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Personal Branding Techniques for Real Estate Agents and Brokers | |||
| by Dan R. Vella | |||
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A key principle of marketing is to find something unique about what
you offer as the basis of your sales message. Even if what you offer
is a commodity, there is always one thing unique in your business --
you. A big error made by many Real Estate Agents and Brokers is to try to develop an institutional image like most big companies. People do not like to do business with institutions; they like to do business with people. |
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In advertising terms, branding is the "image" created in
the minds of people when they see or hear a name, product or logo.
Companies invest a lot of money in creating and maintaining their
brand,
but the Internet has sparked a new trend called "Personal
Branding". Personal branding isn't only important for promoting a product, business or political cause, but also for promoting yourself for advancement within your own organization. It involves developing your personal reputation. | |||
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Branding can be done to any product, or any person. Before
undertaking an exercise in personal branding, however, consider your
distinctive strengths and abilities and what they offer the market
place. Traditionally personal branding was for sporting celebrities
who gained enormous coverage and following through their sporting
prowess. Movie stars have also had celebrity status and association
since movies began.
A personal brand is about creating strong, favorable associations
in the minds of people that you encounter. If you don’t actively
do this, they will WHY BRANDING OURSELVES? - Places you in a leadership role Like any branding exercise, the key to personal branding is having a good product, one which you understand and pitch to the right market. The first step in personal branding is knowing who you are, find out what strengths your brand possesses and how these strengths can help you. Personal branding is not about presenting a façade to the public; a poor product will not stand up to market scrutiny. This is also a choice of brand elements, people you deal with, the look that you have, and how you conduct yourself. Once this has been done, determine what you are going to offer. As a product what do you do, what need does the product of you satisfy in the market. Next figure out the position you will take in the audience of your mind. What unique space do you wish to occupy and what unique associations do you want people to recall when they think of you? Finally, once you have established the first three steps, manage your brand over its lifecycle. That is keep visible, be consistent and be yourself. According to Montoya, the well-known personal branding guru, the key to managing your personal brand is word-of-mouth (WOM), the most trusted form of communication. How does one go about building a personal brand? Recognize your personal strengths and gifts! Think about how you best connect with people, consider what your target audience needs and wants, identify the value you deliver to meet those needs and wants, and communicate in a way that reaches your constituents in their hearts and minds and via the channels that work best for you. Functional associations are important such as timeliness,
quality, dedication; as are emotional associations like inspiring,
leadership, being an innovator. Clarity deals with being honest about yourself and your strengths and promises of value attached to your personal brand and being clear in the way you communicate them. Often, for simplicity, you must focus on one or two aspects that are most vital and focus on communicating them. Think about the things you associate with prominent artists or mangers, and they are unlikely to be complicated. Consistency is keeping things consistent for the customers. This does not mean staying stuck in the past, but just not undertaking drastic changes. Coca Cola have had a consistent message for 50 years; the message evolves continuously and is not stagnant but is consistent. Artists like Madonna change every three or four years, but there is a consistency to the change. Constancy means being visible with your brand and maintaining an on-going level of awareness in the marketplace. Oprah Winfrey is visible constantly, and although most of people do not have the visibility or exposure of Oprah, they can still be visible in a smaller audience. There is no point trying to build a brand image quickly to coincide with a new exhibition or performance you may have coming up – brands take time to build in consumers minds. A FREE PERSONAL BRANDING TOOLKIT FOR REAL ESTATE PROFESSIONALS NetReal.net, a company noted for its template-based Real
Estate Web design solutions, offers a Winter Holidays Gift for
Real Estate NetReal’s editorial team put together the top 25 highest- rated
Real Estatemarketing articles of 2004, and created a must-have
e-book - “Essential You can personalize this e-book with your data and send it to
your contacts, absolutely free of charge. This is a great way to
offer a helpful gift to your
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About the Author
Dan R. Vella is marketing editor for NetReal.net. NetReal.net (www.netreal.net) is a privately-owned company providing web-based and offline software solutions for real estate industry, focusing especially on the low-cost end, and empowering the real-estate agents through the use to Internet technologies with the most affordable costs.
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