Take Control of Your Professional Destiny

Let’s put all the power back in your hands to guide your professional destiny. This is for the agent who wants to have their own identity and brand — which, frankly, should be all of you. The more you can say about yourself, the more you stand out. Over the past few years, there has been a tsunami of digital information. That information isn’t slowing down anytime soon, so the question is, how do I make my personal brand “sticky”? The answer — own your personal brand. Something aside from the branding that your company offers. If you don’t own your personal brand and defer to the branding of your company, especially if that’s a big national firm, I feel you just blend in.

It Starts with Your Story

The key is to put out good content with good stories. It’s all about having your own brand that you are the face of, and you should design, create, and control it. Why do all this? Because I believe you exponentially increase your odds of getting more business when you are the brand and when you make your brand stick. 

This is for the agent who wants to have his or her own identity. This is all about the brand. I believe the agent is the brand and then companies are there to support the agent. At the end of the day, the only thing that separates us from the machine is personality. My belief is this — the more you can say about yourself, the more you can put out about yourself — the more you stand out against the vanilla noise. But that’s not what this rant is about. This rant is about something that I massively, massively believe in, and it’s something that I only instituted myself about six months ago and I’m very, very happy I did. I’m going to go over my results, and how I got the results.

When the internet began to take hold in business, probably around 2010, we all got websites and we all started blogging. There was a tsunami of digital information as Facebook began to take hold, Instagram began to take hold, and Twitter really swelled quickly. There’s just an avalanche of information hitting us.

I love this stuff — I live and breathe it. I remember at one point posting individual posts on Twitter, on PLG Twitter, on my personal page on Facebook, on the PLG page on Facebook, on my Peter Lorimer official page on Facebook, Instagram PLG, personal…it’s endless and it’s madness. There’s just so much information that it’s a deluge on us every single day. Trying to make our brand sticky is really hard. How do we do this?

Sticky Brands

I love endlessly watching trends, and I seem to be able to spot trends and where the market’s going, not just the real estate market, but where sociologically we’re heading and psychologically where we’re heading. That’s what made me a good record guy. About six months ago I thought, “Oh my God, there is just so much content coming out. It’s just getting thrown out into the universe. I’m not seeing how sticky it is.” Yes, I can see my Facebook results. Yes, I can see my Instagram results. Yes, I can see my YouTube results. But at the end of the day, (and this is where this fiercely independent guy steps in), I’m still in the bucket with everyone else.

If I put a great piece of content out on Instagram it lasts for a few seconds and then whoops, you’re on to something else. Some kid eating a rainbow cheese sandwich like my children last night. How do we make it sticky, and how do we make our potential clients want to just hang out? Not all day, not even for an hour, but just to poke around and go into the library of “you” — right where you have all of your posts, on all of your platforms, along with original content, and maybe some written word articles. So, it begins to feel like one of those things we used back in the day — a website. 

A Personal Brand Mission Control

We’re not going to call it a website, we’re going to be calling it a “personal brand mission control”. Websites were full of junk — full of crap. We used to throw everything in there that we thought people wanted to see, and we were scared that we’d leave something out. The world has changed, and what I decided to do six months ago was bite the bullet and design my own website. I wanted a hub. I wanted a mission control where all of my stuff could be housed. Not just to keep it there. I have strategies about getting eyes to that hub and then tracking those eyes and then remarketing to them.

I created PeterLorimer.com. Feel free to have a poke around on it. PeterLorimer.com is just me, it’s just my stuff because I have a lot going on. I wanted to create a hub so I could then drive people to my site, and then, through the wonderful advent of the Facebook pixel, I can then see their digital data so that I can remarket to a crowd that’s already interested in me through Facebook and through Instagram. 

If you’re a real estate agent, your company most likely provides you with a very vanilla and generic company website. You don’t stand out at all. If you’re giving out your website address to people in order to try and capture attention and you have this box standard Keller Williams website, or Coldwell Banker website, or even Compass website — you don’t stand out and if you don’t stand out, you blend in.

I researched, ad nauseam, all of the websites out there and I built a WordPress site, a Wix site, and a Squarespace site. I prefer Squarespace — it’s the most intuitive and the most graphically interesting. It costs less than $20 a month for your own personal brand website, which is nothing. And what I like about it (and this is me, “Mr. Independent”) — I am in control. I decide what goes on that website, I decide what gets pushed out into the world. Each Friday, I do a Mailchimp letter that has several pieces of media that came out that week because I know some people don’t catch it on Instagram or Facebook, but they do catch the media letter. Then what happens? They click the media letter and they get taken through to my website. Facebook pixel goes, “Well thank you very much for stopping by.” It then takes their information and drops them into a bucket in Facebook so that I can now gently, politely, and respectfully remarket to people that are already interested in what I’m doing.

As the shift continues, I’m feeling that there is a bottleneck in our industry. I can see the fear in the eyes of some real estate agents because we are slowing down, the entire country is slowing down. It’s not a bad thing, because remember, those of you who were in the industry whenever it was like this before. It went pop, and then it was the worst recession in living memory. In a way, I’m kind of glad that it's slowing down. It’s our job and our duty as entrepreneurs to take ownership of our destinies. That’s what this is about. Take ownership of where you are going. 

Create interesting posts on your website that can be carbon copies of what you posted across social. Write original copy. Create a newsletter. Push it to your people. Now, you’re covering all your bases. Everywhere I go, I know people are watching or have watched some of my content. 

Once people visit my website, I say, “Thank you very much for stopping by. Now I know that you like what I’m doing. I’m going to gently market to you so that I remain in your mind and in your life.” Guess what? This is how PLG Estates has grown. It hasn’t grown by me calling people up saying, “You want a coffee?” It’s grown by me putting out content that people like and that agents relate to. It’s exactly the same for finding real estate business, design business, or if you are a candlemaker, or if you have an organic farm. It’s all the same. You give all the secrets away. I am not the first guy saying this. I’m probably about the ten thousandth guy saying this. This goes all the way back to Napoleon Hill, probably earlier back than him, and Seth Godin, who I greatly admire, with a book called Tribes.

Give it Away

When I say this to professionals, they look at me and say, “Oh, but it takes so much effort.” What you are saying to me is, you want the fastest route from initial meeting to paycheck. And I think that counts for about 85% of the industry. 85% of our industry wants the quickest route from the initial meeting to paycheck. That’s not what I’m about. I’m a huge advocate of giving it all away and making myself invaluable. Give it all away without expectation. Of course, we have hopes and we want to convert people into deals. Nevertheless, give it all away and give it away in such a manner that people think, “Wow, this guy’s on fire.” Then, you just leave it, leave it up to the Gods and the universe as to whether or not it converts.

I hear horror stories from other companies who say, “You don’t leave the house until you’ve got the signature on the paper.” I have spoken to people who have sold their houses, little old ladies that have been in tears, that ultimately signed because they felt pressured and scared. I am the opposite. Every listing presentation I’ve done, I’ve said, “Right, that’s what we’ll do for you. I’ll see you later,” and I walk out the door. I don’t leave them with anything. I don’t leave any paperwork; I don’t even ask for a signature. I’m just gone, like an enigma, out the door. It’s energy, it’s giving everything I know away, it’s being genuine. And when I leave their property, I’m hopeful that I will get the listing, but I’m not in expectations. 

Take ownership of your destiny. Take ownership of your personal brand. Don’t put it in the hands of your company. I would say 80% to 85% of all real estate agents I know don’t even have a website, they just have a page on a company website. That says a whole lot to me if I’m looking for you to sell my house. If you can’t take the time to care about what’s out there on the Internet regarding you, then that says to me you won’t take the time with my business. It’s a shortcut, right? If you don’t have your own personal brand website, then that says to me you’re taking a shortcut because you can’t be bothered. If you can’t be bothered having a personal brand website, you might not be bothered looking out for my interests as much as I would like.

Create a media layer, drive traffic to you so you can capture visitors through Facebook pixel, and then you can remarket and get more business.

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