Use Video To Enhance Your Personal Brand In 2020

In 2020, there is absolutely no denying that real estate agents and brokers need to make video a priority. Not only is video content important for helping your real estate website gain listing visibility in search engines, but it is also a powerful tool that helps potential clients connect with your personal style and brand.

The most common videos in real estate remain virtual tours; however, there are many other ways that you can use video to enhance your real estate brand and carve out a powerful name for yourself. Here are some practical ways that you can incorporate more video into your personal branding strategy from the experts at Weichert.

Translate Your Blog Posts Into Videos

Are you already generating a regular real estate blog or regular social posting? You can get more leverage out of every post by translating that content into a video. All you need to do is use your blog post like a script to showcase your expertise. Affordable software like ContentSamurai can create videos from your blog posts in seconds by automatically analyzing the content! You can also use videos to supplement your blogs. For example, if you write an article about how to stage a house to get it ready for the market, you could include videos of you showing them how to complete the steps in the article.

Interview Local Businesses

The top experts in branding and marketing will tell you that as a real estate agent or broker, it is in your best interest to make your company name synonymous with your market. In other words, when someone thinks of your market they should automatically think of you and vice versa. One of the best ways to accomplish that goal is to use content like videos to showcase your expertise on all things local. Take time to interview and feature local highlights on video, like restaurants, boutiques, schools, and attractions that make your market such a great place to live. Since those businesses will be grateful for the free advertising, they are likely to promote your videos as well, gaining you lots of extra and free exposure to potential clients.

Showcase Members Of Your Team

One of the best ways to help the community get to know your business and recruit new members to your team is to showcase those who are currently part of your team. For this tactic to be effective, you need each video to clearly communicate the following:

•    The agent’s role within the team
•    The agent’s specialty or niche
•    What makes them unique
•    Why they chose to work in real estate
•    Why they chose to join your team
•    What they love most about being a member of your brokerage

It is a good idea to feature these videos on your website, social media, a newsletter, and YouTube channel. When done correctly, each one of these interviews will provide confidence and social proof to clients who are considering hiring a member of your team, as well as and agents looking for a brokerage.

Gather Video Testimonials

Speaking of social proof, it is well worth your time to gather video testimonials from clients as well. Before hiring an agent to represent them in the largest financial transaction of their life, they want to know that other people just like them have had a positive experience with that agent. Video testimonials are more powerful than written ones because they can better communicate the emotion behind the words. Ask each client to tell the story of why they chose to work with you, what impact you made on the transaction, and what they enjoyed most about the process.

Profile Your Farm

Another extremely powerful way of pushing your real estate website up in the search engines is with hyperlocal content like neighborhood pages or profiles that showcase each city or neighborhood you serve. While there should be written content and links to any blogs that are relevant to each neighborhood, you should also include as many videos as you can. One easy way to do this is to ask the photographers that work your listings to do a drone shot of the neighborhood in addition to the house.

Becoming a master content creator with video will dramatically elevate your brand awareness and overall success. It should be one of the many tactics you employ as part of a comprehensive marketing plan. A partner like Weichert can give you the guidance and tools to own your market.

For more information about how Weichert can empower you to grow your brand, go to www.weichertfranchise.com.

Original content posted on https://www.weichertfranchise.com/blog/use-video-to-enhance-your-personal-brand-in-2020/

5 Characteristics That Make You A Leader Instead Of A Boss

As an experienced real estate broker, you already understand that the agents that make up your team are not truly your employees. However, they do look to you as their broker and many will look to you the captain of the ship. After all, you are the one in charge of recruiting new members, guiding your brand, keeping everyone in compliance with the law and basically make the rules for the brokerage. Still, if you want to empower your team to achieve optimal success, you need to influence their performance more as a leader than a boss. The experts at Weichert recognize that these five characteristics are what make the type of leader that achieves the most success.

1. Leaders Motivate, Not Intimidate

One of the most distinguishing differences between and leader and boss is how they achieve performance results from their team. While a boss may resort to scare tactics and confrontation to compel a team to meet benchmarks, a leader will take the time to discover what motivates each person and deploy appropriate methods to keep them motivated. If you are determined to build a positive culture within your brokerage and continuously elevate performance, you would be better off behaving like a leader that motivates your agents on multiple levels. For example, you can establish financial, emotional, and professional motivators like bonuses, awards for performance, and promotions within your team.

2. Leaders Focus On Sustainable Solutions

Anyone can throw together a lackluster short-term solution for problems that arise within their brokerage. However, a true leader takes the long-term future of their agents and their brokerage seriously and avoids applying the proverbial band-aids on bullet holes. If you plan to lead your agents rather than boss them around, you should include contingency plans within your annual business plans. The more that you plan ahead for things that could go wrong, the better you will be at leading your team to success with ease throughout those challenges.

3. Leaders Listen, Support and Share the “Why”

Nobody enjoys working with or for someone that runs their business like a dictatorship. In fact, brokers that don’t listen to their agents will experience a higher rate of costly agent turnover and  issues. If you are the type of broker that strives for the best for their entire team, it would be in your best interest to keep your eyes, ears, and mind as open as possible. Not only could you open the floor to your agents during team meetings to allow for free expression of ideas, but  make one-on-one appointments to check in with agents on their progress, guide them through challenges, and allow them to share their opinions or ideas with you. These are the perfect opportunities to show every agent in your brokerage that you care about them and are happy to support them in their career as their leader rather than their boss. And if there are specific practices you need agents to engage in, make sure you are not just “ordering” it to happen. Make sure you are giving them the context of “why” it is vital for them to engage in it.

4. Leaders Strive For The Successes Of Others

Another noticeable difference between brokers that behave like a leader vs. a boss is their desire to see each and every member of their team succeed for more than their own personal gain. They put the goals of their agents above their own. Obviously, when your agents make money, you do too, but the more you invest in helping each agent achieve their personal and professional goals, the more success you will all achieve. It’s a feel-good way to approach your business and a win-win for you and your agent. Agents that know that their broker truly cares and helps them, are far more driven to produce results.

5. Leaders Build Confidence

As you probably remember, starting a career as a real estate agent can seem a bit overwhelming at times. It can be difficult to build up the necessary confidence to run a profitable real estate business in the face of all the rejection that inevitably confronts agents. You can define yourself as a leader by instilling your team with the confidence they need to approach leads, negotiate contracts, and navigate unexpected issues that arise. You can remind them that failure is ok; it happens to everyone, and the key is to let it go and move forward. The more you invest in training, educating, and supporting your agents through every stage of their growth, the better they will be able to perform with confidence.

Be The Leader you Always Imagined

Ironically, it can be challenging to build up your own confidence as a real estate broker and leader, especially if you are trying to navigate these waters on your own. One of the main reasons that many brokers choose to join a franchise like Weichert, is that they can get their own support as a broker and a leader, as well as the educational tools they need to empower their agents.

For more information about how joining Weichert can help you grow as a leader, please visit www.weichertfranchise.com.

Original content posted on https://www.weichertfranchise.com/blog/5-characteristics-that-make-you-a-leader-instead-of-a-boss/

Recruiting Your Team – Finding the Right Fit.

 

All brokers know that bringing talented and energetic real estate associates into your team is the key to long term success. But for many, sustaining and increasing headcount growth is both a quantity and a quality issue. It turns out that not every sales associate may be a good fit for the culture and the kind of team you are trying to build and with limited space and energy to give to your staff, choosing carefully is well advised.

Here are some thoughts from the experts at Weichert on what to ask and what to look for to see if the fit is truly right.

Personal Connection

Building a cohesive brand and company culture is dependent upon your ability to hand select new members that will be able to form a strong personal connection to you, the rest of the team, and the type of clientele that you are targeting. Even if an agent is talented, you should not invite them to join your team if they will become a disruption or point of conflict because of their personality. In addition to their professional appearance on paper, it is wise to take your time measuring your connection with each prospective agent. You should do this each time you meet and introduce them to other members of the team to see if they jive with your company culture. Trust your instincts.

Level of Experience

Depending on what type of brokerage you strive to run, you may want agents with different levels of experience. For example, if you thrive as a real estate mentor and want to be very involved in training, you may be better suited for recruiting new agents. However, if you are targeting sophisticated luxury clients, you need to recruit agents that have the maturity to cater to those demands and needs. You also want to take into consideration, their level of experience in business at all. For example, a former teacher versus a former mortgage lender will have very different preexisting knowledge about running a real estate business. . Keep in mind, too, the cost to your brokerage for experienced vs. new agents. It is often good to have a mix of both to optimize brokerage profitability.

Level of Commitment

As you already know, recruiting and agent turnover are one of the highest operating costs for any real estate brokerage. Therefore, it is imperative that you stay focused on quality agents that will be motivated to stay with you after they benefit from your training. When trying to understand what the commitment level of a new hire might be, asking about the future is always a good idea. Don’t hesitate to ask agents about their five or ten year plans. Folks with a serious commitment to being a professional agent will have thought about how they want their career to evolve, and may even have set revenue goals. This is a sure sign that you are dealing with a more committed agent with long term potential.

Spend Your Time on Recruiting – It’s Worth it

There is no question that recruiting, training, and molding a real estate team is much easier said than done. The amount of time needed to generate recruiting and training materials, host events, and provide support can be significant. A partner like Weichert provides real proven processes that also offer the busy broker relief.  Relief in the knowledge that an experienced partner with real support, proven processes and tools is there for them and their agents 24/7.

For more information about how a partnership with Weichert can help you grow your brokerage go to www.weichertfranchise.com.

Original content posted on https://www.weichertfranchise.com/blog/recruiting-your-team-finding-the-right-fit/