Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Luxury Real Estate Branding Strategy: Are You Getting the Lion's Share?

If you could do two things today that could significantly change your financial outlook for the better, here is what we would recommend: 1) start treating your luxury real estate marketing practice like a business instead of a profession; 2) Discover your competitive advantage, what you can do better that anyone else. Then make the decision to be either #1 or #2 in your marketplace or some niche within your marketplace that you can dominate. That is the journey we call the “unabashed pursuit of market leadership”.

Take a page from the playbook of one of the greatest business leaders in recent decades, Jack Welch, the previous CEO of General Electric. Mr. Welch’s had a motto: “Fix, sell or close”. To survive in the company portfolio, GE-owned businesses had to be number one or two in their industry or have the potential to get there.

Everything changes when you shift to the mindset of a business market leader. Your entire game board takes on a whole new meaning. That is when the fun begins! What is at stake? The stakes are always high in the realm of market leadership: the lion’s share of business and revenue. If you are not aiming for #1 or #2 you are settling for the crumbs.

What is most exciting to understand about the pursuit of market leadership is that the entire playing field is in the minds of your target market. Although the evidence of being #1 & #2 manifests in having the most market share and the highest revenues, mind share always precedes market share. The battle for market leadership is won when you achieve “top-of-mind” status. Who is the first luxury real estate professional to come to mind in your market place (or niche therein)? Who is the second?

The ideal scenario is to identify an uncontested market niche that you can dominate. Otherwise, the game becomes a battle between the incumbent market leader and the challenger to gain or sustain top-of-mind status. It is in the realm of the mind that branding takes place.

What is the first corn chip to come to your mind? The vast majority will answer, Doritos. Can you think of another corn chip brand? Most people cannot. Fritos actually occupies its own snack food category, an uncontested niche, in customers’ minds, according to experts.

Personal and company branding is not about getting a new look in the same way you would go out and buy a new outfit. Doing this may help you stand out from your fellow crumb gathers (#3 and below). Branding is all about strategy and jostling for top-of-mind status where the lion’s share of the business is at stake.

In our strategic branding consulting practice we only work with incumbents who want to fend off the challengers or the challengers who want to surpass the incumbents. It is all about strategy; how to out-think not outspend your competition.

Start treating your luxury real estate marketing practice like a business. Aim for gaining or sustaining the #1 or #2 position in the minds of your target market. Then, watch your financial outlook change for the better.

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