The Midas Touch

Set yourself goals & aim high

Make it your number one objective to have your face everywhere. Everyone in your local area needs to know your name and face, and make sure that your results are well publicised. 

An important part in the process is to attain innovative personal photos and place regular glossy adverts in the local paper's real estate section. Within weeks people should start recognising you on the street and assume that they 'know' you. 

Ensure that all your local press advertising, internet marketing, signboards, and email communication is branded with your face. This creates a feeling of familiarity with new and prospective clients. Brand your business cards, letterhead, stationary and marketing flags with your face to reinforce the marketing spend. 

Make certain that all marketing and advertising has a distinctive edge, setting it apart from the competition and creating a recognised point of difference. Researching and utilising non- traditional advertising methods is a key element in this approach. 

Making sales is great but agents are only as good as the stock they carry. Stock must be consistent and all property advertising in local press must be consistent to build a well- documented profile.

Key factors in long"term success

Create a sense of urgency: 
When you achieve a successful sales result make sure everyone knows about it immediately. As a matter of urgency jump into action " put an ad in the paper promoting your result. Produce professional drop cards and have them distributed within a week. 

Establish a weekly review system: 
Every week you should assess what you are doing to promote yourself and keep on track of all marketing and promotional tools to record their progress. 

A high presence in the local press: 
The more adverts you have the more listings you will receive. The goal is to have as many colour pages in your local paper as possible. This is only possible when you realise that marketing is the key to getting more buyers at your open for inspections. Learn how to convince your vendors that marketing is the key to attaining premium prices and encourage them to spend as much as possible to achieve this. 

A rough guide to ad spend: 
All vendors should be spending 1% of the value of their home on marketing. You as an agent should be aiming to spend 10% of what you earn on your business marketing yourself as a brand. 

Self promotion is a good thing: 
If you spend the time and money on promoting yourself through as many avenues as possible, you will find that people in your area and industry will be aware of your success. Even though you are paying for it, it's not an egocentric move but vital to achieving recognition and ensuring consistent listings. 

"Make it your number one objective to have your face everywhere. Everyone in your local area needs to know your name and face, and make sure that your results are well publicised".

Set yourself goals & Aim high

Traditionally the real estate industry is regarded as one in which it takes years to reach the top. The most successful agents are typically those who have spent decades networking and climbing the corporate ladder or who are part of a real estate dynasty and have inherited a successful career from their families.

Hlne Taylor stands as an example of how that outdated notion is firmly rooted in the past. Part of the new generation of sales agents, Hlne has proved that using her combined trademark talents of a can-do attitude and innovative and savvy marketing techniques, she has been able to consistently outperform those who have been in the industry for years. Indeed, she has set a new benchmark in real estate circles by achieving A$50m in sales in her first year selling property in Manly, Sydney.

As marketing return is difficult to measure, most agents have an ingrained fear of spending money on marketing or are unsure of which types of marketing are best for their needs.
Hlne explains, "Anyone who is serious about becoming an elite performer needs to understand that each individual agent is his or her own brand. It's not the company they work for, but themselves they need to market and as soon as they start promoting themselves as a brand, their business will start to grow. The realisation of this is a key to securing consistent future business."

Hlne moved to Manly from her native New Zealand in 1999 and joined Ray White Real Estate in 2005. Despite having no established sales network or existing database in her local area to build on, she decided to aim high and set herself the goal of becoming the agency's top real estate agent in her first year.

She decided the only way she could achieve this in a short space of time was to focus on building a business of attraction. Most of her competitors had been established for more than 20 years and had built strong relationships. Realising that self promotion was a relatively new concept in her area, she committed to building a business of attraction knowing that her expenditure would be high but it would give her the kick-start she needed to compete and achieve her goal.

The journey began with innovative marketing making her face the brand.

"Anyone who is serious about becoming an elite performer needs to understand that each individual agent is his or her own brand. It's not the company they work for, but themselves they need to market"
Hlne Taylor, Ray White Real Estate, Manly

One of the best strategic concepts Hlne discovered on her search for innovative technology was the ground-breaking marketing company PropVid. Unlike traditional virtual tours used to market property listings, PropVid provides a film crew to produce a 90 second high-end commercial designed to effectively portray the home and sell its location. Similar in approach to the 'Get Away' television programme, the short film clip highlights the significant attributes of the property and focuses on the home, it's setting and the benefits of it's location. As Hlne explains, "Learning how to act in front of the camera took a little time but once I'd honed my skills, the movies really took off."

The 'movies' are loaded onto the internet and have become one of Hlne's biggest marketing tools. Hlne says, "Vendors love the concept of seeing their home for sale in a movie format. PropVid movies allow prospective buyers in other states and countries to view the property in detail without attending in person. The results have been astounding with site-unseen properties selling at premium prices."
Hlne's results from this strategy were so successful that she decided to take it even further. She now has her movies playing on loop on a large LCD screen in her local coffee shop. This has been hugely successful in not only attracting buyers but also simultaneously raising her profile. The Ray White office recognised the benefit of the PropVid movies and has installed an LCD screen in the office window which runs audio-enabled movies 24 hours a day.

"You as an agent should be aiming to spend 10% of what you earn on your business marketing yourself as a brand."

Hlne also managed to launch her property movies at the local Fitness First gyms which again have been instrumental in promoting her listings and marketing her personal profile to a much wider audience.
Without doubt, this cutting-edge concept has skyrocketed Hlne's profile and business. The movies can also be downloaded to iPods and shown to prospective vendors on iPod which has been well received by clients and prospective purchasers.