On this 210th episode of my Monday Morning Pep Talk, I’m going to give you some perspective on your marketing and its importance towards growing and/or maintaining your business. I'll do this as we start Section 5 of Take Flight V4.0. Section 5 is the final section of this year-long course and it’s called “Marketing and Your Personal Brand.” It's built to complement Section 4 "Deliver and Leverage" and Section 3 "Database and Relationship Management." This MMPT will give you an overview of what we'll be discussing over the coming weeks as we tackle the importance of building a brand and the actions necessary to bring new business into your pipeline with a focus on fueling your business for the long haul.
As I was writing this MMPT, I used my Sunday morning "thinking session" to create a metaphor that would best describe what marketing and your personal brand means to your business. I think I've come up with one that will help you better understand how you need to look at marketing and its role.
Let's look at your business like an orchard that bears fruit with the fruit being your closed transactions. You don't bear fruit unless you plant the fruit tree seeds which become the "point of origination" for your orchard. The beauty of an orchard (your business) is that the individual trees and branches in the orchard (your clients) continue to bear fruit season after season if they are cared for consistently (watering and pruning). You get to decide how large your orchard is by choosing the number of trees you plant and the care you give the trees (The Law of Compensation). Our industry tends to try to find ways to harvest without going through the steps it takes to build the orchard that produces fruit season after season. Many just want to "buy fruit" and skip the steps. Those that take the time to plant the seeds (Marketing and Your Personal Brand) and care for their orchard (Database and Relationship Management) get to the point where the need for marketing takes on a different level of importance as the orchard produces enough to satisfy the production needs of the broker/advisor over the life of the orchard.
Unfortunately, 90%+ of real estate brokers/advisors, fail to care for the orchard properly, essentially cutting down the trees every year and starting over every season. Obviously, this approach doesn't work but that is how the industry and society have programmed many of your fellow broker/advisors. The Amazon/ UberEats society of "I want it now" is dangerous to the long term success of our business. You need to look at marketing and personal branding as only one area of your business. It is just a portion of your business that is only truly effective if you tend to your clients beautifully during the transaction (Section 4 - Deliver and Leverage) and maintain those relationships post-closing (Section 3 - Database and Relationship Management). To create "critical mass" and "momentum" in your business they all need to work together. You have to understand this concept if you want to build a business that is predictable and enjoyable. Take Flight V4.0 is all about building your orchard and caring for it over the long haul so that it naturally bears fruit season after season.
Over the coming weeks, I will attempt to answer the following questions:
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How do I identify which seeds to plant? I'll discuss the concept of your 3 Rocks of Marketing and a strategy that I learned from Barbara Corcoran.
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You've heard the phrase "People hire who they know, like and trust.” What does that mean? How can you use it in your business? I'll go into that.
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Do I use print? Do I go all digital? Do "old school" approaches still work? Yes, to all 3. I'll explain.
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Does marketing take on a different level of importance at different stages of your career? The answer is YES! I'll explain.
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Do I market to get new business or do I use it to maintain a connection with my list of "private clients?” Both!
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What is a personal brand and how does marketing build your personal brand? There is so much to unpack on this topic, and I will in the next few episodes.
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How much should I spend? It all depends. I like to look for high impact, low cost and easy to implement strategies.
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"Do I need to have a social media and digital strategy?" 100%. There is no better space to be in right now to build a personal brand.
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"How much marketing do I need to do?" It depends on your goals and vision. I'll show you how to right-size your marketing.
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We'll discuss that "less marketing done more consistently" is how you win the personal branding game. The best marketing doesn't feel like marketing.
We are in an era in real estate brokerage like never before. This era requires skill over speed. You will need to be skilled in the areas of marketing, personal branding, and all of the areas of Take Flight V4.0 in order to compete at all. Your clients want to see value for their brokerage transactional costs – that starts with vision, planning, and developing consistent marketing approaches that do not die with inconsistent effort.
Over the coming weeks, the Take Flight V4.0 method of operating a predictable and enjoyable business will take shape.