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Building a consistent brand is essential because your brand is the pattern of expression that affects what people think about your company. Your brand is not just the colors, the fonts, and the logo you use on your website. It’s the experience you and your team provide for customers. As Realtor Magazine said, “It is a complex mosaic made up of every client interaction and adds up to way more than what you present online.” Your brand should build awareness and develop trust and loyalty with customers.
If you want to create a consistent brand, the first thing you should focus on is teaching your agents/team and frequently giving them examples. A lot of companies say things in the office that never make it to the field. This happens because the message isn’t communicated, or that it isn’t communicated strongly and effectively. In real estate, you must use examples to help agents understand the values that you preach. For instance, if your website says you lead buyers to their dream home, then agents need to know what that means in practice. So, you can share a story about an agent who went above and beyond meeting prospects in the office and instead walked through their current home - asking questions about what they loved about their current home and what they wanted to be different in the next place. Putting stress on the value that agents can bring to the transaction will help get your message across. You want it to be expressed frequently enough that the idea sticks with agents beyond the meeting room.
The second thing you should focus on when developing a consistent brand is making sure you have consequences put in place for when behaviors in the field do not line up. Because agents rarely interact with customers at the office, you may not see them for a week at a time. This is an easy time for them to go rogue. You do not want this to happen because your agents are an extension of your business and values. You should have a system in place for working with and coaching agents to meet your standards. If they aren’t building your brand, they’re damaging it.
The final thing you should be asking yourself is, “What kind of feedback do you have from your customers?” Customer feedback is a good way to ensure what you present in meetings actually happens in practice. E-mail surveys and personal calls to customers are efficient ways to get feedback. You can thank them for their business and then ask them a few questions. The goal is to ask the customer to explain your brand in a sentence or two, and have that match up with what you communicate on your website.
Your brand is very important and is how customers portray your company. Communicate your standards regularly, have a process in place for rogue agents, and establish methods for getting customer feedback. “The real-life experience is what should guide the online expression of your brand—not the other way around.”
To read the full article from Realtor Magazine click HERE.
