Establishing your team’s brand: 5 essentials
By Kathleen Black, KBCC
Branding is the purpose and experience, in which your brand runs itself on.
With the right elements, a brand can establish an identity that sets itself apart from the competition and creates a personal connection with its audience.
It’s important for your brand to have these five essentials when you’re establishing it for your team.
Invest Resources:
It’s absolutely crucial to start establishing your brand by investing in the resources and energy that will aid you in building it.
Without a brand, you will not find a steady flow of lead conversion and retention of clients. By building your very own amazing brand, you set yourself apart from your competitors, you prove that you are individualistically you, and no one can change that.
When you take the time and money to invest in your brand, you are furthering its purpose and experience, which benefits your clients and your audience best.
Brand Neutrality:
Being brand neutral is more important for your real estate team than you think.
Don’t worry, you can still have your name attached to the team, while having a neutral brand.
Of course, you have to be associated with your team, but when a potential client is calling the office, do they think they’ll be speaking with you? Or are they prepared to speak with your team?
If they are prepared to speak with your team, you are doing it the right way. If the lead is expecting to speak directly to you, you will need to do more work on separating yourself from direct lines of communication and marketing.
You’ll want your brand to stay this way, especially if you plan on selling it, or passing it on in the future. The name will stay the same, after you’ve moved yourself further and further away from working on the team.
The Humanistic Approach:
What do you see when you’re scrolling through Real Estate team’s instagram feeds? You don’t see faces, you’re typically staring at different listing photos.
Don’t get me wrong, this means that these teams are doing a great job at marketing their inventory, but it does lack a characteristic that instagram users LOVE.
Instagram users love to see faces, which is why I recommend for teams to always take the humanistic approach.
Everyone is looking to relate to someone, especially if you’re choosing to follow them and like their content.
When you’re looking to brand, you don’t want it to be a faceless entity, you want to promote your team members on your page so your audience can love and trust your brand.
Think of the humans who work on your team and use it to your branding advantage. Create meet the team posts, and even show off behind the scenes videos at the office.
Once you show off your humanistic side of the brand, you’ll notice that your engagement rates will increase.
Building Relationships:
When you’re building and creating relationships, you’re actually building the reputation you and your team are going to have.
Your brand is going to represent your team, which means everything built through it, will come back to you.
Your community and clients are the most important people when it comes to establishing your brand. By building relationships with them, you’re encouraging them to trust your brand more than your competitors.
If you build a personal relationship with your clients and community, they’re going to consider your brand more of a friend than a stranger.
Loyal customers stay for the way a company creates and delivers a product, not the product itself, which is why your client process is so important, after you’ve curated your relationship with your clients.
Unique Client Process:
Everything you do in your business is based on three things: strengthening the brand, improving your client experience, and building your database.
One of the essential parts of establishing your brand is by carving out the consistent high quality experience you have planned for your clients.
You are the master of sourcing the playbook to create your unique client process for your business, set to your standards, regardless of who is face to face for delivery. This unique client process is not optional to expand your business, it is a necessity we work with you to achieve.
If you create your client process the right way, it becomes an essential part of your brand, think about a restaurant or business that is known for giving good service like Chick-Fil-A.
Chick-Fil-A has developed specific client processes that make their clients loyal and their retention high.
If you’ve never been to one of these fast food restaurants, the workers greet you with pleasantries such as "my pleasure" instead of "you're welcome," placing flowers on tables, and offering free food, which is why they’ve continuously ranked #1 for customer satisfaction, and why this behaviour has become an essential part of their brand.
When it comes to your brand, the essentials you need to focus on are the ones that are people based.
Your clients and your community can make or break your brand, whether it's connecting with or serving them, your brand needs to create a strong humanistic presence in order to be trusted.