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/

You’ve Built A Successful Real Estate Team, What’s Your Next Move?

As a successful real estate team leader, you may feel you have yet to reach your full potential and are ready to take the next step forward in your career: owning your own brokerage. For many, the move from team leader to brokerage owner can seem daunting. Here are a few thoughts from the experts at Weichert® to help you understand whether taking your skills to the next level is the right move for you.

This is Evolution, not Revolution

 

It turns out that making the leap from team leader to brokerage owner is not that big of a step from the skill set you developed as a team leader. This is not to say that there aren’t things to learn and new challenges to embrace, but many of the most important management skills of a successful broker/owner may already be part of your experience.  For example, you already spent time leading and motivating your team members to set and achieve ascending goals. You understand the importance of creating a positive customer service experience for buyers and sellers. You also have the experience of recruiting new members, establishing individual roles within the team and delegating tasks based on the personal strengths of each team member. All of this experience will come into play as a broker, but on a progressively larger scale.

You Don’t Have to Take the Leap Without a Net

 

It is a good thing that you already understand the fundamentals of operating as a leader because as you make this next step, there is no shortage of milestones you will need to complete. Although requirements vary on a state-by-state basis, it is typical that you will have to do the following to become a broker:

• Get your broker’s license
• Establish a physical office
• Decide what tools and technology you plan to use
• Set a budget for expenses like daily operations, recruitment, training, and marketing
• Write out a formal business plan
• Decide between being independent or affiliating with a national franchise
  
  

Aligning yourself with an franchise can provide you with a roadmap, alleviate these growing pains and allow for a smoother transition. For example, joining the Weichert franchise, gives you access to professionally designed sales and marketing materials, powerful technology to market and service clients and extensive training support to continually keep your agents sharp. With personalized websites, CRM and libraries of marketing resources already at your fingertips, you can focus on continuing to build and manage your business. As a broker/owner, you benefit from Weichert’s strong culture of support, from its collaborative network of owners to your personal business coach and service team. You won’t have to go it alone. Find out how Weichert can enable you to do more as you graduate from team leader to broker/owner.

Real Estate Team Leaders Make Great Weichert Broker/Owners

 

Not only will affiliation allow you to eliminate the time-intensive guesswork of trying to develop your own systems, but it will provide you with the hands-on coaching, education and mentoring that you need as you continue to grow your team to reach your full potential.

If you are ready to truly run your own business and want the tools, resources, technology and coaching support you need, bring your team over to our team. Contact Weichert Franchising today.

Original content posted on https://www.weichertfranchise.com/blog/youve-built-a-successful-real-estate-team-whats-your-next-move-2/