the wrong prospects waste your time, destroy your productivity, and erode your positive mindset.
Core elements of your personal brand
Aesthetics and visual aspects
The visual aspects of a personal brand are the first step in your personal brand, but unfortunately it’s also where most officers stop.
While your personal taste plays a role in how your personal brand looks, it’s even more important that it appeals to your prospects. This should consist of your personal logo in text, which can be a font or a signature. I prefer the latter, but not your real signature. Instead, hire a graphic designer to create one for you so that you don’t make it easy for people to forge your signature on documents.
It also includes your color palette, professional headshot and cover photo. These should be consistent across all platforms, but your cover photo should be tailored for each platform as they all have different size requirements. You should also ensure that your cover photo displays correctly on both desktop and mobile versions of each social media platform.
What you specialize in
Brokers are a commodity. With nearly 1.5 million agents, potential clients have many professionals to choose from, so you need to give them a good reason to choose you.
In-depth specialization is a powerful way to do that. Some good examples are first-time homebuyers, luxury homes or military, but your options are virtually limitless. The more specific, the better. Focusing on your city is an example of bad specialization, because every agent should already be an expert on their own city.
Your specialization gives potential clients a distinct advantage in working with you because you understand their unique situation that most other agents cannot provide. making it a powerful differentiator.
What you stand for
People want to work with people they believe share their values.
Your character plays a big role, so factors like honesty and integrity are crucial, but it goes deeper. People want to work with people who share a similar worldview, so your social and political beliefs also play a role. Therefore, what you believe and the organizations and causes you support are also factors.
This is how the world works today, and with so much information at your fingertips, it’s easy for potential customers to figure out what you’re all about. The time when we were agnostic in this sense is long gone. so embrace it.
Why you do what you do
You need a powerful ‘why’ behind what you do. No one wants to work with a broker who is only in it for the money; they want to work with someone who has a deeper mission behind what they do.
For example, my own personal brand is based on the principle that I believe the model most agents follow is bad for both agents and clients. That’s why I built mine on a model that delivers much more value to agents and customers, and our results speak for themselves.
We keep agents around longer than most brokers, and they close more transactions, developing a deeper experience with a wider variety of transactions. This makes them more valuable to customers, and because they stick around longer, they generate more repeat business.
Your “why” should follow a pattern you’ve seen thousands of times, because it’s the basis for virtually every Hollywood movie you’ve ever seen. The key is to take your “why,” also known as the hero’s journeyand distill it into a concise and powerful message that sets you apart.
How to present your personal brand
The elements of your personal brand should be reflected in every aspect of your marketing, including website copy, emails and social media content.
It’s not just about your expertise; it’s also about what you specialize in, what you stand for and why you do what you do, and most importantly: your unique personality. It should give potential customers a clear idea of who you really are.
The mistake most people make is watering down the content, either trying to make it appealing to everyone, which is impossible, or trying to make sure it doesn’t alienate anyone, which is equally impossible.
It’s important to remember that an effective personal brand will both attract the right potential customers and repel the wrong ones. Many people are quite good at the former aspect, but most are frankly bad at the latter. That destroys the effectiveness of their marketing efforts.
You need to demonstrate your expertise, but you also need to be clear about who you want to work with and, most importantly, you need to be authentically yourself.
If you can accomplish all that, you’ll consistently attract the right prospects and repel the wrong ones, generating more consistent revenue.
March is the month of marketing and branding at Inman. As the spring sales season kicks off, we explore the proven tactics and new innovations driving results in today’s market – and celebrate the industry’s top marketing and branding leaders with Inman’s Marketing All-Star Awards.
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