The five parts of your expertise you can brand

One of my real estate agent's clients wants to promote her personal brand of expertise, more than just her listings. She feels that it would position her as the go-to professional, attract potential buyers, and sellers. Unfortunately, most real estate professionals, including attorneys, mortgage professionals, et al, are perceived to be a run-of-the-mill commodity. Indeed, other professionals may also know (and do) what you can do. Thus, to become a branded expert you may have to package "old wine, new bottle." Nowadays, most branded experts produce books, videos, slideshows, audios, and blogs. How can you make your content standout, to be referenced? There are 7 types of expertise you can brand, trademark, and showcase as content: 1. Anecdotes 2. Bullet-points 3. Checklists 4. Diagrams 5. Evaluations Anecdotes are short lesson-based stories: problems, solutions, benefits. How did your advice and actions help your clients overcome their specific challenges? Typically, these are true case studies of your clients. They can also be hypothetical examples or what-if-then scenarios. Like Robert Kiyosaki's Rich Dad, they can even be of archetypical mascots. Bullet-points are brand names, sayings, slogans, URLs, and other short phrases you repeat often. Titles of your seminar, video, book, or a crown can serve as a reference bullet-point. Most franchise and multi-office real estate offices depend heavily on such. Branding = repetition. Checklists and forms help to remind you as much as they educate your prospects. With a clever title, checklists help to showcase a great deal of expertise within a short attention span. Of course, there's more than meets the eye: Often because of your checklist (or form questionnaire), prospects will realize the depth and necessity of your expertise. Diagrams are very similar to checklists, except that these are more visual. Diagrams can be illustrations, graphs, charts, and workflows. Diagrams can even picture a metaphor, e.g., "old wine, new bottle." Both checklists and diagrams are great eye-catchers in books, slideshows, etc. Evaluations are tests, questionnaires, or surveys. When I used to work for the CSEA union, I would call on behalf of political candidates. Through leading questions, our surveys clarified the voter's perspective, making the choice of candidate obvious. On-line versions can be handy ways to engage visitors or to qualify prospects. You need not have all 5 parts to brand your expertise. In fact, it's simplest to focus on a bullet-point which integrates 2 or 3 of the other parts. This is why most people prefer to focus on a book title, website address, or a saying they are known to repeat. Chop up your body of real estate knowledge: You will be perceived as distinguished as you package yourself. Vikram Rajan is a practice marketing advisor with CoGrow, Freeport, N.Y.