How to Differentiate Yourself with Brian Boero of 1000watt

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I'm Jennifer Myers, Founder of Agent Grad School and host of Confessions of a Top Producing Real Estate Agent, The Agent Grad School Podcast.  My goal for each episode is to give you actionable steps you can implement today to grow your real estate business.

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If you’ve listened to more than one episode of the podcast, you know that in order to get clients, you have to answer the question — Why should someone choose YOU vs. every other real estate agent in your town?

If you find an answer to that question that resonates with buyer and sellers, you’ve got a successful real estate business on your hands.

But HOW do find your answer to that question, especially when you don’t feel like you have anything different or special to offer?  

I asked one of the real estate industry’s leading experts in marketing and branding to discuss his top out-of-the-box strategies that you can use  to find what makes you and your business different or unique. 

Brian Boero is the Co-Founder and CEO of 1000watt, the housing industry’s go-to branding and marketing agency. 

Every day, he and his team at 1000watt advise the biggest names in the real estate world on how to stand out in their branding, marketing, ads, communications, and digital design.  

I asked Brian to give the Agent Grad School community advice on how to find the thing that differentiates them. 

Get your pen and paper ready for this episode as you listen in and learn:

  • How to differentiate yourself in a way that is both memorable and meaningful to your ideal client;
  • Why having a unique point of view is necessary to differentiate yourself;
  • How to add “Big Little Things” to your business in a way that has a big impact on your clients; 
  • Why answering “The World Would Be a Better Place if …” could help you find your niche; and so much more!  

You will learn so much about how to market and brand yourself as a real estate agent in this episode. 

This is the kind of advice that Brian’s clients pay tens of thousands of dollars for and he’s sharing it with all of you right here.  

Thank you to Brian and the entire team at 1000watt for what you do for our industry and for sharing your expertise with our agents on this special episode.  

Learn more about 1000watt and the work they do in the real estate industry here. For a completely unbiased and unique perspective on the real estate industry, I highly recommend signing up for their email newsletter here.

To your success,

Jennifer


Episode Transcript

For show notes and audio recording click here. I wish everybody could see me. I’m literally jumping up and down. I’m so excited to welcome you, Brian, to the show. Thank you so much for being here. Well, thank you for having me. I’m totally excited too. So thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Yeah, it’s truly my honor. So thanks for the time. I think the agents who listened to this podcast who tend to be newer agents starting out, and I used that term loosely, it can be kind of brand new licensed agents or agents who maybe have had a license for a few years, but don’t have a ton of experience. So I think that that group of agents is going to get a ton out of this conversation that we’re going to have. I’m going to tell everybody out a little bit more about 1000 watt, just in case they haven’t heard of you, which I don’t know how maybe somebody hasn’t heard of you, but 1000 watt does branding, marketing ad campaigns, communications digital design, and is essentially an industry advisory. And at heart, you have a creative team, but you, and the way that I see you guys is you’re kind of like this real estate industry fly on the wall, where you’re watching everything that is going on and you’re giving us direction on how each company or each of us agents fit into this larger picture, which by the way, I really enjoy those newsletters that you do every week. I think that the’re is such a good way to look at that real estate industry from this 30,000 feet unbiased way. So can you just introduce a little bit about what you do at a thousand watt and, and kind of how 1000 watt came to be in the first place? Well, gosh. Okay. So I’ll try to be brief it, a 1000 watt I always say our product, our output, if you will, is one of three things. It’s ideas, words, or design. And we produce those things in service to clients who need to express themselves in the world, in the marketplace, more effectively, more sharply with greater differentiation, and more credibly. And sometimes that involves a big idea that is about positioning a company or a team or an agent. And we work with mortgage companies and real estate tech companies, et cetera. The positioning a client in the marketplace in a way that’s distinctive and then creating a story in the messaging around that, we’re very big believers in the power of words, whether you end up speaking, say in a listing presentation or on your website or in your print marketing words that are important. And then how do you present that to the world in a design that does justice to the important work that we do in the real estate industry? The real estate industry has historically been something of a shop of horrors in terms of visual design, sadly. And we try to make good agents, good teams, good companies look as good as they actually are. So that’s, that’s in a nutshell, and we started 13 years ago. Gosh, it wasn’t a grand plan. And it was a sort of an outgrowth of some earlier experiences I had with certain people when I worked for Brad Inman in the news. That’s why I started my career around that real estate industry in the late nineties. And I worked with my partner, I’m the co founder at a 1000 watt there in two of our other partners, worked with me at, Inmen. And we all kind of came out of the space where we were around real estate, media, and marketing in technology and innovation and all of that stuff. None of us had, or still have ever sold real estate. But we like to think that we have sort of, as you said, a Jennifer we’re a fly on the wall, meaning, you know, we kind of have a foot inside of the industry, but a foot outside it, which gives us perspective and fresh ideas. So I hope that answers your question. Yeah. And I’m curious to me is I think that there’s some golden nuggets here for agents who are starting from scratch and thinking like, how do I become well known? Right. So how did you take, or what was your approach? And, and we’re going to get into, you know, how real estate agents do this in their own business. But I think it’s really a helpful for them to hear what your approach was, as it now is a very successful, very well known, kind of the industry leader in real estate agent, or excuse me, in the real estate industry, marketing and branding, how did you go from like nothing too, being the most respected brands in the industry? Like how does that happen? Well, and this is a, I think a good lesson for any agent listening to this, it really started with the point of view. You have to have a point of view. If you want to attract an audience, attract clients, differentiate yourself in a meaningful way. We had a point of view. And when we started, our view was that real estate is incredibly important, but the industry needs to do better. That really was and is our fundamental belief. Real estate is so important. Practicing real estate is an important, meaningful vocation, but how the industry handles it in many ways, not across the board, but it just doesn’t do justice to that meaning and that calling. And so we in the very early days took that belief. And we were saying things publicly that nobody else was willing to say. And we kind of, frankly, I think alienated some people, which is not necessarily a bad thing. You don’t want to alienate everybody, but you’re never going to stand out if you’re always afraid of saying the wrong thing. So we had a strong point of view, and you mentioned our newsletter earlier. Jennifer and that’s really what built the company was writing publicly and expressing that point of view. Thank You for saying that, because that is the fundamental thing I teach real estate agents to do at agent Grad School is have a weekly is something that you want to be known for the point of view something. Yeah. Point of view. I mean, I’ve said many times that marketing fundamentally is saying what none of your competitors are willing to say and doing what none of your competitors are able to do. So find those things that no competitors is willing to say or able to do. And that helps you figure out kind of what you’re about, and to define the territory in the market that you can truly own. And you know, that’s not just something I’m saying, it’s actually something that built our business. So it works. Now It’s hard, writing is hard, and you can do video, you can do different stuff, right? Our chosen medium was writing, and it’s still hard to write. It’s really hard to, right. In 13 years, we published about 1,250 blog posts slash newsletters. And every one of them took time and effort and argument in all of that, but it’s a long play, but it pays off. That’s for sure and worth it. Right? Like you said that it’s responsible for what built your business and my mine too; my newsletter was a hundred percent responsible for building my million dollar per year of real estate business and is responsible for attracting students. And whoever’s listening to this podcast, you know, my newsletter got them here. So it really is powerful, but it is not easy. It’s simple. Right? And you think, well, one email a week, how hard can that be? And then you sit down, and you try to write it every week. That’s really hard, and it has to be good. You have to have some interesting to say, you have to have a point of view, and that’s really hard to cultivate. So yeah, you’re right. You’re exactly right. It’s simple but not easy. So let’s talk about having that point of view. I feel like the real estate industry, more than almost any industry that I can personally think of, has this thing where real estate agents, companies like every facet of the real estate industry, it’s like, everyone’s trying to look at what everybody else is doing and be the same. And they’re like; you’re not rewarded, where you’re kind of pulled back down. If you’re somebody who speaks out or goes against the grain a little bit. Why did you think that is in real estate? Why do you think it’s so hard for people to stand out or even want to be stand out? And why are not more people talking about telling agents to stand out? I know that the big loaded question. Yeah, It is. And I, I would say maybe that the true short answer is that agents historically, I think have, because they are often alone or feel alone or isolated in their business are very willing to gravitate that anything to anything that seems to be successful in the marketplace or a gravitate to anything that somebody has said is true or worth pursuing for years and years and years and years. And they tend not to question it, because what you’re trying to establish psychologically in that, in that position, is you want predictability, you want safety, you want security. And so you gravitate towards what other people are doing. To take a risk, do something different or to say things that are different, only reinforces the fundamental insecurity or isolation, not to be dramatic about it, but there’s a certain truth to it. That is sort of characteristic of being real estate agent. It’s often a lonely job. You wake up in the morning without a paycheck. It’s tough. So you sorta follow the leader, even if the leaders lead you down a path that hasn’t worked in 10 years or has no relationship to your own business. Yeah. I think that’s going to help a lot of people. Cause that’s one thing I hear a lot from new agents is, I didn’t realize how lonely I was gonna feel. So I can see now why I’m kind of doing something different would make you feel even more lonely. So knowing that it’s scary and knowing that differentiation, in my opinion, and I think yours, correct me if I’m wrong, is the path to standing out. And if you can stand out, then you can attract clients, and you can be seen as somebody who is different, right? I always say, if you want to be successful in real estate, you have to answer the question. Why you, why should somebody choose you among every other real estate agent in town? You have to have a differentiator. So knowing that it’s scary, but knowing that that is the path to success. And again, disagree with me on that if you think it’s a different path to success. But how does one decide what their differentiator should be like? How can they stand out when they actually don’t see themselves as any different or are intimidated by the thought of being different? Yeah. Well, first of all, I agree with you, you know, you have to answer the question, why me. And I think for the last 40 years, and this really hit its peak in the 1990s and early 2000s, differentiation was sort of this primitive differentiation, where real estate marketing was about, Oh, I’m the guy, the gal who wears funny hats and that’s your friend or I’m the guy who drives a red convertible and that’s me, or, you know, I’m the guy with the two Dalmatians. Right? And like, okay, that’s differentiation because the human brain remembers things like that. But it was differentiation without meaning, right? Or value. Or value. You know, we recognize all kinds of things and our surroundings, but very few of them have meanings. So the better path has to figure out differentiation that goes deeper than that and actually speaks to your target client. Why are you different in a way that is meaningful to the person that you’re trying to connect with. So to have to figure out what your differentiator is, figure out who your client is first and work back from there. Right. So if you’re a newer agent, you’re probably focusing on buyers more than a seasoned agent. Well, what does a buyer look like in your neighborhood or subdivision, or city? What does that person worried about? What are they care about? What are they looking for in a real estate agent that you might be able to deliver? So start with a client and work backwards from that and try to create connections between that target to call them in the marketing business, personas that personas emotional and rational needs, and then figure out how you can meet them. And that’s kind of how to structure it and then figuring out what do you know? We have lots of ways of getting at this when we do work with clients. I’m going to ask you about some of those in a second. Yeah. It’s got to start with a client who has that human being that you were trying to connect with, draw a picture of that person and their wants and needs. So I have two follow-up questions on that, I’m going to ask both of them, and then I’ll have you answer them. The first is that when I talk to students every single day and tell them that they have to, you know, have a target client or an ideal client and speak to that one person or that group of people, the pushback from every single person I told us too is, well, but doesn’t that mean I’ll get less business or you know, that kind of thing. And then my second question to you is I think this is one thing that agents really, I don’t know if they forget about or they go wrong on. I think we have to remember as real estate agents that buying a house is an emotional decision for people, that it’s not a transaction that, you know, when we’re in the business, we’re just like thinking about commission checks or, you know, closings and all that stuff. But to your point, you know, digging into that emotion of who you’re talking to and understanding that like that is where that is you’re in, and that is what your marketing has to hit it. So can you talk about both of those things as it pertains to the beginning of differentiation and how you kind of pick a target audience while not feeling like you’re giving up business and then how to tap into this emotional place that your ideal client is in? Yeah. I hear you on the pushback that people don’t want to limit their range of possibilities or business, but that’s sort of a distraction. By defining your target client. Or you may have one, two or three different personas. That doesn’t mean that you’re going to work with people who may be a different or outside of that profile. Right? If you try to say, I’m going to a service, any buyer in the city, I’m in Oakland, California. I just want to work with buyers in the city of Oakland, California, without ever sort of fleshing out a picture of who that person is in the emotional drivers that, that move them. Then you’re not ever speaking to a real human being, in order to have a point of view, you have to think about the person that you’re speaking to, right? We use abstractions like marketing or copywriting, or advertising. And we just think that it begins and ends with the words that go on the postcard or the post that you make on Facebook. But we’re speaking to other human beings and having that mental picture internalized in terms of that human being, that you are a speaking to is going to make you much more focused in your marketing and more effective in your marketing because you’re going to have that person in mind as you go about doing that, it’s simply imperative. Do you have any advice, especially for newer agents, on how to define who their ideal client is or how to pick an ideal client? This is something that we talk a lot about. I’m curious your thoughts on that. Well, let’s not discount what you want to do, start with that. Who do you want to work with? So my wife is incidentally a real estate agent, who she’s been doing it for seven years now. And the sort of orthodox answer to who she should be targeting and real estate right now. Is sellers, you know, you can’t own the market unless you have listings and listings beget buyers, and more listings. And all of that, that’s sort of the playbook and it’s totally valid, but she gets more gratification out of working with buyers. And she has to work with younger buyers who are trying to buy their first house in a hyper insane sellers market. And she knows who she wants to work with, who she has jelled with best in the past, and what floats her boat in terms of getting up in the morning. So don’t discount what you want to do first of all. So if you want to work with buyers, even though every book you read or a video you watch tells you got to focus focused on listings, then work with buyers, but think about two, who you are, and how your skills align with different profiles in the market place. And then draw those connections. You know, the important point is to get detailed with all of this, right? We do this work all the time, and we do personas for clients. We’ll create names for them. We’ll say, this is Sheila. She is a baby boomer who wants to downsize. And this is what drives her emotionally. And we list those things out. This is what drives her rationally. We give her a name, right? So, and you see, companies internalize that. In fact, if you go to Zillow headquarters and they’ve done this for 15 years, you’ll see all along the wild walls, posters of personas, right? Yeah. You will. And a great candy wall. They have a wall of candy. It seems a little bit absurd, but it’s absolutely not because it gets you in the mindset of really understanding who your target customer is. Right. And who you’re working for. Yeah. That’s so interesting. I think when I do my own, you know, marketing research, I keep hearing the word client avatar when you create this avatar. And that was always hard for me to pick one person. So how I always approached it was like a group of people. Like, for example, I knew that I wanted to help first-time home buyers, but in order for me to know, to get in touch with their emotions and what drives them for me, The in, was a group of people. If I was in a group of first-time home buyers, what would each one of them say? Cause they would one would come to me because, you know, they didn’t think they could buy a home because they had too much student loan debt, you know? And then I can talk to that one, right. Another one came to me, and they said, well, I don’t have enough down payment, so I can talk to that one. So for me, the visual was always this group of people who came to me with all the reasons they thought they couldn’t do this, even though they wanted to do this. And that is how I created my content essentially, so either way, either an avatar and name them and love on them and pretend they’re your best friend or a group of people that essentially are just saying like, I want to do this, but blank. And that’s your marketing. Okay. So let’s assume that somebody is backed into their ideal client. Now, let’s talk more about how you get into that differentiation or of how you market that, or what do you do next? I think that’s a big question. People ask is, okay, great. So I wanna work with buyers, and I want to work with first-time home buyers, now what? Well then you have to go about establishing what your unique value proposition to that potential customer is. Right? So that sort of step two, figure out who you want to work with, then figure out what you have to offer to them. So there are a couple of ways to do that or many ways, but I’ll give you a couple, so one way to do it, if you’re struggling with it, is to what I call sort of back into position. Right? So positioning, whether it’s for you as an individual real estate agent or for a huge corporation, is figuring out where in the marketplace you sit, okay. Where is your territory? You know, think about that for any other category in business. Okay. What is the difference between a BMW or Mercedes in Volvo? Well, a BMW means performance. Mercedes means luxury and prestige, and Volvo means safety. Right? Very clear positioning. So to figure out how to position, your unique proposition, sometimes it’s a matter of just listing out characteristics on a whiteboard or on a piece of paper that just as many characteristics you can think of a real estate agency that you deal with. Okay, there’s luxury. There’s still a listing specialist. There’s a condo specialist. There’s, The techie case agent. There’s the data-driven agent; there’s a social media agent. There are all of these different characteristics. List out any of them that you can think of, and then go through and cross out the ones that you’re clear you’re not, I am not these things. Okay. And then look at the list of things that are left, and that’s sometimes it’s a good starting point for then building out your position and your value proposition. And so that’s one way to start. The other way to move forward is to write out basic marketing for companies. Right. But we often skip best practices in marketing, in real estate for some reason, write out a positioning statement, you know, as a positioning statement, you can Google it it’s formulaic. Right? I am the only X okay. I am the only a listing agent in Redwood Heights, California, that delivers to Y this target client, right? The unique benefit, A, this is what you believe you are good at, after you’ve eliminated what you are not and what you’re not good at by doing B, right. How do you do it? Right? How is really important. Who you are, who are you doing it for, your unique benefit, and then how you deliver it. So write out a positioning statement. Trust me, just writing these things out makes all the difference in the world. We do it every day with clients that we’ll talk through it workshop at, we’ll ask the client to talk through this stuff, and it helps. And I can attest to that. You know, even the fact that I did the successfully in my real estate business and I teach it to real estate agents sometimes when you’re super close to it, it’s hard to see. So I worked with you guys to do some positioning and branding for agent Grad school, and truly it wasn’t until you guys kind of asked me to sit down and answer some of these questions, but I was forced to do it, that I was like, duh, my ideal clients are brand new agents. Why am I trying to pretend that they’re not? You know, so it becomes really obvious when you actually kind of force yourself to sit down and do it. So that’s a strategy. I’ve heard you talk about your first, best, only strategy, on how to find your differentiation. So I don’t know if you want to talk about that one anymore, or if we want to move on to the one, another one I like that you use is called the big little thing. Only this one is simple, right? Just another exercise, a thought starter, write out the first thing that you did in your market, right? And it’s a little tougher if you’re a newer agent, right? This is usually for more established agents or teams, or companies. What was the first thing that you did? What did you pioneer? What did you lead on? So the first thing, that’s the thing. What are you better at than any other agent in your area, and why? And what can you claim defensively and confidently as you’re best? And then only, what is the thing that only you dom that nobody else does, has thought to do? So first, best, only write that out. It’s not easy, but going through that exercise will help. And that only piece gets to the other thing you alluded to Jennifer, which was the big little thing. So when you think about that only thing that you do, it doesn’t have to be, gosh, I am absolutely improvable, really the best at, you know, pricing listings. Okay. It doesn’t have to be a big thing like that. That’s really tough for a new agent to claim, but maybe it’s a, it’s a small thing. If you think about all the services we use every day, it’s usually the little things that get us, or that drive us to make decisions. Why did we go to a Starbucks over Dunkin’ Donuts? Why do we stay at one hotel over another? Why don’t we buy Apple products rather than Dell products? Well they’re both computers, so it’s all the little things that kind of add up to big things. So what is something that you do and maybe it’s, you know, maybe you have a unique way of doing, you know, remote buyer tours. You know, you’ve sort of really figured out a cool way to do that over the last several months during all this weirdness. Maybe it’s something that you do to prepare a home for sale, a small thing. You know that there’s an agent. I know that she’s, she has a stager, but just does a beautiful job at, at floral arrangements. And every listing of hers has beautiful floral arrangements. Right? And so that’s her, that’s her little big thing, right? It’s just a small thing, but it’s a difference. And it actually makes people feel something you’re going to make their home look beautiful in this unique way. That’s a little big thing. So think about the small things that make a big difference. Yeah. And I think so often when I have these conversations with agents about trying to figure out what their first best only, their a big little thing. Oftentimes I see them kind of count themselves out or say like, I don’t have anything like that. And the fact of the matter is you do because nobody else is talking about it, like you do. So a perfect example. When I owned my brokerage, I would always say, I’m, you know, we’re the only brokerage in Washington, DC, and Virginia who specializes in first-time home buyers. It was the truth. There was no other brokerage that did that, but nobody handed me that metal. I just thought about it one day. And I was like, I really am the only brokerage in all of the tri-state area that focuses on first-time home buyers. And because I’m talking to a first-time homebuyer, that’s an important statement to make, A, it’s true. And, B, it is in alignment with who I’m talking to, and it is a differentiator. So, you know, Yeah. I’ll give you another example. Okay. Not in real estate, but you’ll see, you know. So I used to go to a dentist that has since retired, but there’s a million dentists just like there are a million real estate agents. In fact, there are 1.4 million realtors in the USA right now. More than the pre-housing, a bubble peak in 2006, there are more now than there were then. So lots of them, but there are tons of dentists too. And this dentist, and I think it must’ve been illegal. And, and I don’t think that would serve you. If you were going to go under the laughing gas, he would offer you a glass of wine while you were in the waiting room. Oh my gosh, sign me up. Where’s this dentist. I’m sure it was not okay, but like you to go in to Dr. Berg and the receptionist would offer you a glass of wine, you know, usually in an afternoon appointment, not in the morning and you know, most people would never take it, but the fact that they would offer you a glass of wine, like God, I got to the dentist, I’ve got to be a glass of wine, and it may seem meaningless just like that. You know, I’m the gal who, here’s the funny hats, but actually what it showed was maybe an extra level of caring and understanding that they have actually thought about that. Jeez, for most people going to the dentist just sucks. Anxiety, nervousness, maybe that glass of wine will cut it a little. It sucks. So let’s make it a little less sucky, and this is our way of doing it. So it was actually a meaningful little thing they did. So I think that’s helpful on two points. Number one is they didn’t go advertise that, that wasn’t in their marketing. Right. That’s the one thing I always tell our agents is your marketing is one thing, but then you have to create these little things in your process every step of the way, that does those little things, like, you know, these little nuggets. Right. My dentist, same thing. The reason I loved her so much is she gave me a heated blanket when I sat in the chair, and she gave me those little, I don’t know what they were, but these glasses where you could like watch movies right. In the glasses and little earbuds, write. And by the way, she was probably triple the price of every other dentist. But because, you know, so these were these little things. And so I think not only do you want to think about this in your marketing, you also want to think about this in your client experience. Okay. What else? Brian, anything else? I mean, there’s so much more we could talk about, and I feel like I could like ask you a million more questions about branding. Can we talk about one more of a strategy that I feel like might help agents, but I have two more of that I love that you do, one approach you have is “a world would be a better place, If.” You can talk about that, maybe, and how that plays into things. So this gets into, I talked earlier about point of view, what is your point of view? And this is an exercise for getting at that, right? So this is another dimension to positioning and defining your difference, and all of that is the point of view. I explained what ours was earlier on, but if you approach it in that way, well, how can I create a better world in this real estate space? Right. If I did, it would be better. If the experience for first time, home buyers in a brutal, inventory constrained sellers market, we’re just a little bit less emotionally crushing. Okay. Or I feel, you know, the world would be a better place if, first-time home buyers didn’t feel desperate before they even started looking for a house. Right. And then how do I address that? So you see companies and brands outside of real estate, do this all the time. Right? Well, if you’re Patagonia, the world will be a better place if we didn’t actively destroy it. So we’re going to encourage you to recycle all the clothes that you buy from us. Right. It’s pretty simple stuff. So what is the better world in your clients’ lives that you can bring about? And then that’s the point of view. Yeah. It’s like deciding what you stand for, kind of, and I have heard you talk about an example of like, REI, right? What they stand for is getting out there. And so, I don’t know, I don’t want to steal your thunder. I feel like you have a great example about their Thanksgiving black Friday stuff. Yeah. I imagine a lot of your listeners are familiar with this. So REI is an outdoors retailer that believes life is better if you get out in the world and experience the outdoors. And that’s what they’re all about. And to demonstrate and make credible, that statement of belief starting about 15 years ago, they started shutting down a retail store shutting down on the busiest retail shopping day of the year, Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. And it was all about getting outside, right. Don’t come in our store and buy stuff on this day. Go out and be in the world. Cause that’s what we believe in. The world would be better if we all got out in it more often. And did that cost them in the short term? Yes. That had benefited them in the long-term. Yes. So, you know, it all kind of ties together. This is something that none of their competitors were willing to do. Yeah. Because they were focused on the loss rather than the gain. So a perfect example of that. And again, I just want to kind of give real estate because I think sometimes real estate agents are like, that’s great if your, you know, REI, but what about little ole me? Right. So a good example is I firmly believed in a business that I wanted to reward loyalty, it’s something that I believe in my life and it’s something I believe in my business. And so I would reward my repeat clients with what I call the dwell loyalty discount. So if they came to me to sell a house that I helped them buy, I would give them a reduction in my commission. Right. My focus is I made it a program that was not for everyone. I wasn’t focused on what I could of made. I focused on I’m rewarding loyalty. And I don’t care how much money I quote-unquote lost, which is uncalculable because how do you know how many people maybe wouldn’t have come back or maybe even bought in the first place? So rather than focus on what your losing, focus is on what you stand for. Absolutely. I think that’s a great example, another one and you know, in most markets it’s probably not applicable, but you know, I know an agent who, back when prices, weren’t what they are now in the market was more balanced kind of, as we were kind of still muddling around in the great recession said, now it’s not a time, a good time to sell a house. Right. Because that’s what he believed. Wasn’t a good time to sell your house. And that’s like the stupidest thing ever for a real estate agent to say, right. You know? No, not in my opinion, but yeah. I get why people would think that. The national association of realtors, you know, always says that it’s a good time to buy or sell the house. You don’t want to ever say anything that is going to hurt your immediate prospects. But he’s saying what he believed to be the truth. Right. Because he was saying something that was different and immediately sounded more credible. He was quite successful at selling houses because whether or not it’s a good time to sell a house or not, many people need to sell a house. Okay. So go with the guy that is not saying what everybody else is saying, and go with the guy who is saying something that actually rings more true than what every other agent in town is saying. So, you know, if you want to be different, you have be different. Well, I think that’s a perfect ending note, you know, like stop doing what everybody else is doing and start doing stuff that you believe in that you know, is true, but is not necessarily what everybody else is doing. And truly that’s the path to success. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. And it’s not easy. I understand that. So yeah. No, but that’s why you and I exist to help people do it, right? Yeah. I mean. If that was easy, right then we wouldn’t have our jobs. That’s true, if all 4 or 5 million realtors in America all had a different and distinct value proposition. Yes. We wouldn’t have a challenge and therefore you and I wouldn’t have businesses, but it’s unfortunately a little, a little muddier than that. Right. Exactly. Well, I always say to real estate agents, if it wasn’t hard or stressful to buy or sell the house, we wouldn’t have jobs as real estate agents either. Like, you know, it’s good. That it’s hard. So Brian, thank you so much. I hope, I think I know that the real estate agents listening to this will have learned a lot. And I love the way that you talk about approaching differentiation and branding and kind of these thought exercises that you shared with us. So thank you for that. If people want to find out more about you or 1000 watt, how should they learn more? Can you just go to our website? www.1000watt.net. You can check out some of our work examples. You can subscribe to our newsletter on the site, and just check us out. Thank you. I really hope everybody signs up for your newsletter. It’s an awesome perspective, unbiased perspective on what’s really happening in the real estate industry. So I hope you’ll get some new subscribers to that. It’s fascinating. Thank you, Jennifer. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening to today’s episode. Remember, change happens when you take action. So apply what you learned today to your own real estate business. If this episode has helped you subscribe, leave a review and share it with all your real estate agent friends, and as always, if you want even more great resources to create the real estate business you’ve always wanted and to have the life you want outside of your business, to head over to AgentGradSChool.com and sign up for the free weekly trainings, you’ll get free classes, discounts, and other goodies that only go out to real estate agent’s on that email list. See you next week right here on Confessions of a Top Producing Real Estate Agent the Agent Grad School Podcast.

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