Your slogan is the part of Personal Branding with which you’re prob- ably most familiar. After all, each of us can rattle off a few dozen of the most famous corporate slogans. Can you name the companies that use these slogans?
• The ultimate driving machine
• Think different
• Moving at the speed of business
• The best a man can get
• A diamond is forever
• Something special in the air
If you said BMW, Apple, UPS, Gillette, De Beers, and American Air- lines, you’re spending too much time parked in front of your plasma TV. But seriously, slogans have a lot of power. Your slogan has two purposes:
1. To tell people what you do 2. To tell them whom you do it for
That’s it. Some marketers will tell you that your slogan should also tell people why your service is valuable, like a divorce lawyer’s slogan I once saw that read, “Keeping divorce litigation simple.” First of all, talk about overpromising. But more important, you have no idea what the people in your target market will value. What half of them value the other half might hate. That’s too risky. Stick with the basics: three to nine words that transmit who you are, what you do, and whom it benefits. Craft your tagline specifically to address your target market:
• Strategic wealth planning for Dallas divorcees
• Gentle chiropractic for adolescent athletes
• Selling the homes of University of Wisconsin faculty
Your specialization statement should be the perfect guide to writ- ing your slogan. Of course, you’re really limiting your market when
you make your slogan so precise, and I know that might make you nervous. But if you’ve picked a target market with more than enough potential to get you to (and beyond) your income goals, this isn’t a problem. It’s an asset. The more precise your branding, the more you’ll come to “own” your market. Some tips for writing great slogans:
• Avoid the word solutions. It’s so overused that it’s lost its meaning.
• Be specific. Say what you do and for whom with precision.
• Check your grammar and usage. Mistakes like using “it’s” when you mean “its” make you look foolish.
• Test your slogan repeatedly, and if the responses aren’t to your liking, keep experimenting.
• Don’t italicize your slogan or put it in quotes. Many companies do this because they think it adds drama to an otherwise bad slogan. It doesn’t. It only succeeds in making you look like an amateur.
• Keep it to nine words.
THINGS YOU CAN DO IN A WEEK
1. Talk to people who might serve as branding mentors for you—
retired colleagues, successful professionals, and other such people.
2. Test your crisis response procedures with a phony client complaint.
3. Review your sales materials—the materials you present to prospects when they come to your office for the initial appointment. Are they in line with your brand? Are they persuasive?
4. Call five clients to come to your office and give you their impres- sion of the physical surroundings.
5. Take your Branding Timetable to a printer to get a wall-size copy run off.
GRAPHICAL ICON
Not all logos have icons; yours might just be your name in a nice typeface and your slogan, and that’s fine. But the right icon can dra- matically enhance the effectiveness and retention of a logo. An icon is a graphic element that enhances your logo by tying into the meaning of your Personal Brand. For example, if you’re marketing to the sail- ing community, and you work a pencil drawing of a tall ship into your logo, it tells prospects without a single word that you’re a person with a passion for the ocean and sailboats—and that’s the type of personal connection that wins business. You don’t have to use your slogan to tell people what you care about. Your icon can do it.
Your logo icon can be anything, from an elegant-looking graphic shape (often called a “dingbat” by designers) to an illustration that’s suited to your target market, your profession, or your interests. But avoid the cliché icons that everyone in your profession uses. For ex- ample, how many real estate agents have you seen with a house icon on their business card? They probably all thought the idea originated with them. Here’s a good rule of thumb: if a graphic image seems in- credibly obvious for your profession—such as a chef’s hat for a caterer or a quill pen for a writer—don’t use it. Some other tips in choosing an icon:
• Don’t use photos. They rarely reproduce well.
• Use something that can be drawn simply. Complex illustrations also don’t reproduce well, especially in small sizes.
• Match your icon to the culture of your target market. For exam- ple, even if you’re an avid surfer, putting a surfboard in your logo might not work well if you’re trying to sell financial planning to seniors.
• Talk to a professional artist. This is the one area where do-it- yourself won’t do. Unless you already know how to draw, it’s worth a few hundred bucks to get something custom-done by a pro.
• Don’t use your family crest. Such complex graphics rarely repro- duce well in a logo format. Icons are usually small, and the finely lined detail of a family crest usually ends up a blurred mess.
BRAND CASE STUDY The Brand:Marty Rodriguez, Realtor
Specialization: The top-selling Realtor in California, Century 21 superstar
Location:Glendora, California
Channels:Her sales, her staff, the Web, direct mail, cold calling Highlights:Getting her own office
Online:www.martyrodriguez.com
The Story: Is Marty Rodriguez the world’s greatest Realtor? By many yardsticks, yes. She’s the number one agent for Century 21, which has recognized her as its top producer not only in America, but worldwide. Marty’s name has become “top of mind” to home sellers in California’s San Gabriel Valley. In a bad year, Rodriguez sells a home a day. In a hot market, she’ll close 450 (or more) transactions annu- ally. It’s an astonishing pace, and you might think that Rodriguez’s life must be all real estate. It is, and she loves it.
Century 21 certainly appreciates Rodriguez. In 1996, it created a franchise for her when she considered leaving the company. In recent years, she’s been honored by Hispanic Businessas one of America’s 100 Most Influential Latino Businesspersons, has coauthored The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Online Buying and Selling a Home,and has been profiled inFast Company.
How It All Started:One of 11 children raised in a two-bedroom, one- bath home, Rodriguez discovered her zest for sales in Catholic school, selling more candy and Christmas cards than her classmates. When her husband, Ed, began building spec homes in the late 1970s, she got her real estate license so that she could sell them.
Her first six years in the business amounted to a learning curve. She and her husband were building a custom home, her children were young, and her business partner was carrying a sack of personal problems. As the crash of the early 1990s weeded out dilettantes and hobbyists from the profession, she asked herself, “What do I have to do to stay in busi- ness when everybody is going out of business?” Rodriguez quickly
learned the answer: the successful Realtors were not always the best salespeople, but they were the best at building their personal brands.
What This Brand Stands For:
• The team.Marty’s team, which includes her children, is an integral part of everything her office does. The team extends her brand much further than she could do on her own. “Clients know we are totally committed, here working late at night. If I’m not here, I’m at an appointment. They know we have systems, because it’s all about communication. Even when a house isn’t selling, we are com- municating with sellers and letting them know what’s going on, talking about price reductions. Communication is everything. Hav- ing that team means I can be in more places than most agents.
That’s why we do so much better as a team than as individuals.
When you’re number one, you can do things that others can’t.”
• Ubiquity. Rodriguez is everywhere in her marketplace—and if she’s not, her team is. “My team is still cold calling or door knock- ing,” she says. “You have to have the personal touch. In the bad housing market, the brand requires more of that personal kind of outreach. Before, everything was on autopilot,” she adds.
“I think it’s just a matter of being everywhere,” she says. And everywhere she is. Regular calls are important as a means of keep- ing in touch with past and present clients and protecting leads. Per- sonal contact complements steady direct mail that drips regular
“just listed/just sold” cards to clients and prospects. And in addi- tion to a PR machine that lands Rodriguez regularly in newspaper and magazine stories, she sponsors the Marty Rodriguez Scholar- ship Fund for San Gabriel Valley students.
• Total commitment.For Marty, real estate is life. When she’s not working, she’s thinking about work. In the tough environment after the subprime mortgage meltdown, her sterling reputation remains critical. “My reputation is that Marty sells houses,” she says.
“People see me as tough, no-nonsense, someone who gets things done. They know that my office is open seven days a week. My (continued)
agents are full time in an industry where most agents are barely part time.”
X-Factor: Referrals and more referrals. With her unmatched track record selling area homes, Rodriguez gets them in abundance. “I get calls from people I don’t even know,” she says, citing a mortgage bro- ker who brought her a ready buyer out of the blue. “She just sold my reputation,” she notes. For that favor, the mortgage broker will get ei- ther a gift certificate or a check in appreciation.
Branding Wisdom: Rodriguez has built her franchise, Century 21 Marty Rodriguez Real Estate, around one concept: everybody does only what he or she does best. Each employee makes the most of a sin- gle focused attribute. Her buyers’ agents don’t prospect for listings, her marketing manager doesn’t troubleshoot computers, and her listing coordinator doesn’t perform inspections or run around removing lock- boxes. Marty herself just sells properties. In simplicity is performance.
This business structure wasn’t the product of any coaching session, but of Rodriguez’s own vision. “There was nobody in this area that thought what I thought,” she explains. After seeing her colleagues burn out from trying to do everything at once, she took a different tack. “I learned to delegate,” she notes. “I don’t cook; I don’t do housework; I don’t open the mail; I don’t manage my own money. I focus on real estate.”