When someone asks you the question, “So who do you work with?”, what is your response? If your answer is “I work with anyone”, this could be the biggest mistake you’re making in your business right now.
You might be thinking “WHY? I need all the business I can get! I don’t want to turn anyone away!” The problem with this thinking is, if you are working with everyone, you are ultimately working with no one. When you market your business, who is your marketing speaking to if you work with “everyone”? If you’re shouting to the masses: “Hire me, I’m a real estate agent, I work with everyone!”, your message is not likely being heard. In fact, it is more likely to be buried under the rest of the messages that are just like it.
When you first started your career in real estate, you probably embraced the “fake it til you make it” mentality. You were swept up into a sea of real estate agents and wanted nothing more than to blend in. So you learn everything you can and look to what the other agents are doing so you can appear to be just like everyone else in the industry (to disguise the fact that you are a brand new agent). Are you starting to see the path this is taking you on?
The result of this is that you really do end up looking like everyone else in the industry. Mission accomplished, right? Well no, not so fast! Now you are blending yourself into a saturated industry but also wondering why you’re not attracting the right clients. You’re sending the same post cards, knocking on the same doors, calling the same expired listings and you feel like you’re not making enough of an impact. Are you starting to realize why blending in is probably the worst thing you can do?
So how do you curate your message to stop speaking to everyone and get specific on who it is you do work for? Here is what to start focusing on so that you can start attracting the right clients, repel the wrong ones, and find your piece of the puzzle that you want to direct your marketing message to.
Define your ideal client. Think about your favorite clients who were just a dream to work with. If you are brand new, think of who you would absolutely love to work with. Jot down the characteristics and details of those people to start to draw the picture of what your ideal client looks like. Then look at the other side of the coin of who your most challenging clients were and get down to the root of why they weren’t so great to work with.
You need to be more than a real estate agent. It’s not enough to say, “I’m a real estate agent” because you are more than that. You need to be clearer on what you offer so that you can apply that to your marketing message to attract the people who would love to work with you too! This means showing some of your personality beyond the fact that you are a real estate agent which will go hand in hand with who you love to work with.
Realize and EMBRACE that you are never going to be able to please everyone or be the right fit for every buyer and seller. You are not mac and cheese, you can’t make everyone happy! So it’s time to be okay with that fact and start creating messages that will attract and repel. You’ll come to realize that repelling is a very powerful force in gaining momentum in your business.
Cheers!
Chelsea
