Discovering Your Uniqueness In Business

What is your plan to remain relevant in an industry that is transforming around us? You know, if you look at other industries and you look at the most successful businesses, they typically have something different about them. You know, we've all been to a restaurant that doesn't have that X factor and then we've been to restaurants that maybe go above and beyond in terms of service or a traditional golf driving range. And we have something called topgolf in Charlotte here where it's just a totally different experience or going to like Best Buy versus going to maybe the Apple Store. Right. So we see these businesses in other verticals where it's just a different experience. And so my challenge for you is we have to think about our business differently and the things that you do that are different than the sea of agents out there. If you stick around, I'm going to share with you our Real estate Business Growth Navigator report. It goes through the six stages of business growth to give you the ultimate freedom from your business. If you like the videos, hit the thumbs up, subscribe to the channel and turn notifications on and also leave comments so we can go back and forth and challenge each other. Let's spend some time going through, you know, how to identify and articulate the value proposition, the things that you do differently that no other agent in your market or in the country can do like you do. And I know that's a bold statement. In my market, there are 17,000 real estate agents. This is up from 5,000 agents, sort of when we came out of the Great Recession years, 2012, 2013. It is kind of intimidating, a little daunting to think about how can I position myself as a real estate agent when we are a commodity, there's no barrier to entry to get a real estate license. I think it's like 350 bucks and you pass the test. The test has gotten a little bit harder. But there are just hundreds of agents coming out of real estate schools all the time in most markets. Right. Especially during, as I'm filming this, we're in a pandemic where the service industry has been decimated. You know, servers and bartenders have been hit really hard. And a lot of them are going into real estate thing is a lot of them are hustlers and we can get them on our team and they can be really successful. Let's spend some time talking about how you determine and articulate your value proposition. This X factor that we talk about, you know, in a commodity industry, right. If you don't think you're a Commodity as a real estate agent, that's probably a separate training video. In my market, there are 17,000 real estate agents and there's only like 80,000 commission checks available. So it's like four or five homes on average per agent. Do the math on a $275,000 price point. And you can see there's not a lot of income available for all of the real estate agents in our market. And so we have to think about what do we do differently? Like, are we really any different than the person that is operating like right next to us? Even in my real estate brokerage, there's like 450 agents and that's just in one brokerage in like 25,000 square feet, right? So if you're not thinking about your X factor, you're probably going to lose this game. And if you look at other industries that have transformed, financial services is probably one of the best examples. You know, their roster has been declining over the last seven years. Technology has come in and the only folks that have survived in that market that I can see are the folks that have gone upstream, you know, premium services, and they've really over delivered on service to their clients. So that's the direction that we've taken, our real estate team is we're not going to be the Chase discounted commissions to the gutter, right? We're going to provide a service that demands a premium and we can charge what we want for commissions. And there's always going to be that opportunity, right? There's a Motel 6 or Motel 8, I forget what it's called. There's Ritz Carlton. Do you want to be Motel 8 or Motel 6 or do you want to be Ritz Carlton? There's a decision to make. Most of the guys going down to discounting are doing it with technology. And so unless you have a ton of money and you can invest in technology, that's going to be a tough road for you. You can put systems in place to be able to make your X factor be your client service. So let's talk about, you know, what are the things that you do different or better than other agents? Just take a piece of paper and write them out. Maybe it's. You have a work ethic like nobody else that you've seen in your industry, right? Maybe you're really good at numbers. Your quantity quantitative skills are better than most. Maybe you really have a heart and a love for your clients and you'll do anything to make sure that they get from point A to point B from you Know, selling their home, moving into a new home, and you're just going to care for them. Maybe you're really detail oriented and you're going to make sure every T is crossed, every I is dotted in the transactions. What are the things that you do really well that you want to indoctrinate and memorialize as part of your business and part of your culture, as you maybe add an administrator or you add an agent to your team? Right? That's your X factor. That's the things that you do that are different than others. And it's important to identify those things because that's the only thing you have really, because the public thinks we're all the same. Well, first identify, then also communicate what makes you different. The chances that you can command a premium for your services is pretty low. And so after you're sort of clear on the things that you do really well, you know, what is social proof saying about you? Do you have social proof out there? You know, it took us a little, little while, but we have over, I think at this point close to 1300 five star reviews online. And we're able to go into those reviews. That's social proof. And now our clients are telling us, but also the world what our X factor is. And so if you do have social proof out there, what are your clients saying about you? And if you don't have social proof, call your last 10 clients and say, hey, listen, I want you to take a little bit of time. Send me an email. When you worked with me, what are the things that you think I did better than any other service provider that you've experienced? You better hope that they come back with a list of 3, 5, 7, 10 things that you did that others, maybe in other service industries or past agents they've had didn't do. And it's that list that becomes your X factor. And these are the things we're going to use in marketing, right? This, the experience you provide, the good words people say about you, that becomes the fuel for the marketing. And we create this virtuous cycle. And so this X factor conversation isn't just so you can, you know, maybe take a glossy image and maybe put the words, you know, customer service first. Like, that's not, that's brand image. That's brand and image advertising. We don't, we don't do that. You'd have to be clear on what it is so you can provide it at a high level. Then you have to be able to get your clients to realize that and say great things about you, and then you use that, those great things to kind of create this virtuous cycle. And that's the, that's the equation. I wish it was more complicated than that. Here's the thing though. When I look at, you know, successful real estate agents that are able to scale and those that are not able to scale and struggle and are suffering financially and putting in too many hours, the difference really is this ability to just be clear on what they stand for, the not even a side benefit. The main benefit of doing this the right way is that it takes you out of the rat race of paying others to be better marketers than you. So being clear on your X factor allows you to stop paying Zillow, stop paying realtor.com, stop paying for junk pay per click home search leads. We gave up that stuff years and years ago because we made this commitment to know who we are, deliver on those promises. Well, not not only know who we are, but articulate that to our clients up front, deliver on those promises and then realize the fruits of our labor with reviews online that I couldn't write these reviews if I wanted to. And by having that cycle, that virtuous cycle that we talk about, that X factor realized in place, it's really game over. I wouldn't want to be a local agent in our market competing against us because of all the great things our clients have said for us. And we spend a quarter of what most teams at our size spend on lead generation because we've been able to give up those junk leads and we are not going to pay someone else to be a better marketer than us. And that's typically what you're doing when you're paying someone else to generate a lead for you. If you're at the point in your journey where you just wish somebody had laid out like, here are the different stages of growth to real estate business. I put together a report. It's called the Real Estate Business Growth Navigator. Just go to realestatebusinessgrowth.com to grab your free copy. I literally describe every stage from 100,000 GCI to 500 to a million, 2 million, 5 to 2 million. And everything you need to do at every part of that journey. And if you're already at a stage and you're not growing through to the next stage, maybe you need to go back and put some tools and systems in place that you may have missed at an earlier stage. So go to realestate business growth.com as always, give me the thumbs up if you appreciate these videos leave comments, subscribe to the channel and turn notifications on. See you in the next video.