I talk to a lot of REALTORS®, and just about all of them have a problem marketing themselves.  Most of the people I talk to know they’re good at what they do.  They just don’t know how to explain that to others without thinking that they’re being rude and boastful.

The reason that you’ll hate yourself later if you don’t market yourself now is because you’re running a business.  You can’t  be competitive in the marketplace if you don’t find a way to market yourself without feeling bad about it.

Think about it.  Would you buy a Coke if their ads said that they tried really hard?  Would you buy Geico insurance if it weren’t for that cute little gecko telling you how great the company is?  What if their only claim to fame was that they wanted to be your insurance company for life?  Would you really care about what they wanted?  And, I could go on, but I think you get the idea.  So, how can you get out of this corner?

Clarify What You Are Selling

The first thing you need to be very clear about is what you’re selling.  You aren’t selling houses.  As a REALTOR®, you’ve got all the same inventory as everyone else.  So, that’s not a point of differentiation.

You’re not selling yourself.  No one is going to take you home, pay your bills, raise your kids or plan for your retirement.  So, what’s left?

You’re selling the service you provide.  When you’re in real estate, you’re providing real estate consulting services.  You’re working with a buyer or seller to guide them through the process, anticipate and head off problems and make sure that they have a successful transaction.  Those are professional services of the real estate variety.

Figure Out What Differentiates You in the Marketplace

If you’re selling real estate services, it’s much easier to market yourself.  Mainly because you’re not marketing yourself.  You’re selling what you can do for buyers and sellers.

From that perspective, you don’t have to convince people of how wonderful you are.  You can back away from all the industry awards you’ve won, or talking to people about how smart you are or how hard you work.  You can focus on the benefits buyers and sellers will receive when they work with you.

You’ll find the task of marketing yourself gets a lot easier when you focus on marketing your business and the benefits of the services you provide.  There’s a tool you should check out:  the We We Calculator.  That calculator tests copy for customer focus.  You can run the calculator on a web page or just text and ad copy.

When your marketing copy is focused on what you can do for your customer, you’re definitely on the right track!