The Trap of Full Service and Experience

THE NOISE IN THE REAL ESTATE INDUSTRY

Noise, you know the buzzing of things around you , it could be that annoying ad of that Facebook Ads guru while you scroll down your Facebook feed, it could be annoying music your neighbors playing next door. You ignore it all you focus on what interests you, I have another seller to call another deal to close etc. Noise is everywhere we call it noise because we ignore it, it's not relevant to us, it blends together, it's annoying. Whatever reasons you dismiss it immediately. When it comes to your real estate business it maybe the same thing ask yourself if your adding to the noise of the market.

Just like in your everyday you focus on a very small and prioritized amount things , the real estate industry is the same your clients whether investors, home buyers, business owners, sellers etc. block out what's irrelevant to them the noise and focus on what matters to them the most and this varies from person to person, target market to target market. Now you maybe thinking but Mario I’m a great real estate brokerage my clients are happy and we’ve been in business for 10 years or so , so what gives I'm sure we are doing something right. Yes you may have stabilized your business your in a good position but markets don’t care about that. Markets are constantly changing what was desirable yesterday , is not today and what worked years ago to maintain your market share in the mind of the customer may not work years from now , Plus right now as I type this article there's a real estate company trying to put you out of business, whether through technology , or plain out reworking their business model. So your working against two forces the market and the competition. So complacency kills if you don't take into account those two forces. 

So what's this noise, noise in the market have nothing to do with sound waves, noise has to do with companies that aren't relevant anymore in the consumers eyes or just blend together into sameness. This mainly to do with how real estate companies portray themselves brand wise. Brand being people's perception of your company if your perception is the same as the next guy there's little value to the prospect and the prospect can choose any company it wants to work with. You could be portraying yourself through various mediums such as it could be through copy on your site, your design, the things you say the actions you do. But today I'll be only talking about one, copy, what you say on your site.

Full service

"We are a full service real estate agency", I've documented many sites and pages that have claimed the same thing in their about section. Its sounds good , full service we can provide for all your needs and that might even be a differentiating factor but because everyone is saying it then there's no difference. Why should I go with this full service agency, what does it do differently, the prospect is already looking at you as another me too real estate brokerage.  Even if you may have the best services in the world without making distinct you''ll become the noise.

Experience

"We have 20 years of experience etc." What does this actually mean, it's just a number of years you've been in business doing the thing you do best, but what does it mean to the potential prospect. It could mean a good thing because experience is correlated with good results or good service. But again how many companies state their experience as a selling point, all even the top ones who definitely stomp every other independent agency out there, Coldwell Banker, Keller Williams, Century 21 etc. , you can't win against the experience of those giants , can you? Sometimes experience doesn't even correlate with good results , sometimes its used by almost extinct brokerages to pass by in the market, its all they can say because they haven't innovated anything in their company or changed anything to be relevant to the customer again, a cop out answer. So with those two scenarios at hand its better to steer away from experience.

Note: Experience is good only when you truly can prove it and mix it in with a good distinct offering.

The Cure for the Noise

Specificity. This is the word you want to keep in mind when branding your real estate company. The way to cut through the noise is to be distinct, has nothing to do with being better than your competitor, how many deals you’ve closed, it has to do with what is relevant and what makes your prospect care about going with your brokerage or agency. Being specific on what you have to offer is one way to make yourself distinct, here's an example of how that would look:

Noise : We are a full service real estate agency , with 10 years of experience in commercial real estate

Specificity: We are a commercial real estate brokerage focused on helping manufacturing companies find the right space to make their products

A small tweak to the language changes everything when your specific there's no room for confusion or noise. It's clear why your different in this example you target a specific industry and understand the problems it comes with, you are now the obvious choice in the market. The more specific the better the more granular the offer the easier it appeals to your target market. If your competition even has a hold on that market , you need to be even more specific, let's take the example again above , lets say your competitor is saying the exact same thing. Go deeper

Noise : We are a commercial real estate brokerage focused on helping manufacturing companies find the right space to make their products

Specificity: We are a commercial real estate brokerage focused on helping airplane manufacturing companies find the right space to produce stellar jet parts and engines

or

Find a factory space for manufacturing your airplane parts without needing to shirk on quality machinery.

See how in this one it was broken down more into airplane manufacturing your being specific on what the product is. These are some rough examples but you can see how specific you can go , there's really no limit. The second one goes into the pain of the prospect the owner of the company needing to find a space but not compromise on the equipment quality just because of the space. Its a subtle tweak to show you actually care about their problems. When you care they care and then the trust you and when they trust you they buy from you.

There are many ways and things you can be specific on not just the industry or target market although those are the clearest but you can also show what purpose , what big goal you are achieving your why, you can add humor into you copy , a different tone of voice.

Noise depends on the market and is always changing. It depends on whether your market has heard that so many times it becomes noise, or it just doesn't matter to them now in this point in time. Whatever it is knowing at least this one tip about specificity should help you rework any thing on your site or in your marketing materials that sounds the same. So go try this out , cut through the market like a hot knife through butter and start attracting more customers to your real estate business.