How to Differentiate Yourself as a REALTOR - Kevin Ward @ YesMasters.com

Oh, hey, guys. Kevin Ward here with yes Masters Real Estate Success Training, helping you get more yeses and more successes in your business and in your life. And you may be wondering what I'm doing today, but what I'm actually doing is I'm trying. I'm looking for my nude look here because a few months ago I had LASIK surgery, and so I don't need my glasses anymore. And so I'm like, okay, now I've got to figure out, I don't have glasses anymore. What can I do for my new look? So I was just kind of testing out some new looks here. I was looking at my. My felt. My felt fedora, and I'm going like, okay, let's try the fedora look. And I'm like, okay, that's not too bad, but let's try something else. Let's try the. Something a little more bold here. You know, like a big. My big white brim, straw brim cowboy hat. And that's pretty good. Or why not go with something just downright bold and outrageous? And that is something. An umbrella hat that would. People that like, this is different. How many real estate coaches and trainers out there do you know that wear an umbrella hat? Right? So I'm trying to figure out what should I. And look, I've been in real estate for 17 years, and like you, I've seen so many different ways that real estate agents try to differentiate themselves. How can I make myself different? And so they've tried everything from. I still remember the first time I saw the hat lady real estate agent, she wore this big red hat to differentiate herself in the real estate market. And I will grant that it did differentiate her. But I want to talk to you today about the right way to. To differentiate yourself as a real estate professional. And understand the goal is not just to be different for the sake of being different. If you're going to differentiate yourself, differentiate yourself in a way that matters. Differentiate yourself in a way that adds value in the mind of your clients, of your prospects, of your potential and future business, so that they get the fact that you're not just out there trying to look different, sound different, be different, but. But that you have something of value that separates you or differentiates you from the competition. A few weeks ago, I did a video about my interview with Darren Hardy, the publisher and editor of Success magazine, and how that he differentiated himself from all of the other real estate agents in his market as a real estate agent by offering a 100% money back guarantee to his clients. So if you were a seller and he sold your home and you weren't 100% satisfied. He guarantee, guaranteed that he would give the commission back, which he did. And it differentiated him and helped him, really helped catapult him to be one of the top agents in the entire real estate market. So what's the right way to differentiate yourself? And I want to just talk to you about a couple of approaches, ways to think about how can I differentiate myself in the real estate market? And this applies if you're a seasoned agent, top producer, or if you're a brand new agent. Because see, one of the ways that a lot of people differentiate themselves is they differentiate themselves because I sell more houses than anyone else in my market, which happens to be a phenomenally perfect, powerful, great way to differentiate yourself. However, if you're not that number one agent, then how do you differentiate yourself? So I want to just start by talking today about two questions to ask yourself to really get a perspective and start thinking about what can I do? How can I position myself in the market and differentiate myself as go to agent for people. So here's two things I want you just to think about. I want to think, I want you to think. First of all, ask this question. Who is the best? Well, that didn't look too good. Who is the best? Who is the best real estate agent in my market? Who's the best one? Who's the top producing agent? Or maybe the two or three top producing agents, who are they? And figure out who they are and then just check them out, Just kind of like, you know, do a little research on them. And this takes five minutes. You can go to their website, you can google them, watch what is it that makes them stand out? And it may just be the fact that they're the best. I mean, they've sold more houses, but how did they get there? And study success. If you want to learn how to be the best, first start by studying the best and then the second question to ask yourself. And this is going to freak some of you out if you're a new agent. But I want you to go with this because it's a very powerful exercise and that is how can I be better? What can I do that would position me, that would allow me to out position myself out, position them or outperform them, or both. How can I do that? What can I do to become the best? Or what can I do to be the best in my market? Now the reason that's important is remember our goal is not to be different, just for the Sake of being different. The goal is to be better. The goal is to be the go to agent for buyers and sellers that can deliver a higher level of, of results in a higher level service. I mean, who wants to be the best at just being different? You want to be the best at being the best. So think what are the best doing out there and how can I out position or outperform them? Now let me just give you a simple approach and a very simple idea. It just so happens that the top agent, the very top agent in one of the markets that I've lived in was an agent that was dominant. I mean one of the top real estate agents in the nation. However, he had a weak point. And the weak point was that he would take any listing because so many people knew who he was and they liked him. So he would take any listing he could get. And the challenge was not, I'm not talking about whether it's high end or low end or an ugly house or what, but here was the deal. If they weren't that motivated, but they wanted to try the market, he would list it at whatever price they wanted to list. Consequently, a huge number of his listings did not sell. A high percentage of the listings that he took did not sell. Now do you think he was beatable? Do you think he's, do you think he's someone that you could learn to position yourself whenever you had to go up against him? Could you out position him or outperform him by saying, look, I sell every listing I take? Just saying, you see the difference is are you interested in listing with somebody who sells only 60% or 70%, whatever it is, that only sells a small percentage of the listings they take? Or are you interested in an agent that you can trust and count on is going to get you the best result and definitely get your home sold? Because I list every home I take. And that's just one example of what is the, what are the best? Who is the best? What do they do? And how can I out position them? How could I outperform them? And it's a very, very powerful exercise just to go through that process in your mind and say, what can I do to outperform them? What can I do to out position them? Could I do, could I offer a guaranteed sale? What is it that I could do to differentiate myself? Now going to tell you two. Well, let's just, let's go on here then. Now the strategies. Let's talk about strategically. How can I differentiate myself in a way that matters and I just want to share with you two approaches or two different perspectives of how to come at differentiating yourself in the market. One way that you can differentiate yourself in the market is in terms of the results that you deliver. It basically is by being able to position yourself and say I can deliver better results. And here's how, here's how you know it. And there are two really key ways that I'm going to say in this market, in the 21st century, in 2015 and beyond that, really, really powerful ways that you can position yourself or communicate delivering results. One is a guarantee. Any type of guarantee is better than no guarantee. Because we live in a world where pretty much with consumers, anything you want to buy, we're used to having a guarantee with it. And when they're hiring you in a multi month contract to sell their home for them, they're looking at, well, we don't want to get stuck with a bad agent. And so, and we want to know that if we hire you we're going to get results. So a guarantee is very powerful at lowering the risk and raising the promise. So when you offer a guarantee, you're basically saying, I guarantee results. Now that's one way you can do it. Another way that you can prove results or position yourself or differentiate yourself in terms of delivering results is with great testimonials and results reviews. Now gone is the day when references are really powerful because anybody can put some names and addresses on a thing and say, here's some people I've helped sell. But when you have a statement from that person, from that seller that says we had our home on the market, we listed with two other agents, they couldn't get the results and we hired Joe and he sold our house in a week flat. It was awesome. Or you know, we've had, we've worked with agents in the past, but when we met Jill, she was the flat out best agent we've ever had, she took better care of us. Dah, dah, dah. Great testimonials and great reviews are powerful. Reviews on LinkedIn, reviews on Yelp, reviews on Google places, reviews on Zillow, reviews on Trulia, places like that. If you'll take, figure out how to do that and get strategic. It's one of the things I teach to my coaching members is how do you get those reviews and those high ratings, those five star ratings, how do you get them on those websites? Because people Google you, they check you out before they interview you, they check you out before they hire you. And it's an extremely powerful, powerful way to differentiate yourself and position yourself. Because it becomes a word of mouth marketing strategy that works even with people that don't know you and they don't even know the people that they're watching, the videos, the testimonials or reviews. Now the one other thing I wanted just to mention here, I just mentioned it, is video is making those testimonials, when you get them on video, you get a seller to do a happy seller to do a video testimonial for you that has huge leverage and huge horsepower when it comes to differentiating yourself. However, there are other ways you can differentiate yourself. You can differentiate yourself with things that you do in the listing process and helping them get the home sold. There are things you can differentiate, ways you can differentiate yourself just to be memorable. You know, like the hat lady, like the car wraps, you know, the people that have the big, the agents that have their vehicle completely wrapped. You know, some people just use the car magnet they stick on the side, which is a little bit cheesy, especially if you drive a decent car. However, the car wrap, what did it do? It differentiated you, it made you noticeable. If you do a huge branding campaign where you market yourself all over the place, that definitely differentiates you. However, it's not so much differentiating you in terms of results. And if you want something that's sustainable, that gives you staying power, is if you're buying your presence in the market through branding, through media like that, it's always going to cost you profit to get that leverage to get that horsepower. However, when you brand yourself or you differentiate yourself by the results that you deliver, it's a whole different ballgame. But here's another way that I think is so overlooked and so powerful in our world today, in our culture today, there's been a shift from a focus on just results to becoming more connected to people. And that is, I want a real estate agent that cares about me. I want a real estate agent that cares about helping us and is not just out for a listing. And so the second strategy that I think you really, really need to focus on is how do I go for the heart? How do I learn to connect with the heart, with people's hearts so that they. And you're hearing more and more of this, and I just attended a, recently attended a business entrepreneurial conference. And one of the things I kept hearing over and over again, I've been doing this in the last year, hearing this over and over again, is stuff like heart centered entrepreneurs that you're not just out there for the Buck, you're out there to make a difference. You're out there to add value to people. And the cool thing is when you take the result strategy and the hard strategy and say, how do I communicate and position myself to people with people that says one, I'll deliver you the best results and I'll do it because I really care about your experience in making this transition. Look, when people are buying and selling real estate, they're not just, they're not just spending money, they're not just buying a commodity, they're changing. They're transitioning their entire life, everything in your life, when you sell your house, move, buy a new house, everything changes. I mean, your whole life changes, right? And your daily routines, where you live, I mean, your neighborhood changes, your association changes, your friends change. I mean, a lot of it depending on if, you know, if they're moving right next door, maybe not so much. But you understand it's a major decision and a major life transition. And people want to feel that the person representing them and helping them really cares about getting them a better result and making the result pleasurable. So one of the things I used to teach, and I taught this until about a year ago, is I was always teaching that sellers only want one thing. That's it, one thing, period. And that is they want results. They want to get their house sold. They don't care about your marketing plan, they don't care about your stuff. They only care about can you get me the best result? Which is true. They want that. They want the result. However, about a year ago, I finally began to really dawn. Something began to dawn on me that there's something else that's very, very powerful and important to them beyond results. And that is they want respect. They want to be treated like they matter. They want to be treated like they're really a human being and not just a transaction. They're not just a listing, they're a person, they're a family. And they're going through a life transition. And they want an agent that will help captain the ship of that transition and really care about their experience in that process. And when you approach it from that heart centered perspective, I'm telling you, it makes all the difference in the world. I don't know, I was just recently watching the super bowl this year. If you watch the super bowl commercials, one of the things I noticed about several of the Super Bowls was that they were more about values, they were more about the heart than they were about their product. They really, I mean, they were, they were deep Some of them were deep values about fatherhood and about self esteem and about respecting each other, not. Not using terms and phrases that belittled people. It was really, really amazing to watch how that played out and to see commercials on the Super Bowl. Not just talking about, we're the best, we're the best, we're the best, but talking to people's hearts. And I'm promising you, if you want to connect with people today in a way more powerfully than ever before, results, it does and will always matter. However, if you connect with the heart, you'll always be even more compelling and more powerful. Now, I want to just close with a couple of things. One is, I want to give you this one. Don't do this. Here's the one way never to differentiate yourself. Now you can. I'm not saying you can't do it, and I'm not even going to say it's wrong to do it, but I'm going to tell you why I don't think it's a good business approach and strategy for a real estate professional. And that is, don't go for cheap. Don't go for the cheapest, say, well, the way I'm going to differentiate myself is I'm just going to work cheaper than everybody else. I'm going to be the 4% agent. I'm going to be the 3% agent. I'm going to be the, you know, do it for free agent. I'm going to be the one that does it for the lowest commission. I'll go in and I'll beat everybody. Kind of the Walmart strategy. And that is I'm going to be the lowest man on the totem pole. Now, Walmart pulled that strategy off fabulously, became at one point the largest corporation and the largest business in the world. However, to succeed at that level with that strategy of what they call stack them deep and sell them cheap was they had to do so much volume just to make a little bit of profit. And their revenue was huge, while their profit was not that great. Now, you're not talking about selling toothpaste and toilet paper. We're talking about selling houses. We're talking about representing people in a transaction that is one of their largest assets and is a life transition thing. Don't try to be cheap. Be the best, be powerful. And here's the reason when you go for cheap, if I want to, if I put myself out there and say, okay, here's how I'm different than all the other real estate agents, I am cheaper. I am the Better value. I will give you the great service and I'll do it for less. You just made yourself a commodity. And if you want to add more value based on your value proposition, how do you give better value just to charge less? Right. I'm going to. If you want to be better at being the cheapest, then the only way you can be better at being the cheapest is by being cheaper. And so it's not about just delivering results, it's also about having a profitable business and the fact that you represent people, deliver the best service and in a way that delivers the value that you can expect to receive compensation for the value you deliver. See the way I built my coaching and training company and I pray that my coaching members would agree with this and would, and I think they would. And if you've watched a lot of these YouTube videos and so forth, that I hope you feel and get it that I come from a heart centered approach. I still remember a conversation I had with one of my real estate mentors when he asked, why do you want to do be a real estate coach? And I said, I want to help agents change their lives. And he said, don't do that. Your job is not to help them change their life. Your job is to teach them the skills, the strategies to make more money. And that's it. You just teach them the stuff. And I'm like, that's not me. I didn't say that to him, but I just thought to myself, that's not me. I want to add value. I want to help people change their lives. I want to change their life, not just their business. That was the way I approached it. And I care and I tell my client, my coaching members this all the time. I'm like, I am 100% committed to your success. That's the most important thing. There's nothing that makes my day more than when I get an email or I get a Facebook message from one of my coaching members that says, look, I just did this today. Thank you so much. You gave me this and it helped me and blah, blah, blah. Whenever they tell me that kind of stuff, it just makes my day. Why? Because I chose to build my business from a heart centered approach. I still want to deliver, help deliver the best results. I still want to be the best real estate coach and trainer in the world. And yet I want to do it with a heart. And if you'll take that combination and say, what can I do to make me the best both in results and the best in representing their best interests and respecting them and valuing them, my clients, and helping them make that transit, that transition that comes through the real estate transaction. And that is absolutely the winning combination for differentiating yourself in any real estate market. So I hope this video helps you. I hope you like it. If you do, please feel free to comment and share it with other people. But remember this every single day. To embrace your life, to engage every opportunity and always expect yes.