I am one. I am a Realtor and by all means have portraid these misconceptions in my business and daily communications. These impressions we may give are not bad or harmful but really I think they are false and as a recovering new agent, I think most professions rarely feel the need to over sell or give the wrong impression when they are marketing their good brand, so why do Realtors. I know I am probably wrong on this, as is pointed out daily but its my post and I can post what I want to.
1. We are small business owners – While this may be true very few agents act like it. I wonder how many agents are thinking about adding staff or scaling based on their book of business? I wonder how many agents are set up as corporations or do payroll when suggested by a CPA? Most agents are transactional and even though they are 1099 they act like commission based employees of another brand. For agents to be taken seriously I think they need to take their small business seriously and to start acting like a small business not a company agent. Best way to start is HIRE a CPA, do some tax planning and think about the next employee you are going to hire to scale your business.
2. We work all the time – Uh I don’t buy that and rarely is going to Dick’s Sporting Goods at 2pm work related. Yes we are on demand and work under our clients schedules many times but all the time? No way. We have the most flexible schedules on the planet and sitting at home planning a kids birthday party is not work. I still think this is one of the main flaws of Agents though and by not setting and sticking to a reasonable schedule they are allowing themselves great risk of failure. I get asked “What do I do if I am not showing property?” How about prospecting, networking, following up or even meeting with the CPA from paragraph 1 to get your business in order.
3. We have buyers for your home when you list – We may be working with a buyer but the chances we have “buyers” for your exact home are slim to none. I used that line once because I was working with a buyer having a hard time finding the perfect spot. The seller said “fine, I will pay you 10% if they buy, but until then I will remain a fsbo.” My buyers were not interested and they sold fsbo within weeks. The statement gets old and most sellers are not buying it. Honesty and clarification may be the best bet when using this line.
4. Our last names is not Realtor – I still don’t get this but its done all the time. Facebook profile pages that the name ends with “-Realtor” are silly to me not because it makes sense when someone is searching but if your content is about realtoring won’t it come up anyway? Its just overdone and most likely has very little impact, but I imagine someone at a class was teaching it and it was the tricky way to capture SEO on Social Media a few years back. Heres a better way we should approach it. Use our legal name and write content that includes terminology from our profession and then people will find us for the right reason.
So you see when we spend our days trying to make more money and sell more Real Estate sometimes we embellish and create a persona of what may or may not be going on. Next time we begin to use these, maybe we step back and consider that our clients are pretty darn smart and by using these misconceptions as a pitch its actually reducing our credibility. Or not. Carry on
-curt
Curt has been in the Indianapolis Real Estate business for over 10 years and spent his first years learning all aspects of commercial management and brokerage. He has had great success in managing existing commercial projects and new retail and office developments. Curt specializes in building owner representation and purchases in the Westfield Indiana market as well throughout the Indianapolis Metro area. Curt is passionate about growing the local Westfield community and in his free time volunteers with Westfield Youth Assistance and raising 2 children with his wife Jennifer.
