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...

My PRECIOUS....

Tomorrow is the mandatory Tuesday $ales Meeting.

Can I stay home Mommy?

Promptly at 9 a.m. we gather to blah de dah over real estate news, warranty info, agent presentations, new listings, have-wants-needs,  all of the things that go along with where we are in the world.  AFTER the meeting the agents head out to preview NEW Listings.  This is the topic of my BLOG today.

Previewing new listings is mandatory.  Agents in our office are required to block out 9-11 a.m. or thereabouts every Tuesday morning for the mandatory Tuesday $ales Meeting and following Tour of NEW Listings. I have no problem with the whole Tour of NEW Listings policy.  I rarely put mine on tour, the herding of the cattle through in 3 min or less isn't my idea of pro-active marketing.  There are a handful of others who abstain.  I prefer agents asking me to go solo and preview a listing-because it interests them.  My newest listing on Lakeside was one such listing.  The agent that puts up my signs was asking before it hit the market if he could go take a look.

Then there are the other agents. The ones who are old school.  The ones who let the office staff handle their marketing efforts.  The ones who tell their sellers and I quote 'I had an OPEN HOUSE Tuesday.'  (yes, I overheard the conversation with her client).  Now, I knew there was no OPEN HOUSE, so my ears perked up.  I couldn't hear the other side of the conversation but from her responses, her seller was no dummy.  He asked questions.  

'No', she said, 'only agents from my office came'.  uh huh...he must have asked about food etc because she finally admitted  it was an OFFICE tour.   Makes me think of a phrase my mother used to say all the time 'Lets not, and say we did'.  Where I come from, that's called a lie.

So, we now have agents using the Tour of NEW Listings as an OPEN HOUSE.  Then we have others  (and I am seeing a trend here) who use the tour to generate 'activity'.  A couple of weeks ago - we previewed a New Listing for the second time.  The difference was, the seller had moved out. We all looked at one another, 'haven't we seen this?'  A few eyebrows raised. Gas isn't cheap and time is even more costly.  Then last week, here we go, three of the six homes we previewed had been seen before on Tuesday's Tour of NEW Listings.  

Here's what I see.  Old school agents have to offer their sellers something. They have resorted to using the 'captive audience' technique.  You must view my precious listing because it is company policy.  It is MANDATORY that you preview NEW Listings, so we now make old things NEW.  Who thought this up?  A think outside the box kinda agent I'm guessing.  (I really hate that phrase) It's about as creative and innovative as their marketing plan.  Someone figured out a way to stir up 'activity' and believe it or not - the others are following their lead.  We looked at one last week that had been taken off the market and put back on a couple months later.  Another that had had a water heater leak throughout the entire house and needed to have the floors redone. (apparently no one had 'previewed' the home in some time for there to be that much damage)  So we went back through...no change in price thank you very much.  I guess they can call their sellers and say some 15 agents went through and SAW it.   Unfortunately, none of US are buyers.  AND they are not endearing the NON-BUYERS to themselves either.  Already agents are looking for any excuse they can find to ditch the Tuesday Sales Meeting and NEW Listing Tour.

Wouldn't it make more sense to offer something people are excited about?  Something they will go away from wanting to use, share and promote.  Rather than gripe and complain about (or BLOG).

I am excited about new listings, mine especially.  My sellers are special, and PRECIOUS.  Because they are mine.  I educated them and they don't give me any flack (not much usually).

I don't begrudge the other agents their special PRECIOUS listings.  But give me a break,ONCE IS ENOUGH.  

Smirk much?

Unless I am skipping through with my own happy buyer.

See Mr. So and So REALTOR on the right?  He is ditching the mandatory Tuesday $ales Meeting and NEW Listing tour tomorrow to take his daughter to audition for the X-FACTOR!!!  Go Sophia!

These re-tours are just forcing us to 'think outside the box' on absentee excuses.