The Key: 3 Tips for Building Your Brand as a New Agent
“The Key” is Blakemore Real Estate’s agent-focused blog series in which educational tips, best practices, and expert insights are shared to help Realtors® excel in their careers.
Between all of us at Blakemore Real Estate, we have 65+ years of experience in the real estate industry. And although we enjoy every aspect of our careers, our favorite part is welcoming new realtors to the community and giving them the tools they need to succeed. If you’re an up-and-coming agent, most of your time should be spent building your brand because real estate is a people-first business, and it pays to have long-lasting relationships and unwavering knowledge of the market.
To help you start your career on the right foot, we’re sharing three tips for building a solid brand foundation that you can build upon for years to come.
#1 Become a Market Expert
Build out time in your schedule to review market insights and projections. Make it your job to know your market like the back of your hand. More than anything, clients want to know they are in good hands when they’re making their most significant financial investment. Your knowledge of the market will come in handy during the consultation phase, allowing you to make personalized recommendations that will lead your client to the right home. It will provide value during the transaction, allowing you to remain agile and offer thoughtful advice. And most importantly, it won’t be forgotten after the closing date and will often bring referrals.
#2 Invest in Meaningful Relationships
This may sound cliche, but twenty years from now, you won’t remember every negotiation. You won’t remember every transaction. But you will remember all of the clients you helped, the bonds you formed, and the agents you worked with along the way. If we could give you one piece of advice, it would be to remember that relationships should never be transactional in real estate. The relationship may begin when the home search starts, but it should never end when the transaction closes. Make an effort to check in on your past clients, provide them with resources to support them on their homeownership journey, and remind them that you’ll be there when they are ready to take the next step.
But it’s not just the client relationships that will take you far, prioritize building rapport with other agents in your community, too. All agents mostly want the same thing—to make their clients happy. As long as you can focus on what you have in common and how you can work better together toward a common goal, the smoother every transaction will go.
#3 Never Stop Learning
Even after all the years we’ve been in this profession, we still learn something new every year. Professional development is a core value of ours, and it’s an essential component of a viable, long-term real estate career. As we’ve learned from last year, even when the whole world changes, home is our only constant, and the real estate market is ever-changing. Never get too comfortable with what you know, and always be willing to learn and relearn methods, processes, and procedures that will add to your skillset and most importantly, bring value to your clients.
As a team, we set individual goals for ourselves each week to keep us on track, and we share our successes so we can learn from each other. Although there are many courses, networking groups, and certifications out there to enhance real estate knowledge, here are a few of our favorites that will help you kickstart your career.
National Association of Realtors (NAR) Trainings & Certifications
Mentorship & Networking Opportunities
For more real estate career tips, follow us on social media @blakemorerealestate for or #WisdomWednesday segment in which we share a piece of advice from our team for all of the new agents out there looking to expand their real estate knowledge.
