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Brands can be a very important factor in building your local real estate investing company. A brand, properly executed and marketed, forms an image in a person’s mind upon hearing the name. For instance, what do you think about when you think McDonalds? Sears? Olive Garden Restaurant? AAMCO?

You of course think of the products and/or services the company offers you. Along with that image is your personal impressions of the place. For instance, some of you hear the name of a certain company and you immediately tell the other person to stay away from that company or tell of what great deals can be found there.

Brands are so powerful in fact that there can be only three types of reactions to a well known brand. It is either that the company is great because of X, the company is really bad because of Y or indifference because you have never dealt with that company and no one in your circle of friends has dealt with that company.

As a local investor, you may be intimidated about building a brand because you think only national companies have brand images. But that is simply not true. Think of all the local businesses you deal with. Some are really good and are freely recommended amongst friends and acquaintances. And others quickly go out of business as news about their bad products or services spreads throughout the community.

Now which side of the branding effect would you rather be on? If you are like most people, you want to be on the positive side because that results in you getting more referrals, more business and better customer relations year in and year out. And accomplishing this is rather simple. All it takes is being very consistent in all your communications with everyone about your business and always delivering 110%. Or in situations where something goes wrong, and it will from time to tome, be a stand up person and go the extra mile to make it right.

Steps to building your brand:

1. Choose your brand. This is often a combination of a logo and a slogan. Or sometimes just a slogan. In my opinion, it is more powerful to work with both an logo and a slogan and get them related in your market’s mind. That way if they only see your logo, they will immediately think of your slogan as it will be associated in their mind.

   Some amount of thought should go into this process because once you get started, changing is very difficult to do. So invest some time in coming up with the logo and slogan and try it out on some friends and associates to get their impressions. If they find they mesh well together and that the slogan is catchy, easy to remember and describes what you do, chances are you have a winner on your hands.

2. Create your branded literature. This would include everything that you might give to another person. It includes business cards, brochures, letterhead, contract headers, signs, postcards, envelopes, car magnetic sign, etc. Basically anything that could possible be given to another person or left behind should have your logo and slogan on it. And they must always be consistent - the same color scheme, the same relative sizes, the same positioning whenever possible, etc.
3. Always work your slogan into introductions with others. "Hi, I’m John Smith of Smith Rehab - The Get It Done Folks." Again the key is consistency. It may feel awkward at first but after a while it will become second nature.
4. Spread the word. Pass out your literature and introduce yourself everywhere you go. Let people know who you are and what you do and that you stand behind your slogan 110%.
5. Live the slogan. Your brand gets built both by people seeing it and associating you with the brand AND by you proving day in and day out that you are consistent in the delivery of your brand. Imagine going into McDonalds and getting served wildly differing quality food each time. Pretty soon you would quit going. But you don’t have to worry about that because MCDonalds took the worry out. Whatever your opinion of their food, you know that you can walk into any McDonalds and know exactly what to expect in terms of quality and taste.

   That is what you need to create for you - and you do it by consistent delivery of your goods/services.

The payoff for building a brand is not instant so if you are an instant gratification person, be prepared to wait. Branding will take time. After all, you only interact with a small number of people every day. So it takes time for your reputation to spread. But once it does, people will be clamoring to do business with you.

It may take several months or years for it to finally happen but once it does, business life becomes much easier. Suddenly, people who wouldn’t deal with a "newcomer" welcome your business relationships with open arms. And people who know about deals suddenly start including you in their circle of friends because they know you will be able to delivery.

And at the end of the day, that is what this business is all about. Delivering quality and satisfaction in every relationship you build.