As a real estate professional, your brand is one of the most important factors when building your business, and it takes dedication to maintain it successfully. With real estate changing quickly, in large part due to technology, it’s the personal connection and human contact that still drives our industry.
When clients are faced with a nonstop influx of information, it’s a real estate professional’s job to be the trusted adviser who helps them make informed, reasoned decisions. I’ve outlined four tips for building a personal brand — which will ultimately elevate your business.
1. Tell your story
A well-known brand can evoke authentic images of what it is and what it stands for, and it can amass a passionate following. One way established firms have done this is by sharing a genuine brand story.
Conveying a brand’s purpose, history and values in a well-formed narrative helps resonate with the public, and create an emotional connection. If you look back at The Agency’s history, we were founded in 2011 by a team of people who aspired to progress and modernize the experience of buying and selling real estate.
The old model of how real estate companies were set up encouraged people to work independently while competing. How did this benefit the client? How did this benefit the agent? It didn’t.
To this day, we’ve maintained our authentic stance and have expanded our company with like-minded partners across the globe. Without a brand story, your brand messaging, marketing and sales efforts will have less impact and inhibit your growth.
2. Build through collaboration
Collaboration is critical when it comes to growing your brand. By fostering a partnership culture, clients and listings are represented in a cooperative environment, and it helps everyone succeed in the long run.
Our founding principle is collaboration, especially from the top down. Agents share their knowledge, expertise and spheres of influence. Our approach of enhanced client representation and forever altered the industry to create a better working environment for real estate agents.
Through collaboration, you can encourage and draw from the vast diversity of thought, knowledge and perspective. Collaboration helps develop a well-versed perspective on the world — which helps drive business, fuels innovation and fosters creativity.
3. Carefully select your partners
Identify partners who have a deep understanding of the industry and are experts in their field. By building a solid partner network, you’ll benefit from cross-marketing and exposure to their like-minded and already established network.
We carefully select our partners and colleagues, from top agents to passionate newcomers driven to succeed. We’ve been labeled “disruptors,” and it’s a label we wear with pride. With an established brand, our current focus is on creating a legacy. We began as disruptors, and our defined brand shall remain.
4. Aim to maintain your brand
Maintaining the brand you worked so hard to develop will elevate your business as you grow. For example, our goal is to be an internationally recognized brand known for using creative and innovative tactics to market, and sell real estate on a global scale.
To maintain the brand we’ve created, our in-house marketing team has developed a “Brand Book” that aims to support one clear voice, message and purpose in everything we do.
This blueprint is an essential tool, especially as we grow and enhance our position in the marketplace. Unlike traditional brokerages, our franchise offices enjoy the same access to information and internal systems as our corporate offices. This is how we can deliver a solid basis for referrals and a blueprint for maintaining our brand values as we continue our global expansion.
As your business grows, maintain quality over quantity. Once you’ve established your brand, it is crucial to maintain consistency in all platforms — online and in person — to reinforce the dedicated image you are trying to display.
Mauricio Umansky is the founder and CEO of The Agency in Los Angeles. Connect with him on Instagram.
