BEST PRACTICEElite Agent

How Consistent Messaging Will Build Your Brand

FOLLOWING THE PRINCIPLES of Attraction Agent 3.0 will put you into the top agent category, says Tom Panos. Much of it can be directly attributed to building your personal brand through consistency of messaging. How dependable and recommendable are you?

BRAND IS WHAT they say about you when you’re not there. The world has changed. In the old world it used to be about what you said to the market. Today it’s about what the market says to the market about you. Return on investment is being replaced by return of engagement. This has been fuelled by the accelerated growth of social media.

So the game is still the same (get the listing) but the rules have changed (how you get the listing). Recommendation is very important in business. In fact in a recent Nielson Poll 92% of respondents reported that a positive recommendation from a friend or family member was the biggest influence on whether they bought a product or a service.

Are you recommendable? When people sit at a coffee table at their local café discussing real estate, which agent are they talking about?

TripAdvisor has built an entire business model based on recommendations from normal people. So have Yelp and a host of other online social businesses.

For the last four years my weekly video blogs have interviewed million-dollar agents about what they do that makes them successful. These have outlined to me that for an agent to be sustainable long term he or she must essentially become someone’s agent before that person needs an agent.

You must become brain tattooed on all potential vendors in your market place.

The illustration below shows the components of the Attraction Agent model.

You would not see a Toyota Corolla sitting in a Mercedes dealership. The equivalent in real estate is consistency in message. This is what builds brand. There is a new buzz phrase in real estate marketing: ‘Make sure your online and offline are in line.’ What we mean by this is that when you have poor photography in a nice advertisement it destroys brand equity in the agent who provides it. When you have a small postage stamp-sized print advertisement for a $2M house it destroys perceived value on the property and sends a distorted message to the market place. This consistency influences the perception they have of you as an agent – either someone who will ensure the presentation is consistent or someone who lets the details slide.

In the new world we have seen the emergence of the passive seller. We have known about the passive buyer for some time, but the passive seller is someone that doesn’t have regular interaction with real estate agents. In a recent survey people were asked what they thought of when they think of an agent. The results are illustrated below.

Some of you who are currently on my coaching program know the qualities and characteristic habits for transforming an agent from a transactional agent to an attraction agent. These qualities have come as a direct result of question and answer sessions with Australia’s truly elite agents. Here is a summary of some of these qualities:

  • World class open homes
  • Ideal week
  • Crucial conversations
  • Daily physical exercise
  • 5am club
  • 10 before 10 (10 calls before 10am)
  • Attitude of gratitude
  • Positive friends/ reference groups
  • Prospect 1-3 hours daily
  • Understand and sell vendor-paid advertising.

The Attraction Agent is detached, confident and not desperate. In real estate you should always, in one form or another, tell a potential vendor that ‘It’s OK if you don’t list with me’ or ‘It’s OK if you say no’. This is what we define as detachment.

Occasionally you meet an agent who cares more about helping the client than about getting the business, and then they will generally get the business. People love that kind of sales person: detached, not desperate to get the deal and more interested in helping the client make a decision that is good for the client. Show up as a positioned authority and they will treat you as one. Show up as a desperate, ‘needy’ real estate agent and they will treat you like that too.

The behaviour of a prospective seller has changed. Have you? Twenty years ago they opened up the Yellow Pages and looked for an agent in the suburb. Today the listing presentation begins when they’re buying a home. Today a listing presentation is happening every minute of the day. Your Facebook accounts, your car, your open houses, your newspaper advertisements, are all working 24/7. So in fact a listing presentation begins a long time before the listing presentation. If you want to follow success, follow the behaviour of a prospective seller.

Finally I would like to share some personal lessons, which I cover when I’m working with real estate agents in creating a world-class business. Here they are:

  • Short-term happiness is not worth long- term pain
  • Things don’t get better by chance – they get better by change
  • Where you are is not as important as where you’re heading
  • A bad day does not make it a bad life
  • The world owes you nothing, it was here first.

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Tom Panos

Tom Panos is a real estate coach, trainer and speaker with 22 years of experience. For more information, visit tompanos.com.au.