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How Real Estate Agents Can Build a Human Brand Using Consumer Empathy Strategies · Know Like Trust for Real Estate

• 0:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Once you create an environment that builds trust with somebody and form, you know, rapport, people are hungry to be listened to and to be seen that, you know, they wouldn't really open up, and they were generally really, really deep.
• 0:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: I learned a lot about the power of that, both for myself and for some of like brand standpoint of how to honor that in the right way and even how a brand's themselves to be more vulnerable and more human.
• 0:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: Hey everyone, welcome to No Like Trust for Real Estate where I help you craft branding and marketing strategies that align with your strengths.
• 0:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm Christine George and agents who work with me grow their business by 40% by aligning their marketing with who they are, not what they sell.
• 0:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: Today's guest is someone who is very special to me, Scott.
• 0:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: Colligan is with us.
• 0:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: And Scott is the fractional CMO for a startup average company called Haywell.
• 0:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: Scott and I met when he was an up and coming marketer in the early 2000s when he came to work with me at Miller Coors.
• 1:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: Scott has since done some amazing thing as a brand and marketing specialist.
• 1:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: We talked about Scott's human experience method, which he indoctrinated into the Miller Corps organization and their brands.
• 1:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: And he gave us some really good advice on how to create your personal brand as a real estate agent, how to attract
• 1:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: more business by really understanding at a very deep level what your consumers pain points are.
• 1:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: We talked about the role that empathy plays in building brands and I think you're really really going to love it, so take a listen.
• 1:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm so excited to have you here too because it's been so long and you have come up in the business and created an incredible career for yourself.
• 2:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I can't wait for my audience to really dig in and learn from you.
• 2:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: I want to just kind of take us back a little bit and give us the story because you and I met at Miller Cores.
• 2:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
• 2:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: So tell us now you're this fractional CEOCMO at haywells.
• 2:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: Tell us how you got from Miller Coors to haywell.
• 2:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: Today I am very happily in my post corporate hybrid career era working really in two different worlds as a brand consultant for big legacy brands and as a fractional CMO for haywell, they're a sort of functional beverage brand.
• 2:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I'd say really what got me share from another course, you know, it all actually are like, I'm serious that it started with you and with the relationship that we built together at another course.
• 2:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Christine was,
• 2:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: One of my first bosses, she hired me in the lower cores decades ago, and has really stuck with me in a number of ways throughout my career, which is part of why I'm really honored to be here today.
• 3:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: strong relationship that transcended the boss employee dynamic, which really taught me the importance of cultivating genuine human relationships in the business world.
• 3:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: And the consulting work I do today is with a brilliant pair of ladies, Katie Waters, and it might be Garner, I used to hire at
• 3:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: who were mentors and marketing DTs when I was at Miller Corps.
• 3:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it's really the strength of my relationships, particularly relationships with strong and empathetic women leaders that have, you know, fueled my entire career and really recognizing that tapping into those relationships, not just for my career, but for my own life.
• 4:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: personal fulfillment and my sanity in the corporate environment, and because those relationships have really done a bridge from Miller Corps to where I am today and all of that started with you.
• 4:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, Scott, make me cry here.
• 4:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: I so appreciate you saying that.
• 4:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I remember the moment you walked into interview.
• 4:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I remember just feeling like,
• 4:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: this young man is going places like you were just so smart and normal and we were in this really weird bro culture and I felt like oh I got this is a young man who's actually I felt like I could relate to you you know and we could relate to each other and we worked really well together and you just brought this whole
• 5:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like financial background, actually, to the job that, you know, is not where my strength is, and so, I don't know, I just felt like our collaboration and our different strengths were just really complementary.
• 5:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, for sure.
• 5:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: and I have loved what we will grow all these years.
• 5:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
• 5:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: I totally, I remember that interview as well and I did not walk in there feeling like when I was going places, but I felt like I had found my people when I was talking to you in that interview, and I felt like you couldn't see through my anxiety and my nervousness and recognized that I had something
• 5:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: started me, you know, set me on a path that I'm still working for me today.
• 5:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: Um, okay.
• 6:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to switch after I left Miller course.
• 6:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: You really grew.
• 6:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: You moved from Boston to Chicago where you are today.
• 6:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: You worked on what you call your the human experience.
• 6:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, which is nothing that I really have ever heard in a branding marketing realm before can you tell us what that is and why, why was it different at, you know, at Miller.
• 6:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: The human experience team was a kind of disruptive insights and innovation group that I helped to create and lead at Miller Corps.
• 6:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: We had three big goals.
• 6:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: The first was building a really deep understanding of our consumers and culture had an almost
• 6:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: anthropological or sociological level, we really want to understand our consumers as human beings and people that had rich dynamic lives, even talking about them as people and not as consumers or targets or members really getting to deep and understand them humanity and the higher psychology and the culture in which they live and how that could help us uncover.
• 7:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: New opportunities that are, you know, competitors were not thinking about because we were investing and really trying to understand them that are really super deep level.
• 7:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: We also worked on getting inspiration from all the cool and exciting things happening in the world of business outside of beer.
• 7:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: So we were looking at start-ups.
• 7:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: We were looking at.
• 7:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: Cannabis, we were looking at, you know, the tech world, the Bitcoin, all this stuff that was happening in the commercial metamorphosis that was going on in business at the time and trying to wear grab pieces of, okay, what's working, what's inspiring us, what can we take from
• 8:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: instead of just looking at a bunch of BRT studies or looking at what they've ever just next to us are doing.
• 8:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: What can we learn from all of this excitement that's happening in the world of business outside of our category?
• 8:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then we also did a lot of work on capability building internally, so trying to teach the rest of the commercial organization and how to think and act differently and be more in touch with the consumer, how to
• 8:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: build brands that were more emotionally, powerful, more emotionally relevant, how to get outside of all the dysfunction and that happens in a corporate structure and act more like some of the start-ups that we were studying.
• 8:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: So my team tried to put all of that together to either come up with new to the world innovation ideas or new
• 8:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Marketing campaigns or business models, we had our tentacles and a lot of different areas of the business.
• 9:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, what kind of research did you actually do?
• 9:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: Did you do focus groups in all of those industries?
• 9:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Or... We did a lot of different research types, but mostly we did like deep ethnographies where we would go and
• 9:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: study them, go to work with them, go, you know, understand what's happening in their community and really almost like we were making like a anthropological, you know, documentary, we would get really deep and invested in the consumer.
• 9:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: We also did a lot of like expert interviews with thought leaders and shapers in different areas and we would do different cultural
• 9:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I don't know, I'm being spent a week going to...
• 9:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: daytime sober raves for a week just to understand, you know, okay, what is what is happening with young adults today?
• 10:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: How are they hang out differently?
• 10:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: How are they celebrating differently?
• 10:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: What is happening from a cultural perspective in different spaces?
• 10:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: So we would really have the opposite of focus groups where you're in some sterile environment and you're asking
• 10:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: Take a more human approach to how we did research to get to more human insights.
• 10:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: That is fascinating.
• 10:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
• 10:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: The questions are going to continue.
• 10:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: First of all, what was the most surprising thing you learned?
• 10:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: I came to really have a profound appreciation for vulnerability.
• 10:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: When it comes to brand,
• 10:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: development and personal development a lot of the through the course of a lot of these consumer conversations people were really opening up to us and you know really deepway almost to where they became more like
• 11:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, therapy sessions have been a really open server.
• 11:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, yes, yeah, once you make create an environment that builds trust with somebody and form a, you know, rapport, people are hungry to do listen to and to be seen that, you know, they wouldn't really.
• 11:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Open up and they were genuinely, really deep.
• 11:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: I learned a lot about the power of that, both for myself and for some of like brand standpoint of how to honor that in the right way and even hell of a brand themselves to be more vulnerable and more human.
• 11:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: And they were in the beer business, yes.
• 12:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: You had this epiphany about vulnerability.
• 12:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: You were able to get people to be vulnerable in their homes.
• 12:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: Your team did.
• 12:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: So you saw sort of the power of that.
• 12:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: I would think that that would be difficult to come back and indoctrinate into an organization and tend times more difficult into an organization like Miller that was really just had the opposite sort of culture.
• 12:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, how did you bring that experience not only into the brand, but into the culture of the organization too?
• 12:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: Because you mentioned that early, like it had to be sort of built into the DNA of the of the company, or they get that rock?
• 12:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: No, that's right.
• 12:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: And we really had to tackle that on multiple fronts.
• 12:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: We put a lot of effort into doing research differently.
• 12:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: We also put a lot of effort into
• 12:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, research to life internally, differently so rather than just, I don't know, delivering a PowerPoint presentation or getting folks, you know, or research report to read and helping that they would, you know, get some.
• 13:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: something would see then from that and also the time it would just sit on, you know, somebody's computer or they're listening to a presentation while they're, you know, writing emails and all that effort is kind of wasted because it's not singing in.
• 13:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: We really tried to think about
• 13:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: our internal stakeholders as people as well and okay how do we have to meet them where they are and bring insights to life in a way where they are gonna pay attention to us and understand how it translates to their job.
• 13:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: So if you had an example, capture all of the, I don't know, we, I would hire freelance rap artists to come in and perform a, you know, take,
• 14:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: a main idea from the research and deliver a, you know, wrap performance to the whole marketing team to try and, you know, really get it to resume or we, uh,
• 14:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: would bring in, you know, a group of 23-year-olds as a panel and, you know, I would do like a little mini interview with them at a town hall and let the rest of the marketing team kind of share.
• 14:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: some of that vulnerability and some of those human stories straight from the consumers mouth versus, you know, quotes on a PowerPoint slide really thinking about, how can I humanize this, how can I bring the emotion to life that we experience in the field and how the marketing team really feel that in their soul so that then they understand, okay, this is the
• 15:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is what you're telling me the insight is, but I'm also like, emotionally stealing that insight as a human, which that makes it much more powerful for them to be able to go right and brief to the agency or understand when I'm evaluating creative, this is the emotional experience that I need that work to be able to
• 15:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: now you're think about like you're a real estate agent, right?
• 15:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: Because there's a bunch of them listening right now and they want to build their brand and their clients are home buyers and sellers.
• 15:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: So how do they apply that?
• 15:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, obviously, they don't have millions of dollars to go out and do the kind of research you did.
• 16:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: How would that look to a real estate agent who's really trying to humanize, essentially, their own brand to grow their business?
• 16:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: And this actually connects perfectly to what we've been talking about, because clarity in your business isn't just about marketing, it's about what's happening behind the scenes too.
• 16:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: If you're a solopreneur, you know how this goes.
• 16:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: Receipts everywhere, expenses for gotten, and then tech season shows up, and, well, it's just not fun, right?
• 16:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's exactly why we built BeKeeper AI.
• 16:34
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• 16:43
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• 16:44
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• 16:47
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• 16:49
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• 16:55
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• 16:59
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• 17:02
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• 17:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'll see you there.
• 17:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I think that would really, you can apply the same principles and just take them down to an individual level, really get to know and understand if you're a client, both your clients today and who you want to be your clients, you know, tomorrow and have conversations with them, understand them as people, um,
• 17:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: cultivate empathy for the intense emotional experience of buying a house.
• 17:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: That is one of the most emotionally charged experiences that somebody can go through.
• 17:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: So really try and tap into what that feels like on a human level and then consider what emotions you want your clients to feel when they interact with you and design your whole brand experience to, um, you know,
• 18:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: And there are scrappy ways that you can do that one thing I do with some of my consulting projects if I'm starting working in new industry as I will just create a like.
• 18:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Instagram account just for research and follow people and brands and places and spaces that are connected to that industry and just spend some time every week scrolling through, you know, the feed on that account to get immersed in, uh, okay, what.
• 18:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: Do the cultural conversation look like in this space, what types of messaging are people putting out there, what types of brands are existing in this community, what are they, what do I think are doing right, what do I think they're doing wrong?
• 19:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's just an easy way to get kind of plugged in to a new space and people pulse on what's tapping.
• 19:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's one thing you can do.
• 19:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: I would definitely have just have human conversations with people that you know that in bottom house recently and gone through the process and trying to understand what they liked, what they didn't mind how they didn't make them heal.
• 19:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: What if anything do they wish would have happened you know different way to put a bit think the gaps are and really pay attention to that But approach that in a way where you are going to be able to get people to open up a little bit and get to the real Hard plans and a what that experience was like
• 19:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh my god, that would be fascinating.
• 19:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: Can we talk a little bit about the Instagram thing a little bit?
• 19:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: Cause that?
• 19:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, sure.
• 19:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's interesting to me.
• 19:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: So like you would just open up a fake account like, let's hear you wanted to like understand what 23 year old, you know, kids, kids, young adults were into like, how would you do that?
• 20:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so you just, I mean, create and,
• 20:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: new Instagram account, sign up with a different email address and create a new Instagram account, and then just start, I don't know, in that instance, I would identify some of the micro influencers and the people that other 23 year olds were following on social media and you follow all those
• 20:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: follow some brands that you think are, you know, connected into that community, follow some, I don't know.
• 20:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: music festivals or events or places and spaces that are relevant to that community, just create your list of people, brands, places and spaces that are connected to your community or your topic.
• 21:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: Wow, and then of course the algorithm is going to start and then the algorithm, yes, yes, then it starts to, you know, through that process, you'll get, you know, as soon as you create that profile, then Instagram is going to recommend, okay, you should follow these.
• 21:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: these people, 50 other people, and just follow them and just spend some time scrolling through and absorbing what people are saying, how they're acting, what pay attention to the posts that are resonating with people in that space and use that as my free research tool that you have
• 21:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's, I never even thought of that.
• 21:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's, I mean, that's pretty scrappy.
• 21:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: I love that.
• 22:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
• 22:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: Let's switch gears now to, hey, well, they're a beverage company, right?
• 22:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
• 22:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
• 22:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: And they have, they're a startup.
• 22:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: So you've gone from corporate America to, you know, now you're the fractional CMO of a startup.
• 22:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: So you're thinking more like an entrepreneur now.
• 22:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: They have grown their business with essentially without any marketing up until this point, right?
• 22:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: How did they grow so quickly?
• 22:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: And what do you think a small, like a real estate agent could do quickly to grow their business without a lot of budget?
• 22:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: But first talk about, hey, well, like how did they grow so quickly without having any marketing?
• 22:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: And when you have no marketing budget in CPGA, they're product and the packaging have to do a lot of the heavy lifting.
• 22:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: You rely on word of mouth and you rely on delivering a positive experience so that you get and repeat customers.
• 23:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then,
• 23:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: Founders of haywell and I think this is one of the secrets to the success of a brand they understand it.
• 23:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: We cannot launch this product and put it out into the world until we have a liquid that tastes really good, that people are going to enjoy to make sure that we're really delivering
• 23:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: And the one thing that they kind of over invested in was the packaging design and they hired a fancy, you know, design agency and step way more money than was comfortable for them as individuals.
• 23:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: trying to start a business as a, you know, really placing a strategic bet on the packaging that has paid for itself now, you know, my 10,000 times over because it stands out on shelf.
• 24:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: We get positive comments all the time about the,
• 24:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: packaging, it looks premium, it communicates what is inside the can, it builds up the brand presence on the shelf and it never had to change anything about the packaging so that being purposeful and kind of over-investing in that upfront has really set them up for success where they've now been able to
• 24:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: because of the strength of that packaging build recognition in the, you know, at retail build brand consistency, build and identity that all, you know, they're really the only marketing asset that the brand has.
• 24:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's the can itself recognizing that that was the one place where they needed to focus their resources in the very beginning.
• 25:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: So first impression, they realized the power of the first impression and the importance of the product.
• 25:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think, I'm curious in your thought.
• 25:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think no matter what you're selling, the product comes first.
• 25:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: You have to have an amazing product.
• 25:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't matter how much money you put into it, or how much you market it, if the product doesn't stand up on its own, I just don't think it's ever
• 25:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: work.
• 25:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: Would you agree?
• 25:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: Hi, totally, great.
• 25:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 25:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that's more true today than ever where people are just so skeptical of marketing and so just trustful of, you know, businesses and brands that you really, um, and that, you know, we're in a context that has never been more competitive, never been more five men in, you have got to have a product that delivers where you're not going to make
• 26:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so let's put that in the context of a real estate agent.
• 26:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: Essentially, the real estate agent is the product, because the house is not the product.
• 26:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: The house is the result of the product's promise.
• 26:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: How do you take,
• 26:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: that philosophy of what you just said and put that in the context of a real estate agent.
• 26:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: So the product is, you know, how they deliver, right?
• 26:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's the promise that they provide to the agent.
• 26:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's, and it's how they deliver that promise.
• 26:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: And like, what does the packaging look like in that sense?
• 26:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, I guess for an individual real estate agent, like their,
• 26:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: They are the packaging in a way, like their personality, their identity as a person is a part of the packaging.
• 27:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think it would also, you know, they can learn from the table, I was experienced, and I'd identify and look like one.
• 27:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: or two places where they want to over-invest in burning that product to life, whether it's their website or their logo or their social media channel, identify the channel that is the
• 27:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: It looks as good as it possibly can and feels like you as much as it possibly can.
• 27:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: And the communicates kind of why and how you're different.
• 27:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that the whole, if it's your website, the experience of navigating your website should be as easy as, you know, the experience that you deliver.
• 27:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it's the real estate context because you've got to think about what you're explicitly saying, but also like what?
• 27:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: or all the signals and cues that you're delivering through that channel that either align with your product or they don't.
• 28:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: Let's talk about distinction for a second.
• 28:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: So there's a million and a half real estate agents in the United States alone.
• 28:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: They all, so the market is saturated, just like the beverage market, right?
• 28:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: They all look and sound the same.
• 28:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like how do you help a brand find what actually makes it distinct?
• 28:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like how would a real estate agent go about understanding?
• 28:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like what makes me different from the real estate agent down the street?
• 28:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: I worked with a lot of brands that are struggling with how to be more relevant, how to be more differentiated in the market.
• 28:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: always try to get them to understand that distinction is something that you can intentionally create.
• 28:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: You don't have to wait for your consumer or your customer to tell you how you're different.
• 28:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: It is your job to understand where there is an unmet need or where there is a jab in the market or where there is an opportunity to bring to value to life that is different and then you don't make that happen.
• 29:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: and I always encourage brands to look outside of their category for a real estate agent, my look at hospitality, look at concierge medical services, look at interior design, look at bereavement services, look at anywhere where someone wants to feel cared for and advocated for and understand what
• 29:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: our brands and these other spaces doing to try and bring that feeling to life and what is maybe missing in the real estate world.
• 29:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: If all you do is look at what other real estate agents are doing, you're not going to come up with anything that is distinct or
• 29:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: powerful or differentiated, you've got to open up your world to more sources of inspiration and really focus on that feeling and those emotions that you want to deliver, not what the the specifics of the tangible service.
• 30:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: The transaction.
• 30:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: the transaction.
• 30:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: I always highlight like liquid deaths, the hand water brand.
• 30:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was like one of my favorite case studies on distinction.
• 30:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: They did not get inspired from other water brands.
• 30:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: They looked at rock bands and craft beer and tried to bring a sense of rebellion and personality that
• 30:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, they had the courage to look and act really, really different from all of the other brand's space, and that is paid off for them, I think.
• 30:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Real estate is another area where there is maybe a little bit of a personality deficit where a lot of the real estate agents are, I don't know, it feels almost like performative professionalism to me.
• 31:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
• 31:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's no real individuality or personality coming through and a lot of their real estate content that I see.
• 31:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I would encourage real estate agents to think about.
• 31:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: you know, how are you communicating to people that you are somebody that they want to drive around with in a car all day all weekend on house visits or you somebody that they're going to want to hang out with and spend time with and trust to navigate this incredibly emotional stressful experience and how can you
• 31:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: bring that personality and that energy and identity to life in a way that is more powerful than your credentials is a real estate agent or your, you know, your headshot of steel and your, you know, the business attire, he's good at.
• 32:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, yes, yes, yes.
• 32:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: How do you bring that personality through?
• 32:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's not performative.
• 32:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: So we had Mark Davidson on a couple weeks ago and he's a co-founder of 1000W, which is an agency that does branding and marketing for specifically in the real estate space.
• 32:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: And he talked a lot about performative.
• 32:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: marketing with real estate agents how you know it's it's all kind of not this isn't everybody and certainly not my clients but you know they kind of a lot of them kind of go out there with that sort of hey look at how much business I've done hey look at you know how much money I've made I look at all these awards and you got to sort of turn that around and make it about
• 32:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: the people that you're serving.
• 32:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I kind of want to go back to the human experience for a second because I just love that.
• 32:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: But the human experience you talked about was really about getting in there, really understanding at a deeper level, like what those pain points are, what those fears are, going deep to understand what's behind sort of that person, that client face, and seeing them not just as a lead, not just as a, you know, a seller or a buyer, but as a human being.
• 33:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that's where you can really start to understand, okay, how do I shift how I'm showing up?
• 33:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: So that I can support them in a way that helps them to feel seen and heard and taken care of.
• 33:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: What's a brand outside of real estate that every agent should be paying attention to right now and why?
• 33:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if you totally considered outside of real estate, but I think Airbnb as a brand is doing a lot of things right.
• 33:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: evolving as a brand, even with my experience as an Airbnb customer, the way that they are leveraging their host to provide a human element to the experience that you have with their brand, I think, is
• 34:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: really powerful.
• 34:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: I rented an Airbnb at the Grand Canyon a couple months ago and it was amazing and a host had like stock the fridge with a selection of the
• 34:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: beverages from the local market and put it with together here's all my favorite restaurants in the neighborhood and here are the best times to go visit the Grand Canyon to avoid the crowds and get the right view and it really shall.
• 34:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know just a way more human and personal of an experience that's compared to like staying at a hotel.
• 34:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: The way that they figured out how to
• 34:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: humanity and deliver and more curated personal hospitality experience I think is really powerful and they're doing a lot of exciting things like getting more and to Airbnb experience offerings, but you can book a whole experience through Airbnb.
• 35:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: I see somebody crawling in the background over there.
• 35:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yes, that maybe it was Joey, maybe it was the dog.
• 35:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: I love it.
• 35:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: What's the best piece of advice someone gave you earlier in your career that has stayed with you?
• 35:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: be yourself and lean into your strengths.
• 35:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Think a lot of people.
• 35:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's definitely found this to be true in the business world, especially in the beer world.
• 35:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: There were a lot of times in my career where I felt pressure to try to be somebody else or to try and fit into this type a bro, culture, hyper, masculine context.
• 36:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: and really recognizing that I should go that pressure and embrace and the parts of myself that are special and different than that.
• 36:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that's where it is, you know, real magic happens.
• 36:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's probably the biggest lesson that I've learned in my career recognizing that my sensitivity is a gift, my empathy is a gift,
• 36:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: trying to hide or disguise those exact things that create value in my life and you know for my clients and that work.
• 36:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, my self has probably been the best lesson.
• 36:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: and love it.
• 36:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: So true.
• 36:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: It is so true.
• 36:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm like a little goofy and weird.
• 37:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I always like, help people, you're weird as you're wealth.
• 37:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, just be, just be your self because that's what attracts people to you, who you really are, you know?
• 37:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: And you're not for everybody.
• 37:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that's okay.
• 37:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's okay.
• 37:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
• 37:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 37:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
• 37:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: Scott, finish the sentence.
• 37:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: No like trust is
• 37:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: Uh, no like trust is building strong relationships with people that are going to carry you and your business and, uh, you know, hopefully the world not forward in a positive way.
• 37:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, Scott.
• 37:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's so good to see you.
• 37:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you, Christine.
• 37:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thanks so much for listening.
• 37:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: If you love this conversation, make sure to share it with a friend.
• 37:53
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• 37:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: And if you're watching us on YouTube, make sure to click the subscribe button so you never miss another episode.
• 38:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: Sign up for our sudden-been newsletter, go to postenbeencreative.com and sign up.
• 38:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: And until next time, I'm Christine George and you've been listening to No Like Trust for Real Estate.