I'm starting my real estate agent journey now. I've completed the required 75 hours (online) and will be taking my course's final exam in about a month (my full-time job is about to enter very hectic territory). That said, I've been focusing on where I can differentiate myself in my market vs. others and I have 2 major things that I can point to.

The first is that I have an instagram account with about 10,000 followers. This might not seem like much, but I plan on re-purposing the account for my venture and will be trying to grow it to 30,000 followers by the time I'm ready to hit the ground running. Now the likelihood of this getting me listings by itself is probably <5%, but it certainly doesn't hurt on a listing meeting to say "I also can get your property in front of 30,000 eyeballs almost immediately," and it will add to my reputation (I think, please tell me otherwise if so). 

The 2nd, and this is what I believe to be the big one, is that I have my CFA designation. Now I know there are a a lot of CFAs in the world, but (from what I know) not many pursuing a career as a Real Estate salesperson. This will allow me to attend networking events and hopefully talk to some influencers there. If anything, in a city where folks generally think that the salespeople they deal with are 'under qualified,' it will certainly add a level of comfort off the bat. I guess my question to anyone who has a designation is--how has this impacted your business?