Marketing a team

[jillmandy]

I have decided to go into real estate along with another. What is the best way to market? Should we have cards with both our pics on it or have our own seperate cards?

[Max]

It probably depends on your commitment to each other as a team. I know some teams that branding themselves as such and stick with it for years. I think Fran and Rowena is great example - check out their site www.lacanadarealestate.com - they are together on pictures, company logo and cartoon

[Phoenix]

Hi JillMandy,

Welcome to the forums!

I would have to say you really need to take a look at the future that you see for you and your partner. Fran and Rowena have made it work and work well for many years the way they are doing it. They even have another site: FranAndRowena.com that they brand as well as a blog with both their names in the URL.

Yet, I am building a small team of professionals and want them to brand themselves. They all help brand and build our name and image (see avatar) to help build the long term brand of our main site PhoenixHomes.com though.

So, it's really up to what you envision for your future. Once you know that, you'll know how to procedd with all your marketing.

Hope that helps! I look forward to seeing you around here more often!!! Thanks for joining the IBS Team Forums!

[kensmith]

Personally I have a team, but the branding is all about the team name. I look at this as a business and therefor I brand Suburban House Hunters, not Ken Smith. It works really well as I can bring new agents in and they instantly have name recognition. As well I can remove an agent and it makes no difference to the branding.

A good business never is about one person (or two), it can go on with or without you. If you think along these lines you will have a chance of making it big one day. Plus you will have a business that can be sold when you want out.

[Phoenix]

Adding to what Ken said, I agree. I am branding The PhoenixHomes.com Team as a part of my exit strategy. Along with a myriad of other useful websites to be sold or leased when I retire.

[Nickie]

Just chiming in here too, but I agree that you should be thinking about the future when choosing your branding, team or not. Have an exit strategy in mind.

I have a real estate website that is doing quite well in search engine results now, but I switched over to Home Staging last year. What to do with the real estate site when it is in my name? I still have it going just because it gets good results, but all I do is I refer the leads out - NOT a very good use of my marketing dollar.

So I definitely recommend you consider the advice of Matt and Ken, create a brand that does not include a person's name. Create a brand that can be transferred when the time comes for you to move on to something else.

[kensmith]

Nicki why don't you change the site into your home staging site?

[Nickie]

I have a separate Home Staging site that is doing very well for me.

I just haven't given up the real estate site yet since I can't decide what to do with it. The Staging site ranks well for my Staging keywords and the real estate site ranks well for its keywords, two sites designed with two different markets in mind. I am so busy with the Staging that I just don't have time for selling Real Estate, so I need to make a decision with the site.

Which brings us back to the team branding, my suggestion is, stay away from using a person's name, go with Suburban House Hunters or ThePhoenixHomes.com Team idea. That way it will be easy to pass it along to someone else when the time comes for you to move on to something else.

[deanac24]

I think, in my opinion, you should have 2 seperate cards with each of yours information.