Real Estate Sales Professional Branding - How to Establish the Brand that is YOU!

You are more than your brokerage brand. How do you want to be perceived by the public? Who are your buyer personas of today and tomorrow and is your brand in line with these personas?

The real estate sales profession in itself has a brand. You are a regulated professional that can be trusted to assist the public in what is for most the biggest purchase of their life. If you work for a brokerage you also benefit from their branding and people will identify with this when meeting you. The types of communities the brokerage serves, the types of property they specialize in, their brand identity should be easily identifiable, but it largely depends on the investment that your brokerage has made in their own branding.

Then there is the brand that is you? The ‘Me Inc.’ brand as was wittingly referred to in a recent Fast Company article http://www.fastcompany.com/28905/brand-called-you on the topic.

The brand that is you is important and could make or break your success in real estate. What is unique about you? What makes you competitive? Why should a prospect deal with you over someone else? Sure, you may know who you are: professional, honest, hardworking – but how do you show everyone else this?

When thinking about developing the brand that is you and breathing your brand into all of your marketing communications and daily endeavours, you may first want to think about who your target is. Many real estate sales professionals go after the masses – but honing in on target markets and ensuring that your brand is consistent with those you are targeting will make you much more successful.

When thinking about the brand that is you and narrowing down which types of customers present the most opportunity to you, consider using a method widely published by HubSpot which is to develop your buyer personas. This is an exercise where you can eventually categorize your prospects into personas, segment them and then determine what aspects of the brand that is you will speak to your buyer personas.

A good starting point to develop buyer personas, would be looking at your business (clients) from the previous year. Make a column for each persona and then ask yourself:

1.      What is their demographic information?

2.      What is their job and level of seniority?

3.      What does a day in their life look like?

4.      What are their pain points?

5.      What problem do you help them to solve?

6.      What do they value most? What are their goals?

7.      Where do they go for information?

8.      What customer experience are they looking for when seeking out your products or services?

9.      What are their most common objections to your product or service?

The answers to these questions will help you to craft your messaging to appeal to the segments of the market that you want to penetrate most. Just like the brand that is you, everything from your website to your marketing materials to the way you serve clients should speak to your targeted buyer personas. The two are quite intertwined - nailing down your branding and your buyer personas is crucial.

Just remember that the brand that is you is not just the logo on your business card - it is the type of properties you specialize in, the area you serve, your social presence. It is your online presence, it is the car you drive, the clothes you wear, who is in your network, where you like to have lunch, the technology you use and more. The brand that is you requires thought because it is how you will be reputed and largely determines how you are perceived by the public.

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