The best kept secret in branding

The best kept secret in branding isn't your logo, it isn't your name, it's your brand idea. That's what we're talking about today.

Welcome back to Useful Not Famous, the show where we teach you how to be useful, not famous. I'm Amara Andrew.

I'm Jeff Sarris.

And here we go. So, okay.

Here we go.

I was like I was so ready, I focused on the intro, I was like,.

Yeah, so this is a three-segment show. First segment is why. Second segment is what, like what we're up to, and the third segment is how to actually apply what we're talking about.

And it's a 15-minute show, if you're new here. So, we put our little five minutes on the timer. And here we go.

I don't like how you always block my face, but whatever.

Timer.

I know, it's silly.

But see, it doesn't get me. There we go. It just really wants to focus on me.

What can I say? We all do. Okay, so first before we even dive into what the hell brand idea even means, what is brand?

Like what's brand and what's marketing?

Yeah, so I've run a brand agency since 2009, built some fairly recognizable brands, so…

It's not Russell Brand?

Not Russell Brand.

Oh, blimey.

Ay-ay-ay. But, a lot of people think logo, think name, think colors as brand. But what brand truly is brand is what people think and say about you when you're not around.

So, brand is an idea. And then marketing is how you convey your brand idea. So, that's what we're talking about today is how do you convey a brand idea?

How do we sort of break out of the mold of thinking about logos and like a Nike swoosh as being the definition of brand.

So, yeah, marketing is almost like the communication of "this is my brand", like "this is me!"

Exactly. And then what we want to do ideally is have that brand idea spread through the community, not us to them, but them to them. Why are you laughing?

I was like, so I feel like we have a little story to tell from this past week.

Well, yeah, and this is sort of indicative of all of this. It's just…

You can't say that word anymore.

… I can't think of anything funny.

Imbuttative. I don't I don't know, whatever. Keep going, go on without me.

Yeah, so let's start. What's our brand idea? Like I guess brand ideas plural, like a brand is made up of multiple ideas, but we're talking about one of ours today.

And one of our brand ideas is that we're always there for you. This isn't written anywhere.

I might cry.

This isn't written anywhere. This isn't on our website. This isn't anything that we promote via social media.

So, how do we convey our brand idea in how basically what's the manifestation of our brand idea in our world? And that happens in person.

Ta-da-da!

I felt like you wanted to jump in.

No, just that it's not something that you can sell. Like how do you sell "I'll be there for you" unless you're an insurance company? Like…

Or a Friends theme song.

I know, it's like, I'll be there… We're gonna get…

Oh, you don't even know how it goes, do you? You watch that show so much, too.

No. Oh! The other…

I was thinking the "I'll be there" No. Anyway, I'm wasting our 5 minutes, but "I'll be there for you"… I hope that's audio quality, I won't know.

Anyway. Okay, just stop listening at this point. But tell us, tell us tell the class what your brand idea is.

So, our brand idea is that we're always there for you. We're not telling anyone that. What we're doing is we're physically being present everywhere realtors are.

So, we're at all the conferences, we're at all the events. We're always there.

And even at their birthday parties and various different family gatherings.

Yeah, so we're always present. That's a physical manifest- manifestation of our brand idea. But then what happens is we're not telling people, "We're always there for you.

We're always gonna be around. We're we're never going to quit. We keep going.

We're not sort of fly-by-night." They say that to each other. And they tell us, "You're always everywhere I go." Or they say to each other, "I wonder if they're here." That someone came walked up to me whatever 3 days ago now, and was just like, "I just said to her, 'I wonder if they're going to be here.' And here you are."

Well, that's happened at num- numerous conferences, too, where people are like, "Oh, I've seen you around, but I've never actually talked to you. Like, who are you?" And then it's like, yeah, because we're just we're always there.

Yeah, and that is you can look at it as like subliminal messaging, but that is one of our brand ideas and the power in that is we're not conveying it as a marketer. We are letting the market say it to each other. And that's if you have someone feel like the idea was their idea, it is so much more powerful, even if they don't know that it's an idea that's in their brain.

Exactly. And like something that we want to communicate with that, too, is like we are literally always going to be there. Like that's huge because so we do video for real estate agents specifically.

Well, that's that's my business. I mean we both do it, but yours is the brand agency.

Well, yeah, that's what we do.

Time.

But by being around so much, like videographers come and go, a lot aren't emotionally invested in a community of people. We have spent so much time with this like amazing group of people, not just like our small little group, but like agency as a whole, basically. We've spent so much time in the space that we're invested and we're not going anywhere.

Like we will be there forever, basically.

Yeah, and we can say that all we want, but how do you build that trust so people know?

Exactly.

You convey it, we have a we have a physical manifestation of it. It's our bodies and our presence in and at these events.

Exactly. So…

All right, so…

That's our five minutes.

On to the what. I'll cover my face this time. There it goes.

Five minutes.

Timed it. You can cover my face if you need. I'm sunburned.

Yeah. So, we have a…

I don't know if you can even see it.

Yeah, I don't even know if can you see? You can't actually tell from the video. Even sort of if you move your hair…

There you go.

There you go. Now, you could see it. If you just keep bounc- No, but you can see it on your shoulder.

Okay.

So, it hasn't been sunny here since September, in Chicago.

It's like Chicago. It's like that I Love Lucy episode where she gets really sunburned, except I'm not trying to bait you into anything. Anyway.

I don't know what that one is.

She's like pure sunburn. It's very funny. Even in black and white, you can tell it's pretty bad.

But yeah, we haven't seen the sun in…

And somehow every single we travel a lot, because we film in people's markets, every single trip it's rained. We were just in San Antonio, Texas. It was 85° and cloudy and rainy.

No sun.

So, yesterday was the first day of sun, and we both got too much. You got way too much. But even I don't I don't even know if you can tell on camera, but my nose is red, my forehead is red.

I'm like, "Ay-ay-ay." We're usually so good at this. We're in Miami every couple months, except this year.

Well, yeah, cuz the one time we went, we haven't been to Miami as

So, I'm a little sore.

Yeah, and then, yeah, we were at the event this week in San Antonio. It was a lot of fun. We saw a lot of friends, but then met a lot of new people.

Some, really fun people. One person who seems to be your,

I met my twin.

Yeah, your mirror image. It is crazy.

Like, same necklace, same humor. We literally reached for someone's hair at the It was very odd.

Yeah, I mean, I want to finish that. Someone walked up and you both looked at her and simultaneously grabbed the hair on her shoulder in different spots. It was the weirdest…

No, it was the same spot.

But, like, meaning, like, you both grabbed a chunk of her hair. Not to do anything, just to touch it for no reason. It's like touching fabric on someone and being like, "Woah, that looks soft."

And I never do that!

You never do that. I don't know what that was! It was so odd, but also like, oh woah, you guys are very mirror images.

Yeah, it was wild, so that was really fun.

Yeah, and like she had black hair with, color streaks in it.

I used to have black hair with streaks, not colored, it was blonde, but, and mine were further down, but it was like the same principle. It was so weird, but in the best way possible. It was just like, "Oh, my god!"

Yeah, so I mean that's why we go to these events, is to find your mirror image. No.

Yes!

But to meet people who we bond with and connect with. And people like people ask us at all the events, "Oh, is this a fruitful event for you? You get any leads?

Da-da-da-da-da." And we're always like, "I mean, no, I…" No meaning we're not going for leads, we're making friends. And then we know maybe 9 to 12 months later, every so often, someone will be like, "Oh, hey! Let's actually talk about working together."

It's a soft sell. We're making friends.

Well, and even still, we got to see our friend who, like, planned the event and everything, too, which, I don't know, just like seeing all the magic that he creates is always so much fun. So, I don't know, it's just fun. We're following along.

-huh. Well, yeah, and there could be some more things we're doing with him in the near future, which is fun.

Shh! Don't tease.

Well, no. Well, we've talked about a lot We've talked with them a lot about doing stuff together, event-wise.

I know. Well, and it feels like the right pairing and partnership. I don't know.

I'm very excited, so I can't wait to see how it goes.

Oh, yeah. Well, yeah, so this year is going to be interesting as we build everything out.

Did you have a good conference?

I did.

Oh, and it was our first conference where we actually took it very easy.

That was the thing. Yeah, we normally We have social batteries that are only so much, and it's also hard to sleep in a hotel room for various reasons.

Yeah.

CO2 being one of them, which I brought a monitor and saw that, "Oh, no, it is really, really, really high," which we can talk about CO2 and wellness on a different episode, but yeah, we spent time together the first night, just us. Where did we go?

We went to, the oldest restaurant on the River Walk in San Antonio, which I was really excited about. It was so cute. It's called Casa Rio, and it opened in 1942, and it basically started the river boats on the River Walk, which is really fun.

So, we went there, we went to the Alamo, and then I took him to the most haunted building in the United States.

Yeah, that was that was something.

Did you feel something?

It was It was odd.

Right? It like I don't know if it was just because there weren't windows, but like there was like a feeling, and I felt kind of lightheaded on one of the levels, which I was like, "Ooh!"

And the temperature was drastically different on one floor.

And that's the most haunted floor. Gotcha, bitch! I hope we didn't bring anything back.

[Laughter]

But anyways, so that was really fun. And we got to see the Alamo, and I got to tell you all the history about everything, so, I don't know, it was very fun.

That was perfect!

That was the most perfect-timed segment. I saw it, I was like, "It's going to beep when she's done."

And another thing!

All right, so final segment is the how. So, how do you apply a brand image? We're not going to We're not going to talk about generic brand images.

We're going to talk about or idea image. How do you apply a brand idea for your brand? So, we're going to talk specifically about what we do, the same idea that we'll always be there for you.

So, how could someone convey that in real estate or otherwise?

So, as a real estate agent, you want to communicate to people that you're always going to be there for them. It's like a It's a very similar thing, but you want to communicate, too, that you are part of the community, like you're not going anywhere, and you can teach people everything about the space. So there are a couple different ways you can go about this.

So, one of the main ones is being really actively engaged in your community. That's something that I know people struggle with because, again, you only have so much social battery, you only have so much small talk you can handle, but it doesn't mean that you need to be out there for 70 hours, like, "Hey, how's it going, Sally?

I'm Bobby," or whatever. It just means—

So, wait, why did you choose Sally and Bobby?

All right, let's not, Mr. Sarris.

Anyone who knows us knows us. She likes to choose the name Sally Bob.

It's inclusive.

Which is a little It's something.

If we ever get another pet, Sally Bob.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, no. No, no, no, no.

That's for Dan. So… That was so funny.

But one of the things is being actively engaged in your community, and, again, you don't have to be out there all day, every day, twice on Sunday, whatever, but being at your local coffee shop, talking to people, talking to your community, going to all the shops, like introducing yourself to people. How else is anybody going to know that you exist?

And that's one issue that I have with how a lot of agents market themselves is thinking that all the marketing is going to bring all the people in and have—oops, I just touched the camera—and then have them flood to you. And it's like, "Oh, I sent out all these things, like I'm posting to social media every day, but nobody's finding me."

Well, and that's the point.

You have to be in the community. People need to know that you exist and see you face to face. That's so much different than seeing someone on a piece of paper, then it's like, "I don't care."

Yeah, and that's the brand idea, again. So, we don't want to be conveying our brand idea to people. We want them to internalize it and give it to everyone else.

Exactly, 'cause, like, we could post on social media all day, every day about video content, but unless you meet us face to face, it's a very different experience. Just like this right now, like, getting to hear us talking in real time like this is even more different from posting content. So, anyway, if you're not actively engaged in your community, you absolutely need to.

You can't hide out in your house, you can't hide in your apartment. You have to be out there. So, that's one.

Yeah, be the little mayor of town. I kind of want to just say the little like one thing that Kate does.

Like, which is really smart—

Kate Newey-Hatten, Neal's Realtor.

Yeah. She always does, like barre classes and, yoga and things, like fitness barre, not a drink bar. But she leads them.

She doesn't just, I mean, you can participate as well, but she's immediately set as an authority in the space.

Yeah.

People know they can trust her to achieve the results they're looking for in one avenue—

—which extrapolates to real estate, to other avenues where she can help them.

Exactly. So, you can bond in the fitness way, because you're already like, "Oh, I trust her. Why don't I trust her with everything?

Like, sure, that sounds great." So, there's that bond, and then, again, another bond with handling the transactions and everything. Like, it's a it's a double bond. It's a covalent bond, I don't know, whatever.

I don't even know what that means, but…

You didn't pay attention in science.

It's been a while. It's been a few more years than you.

I would hope so. I'm young. No.

So, that's one way. Another way is the exact inverse, again, of what people hope happens on social media, where you hope people find you, you go find them. Go find people in your community, 'cause sometimes people do have their location on there, or even better yet, on whatever social platform, type your city or your market or even a restaurant nearby, type that into your search, click on it, and then see what videos are there.

Sometimes there's going to be an influencer, a rogue person, or even someone like us who just travels a lot. Keep going, but that just clicked something.

Okay. But you will find eventually some people that are actually part of your community who are posting about this place. Follow them, watch their stories, comment on their stories, comment on their posts, tell them you love them, ask them on a date, like, do all the things.

But that actually leads into something else. So, trying to find people making that content, just go to your favorite restaurant's Instagram, and go through the comments.

There you go.

Which we also have another, thing about that.

Which, Yeah, but just thinking like—

Time!

The people who are in your community who are commenting on posts from something in your community, they're sort of raising their hands like, "I'm here, this is where I'm from, this is what I'm into." Those are people you can engage with. It might not be easy to find them in conventional ways. Like, they might not have, for us, say Chicago in their bio, or in their name, or whatever, 'cause you don't really search bios, but they might not have their location there, but if I see they commented on Au Cheval and Small Cheval posts,

I'm like, "Oh, they're here."

Exactly.

They're somewhere nearby, I don't know exactly where, but let me see. Oh, wait, they're into, let's say, for this, cameras. Like, "Oh, they posted all about this new camera that I'm interested in.

Let me engage with that."

Exactly. So, don't expect people to find you, you go find them. And how absolutely, which this talks about another episode, how remarkable is that, if you have If I had sliding into my DMs, like, I can't pick a realtor 'cause I'd be like, "Yeah, whatever, get in line, Bob," but if it was a doctor who somehow found me, I would say to you immediately and be like, "What the fuck?

This doctor just DM'd me that they like my whatever, and they followed me." I'd be like, "Oh, that's very interesting."

Then it's like, "Oh, wait, they're actually in town. That's wild."

It's different because I make content, so it's like people will find me, but if I was just a total normie and I didn't do anything like that, I just didn't do anything, that's so incredibly remarkable. You're going to tell your friends, you're going to tell your family, and be like, "Dude, what the hell? This realtor was commenting things, and they're nice." That's so memorable.

People won't forget that. So that was another thing. I have two more.

Can I keep going?

You have two more? I mean, we're overtime. Bye!

Okay, bye!

Oh, man, the sun's really bright on me.

Well, watch your Don't get burnt-burnt. Burnt.

So another thing was just by constantly adding value on social media. So, I know a lot of people don't personally find value in posting talking head stuff that is educational. You are so completely wrong.

There is so much value.

You know what's really funny, that we reinvented that, like in real estate?

I know.

And nobody knows.

Yeah.

But that is so incredibly specifically looking at the camera, not, "I'm going to talk over here."

Exactly.

Well, 'cause people were trying to do like their documentary style.

Yeah.

But, like, they didn't realize So, for anyone listening, when you're talking off-camera, which I am now, it's as though I'm talking to someone, which I am.

Hello!

And in a documentary, that's how you want it, because you want, "This is an expert. They're not talking to the viewer. They're talking to someone who's leading the conversation," meaning the documentary itself.

Where on social media, we're talking to you. Like, you watching and listening right now, that's who we're talking to. So, that's where the eyes need to be.

So, that's why we shifted that and, somehow, no one else really seemed to get that.

Yeah, so… What was I talking about? Oh, so by constantly providing value on social media, people will have a reason to stick around and engage in your profile versus like, find your leads.

You go grab them, and then give them a reason to hang out and follow you back. And maybe it won't happen immediately, but because you're already connected, that little nugget's already planted, and they'll just be curious. So, that's one thing.

And then, finally, after you've worked with your clients already, whether buyer or seller side, check in on them. And I know some people do this, but not just immediately after, not 3 months after, not just 6 months after. Try a whole year after and be like, "Hey, I'm just thinking of…" A quick 5-second text, "Hey, just thinking about you.

Hope all's going well. XO, Gossip Girl," or whatever.

Please don't Please don't spend, let me see, when did I buy this house? 2006? 2024?

Don't spend 19 years sending a mailer with the Chicago sports team, schedule, with nothing.

Yeah.

Like, yeah, I remember you exist because of this, but it conveys to me not that you're proactive, but that you're lazy.

Yeah.

So, the person who I bought this house from, I would never reach out to her again. She sent the same thing with her same photo for 19 years.

Like, things change!

Well, yeah, and you don't feel valued as a person, because, also, it literally just shows up in an envelope without a single anything else, not even a shitty letter that's like, "Dear loyal friend," or whatever. It's literally just raw-dogged in an envelope. Like, it is awful.

I really need to read the one letter we got, though.

Oh, my god!

On the show one time.

And we need to tag that person and publicly shame them.

On how to not send a letter, but we'll do that a different time.

It's so bad. So, anyway, those are just the things like from snout to tail, like, that's your comprehensive way to be memorable and build your brand of, "I'm always here," because any real estate agent, you need to have that. So, anyway, for what it's worth.

Yeah, you need trust, and that's how you build trust and spread that idea amongst the community.

Do you trust me?

With everything of my being.

Why did you shake no, immediately?

I wanted to do something funny, but I'm like, "No, but it's I don't want to be funny." Also, my nose is stuffy. Every time I stay in a hotel, I get some sort of sick.

That's disgusting. That's why I keep you over there.

I know.

Keep your sick.

Yeah, my nose is stuffy-stuffy.

Okay, so should we go?

Yeah, we should go.

Okay, bye!

Bye!