Attention Real Estate Agents: What’s Your Unique Selling Proposition and How Does it Separate You From Competitors?

The following is adapted from The Ultimate Real Estate Machine. 

In real estate, the highest income-producing activity a leader can undertake is developing an overarching strategy and ensuring that strategy is executed. But do you know what’s second on that list behind strategy? That’s right: marketing, the goal of which is to acquire a predictable, steady stream of new clients and retain your existing clients for lifetime. 

I don’t need to tell you how important it is to make the most of your marketing opportunities. After all, being effective with your marketing is a surefire way to make your business more profitable. And in real estate especially, it’s not the best agent who wins; it is the best marketer who wins. Customers aren’t going to engage with you if they don’t know you exist. 

One of the keys to evolving into the best marketer possible is developing your unique selling proposition, or USP. This is the distinctive advantage that will make you stand out amongst the endless sea of competing agents in your market. Your entire marketing strategy should be built with your USP. Before you can deploy your USP across every touch point within your organization, you need to develop it and share it with your team. Here’s how. 

How to Utilize a Unique Selling Proposition (USP) 

Have you ever passed a real estate agent’s billboard, and nothing stands out other than the agent’s name, photo, and phone number? Other than their slogan, “I can help you buy or sell a home in the X area,” nothing is memorable. A great USP allows your prospective clients to understand differences—what makes you stand out in a sea of real estate agents. 

When you are marketing yourself as a premier real estate agent, you have to show your prospective clients what you’re all about. A USP is that denominator. It establishes who you are, what you are, why you are, and your unique value or benefit. 

Are you specialized in buying and selling land? Tell people about it. Do you have the most properties sold in a given area, making you an expert in that neighborhood? Share it. Do you work primarily with VA loans and have a deep understanding of veterans? Let them know.

Don’t limit yourself to just one market either. Be as unique and specific as you can to attract the widest range of clients. Address different markets and have different unique selling propositions that you can test among your varied clientele. 

Like a marketing jingle, when the consumer hears your USP frequently, it can become embedded in their minds. So when they do look to sell or buy a home, or know someone who is, you’re the person they’re going to call or refer—every single time. 

Beat Your Competitors to the Punch 

When you have that USP—the unique advantage that makes you stand out from the other agents in your area—you must integrate it into everything that you do, from your marketing all the way through the process of buying or selling a home. Make sure that your agents and ISAs not only understand it but also believe it in the depths of their hearts. 

Another way to utilize your USP in your marketing is by being first to market with concepts. When shutdowns from the COVID-19 pandemic started, I knew that we had to figure something out and figure it out quickly to beat our competition to the punch. 

Within days, I designed the “Supercharged Virtual Listing System,” which allowed us to optimize showings virtually while buyers were able to sit on their couches and view homes in their entirety. There were others that started with very generic marketing of what they were doing for sellers. But after launching the marketing to the masses and differentiating what we were doing, it showed how quickly we could pivot and reestablish how innovative we are. 

It was Preemptive Marketing, being that we were the first to market with a specific program to solve the problem. The problem during the shutdown was that we didn’t know what would happen long term or how long it would last. You must have and be the solutions to the consumer’s problems. 

Integrate Your USP Into Everything 

With a USP, it’s important not to over-promise and under-deliver. That’s why your USP needs to be measurable, demonstrable, comparable, and quantifiable. If it’s vague or difficult to deliver on, you’ll rob the USP of its power. But when you can articulate and deliver on your USP, your chances of longevity improve considerably. Without one, you’re way behind the 8-ball. 

If you have a team, it’s up to you as the leader to drive home the vision, the importance, and the

message of the USP. Implement it into everything that you do: every marketing strategy you employ, every advertisement you share, and every touchpoint with a customer. Drive it home in every way possible and seize opportunities to be the first out the gate with your message. 

You will be blown away by the impact and the positioning that it will give you over every other agent in your market—you’ll be a shining light rather than a faceless billboard. 

For more advice on honing your USP, you can find The Ultimate Real Estate Machine on Amazon. 

Jason Williford is a serial entrepreneur, author, speaker, inventor, and consultant for high-producing real estate agents. He is a master in business strategy, strategic marketing, innovation, differentiation, agent production, selling systems, and referral generating systems, as well as training, recruiting, and mentoring real estate agents and inside sales agents. After years in the trenches of real estate, he set himself and his team apart with strategies and techniques that were learned in other industries and applied to real estate. His unique talents and knowledge fill industry voids for high-performing real estate agents and team leaders.