Defining your personal brand

When defining your personal brand, keep your focus on coming up with answers to the question: “Why should a client choose me as their agent?”

If you have a clear personal and visual brand, potential sellers can reason why they have chosen you over others.

Tauranga-based Eves’ team leader and residential salesperson of the year from 2014 to 2019, Danielle Hayes of Hayes and Co, has recently spent a lot of time defining and refining her personal brand. She wasn’t doing this just for her, but for her all-women, team of four.

Part of a large regional player, she wanted to get across to her clients that while Hayes and Co were part of a big company, they can expect a personal service from her team. Hayes wanted to show that her team were better than the general perception of agents and had “a new take on real estate”.

“We wanted to speak our truth about who we were as individuals in our team,” she says. “We are very honest, straightforward individuals, with strong ethics and a conscience and there’s no way we would do anything that would compromise those things” she adds.

Her branding delivered the message that she and her team do what they say they’re going to do, are detail-oriented and have a genuine respect for people and their stories. This personal branding has been launched to the market and Hayes is happy with the results.

“You see a huge amount of benefit. It’s something that individualises you and how you do business,” she says.

Follow these four simple steps to define your own personal brand:

Step One: Research

Analyse your market, take a good look at your competition. Look for good role models of a personal brand and see how they’re delivering their message.

What can you learn from what they’re doing well and where they’re falling down? What do your family and friends think of agents out in the market, and what’s their reasoning behind their likes and dislikes?

Define who your ideal vendor is, who you want to be working with. What kinds of values and qualities are they looking for in an agent? What turns them off? What are their needs and drivers?

What makes you different and are there any niches which you could make your own?

Step two: Do a self-audit

Identify what motivates you, your strengths and values. What are your passions, when are your best self? This should help you come up with your competitive advantage, what makes you unique. This will give you the core of your personal brand.

Step three: Aspirations

In building a personal brand you’re hoping to be a successful real estate agent and to achieve success in other areas of your life. Think about what success will look like, make that goal and celebrate it when you get there.

Step four: Define your brand

Come up with a simple statement of what defines you. Look at your values, drivers, your reputation, behaviours, skills and strengths and your style.

Part three, now I’ve defined my brand, what do I do?