MAIN IMAGE: Helen McIntee, president of the African Marketing Confederation
Senior writer
In a fiercely competitive environment, estate agents face a daunting challenge: How can they stand out in a crowded market? Adding to this dilemma is that today’s society wants the best of everything: the best price for their property and the best agent.
Some suggest that to be the best agent means to be the top seller or commission-earner. However, in our hyper-connected digital world, success seems to be increasingly generically defined by impacts, attention, likes, and followers. What does this mean for agents, and what is the differentiator that defines this type of success? The answer is personal branding!
Brand and reputation
It might be that many agents work for an agency, and it would follow that the agency brand speaks on their behalf, and in some ways, it does. However, there is some confusion around this aspect because of the distinctiveness between brand and reputation. Some think these are synonymous, but they aren’t. A company brand is an easily recognisable identity; it distinguishes itself from others in the industry, and reputation derives from behaviour and how the public perceives the company. While not synonymous, they are intrinsically linked.
Helen McIntee is a former academic director at the Institute of Marketing Management and the current president of the African Marketing Confederation. She explains that brands are “developed from the inside out, and reputation from the outside in.
“Agency branding, as with any company, is about attracting more potential buyers and sellers to your services. While branding has an enormous role in building an agency’s reputation, the face on the billboard or the For Sale post is usually that of one of its agents. This indicates that the agency and the agent are inseparable, but are they really? I prefer to think that they are two separate entities that come together for mutually beneficial growth.”
Separating brands
Every company should have two sides to its brand: the employers who intentionally brand to become a well-known name, and then there is the employee brand, which is an extension of the corporate brand but defines brand perception in the marketplace. McIntee provides perspective:
“More frequently than not, it is an agent’s name passed on in referral conversations, not the agency itself. If you think about this objectively, people who perform exceptionally well in any organisation gain a reputation that usually results in being head-hunted by opposition businesses. The thing is that they don’t stand out purely based on performance excellence or expertise but also on their ethics, characteristics, etc – they have a personal brand identity! Even if people might call them arrogant or self-serving, they should understand that it is that very arrogance or other attitude that is spoken about which has become their personal brand.
“This doesn’t necessarily mean that they are the best in their field,” says McIntee. “What of the individual whose hard work and brilliance goes unnoticed? They lack visibility! They get lost in the noise of the bigger brand or the arrogant co-worker.”
McIntee says that personal branding isn’t just an advantage in current times; it’s a crucial part of the journey to self-success (whatever that may mean to you), and it can be costly to both the agency and the agent. “Without personal distinction, growth opportunities will be missed, agents may be overlooked, and worse is losing customers to more visible competition.”
Co-branding
To avoid this, agents need to craft not a tagline, statement or personality presentation that they think defines them, but a compelling story that will resonate with their target market. This can align with the agency’s branding statement, called ‘co-branding’, yet should be strong enough to isolate the individual as what McIntee likes to call a strategic achiever.
Strategic achievers
“Strategic achievers become leaders in their industry. They don’t go left or right at the fork in the road. Instead, they forge a new path in between. It’s fraught with new challenges and unknowns, but that is counterbalanced by exciting new promises, opportunities, and hope, all of which inspire courage and create impact-driven results.”
By strategically defining a personal brand, an agent’s unique skills, experiences, and values will be notable … “strong enough to stand alone as an individual, yet co-branded with the agency and its culture,” says McIntee
Value proposition
Self-branding requires agents to define their value proposition. “It might be that you emphasise helping distressed homeowners solve their property problems or focus on first-time home buyers, handholding them through their real estate journey. Perhaps you emphasise your understanding of investor sentiment in multiple property ownership, helping them build wealth.
“Whatever your positioning or brand statement, don’t expect it to be immediately effective,” says McIntee. Brand building is a long-term effort. Stay consistent even if you think it’s not working. A general rule of thumb is that any brand must have five to seven interactions before developing loyalty. Personal branding can be the catalyst between ‘Who are you?’ and ‘Good to see you again.’
