“Branding is evoking emotions and feelings from our customers, right? So it’s so important for us to stay very focused on the fact that those emotions and those feelings give us the opportunity in our business to grow more in-depth relationships,” Renee Funk, team leader at eXp Realty, said onstage at Inman Connect Las Vegas.
The marriage between both being focused on technology and never losing sight of the art of old-fashioned relationship-building and nurturing skills is a theme Funk hit hard during the discussion.
Funk found that her team was losing sight of branding after the closing table with clients. She believes that post-close is when you should be amping up that branding. So to stay in that nurturing-relationship mode her team has implemented customer appreciation events among other things.
Nick Shivers, leader of Keller Williams’ Shivers Team, has a slightly different approach. “I think you have to build a tribe to thrive,” he said.
Shivers says he tells people to find something in this world that makes them mad and make that their “why.” His “why” is a program called “Sell a home, save a child.” And the team recruits to it and creates culture around it. Shivers has raised millions, and he believes that his program is what brings customers through the door and keeps them coming back. It’s about creating something bigger.
For agents, both panelists and moderator Veronica Figueroa recommend the following:
- Phone calls over Facebook.
- Note cards over emails.
- Stop sending typed-out texts — send a video. Let people get to know, like and trust you.
- Get out in the community, belly-to-belly with locals.
- Be real, don’t try to be perfect.
- Share the story.
To hear more about Shivers’ and Funk’s precision branding tips, listen in to the full video above.
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