September is Marketing and Branding Month at Inman. That means we’re talking to the chief marketing officers at major brokerages about how the pandemic is changing their jobs and what it means for agents. We’re publishing a suite of tactical Inman Handbooks for marketing on digital portals. And we’re looking at what pages of the traditional marketing playbook still work. Join us all month long.
In this podcast, we sit with the global CMO of Century 21 Real Estate, Cara Whitley. The discussion dives into Whitley’s experience, starting in the agency world, moving to the hospitality industry and ending up at Century 21.
As Whitley highlights, one of the major ways to make an impact as an agent is to focus on the little things. She also talks about the difference between delivering an experience versus a transaction and the importance of communicating your value throughout the process — from offer to close.
Focus on the little things
If you want to stick out from the competition and make your client a life-long client, it starts with the small things. If you’re looking for inspiration, think about how luxury hotels treat their clients and how they personalize the experience from top to bottom.
Deliver an experience
Stop taking orders and focusing on facilitating a transaction. Instead, you should zero in on the experience you’re delivering to your clients. What are their pain points? What questions do they have? How can you be their trusted adviser and not just an order-taker?
Communicate, then communicate again
Consumers say they would use the same agent for repeat transactions — but only 15 percent of people do. A lot of this comes down to agents not communicating their value to the best of their ability.
Agents need to communicate (probably more than they think) their value from offer to close on a property. What are you doing at this time that makes you the preferred agent in your area? What are you bringing to the table that no one else is?
Jordan Scheltgen is the founder of the marketing agency, Cave Social. You can connect with him on Twitter at @JordanScheltgen.
