Suggestions on Building Personal Brand/ Brand Identity

[Connor Banks]

Hey BiggerPockets family! I am a relatively new agent with Keller Williams down here in Fort Myers Florida. I have been thinking a lot lately about how I can differentiate myself from the crowd of real estate agents in my area. While thinking I started getting into researching Brand Identity and such. I've started looking at sites such as CrowdSpring that create logos, social media assets, business cards, taglines, company names, etc. I was just wondering what your guy's thoughts on this are? Do you think an individual agent like myself should start investing in building my personal brand to separate myself from the rest? I have the intention to build my own team at some point and I feel like establishing and building a brand name for myself will help with that in the long term. But I want to hear what you all think.

Just to mention also, I do not have a problem with the way Keller Williams brands themselves and how agents use their branding. In fact, I absolutely love the company. They have so much to offer with so many opportunities. I just feel like there is just too much of the same stuff in my market that makes it extremely hard for one to differentiate themselves from the rest. Almost like everyone is a "template agent" that uses the same color scheme, the same branding, same everything, and the individual real estate agent becomes diluted. I also feel like it doesn't necessarily help my goals of building a name for myself as much as it would if I were to go off the norm and build a brand w/ an identity apart from only KW.

I understand that this will be more work, but I am okay with that. It will have to be done at some point. Why not start working on it now! 

[Stetson Miller]

@Connor Banks looking forward to meeting some time! I'm also an agent in the Fort Myers area. This was something I also considered when looking for a brokerage, and why I ultimately didn't want to be a part of a big name brand.

On one hand, if you brand yourself apart from anything to do with Keller Williams, you're going to potentially be missing clients that are looking only to work with agents from a trusted brokerage. If they don't see those select few big name brokerages visibly in your branding and advertisements, they'll move on to the next agent they find, and there's plenty of them!

On the other hand, there's the people who don't want to work with a big name brokerage, whether that be due to a bad experience in the past or any other reason. However, the largest category of people that you're going to come into contact with are just looking for a genuine person who can answer their questions quickly and efficiently, and follow through on what is promised. This is where branding yourself and your mission statement comes into play, ensuring that you're name is the first that comes to mind when looking for an agent they can trust. Many people are going to be looking to that rather than falling into some lead generator to be passed off to the next unsavvy agent who isn't willing to work hard for their clients. Just my thoughts!