I'm in the process of upgrading my website with a new brand image (it's so cool!). While I do this, I'm working on how I can do more to differentiate myself from the other trainers out there. I'm thinking about what it is that makes me different - why someone would want to work with me as opposed to someone else. Here's what I have come up with:
- I'm a woman. In the field of real estate trainers, this is actually pretty unique.
- I've got a sense of humor - it's fun to learn with me.
- My products are customizable and available in digital format on CD or via download. I'm not the only person with this, but one of the few.
- I have FABULOUS customer service, which - based on the responses I've gotten from people - seems to be a unique thing.
- I take a consultative approach and teach people to go deeper with their clients, getting past the mundanities of the transaction and into the motivations behind it.
- I don't tell agents to mimic me, I tell them to be themselves. That's the way they are going to make it big is to bring in people who want to work with someone like them - not them trying to be a clone of a trainer they learned from.
- I create interactive experiences in my classes rather than just lecturing.
- With me, it's all about the agents - not about me. I'm not into my ego - I'm into your success.
These are my differentiators. I'll be working on how to incorporate them into my website brand over the coming weeks. I've already started with the humor piece of the puzzle (want an example? - mouse over my picture on my website and you'll see - it's the biggest thing that people comment on about my site). I'll write a blog periodically to let you know how I'm doing it so you can get some idea of how to do it for yourself.
So here's your question. How do you differentiate yourself from your competition? What makes you so much more than "just another Realtor"? How do you convey that in action and not just in words on your website? How do you build it into your company brand or the "how we do it here" story? I'd love to hear your ideas of how you've built your business brand into your website or, if you have an idea for how I could build my ideas into mine, I'd be thrilled to get some ideas on that too.
Kelle Sparta is the author of The Consultative Real Estate Agent - Building Relationships that Create Loyal Clients, Get More Referrals, and Increase Your Sales, as well as being a speaker and trainer specializing in the real estate industry. Kelle is the founder of Sparta Success Systems, a real estate training company that provides tools, products, and training to empower agents and brokers to create lives and businesses they can love. For more information, visit her website at www.spartasuccess.com. © 2007, Kelle Sparta. Used by permission.
Kelle,
I am a fairly new agent that worked my way from part time to recently full time. It's only now that I have had time to think of how to build my brand. Since I have to stick to frugal marketing solutions, I spent 7 days solid mocking up my brand website. I have been driving traffic to my website through word of mouth and asking a trendy take-out restaurant to hand out my magnets. Things are still pretty slow in the real estate front. I decided to do a more conventional website as a secondary information website from a customizable real estate template from Point2. Can you shed some insights to whether I should consolidate my websites into one, or keep both - one to target niche market ,and the other to regular buyers and sellers?
Need all the help I can get.
Anne
Dear Anne,
Many agents find it useful to have more than one site. The question I have for you is: what is your brand? Is a trendy restaurant really the best way to find your target market. (I know that it certainly isn't the only way.) What you are describing is the very beginnings of a marketing plan - just the tip of the iceberg.
Your website needs to appear on all of your ads, your car, your yard signs, your directional signs, your listings (if allowed in your MLS), your literature, etc. THEN you start to market (because off of these don't count, they are merely the baseline).
Is your website indexed on the search engines yet? If not, start registering it with DMOZ and other site registration places. If your niche is narrow enough, you might try doing some search engine optimization using the Titles and Metatags on your website. You may even decide to do some pay per click advertising with the right niche (if you're generalizing, don't do pay per click, the costs will eat you alive). Then you need to work on getting cross linked with other related sites (think mortgage officers, attorneys, accountants, title companies, financial planners, appraisers, etc.) These are all people who are likely to feed you business.
I can't give you more specific advice without knowing your niche. The other thing I would ask is: are YOU in alignment with your niche. Everyone wants to work the high end market, but honestly, not everyone will fit in with that clientele. You're better off working with people like you - it's an easy sell and you're already running in those circles.
Friends and family are the best sources of referrals in the beginning. Train them on how to send the referrals to you. Tell them to ask the person if it's OK if you call them. Tell them NOT to have the person call you because 9 times out of 10 they don't.
Good luck!
Kelle