EP 66: Creating Credibility For Your Real Estate Brand
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Welcome to The B Word, the podcast for women in real estate who want to unlock the clarity needed to put your big girl panties on and rock your career like the true boss you are. I'm Joanne Bolt, your host, and together we'll dive into the things your broker doesn't teach you in order to own your own path, disown the things getting in the way to finding your place, and stop apologizing for the obstacles you had to overcome along the way.

If you're ready to stop playing small and take action in your professional life, this is the place for you. It's early October and fourth quarter has begun. I keep seeing all over Facebook, everyone is ending their year strong so that they can start the new year even stronger. And I encourage you to do that. In fact, right now is when you need to be working on your business versus in your business. What's the difference?

Working in your business is spending time managing your business as it is today. A lot of us do that during the heavy seasons of buying and selling like April, May, and June. Working on your business is investing time so your business can be better tomorrow. That's what we want, isn't it? To have a business that is as sustainable tomorrow as it is today.

Well, one of the ways that I love to work on the business is to work on building credibility for your brand in your business and creating raving fans and referrals is the number one way to build your brand. This isn't a new concept folks. And there's not one person paying attention to this episode that wouldn't agree with the following statement. Referrals are the easiest conversions on the planet.

When someone comes to you with a preset mindset that you are the person or brand to use, then the sale is almost always a no brainer. And quite frankly, it costs a lot less acquisition money to get that client than it does to go and cold call for them. How do we do that though? That's when the simple becomes hard at times, but stay consistent with your efforts and I promise you they'll pay off.

The first thing we do when we're building credibility for our brand and real estate is we build testimonials. If you want people to talk about you, you must give them a reason to talk about you. Let them know that this is why I think you should talk about my business and empower them to do so. Oh, and make it easy to do so. And they generally will. How do you do? I've got a couple of ways. One, and I love this one, of course, send a thank you note.

A handwritten note will go a long way. It's an old and lost art form that people still get excited about, but make sure you don't ask for a referral or mention your business because that's when it becomes about you and not about them, which isn't the point, is it?

Simply send them a card welcoming them to their new home, aka you wanted to be the first to drop into their new mailbox. Personally, I use a mixture of branded note cards that I create using Canva and I order them straight from the Canva site. It's so easy y'all. And I also grab cards from the dollar spot in Target. Oh yeah, on my Target run. What I'm saying is you don't have to spend tons of money on this concept. It's just a matter of

In fact, I highly recommend putting a day on your calendar each month to write and send out five to 10 handwritten cards just to stay in touch with people as well as putting the week after I just wanted to drop into your mailbox first card as part of your closing system. The second way I garner testimonials is I love getting organic testimonials. This is one of my favorite ones to do because it's so simple. If

If you have a written statement from a client, that's perfect and you can use that. But oftentimes I hear people say they have a hard time getting someone to fill out that testimonial.

So here's what I recommend. Call them. I know it's old fashioned, but call them and talk to them about their experience. As you're talking, repeat some of the words they tell you and ask if you can use their statement as a testimonial. 10 out of 10 times, they'll say yes. Then you can create a post of the testimonial they give you and send it to them. Ask them to post it in any groups they're a part of and tag you.

Did you know that the average person on Facebook or Instagram has right under 500 followers? That actually seems really low to me, but it is a statistic I found online. So if they post and tag you in that testimonial, it means your simple post that you generated for them can potentially be seen by hundreds of people you never knew before.

This is a great way to give people a reason to talk about you. And the cherry on top, you can use Canva templates to create a brand look. And since it's your client and not you posting about it, then it's not always seen over and over by the same people. So it's a fresh and new look to the eyes who are viewing it. And it gives your clients something to post in a time when people crave pre-made content for their socials. How's another way that I create testimonials? I love to give gifts.

The B word community is extension of my business, real boss women. And we have a private Facebook group. You're welcome to join for free. I'll put the link in the show notes, or you can go to Facebook and search us up.

Each month in the group, we select a boss of the month and send a little presence. It's someone who's been active in the Facebook group with posting or answering questions, creating conversations, in essence, tuning in. We send them tumblers, notepads, pens, Amazon or Starbucks gift cards. Just a little swag to say, thanks for the love you're bringing. Sometimes it's the person we see who's invited the most new members in.

Then we post it in our Facebook group because it's our way of giving them a reason to talk about us. And trust me, they do. People love to get little gifts and it really doesn't break my bank to do it even better. It gives us a reason to capture their email address or a mailing address. If we're sending them something physical, like a Tumblr or heck even a phone number from the community, I build my database that way. I think it's a great way to get people to know that I'm there.

I think you get the concept of how amazing testimonials can be and how to create them. So let's move along to the second way you can build credibility for your brand. Create amazing customer service. Do you know I've never heard a single entrepreneur say out loud, they have never said out loud, my customer experience sucks and I'm okay with that. Nope, nada. You never hear that.

Because it's natural to assume your clients have a great experience. Even if you ask them to fill out a survey, actually, especially if you ask them that, because who's going to fill out a sucky one as they sit there in front of you, or if they know you're going to read it. The real way to know and constantly improve, because you can always be improving, is to

is to send out surveys and polls that ask questions regarding specific things about the experience you may want to improve on. Ask your customers what they like the most. Ask them what they struggled with in their experience with your brand. That's a hard one to ask because we seriously do not want the answer. But finding out what they struggled with can often tell you what's the one thing you need to do to keep improving.

And I want to make sure when you consider your customer experience, you look at it from every single angle, not just from when you start showing a home to when you close on that home. What does your website say about you? What does your voicemail tone imply? Do you use voicemail or are you like me and quite frankly, never listened to it? Valuing a good text message instead. Every second a potential client spends looking at your Instagram or TikTok makes an impression.

My favorite example of the impression from the beginning is one of my favorite closing attorneys, Campbell and Brandon. They're here in the Atlanta area and they've expanded out all over the area. And one thing they have in common, it's part of their brand thing. No matter what office you go to is when you walk in, there is nothing.

A lot of candy. And I'm talking like bins and barrels. It freaking looks like Willy Wonka's candy shop in there. I love it. Even when I don't want to eat all the pink Starburst that they have available for me.

They carry that brand concept of candy into the closing rooms. So depending on what attorney you're using, they tend to close in the same office space, conference spaces, and their favorite candies are always in the center of the room. I don't know about you, but there's just something about walking into a place that semi looks like your favorite sugar shack.

that makes you just have a fun and inviting experience. It brings you back to that childhood giddiness of getting the best lollipop out there. That experience at Campbell and Brandon of candy, although it has absolutely nothing to do with closing a home and signing mounds of paperwork, just lightens the mood and makes it better all around. When I'm looking at my customer experience and how to improve though, I like to do Instagram story polls asking what the people I serve need the most.

That tells me what I need to build out or put in front of them.

I may think that they need help with their social media when the reality is their Pinterest isn't popping and they are struggling to understand how to use that to organically drive traffic to their website. FYI, that actually is something I'm building out right now because it's so darn powerful of a tool and totally underutilized in the realtor world. So be on the lookout at www.realbosswomen.com for the Pinterest power or text me the word Pinterest to 678-736-7366.

eight zero five five. And I'll get you in the first group to see the course for free once it's ready. Cause Hey, I'm going to want your feedback on it. I would be remiss though. If I didn't pause here for a second and give you a chat, like a real girlfriend would over a glass of wine.

While you can never assume that your customer experience is great girlfriend, you should also never assume that you can please each and every one of your customers or clients because everyone has a different perspective on life and different reactions to experiences. So they can and will see things differently than you think they do.

It's important to always be asking and seeking feedback, but at the heart of it, also understand that you have limitations. If someone doesn't like something that you truly felt was good, then keep it as part of your process and seek instead to determine if it didn't fit their personality or if it was wrongly timed for them. My general rule of thumb is if five or more people have a negative reaction in a row, then something's off and it's time to reevaluate. If it's one out of five to 10, well,

Well, maybe not. Maybe it's them and not me. Now, drum roll, please. Here's the final tactical advice I can offer up for creating a consistent brand. It's like my favorite word on the planet other than dropping the occasional F-bomb, which you know I do on the regular. It's the C word, consistency.

You've heard me say it before, and if you listen in much, you'll hear me say it again. Hey, look, here I am being consistent and telling you to be consistent. I crack myself up sometimes for real, but consistency is truly the key. It's more powerful than Pinterest, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube all rolled in a one big cocktail together.

Every single time over the last 20 years of running businesses, I've seen a slowdown in my revenue. I can literally stop and pinpoint it to a lack of consistency. It may have been slowing down on my email list because I got distracted. That one cost me about $100,000 or starting a project and then dropping it because I got frustrated when it didn't show an immediate ROI. Only to start it back up again a year later and discover just what I had missed along the way.

It all comes back to not showing up daily and doing the work. It's not always sexy work. Sometimes it really is proofreading an email sequence to make sure I'm providing service to my customers or trudging through a CE class to make sure I know what the heck I'm talking about on a subject. But it's the repetition that really does win the day.

Some of my highest revenue generating tactics have been ones that other people in the real estate industry told me to ignore. You may be an entrepreneur in another field and laugh out loud when I say this, but seriously, realtors are a special breed. I was told at one time to only use my database email list as a way to incorporate drip campaigns to stay in touch with my community of clients.

WTH, like my people, want canned responses that I clearly haven't looked at in three years. Or worse, that some no-name company wrote for me. No ma'am and thank you.

I made it a point to date my database every single quarter and personally write each and every email that goes out. So it's one I would read myself. Not only do I value that email list, I add to it every single day by not treating it as a buy with me tool. My email list is where I hand out perks to subscribers like crazy. I treat the people in it like the VIPs that they are. And I don't assume they want the generic, what is your home worth newsletter that most agents send out.

And now that I've moved into the teaching and educating point in my career with Real Boss Women, I treat it the same way. The strategy hasn't changed, just the who I'm emailing has. And the people on my list, they're the first to know anything new in my business. They get content you won't see on the webpage or hear on this podcast. They get discounts to events I'm hosting or courses I'm offering or the recipe for a cocktail I found that I think they may want to try. The

The same goes for my text message community. They get weekly tips I hand out or opportunities to join me at live events or happy hours. I pass along discounts for vendors I get to them, or I just plain ask them how their day is going so I can pour into them as a person. These are just a few examples of what I do and how you can add additional value to your subscribers as well.

Another highly revenue generating tactic I've used over and over again is the art of the beverage. My husband laughingly calls it my three C system, but it's where I meet one of my clients or customers each week for either a glass of Coca-Cola at lunch, a coffee at some point in the day. Cause I mean, Hey, you can drink that all day long or a cocktail at happy hour. These are the times I tune in to what's going on in their world. And I tune out of mine.

We don't talk about my business. We talk about them. That goes a long way to creating credibility for you and your brand. And it's really interesting to boot. I admit I'm terrible at remembering people's names or birthdays, and I can go months on end in between a good phone chat with a bestie who lives in another state. But boy, when we do get those three C moments, they are pure gold, my friend.

Now that you've got three tactical ways to create credibility in your brand, I want you to tell me which one will you implement first? DM me on Instagram at it's Joanne Bolt. Cause you know, that's where I am most, or you can always text me at 678-736-8055. Until then, I'll be busy serving up some value in my email list for you. And I'll be back on Thursday with some more realtor entrepreneurial goodness. Catch you on the flip side.

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