Why Personal Branding Helps Agent & Company

Why Branding Works It's not a question of whether 'To Brand' or 'Not To Brand' but rather 'Who to Brand'? The answer is harder to extract than one might think.

Should all the materials match and look like the company brand? After all, since the company has a branded style, a consistent look, the agent often times feels that his or her materials should match the company style. While this thought process appears to make sense on the surface, it is the most common mistake agents make.

The vast majority of agents are independent contractors that rely on transactions in order to make income. They are typically not salaried but 100% commissioned agents. Therefore, since the company is paying them only for their results, the agent needs to make sure that all of their marketing products funnel the leads and prospects to them, not their company. If an agent spends $500 on a postcard company that promotes the company brand, the target market may remember the company and not the agent. When prospects drive to the company office location and walk in the door, they may not remember the name of the agent who sent them that postcard. They remembered the company because of the company branding but failed to remember the agent. Consequently, the agent who has floor time will gladly help that lead who walked in the door, resulting in a company lead but one that did not go to the agent who did the actual mailing.

When teaching my seminars, I cannot count the number of times that agents have told me that someone in the office 'stole their lead' that resulted from 'their' marketing. The fault does not go to the agent who assisted the walk-in but goes to the agent who decided to do the company branding instead of his or her own branding. While the company is thrilled to have a new, walk-in customer, the agent who paid for the postcards might become frustrated and disguntled and feel cheated. Sometimes the frustration reaches such a level that he feels he would be better off changing offices. If this were to happen, it would be a loss to both the agent AND to the company:

Company loses an agent who produced results. After all, the postcard DID bring in a new client. The company has invested time and money in the agent and will now have to hire someone new to fill that void, starting over from scratch.
The agent loses all the time and money invested into this company. Any marketing materials that had the company logo and contact information would have to be reprinted. The target market would have to be notified, letting them know the agent has switched companies. Although agents change offices from time to time, the target market will most likely view this as unstable and potentially unreliable. (When HR Managers look over resumes of potential candidates for an open position, is considered a strength to have worked for longer periods of time compared to another person who frequently hops between employers. Perceptions of instability, lack of faithfulness, undependability and possibly a lack of credibility often occur when agents frequently switch offices.)

An agent who utilizes his own brand will ultimately have more personal success which, in turn, will bring more company success. All Brokers and Office Managers want their agents to succeed. They want to see hard working agents rewarded for their efforts. Today, more than ever, Brokers not only want but NEED the agents in their offices to produce. Keeping active agents costs money and long gone are the days when the Brokers let couch-potato agents sit around and do nothing. They not only hope their agents bring in transactions but, quite frankly, if they don't they won't be around very long.

Bottom line: increased name recognition for the agent will bring more leads than company recognition would. Agent branding is strongly recommended as it keeps the focus solely on the agent. To see an agent branding package, click here.