INTEREST
Invest in personal branding and social selling
Ben Paul, Founder, The BD Ladder
In any sales role, the oldest rule has always been that people buy from people. This is absolutely true, and even more so in the real estate business. Whether in the commercial or rural sectors, where you’ll need relationships with senior buyers and decision makers, or, in the residential space where you’ll need a great reputation and lots of relationships within your designated sales area.
Many agents will be operating under a franchise or larger brand, which has a central marketing machine. This central operation is mainly responsible for creating brand awareness, and is ultimately aimed at enhancing brand reputation in the market. Very rarely will it enhance the reputation of individual agents or brokers. So, with a need for face-to-face interaction to grow your sales, or for new reps to get that all important first listing, it will be more important than ever for those responsible for closing deals to have strong online personal brands, and to start employing social selling/social networking tactics.
How to develop an online personal brand The basic foundations If you have a bio on your company/local agency’s website, now is a great time to revisit it. It is quite likely that it is out of date and could do with improving. The next step is to ensure that these bios have links to your key social media channel, at the very least this should be your LinkedIn profiles. It always looks good from a branding point of view if your personal LinkedIn profile has a company banner visible. If you have the ability to edit this banner, I’d recommend listing the areas you cover e.g. commercial office space Auckland CBD, or residential sales Te Anau.
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The Real Estate Institute of New Zealand
The profile itself should make it obvious from the get-go what you do, and what potential value you’ll bring your clients. Your summary should be written in the first person, it is a social networking platform after all, and you certainly don’t talk about yourself in the third person at a networking event. It pays to keep your profile, and the key ones in your business, up to date and relevant.
Start a news/article sharing programme Being passive on LinkedIn doesn’t work. So, to start building your own, or your key people’s personal brands, you’ll need to start sharing some relevant content. It pays to mix up this content. That means you shouldn’t just push out your own company’s articles and material. Instead, share some relevant industry news, market trends and articles showing trends overseas that may come here, as well as your own company information (such as the latest REINZ blog updates or current news stories). Once you get this balance right, you’ll start to get more views and comments on what you share.
Focus on creating and publishing content Articles, videos, or short posts when developing a personal brand are certainly effective. This is a key channel to help your target audience understand what you stand for, and who you help. If you’re a new agent, getting this right will help you to get a
