The Future of Real Estate Episode 1: Why a Strong Personal Brand is Essential in Real Estate

Edward Hutchinson is a new real estate agent on a mission to make it in the world's most competitive real estate market: Los Angeles. PropertySimple is a company that builds powerful branding and marketing tools for real estate agents. Two years ago, we decided to team up for the ultimate challenge: use social media to help Ed make it to the top. Today we're re-launching the series to show you exactly how he did it. Check out Episode 1 above 👆

Why We Chose to Work with Ed

Edward Hutchinson is exactly what the next generation of social media savvy real estate agents looks like:

• Has a strong personal identity in real life.
• Understands social media and can produce quality content.
• Has a goal, Ed's is to sell $30 million before the end of the year.

That’s why we decided to work with Ed on our biggest project yet: the first-ever real estate reality TV show. We followed Ed for the first 12 weeks of his career trying to break through the competitive real estate market in LA.

By the beginning of Episode 1, here is what we had done:

• Hooked Ed up with a pre-release version of our software.
• Produced a show about ED using his social media content.
• Started a hyper-targeted ad campaign in LA to show the video series to people close to where he works.

To recap, here’s the goal:

Ed's goal is simple, sell $30 million in real estate.

Our goal is to measure how fast we can establish his personal brand in LA and measure the results in $$.

We decided to keep the format of the episodes super simple:

Showcase Ed's unique lifestyle, the properties in his area, his real estate knowledge, and the work he puts in to help his clients.

In essence, the thing real estate agents should be doing online every single day.

Key Takeaways for Real Estate Agents from Episode 1

In Episode 1, Ed sets the stage for two of the most important themes in the series that have ultimately made him one of the top agents in his area:

1. A strong personal brand 

Whether you’re just starting out in real estate, or have been in the industry for 40 years, it’s essential to have a strong personal brand. Your personal brand is what defines you and everything you do, and what makes you stand out from your competition.

In Episode 1, Ed had just moved from London to LA, and faced the formidable challenge of breaking through in the crowded LA market. 

He starts off strong by introducing himself to his market, and we think he does a pretty stellar job of showcasing what makes him unique: he’s from London but loves the LA lifestyle, always wears a suit (even in the hot LA summers), and makes an effort to always to start his day with a morning surf session.

 Two years later, Ed's personal brand still revolves around these central themes and has helped him feel more relatable, and build trust with his audience.

2. Impressive Video Content that Captures Your Audience's Attention

It sounds pretty basic, but it's true: people love looking at videos of houses. So much so that HGTV has eclipsed viewership (than news channels)!! Sharing videos of houses that you are already touring on your Instagram Stories or IGTV is one of the best (and easiest) ways to showcase your expertise and increase your following.

In episode 1, Ed introduces his trademark series: LA Mansion Tours (spoiler alert: these have been so successful for him that he’s still getting business from them today!). 

“We realized, this is kind of incredible, that we can literally take this thing that we are seeing, that the rest of the world doesn’t necessarily get the opportunity to see, and we can broadcast it as if it were our own TV station, helping us build our business, build our brand, build our name, generate new business, generate new clients, and it’s done incredibly well for us.” - Ed Hutchinson

If you’re a new real estate agent, open house tours can be a powerful way to generate new content and expand your audience. 

Ed’s Pro Tip: capture as much as you can on your iPhone, as much as you can just at the end of each day, organize it, open house content, meeting people content, door knocking content, whatever it is, just put it into different folders to keep it organized.

Even if you don’t upload all of it that same day, this gives you a huge bank of content to use in the future.

Stay tuned for episode 2, where we'll get a complete look at how Ed takes advantage of LA mansion tours to build his brand and his business!