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Now, if it was Seth Goden you may want to consider it...
On the other hand, I would feel uncomfortable using my name for a company, Sattelberger Realty. Most people spell it wrong when they hear it and it doesn't roll off the tongue easily.
By any other name would smell as sweet." I think the Thompson rose is smelling pretty sweet right now, thank you very much Mr. Hallway Advice. Wonder what his brand name is...
And I love my name and my branding. Take it or leave it.
It's been proven numerous times that anything could be branded - some nonsense words being added to our daily vocabulary as verbs, as we speak, which only a few years ago they didn't mean squat. If being asked, I always tell people that there should be a sense, a point, an idea and goal behind your brand. What are you trying to achieve, and what will it mean to you and to your clients. What expectations will people have from this brand. There is a lot of questions to ask, and depending on their answers you will see what your brand should resonate with, what kind of message it should deliver - whether it will resonate with you, your team, company's spirit or idea etc. Some people's qualities/character/personality may just fit the brand - they are the brand. Others, may be going after an idea or special quality and they want the brand to reflect that.
The problem that I see the most with brands named after their owners is that people don't give their brand a thought. They do it mechanically like putting a stamp on an envelope. If qualities of services do not make your name a "brand", and the brand name by itself doesn't carry a meaning - there is nothing else to contribute to it. That's why, I think, there is a perception in marketing circles of brand names like this as a weak strategy.
While many of the big box agencies are struggling to define their Brand both to the consumer and the customer (agents) social media is changing the game. Years of building up the Brand via traditional push marketing can be destroyed overnight by a few using social media streams to bring to light the true behavior of the Brand. Agents are questioning what value the Brand is offering them?
I think the little brokerage has a much better chance at building a consistent Brand, but as the brokerage grows full of "independent contractors" with conflicting ideals of brand, the message is fractured and lost. Most experienced agents don't spend much time talking Company Brand.
Brand matters, but the point is what is behind the Brand should match the message. Hiding behind a false message is very dangerous when someone or something shines the light of day on it. As you said rightly said, it is who is behind the Brand that really matters.
Dell, Johnson and Johnson, Proctor and Gamble, Walmart, and the list goes on and on. What about Keller Williams, RE/MAX (shortened for two or three words), etc. They have strong brands because of branding as they moved forward.
Having worked for tech companies and a startup too, branding can play an even more crucial role as you develop what you started rather than it being as critical as you start. I once saw a high-powered marketing executive blow a whole lot of money on 'branding' to no avail.
Thompson's Realty could be big regardless of the person in the hallway and become a more recognizable brand through hard work and growth, not because of an expensive marketing budget.
Hope your feet are feeling better. Remember, these days, what happens in Vegas, goes on YouTube.
I don't buy in that the name of a brand has anything to do with the success (or lack thereof) of a company. Focus on being honest, ethical and do what's right for the client. That's what makes a winning brand ... if not, that's when you suck.
TF
-Tyler
I work for a CB franchise but cannot say they are really a brand. What does CB stand for ? I know they are working on it but cannot say they stand for all that much in the consumers eyes other than they may have popularity, exposure. But a brand means you stand for something, a consistent experience.
I do think a name, like Thompson's Realty, can mean something to people over time, and thus become a brand name. It takes time of doing what you described and working with clients. But it does come. We just recently changed our franchise brokerage name for that very reason. People knew who we where as a group within the franchise brokerage more than the brokerage itself because we've been around a while and had a good reputation of getting stuff done.
I also disagree that you would have to sell to someone named Thompson. As you pointed out, what your company stands for has nothing to do with the name Thompson, but rather, a way of doing business. You can sell that business, once it is established, all day long.
Great post, thanks for the insight.
You could have told the guy that New York Machinery, LLC was a catchy name. And, who can forget Countrywide, Enron, Go.com, Pets.com, or, Home State Savings Bank? Of course, a life time of good hard work can be shot to shit - ask Arthur Andersen. May it never befall Thompson. Good Luck.
So you're saying there's a chance... I'll take the idea to Shark Tank. here's the pitch: "responsible and caring real estate brokerage". They'll love it
Jay you are part right here in your definition and I realize that a blog, one blog, can only dispense a modicum amount of instruction or commentary on a subject that takes years to learn and a lifetime to master.
But I may, with your permission; I'd like to offer your readership the closest set of instructions on brand building that I can, amassed from 4 years of collegiate instruction and 30 years of practical use in the world. It would be as follows:
1. Assign yourself a set of honest and pure core values
2. Define them for yourself, for every single individual who bears your name and receives a paycheck and glue them to every action you take.
3. Hold every single decision you make from this day forward against those values. This includes everything from your slogan to quality of your website, to how you deal with clients before, during and long after you service them to the very conferences and panels you decide to speak on because brand placement (the company a brand keeps) and the perception of the brand by association is equally as critical to building brand as anything else.
4. Be militant. The decision to do anything has nothing to do with your likes or dislikes or even that of anyone who works for you. Everything you do is decided by how it will ultimately present your brand to the world.
5. Repeat these things each and every day like clockwork.
Great brands are not defined by their names as Jay pointed out. They are defined by the promises they make that they fulfill. This is where real estate falls flat on their face. The agents who promises to "deliver dreams" will never be a brand no matter what their name is because deliver dreams is essentially vacuous and impossible. So is calling yourself #1, the best, the leader and all the other nonsensical tag lines born from the stupid brand engine of real estate.
Forget tag lines. Forget calling yourself anything. Just be who you really are. A person. With a name. A do that in which you promised yourself you would do every single day come hell or high water. If that is what Thompson Realty does, then Jay, you are becoming a brand.
When will you be a brand? The day you no longer have to sell your services. The day you no longer have to advertise yourself to get clients. Brands sell themselves. They require no listing presentation, no scrutiny, no "send me your references", etc. People don't require that of Heinz. Porsche. Channel. YouTube. Twitter.
If I have overstepped my boundaries, I'm sorry. I had no choice. My brand charter requires me to do everything possible to offer real estate folks the most accurate, unbiased information whenever possible, whether they are customers of my firm or not.
Seems it was just an opportunity to use the interaction as a segue into self-promotion to the buyers and sellers out there.
Let us know if there's anything that can be shared about the conference that can be utilized. As consumers/realtors know, service is obviously key, but I'm sure there were some things shared at the conference that are also beneficial and not so obvious.
Sorry you got nothing from this post and felt it was ranting and self-promotional -- neither was my intent.
I think your estimate that this doesn't apply to 90 - 98% of the readers of this article is way off. A significant proportion of this blog's readers are other real estate professionals and branding certainly applies to them. Some other (unknown) percentage of the remaining readership are almost certainly small business owners and branding clearly applies to them as well.
I'm not a good enough writer to write something that applies to everyone, though to be honest I'm not sure it's possible for anyone to write an article that everyone will find useful.
I thought the discussion in the hall was valuable. I find talking to anyone who has a different insight and opinion valuable. They tend to make me think. Thinking tends to lead to learning. All I was trying to do was share my own thoughts on branding. It's a complex subject and as Marc D mentions in his comment can take years to learn and a lifetime to master. Believe me, I am nowhere close to mastering the subject of branding.
Yes, there was more, much more at the conference that I found valuable. There are already dozens of posts across the internet and thousands of Tweets sharing thoughts and observations from the conference. You are welcome to see if any of them apply to you or if you find they deliver virtue. I may, or may not write more about it. But if I do, I can assure you that nothing I write could possibly apply to every reader here and there will most certainly be some (or many) that get nothing from it.
But maybe a few will.
Just Google "Seth Godin The New Rules of Naming" to read it from the master himself.
In a related story about 6 months ago a new agent was talking to someone who had called in on one of our ads. The lady asked what "IET" stood for and the new agent didn't know. The new agent said he didn't know exactly but that it was "something the owner came up with". The client got concerned that the agent didn't know what the initials of the company he worked with stood for and decided not to do business with us that day. I told the new agent that he needed to focus more on communicating the core value of our company and that to explain to clients in the future that providing high levels of service is what IET stands for. The name of a company has little to do with what a company actually stands for, what a company actually stands for is so much more than just a name.
JZ -http://reitvshow.com
Extra funny that you don't remember his name.