Taking Your Personal Fantasy To Personal Branding

The world of real estate offers the opportunity for real estate agents to 'recreate' themselves.  We can live out our fantasies, create an image of how we want the public to view us, market the crap out of it, call it personal branding and before you know it, you ARE it!

Goodwill 'Dorothy' Shoes

Want to work your life away in shorts and a T-shirt?  Sell ONE house on the lake.  Then identify yourself as the 'lake' man (or woman-though I think I would come up with something else if I went that route) put on some shorts, take a couple photos of your fine self smiling on a boat (a couple of nice fish on line)  - send out some post cards sporting a creative tag line.  Then USE IT, USE IT, USE IT.  Before you know it - THEY will be using it. Mr. & Mrs. John Q. Public will only know you as 'The Lake Guy'.  No one will raise an eyebrow when you show up at a closing smiling in shorts.  I promise.  Seen it all over Chapin, SC when I worked relocation in that market.   Just make certain there are enough properties ON the lake (or your chosen market) that are sell able so you can actually make a living doing that.  (and know HOW to fish)

I started about 7 years ago sending out monthly newsletters to my neighborhood.  Called myself 'Your Neighborhood REALTOR'.  But guess what?  I actually lived in the neighborhood.  Walked by their houses EVERY day, attended their yard sales, they saw me mowing my own lawn.  I don't market myself as the neighborhood REALTOR to the whole town for crying out loud.  That's just ridiculous, people know better. They know B.S. when they hear it, they don't have to smell it or taste it to know what it is.

When I emailed those newsletters I included a watermark so my 'work' couldn't be stolen easily. (by fellow agents)  I am flattered if they like it enough to copy certainly, but at least retype it or something.  Don't make a photo copy and keep as yours.  My watermark prevented such blatant theft.

My Yard Sale Pin

I found a cute pin at a yard sale, took a photo of it, and made it my trademark so to speak.  My website is www.JustCallTina.com and using those red shoes has been a cake walk to creative marketing!  Also allows me an excuse to purchase the much needed red shoes for myself as well.  Sparkly ones!

Friends are very thoughtful about finding 'Dorothy' items for me to use.  Some are helpful, some just make you roll your eyes but they ARE thinking of me and that is everything.

Creative marketing really isn't about the home.  It's about the agent.  Driving the business to YOU. Buyers

Dorothy In My Office

and sellers, so you can in turn make the deal.  Kind of like a matchmaker for real estate.  The days of one side against the other is soooo passe'. With financing and

FALL FESTIVAL Booth
Before NEW 'Dorothy' shoes

conditional issues as they are you will be dead in the water before you get started with that confrontational 'steal a house' attitude.

Personal branding keeps you geared up to a higher level when things are starting to stink, clients are a pain, lenders aren't getting it done and appraisers are begging for a beating.  You can regroup and focus on something positive, yourself.  Find your happy place and stay there for a few hours and before you know it, you no longer want to slam their face into the desk.  Trust me, it works.

A friend offered me the opportunity to set up a booth last Halloween and hand out candy at her daughters school.  That's me, in my Dorothy costume - purchased from Goodwill!   (I have since made some more fitting shoes) but it got the job done.  I gained a listing off that stint.  If you look closely you will see I am wearing the actual pin from my 'logo'.

As luck (?) would have it, our REALTOR Association performed a skit at our April Membership Luncheon for Fair Housing Month. Filmed and produced by our members and posted to YouTube.  Can you guess the theme?
See what has happened here?  I AM Dorothy.  A tad older to be sure, can't sing for squat...but DOROTHY nonetheless!

I think next year I would like to be Mrs. Nicholas Cage...

Picking a Scab

Scab?  Sounds gross, I know.

There is nothing quite as dismaying for a real estate agent as a scabbed house.  This is my own term.  Came up with it after a recent rant.  I had just returned from previewing an upcoming listing.  I sold the current sellers into the home a short time ago, they are moving again and called me since I helped them find the home.  It was a dollhouse when they bought it.

I LOVED this house.  Pushed it hard when it was on the market.  Agents do that.  Usually it's their own listing, but I will do it when I come across a property that I think is a particular value.  This home was that.  Was, it is no longer.  The warm fuzzy feeling has turned to cold terror.

The yard looked a little rough when I arrived but there had been a lot of rain and it was the end of winter.  I made excuses in my mind.  I couldn't uphold the delusion once inside though.  I am not a neat freak - not on any level.  And home maintenance is a chore for me too.  But seriously?  How can you completely trash a home in such a short amount of time? (less that 2 years)

From DOLLHOUSE to dog house.  Literally.  New puppy tearing through the house.  Cats, (don't let them out please) they only stay inside, AND eat on the counters (that's where their food bowls sit).  You can see them in the listing photos.  REAL special.

Keep in mind, just a short time ago, these sellers were buyers.  They picked apart homes left and right.  Opened closet doors, peered under cupboards and critiqued paint colors as viciously as a mad dog.  Now

the colors on the walls would send Martha Stewart into hysterics.

I can talk around most things.  I truly can.  But at a particular point a buyer shuts down, they stop listening.  Sensory overload.  The piles on top of the refrigerator, clothes (BRAS) hanging from door knobs, power tools in the family room.  They simply shut down, and walk away.  A buyer will suck up just so much and then will write off the house.  If the seller doesn't care enough about their own property to present it in an appealing fashion - why would they imagine that a buyer would find it something to invest their future in?  The buyer questions what is going on with the home that CAN'T be seen?

I have had to listen to 'feedback' from the showing agents  'Did they know we were coming'?  Buyers riding by to check out the location, 'It looks like rednecks live there'. The former owners (What happened? They were thinking foreclosure).  Even a call from an appraiser, 'uhhhh...did you price the home to sell while they were still living in it?' she asked.  'No', I said.  'I priced it to sell as soon as they move out'.  Somebody just slap me.

Do the sellers realize what their home looks like?  Yes, they do.  If they didn't they wouldn't say things like 'don't take pictures of this or that room'.  They wouldn't make comments about how 'Down to Earth' they are (I just loooove that one).   They talk circles around me in my effort to 'improve' the marketability of their home.

The home is not SHARK BAIT ( see previous BLOG), but a scabbed house.  What you see is the result of an infection.  The house is infested.  And because of that infestation it has scabbed over.  You know how scabs are... REALTORS, buyers and even appraisers are picking at it.

My poor listing.  She can't help it if she is sick and wounded.  I shall do what I can to the Visual Tour photos with PHOTO SHOP; crop, clone, EDIT the crap out of them...just as soon as I finish my coffee.

Here I sit, broken hearted...

Can you finish that line?

I spent many Saturdays 'downtown' in Barre, Vermont  with my mother as a child.  At the laundromat, Green Mountain Diner and inevitably making a pit stop at the 'Pay a Dime' restroom in Fishmans Dime Store.  We'd go in together - and she would spout out 'here I sit, broken hearted, paid a dime and only farted'!  I would laugh every time like I had never heard it before.

Don't pretend this offends your sensibilities.  With all the garbage  on FACEBOOK, youtube, television, on and on and on.  A fart is NOTHING.  And frankly - that about sums up how many REALTORS feel on any given day. Here I sit... It has played through my mind many times and I know if my mother were alive today to listen to my rants at the end of the day she would laugh and recite it again!

Wednesdays are my longest day.  I wake up pretty early, usually between 5-5:30 a.m.   DO NOT imagine that I am ready to face anyone personally, but I am drinking coffee in bed, checking the web and stuff. Social media is fine at 5 a.m. - being sociable is another thing entirely. I am focusing on business in one form or another, it's always with you.

At 8:48 a.m.  I sit at the office...waiting on a  buyer to call (since 8:00) to go over the offer he wants to write.  We already have spent 3 hours 
discussing said paperwork over a week ago.  He needed to go home overnight and think about it.  Of course I understood.  He knows I have to leave to meet another client at 9:00.  Is he going to write, will it be today, next week, ever?  Minutes are ticking, I have to go meet with the seller, get back to meet my BIC (broker-in-charge) at 10:20 for a conference on how things are going.

The seller for the 9:00 appt asked me to call at 8:50 a.m. before I head to  meet him at the property in case he forgets.  We played phone tag for a week to establish that connection so I am a bit apprehensive.    He ANSWERS!!!   'Is it that time already' (oh no) he asks. Yes, I tell him.  'Are we good to meet?'  He says he is fine and as I grab my keys guess who calls?

Former said buyer has only a few questions, I stop and go over them with him.  He will call later when he gets in town so we can get the 'paperwork' done.    Off I go.

Lovely meeting at 9 with super nice elderly gentleman who may or may not list.  It depends on what the market indicates he can expect for the property.  I take my info - shake his hand and off I go.  I'll call back and we will go over the market analysis next week - see what can or cannot be done.

At precisely 10:20 I meet with my broker to discuss my activity.  Yes, I have been showing houses.  Yes, they can probably buy.  No, they haven't done anything.  I said this, they said that.  Good stuff, just nothing on PAPER!  Nothing on PAPER means no $$$$.  We discuss strategy and make encouraging noises.  All in all - not bad.

Mandatory call time.  The agent on duty handles incoming calls and questions.   I get an exciting call on one of my listings.  Oh yes, I WILL show my own listings -  regardless.  If nothing else - I owe it to my seller to get in front of all potential buyers, get feedback at the very least.  See if they CAN put something on PAPER.   It's a cool house - great showing! As we talk and walk they are all over the house.  Financing, what can and can't be done. Sounds sooooo good!  Then he writes down his email address and I recognize the name. They have been around looking and looking for years.  To rent.  Can't buy squat.  Won't buy squat.  I say nothing.  I will go back and email the additional info they asked for, it's really warm (almost 80) but something may have frozen over somewhere.  It could happen.

I don't believe I have mentioned the referral I am chasing, the seller I called earlier for our weekly update (the one that I was hoping to write an offer on-thankfully I never mentioned it to her), a commercial agent from out of town is driving around, wants info on 2 properties she saw with signs (for her clients).  I can't find them in MLS.  I'll email her later too.  It goes on and on.

The phone could ring at any time.  WHO KNOWS WHAT CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES will present themselves.  I am not so enthused by the end of the day.

By 5:00 p.m. I hope not to be sitting here broken hearted ...I still haven't heard from the buyer who was going to bring in the paperwork.