The catchphrase when starting out in real estate sales in the past was ‘fake it till you make it’, now the move is to ‘be authentic to make it’. People all around the world are now seeing through ‘fake’ with ‘fake news’ widely despised, so people are now looking for ‘evidence-based’ material to support a brand story, enabling them to really engage with that brand before choosing to do business with them.
How do you build an authentic real estate personal profile?
Building your brand has two aspects to it. Firstly to help other people and then help yourself. When we help others we all succeed, not the other way around. With that in mind, build an authentic storyline around the activities you do to create an online identity.
Start by looking at your local community and list the activities you currently do, or what you would like to do.
Murray Potts from Harcourts in Khandallah Wellington has a significant community profile through supporting Khandallah School in multiple ways including the high profile annual Kau Kau Challenge, mountain run. Murray is also a supporter of Save the Children, the Khandallah Business Association, his local church, and is often seen out and about with his grandchildren. Murray says very quickly locals recognise those who are authentic in their community support. His advice to agents looking to building their profile is to choose a community activity that you are passionate about and dedicate yourself to it or don’t do it at all as people very quickly see through tokenism.
Brianne Bignall, Ray White, is fully immersed in her Auckland Beachlands community and donates not only her time but also donates significant amounts of money back into her community through her successful real estate business with lump-sum donations, supplying and manning the soccer clubs regular sausage sizzles, sponsoring the local coastguard reserve, lead sponsor at the annual golf day to name a few. Brianne says of all her fundraising activities, the one that meant the most to her was in support of Ethan, a local young boy who needed funds for an operation in the USA to fulfill his dream of being able to walk again. She says she is incredibly proud of her team and the local community that got in behind her fundraising efforts and together they raised the amount needed for Ethan’s surgery and he is now in rehab and looks like his dream to walk will be fulfilled.
Continue to build your brand through your story and promote your events, accomplishments, successes, and even defeats and lessons learned. Reach people through social media, FB, Instagram, Twitter and Linkedin, and do employ an expert, perhaps a uni student if you are not confident to undertake this yourself. Gather insights and statistics as you go to measure the results across these platforms so you can better manage your brand story going forward.
Treat your personal brand as a story not as a sales pitch.
