Don’t just hope for change, make it—and improve your business along the way
By Megan Craig
Selling real estate is all about branding—but branding alone may not be enough anymore to maximize your business performance. Some of the most successful REALTORS® have turned their attention to becoming “influencers.”
An influencer isn’t just someone who stays on brand—it’s someone people recognize as an industry leader who can effect change.
“Influencers are the attractors—the person everyone wants to be around,” says Kelly Catallo, CRS, chief executive officer and broker/owner of Cosmopolitan Real Estate, Inc., in the Greater Boston area. “Human beings want to be inspired, and influencers do just that.”
Catallo uses CRS Leigh Brown as a great example. Brown has taken a successful real estate business, built credibility, made herself visible and now stands as an obvious influencer, meaning she’s able to use speaking engagements, webinars and even a podcast to change the way other REALTORS® do business. Catallo says she and other REALTORS® listen to Brown because she’s been an authentic voice in the market for years.
But it doesn’t necessarily take a lot of time to gain influencer status, says Rebecca Donatelli, a REALTOR® and team lead of The Rebecca Donatelli Team with McDowell Homes Real Estate Services in northeast Ohio. Even though Donatelli has only been in the business for a few years, she’s already holding seminars and she runs a consulting business to help other agents.
“It’s important to have an active voice in the industry and to try to make changes that are important to homeowners and REALTORS® alike,” Donatelli says. That’s why she has spent the past couple of years connecting with other agents and influencers across the country, blogging for the National Association of REALTORS® and Inman.com, participating in young professionals groups and creating a huge online presence.
Because of her influencer status, Donatelli says she’s been able to grow her business more quickly than if she just built a brand and marketed herself.
Using Influence to Generate Business
Being a person of influence makes landing business much easier because people trust your opinion, sometimes before they’ve ever met you.
“People naturally want to work with the best people,” says Bill Gassett, a REALTOR® with RE/MAX Executive Realty in Hopkinton, Massachusetts, and owner of maxrealestateexposure.com. “If you are recognized as an industry expert, half your job is already done before you sit down face-to-face with a prospective client.”
When Donatelli got into the business, she was looking for a way to stand out, despite being younger and newer than most of her counterparts. By building a following and gaining influence in the marketplace, she made enough connections with other REALTORS® (either in person or through her many social media channels) that she now gets referrals from agents around the country.
Donatelli points to both her consistency in posting (she didn’t just show up in people’s lives once in a while, but was a regular presence in their feeds) and the diversity of her content (both real estate-related and focused on other aspects of people’s lives) for her social media success. She responds to every comment on her posts and comments on the posts that are clearly important to those around her.
“I’ve built those relationships, and as a result got to write articles and speak at conferences and more. People want to work with someone who has that type of presence and that type of impact on the industry,” Donatelli says. “People don’t care that I haven’t been licensed that long, or about my relative lack of experience. I have enough transactions under my belt and also enough connections.”
All influencers are great relationship-builders, Catallo says, so they attract people, thereby attracting business. By establishing themselves as a reliable resource for anything real estate-related while also giving generously to the community, influencers naturally bring in business: “I’m a big believer that when you send good out into the world, it comes back to you tenfold,” Catallo says.
Becoming an Influencer, Step-by-Step
Becoming an influencer isn’t impossible, but it isn’t as easy as just tossing ideas out there and hoping someone listens. Instead, grow your influence in your market and among other REALTORS® by following these few steps:
1. Develop a solid social media presence, and keep at it.
It doesn’t take a social expert to create a social presence—it’s all about getting started, being consistent with your posts and engaging with people in a meaningful way.
“Social media has taken over everything, so building your name and your brand on any social media platform is non-negotiable,” Donatelli says. She makes time for posting to different platforms—Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat and LinkedIn—a part of her schedule every day. Her content doesn’t focus on real estate, but on things she thinks will be interesting or helpful to people, which keeps them engaged. Sometimes this means doing giveaways or pairing up with local businesses to create special coupons for her page, but more often she tries to share tidbits from her life or the lives of others in the community.
Her secret for constant engagement? Always, always respond to comments and messages sent via social!
2. Learn everything you can about the people in your market and build relationships with them.
Don’t set out to become an influencer and expect it to happen without knowing who you’re trying to influence. Instead, put in the effort to know your market, your community and the demographic you want to attract.
Catallo suggests studying the habits of the people in your area and actually becoming part of their lives: What do they do? Where do they go? How do they communicate? What do they find inspiring?
“Influencers know the secrets to relationship-building,” she says. “Knowing how people behave and knowing what motivates them to take action is influencing.”
3. Be authentic and honest.
The trick to having influence is that you can’t pretend to care about the people in your market, as they’ll see right through you, Catallo says. Authenticity and integrity are key to inspiring and influencing people.
“If the one thing you have is integrity, you’re going to be an influencer,” says Beverly Hobbs Shea, CRS, broker/consulting REALTOR® at High Road Properties, Inc., in Covington, Louisiana. “It’s still a people business, and people want to do business with someone they can trust, someone who’s committed to taking care of their needs.”
4. Get your thoughts out there.
Whatever it takes to spread your thoughts once people are taking notice, do it. While social media is one important way to keep your message top-of-mind, staying visible to other agents as well as people in your market means always doing more, like starting a podcast or creating a blog.
“Having a blog helps establish you as an expert,” Gassett says. “People love working with knowledgeable professionals, and blogging is a great way to separate yourself from what other real estate agents are doing in your local market.”
Being a true influencer means knowing which media will best help share the thoughts that will impact people.
Branding vs. Influencing
REALTORS® hear a lot about building a solid brand, but branding and influencing aren’t exactly the same thing.
“Without a doubt, there is some overlap” between branding and influencing, says Bill Gassett, a REALTOR® with RE/MAX Executive Realty in Hopkinton, Massachusetts, and owner of maxrealestateexposure.com. “In fact, part of being recognizable usually centers around what you are doing to make yourself memorable. Your branding will certainly play a part in that.”
But while building a brand means generating awareness about yourself and your business, becoming an influencer means actually inspiring people to take action, says Kelly Catallo, CRS, chief executive officer and broker/owner of Cosmopolitan Real Estate, Inc., in the Greater Boston area.
Developing a brand is the first step—becoming an influencer is taking it further to actuate change and influence in the community.
“You are a brand when your name becomes a household name or well-known. You are an influencer when you personally have the ability to sway someone’s decision about a brand,” Catallo says. That distinction could mean the difference between being a good REALTOR® and being one others look up to.
Get more insights on how to become an influencer with the members’ complimentary subscription to Inman. Go to CRS.com/resources to find out more.
