Show Up. Stand Out. How to Turn Your Personal Brand Into a Client Attraction System

This is a bonus episode, and it is a little different from what you usually hear on Let's Make Waves.

What you are about to listen to is a keynote I delivered to a room full of real estate agents at Royal LePage, one of the largest real estate companies in Ontario, Canada. 

I decided to share this keynote here because the knowledge inside it belongs to anyone who is building a personal brand in a competitive market, not just real estate.

The core question I set out to answer in this keynote is one that applies to every founder, entrepreneur, and business owner listening to this podcast: why are so many people showing up consistently online and still not building a pipeline?

The answer is not about posting more. It is about the difference between being visible and being credible. And that difference is everything.

In this keynote, I walk through the TRUST Method framework, my proprietary approach to building a reputation that drives real business results, with a specific focus on two of the five elements that move the needle fastest: Understanding and Testimony.

Here is what you will hear in this episode:

• Why your expertise is not the problem, and what actually is. 
• The critical difference between visibility and credibility, and why confusing the two is costing you leads. 
• How to stop targeting a demographic and start speaking to an emotional context, because that is what makes content people actually share. 
• The three types of content that build trust faster than anything else for a service-based professional in a competitive market. 
• A real before-and-after case study showing the difference between a post that gets scrolled past and one that makes the right person stop and say: this is who I need to call. 
• How to collect and use client testimonials in a way that actually does trust-building work rather than just sitting on your Google page. 
• A three-action plan you can execute this week to start shifting from activity to positioning.

Whether you are in real estate, consulting, coaching, or any other competitive field where trust is the deciding factor, the principles in this keynote apply directly to your business.

This is what reputation strategy looks like in practice.

If we haven't met before, this is a quick intro: 

Rana Mouawad is a communications strategist and personal brand expert with 20+ years across agency, corporate, and entrepreneurship. She is the creator of the TRUST Method, host of the Let's Make Waves Podcast, and co-founder of InfluStudio. She works with founders, entrepreneurs, and senior leaders to build reputations that drive business growth.

If this episode was useful, share it with a founder or entrepreneur who is putting in the work on their personal brand but not seeing it convert. And please leave a review. It genuinely helps more people find the show.

------

RESOURCES:
- Subscribe to my Newsletter: https://ranamouawad.kit.com/signup
- Free Resources: https://www.ranamouawad.com/resources
- Work with Me: https://www.ranamouawad.com/workwithme
- Get in Touch!: https://www.ranamouawad.com/contact

KEEP IN TOUCH!
- Follow on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ranamouawad/
- Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rana.mouawad/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Thank you so much for your time. Today we're gonna talk about building a personal brand and building it using social media so that it becomes a client attraction machine. That's the whole purpose of why everybody uses social media when it comes to business. There's a very important and easy way of using it, and that all depends on our communication and our messaging. This particular topic is extremely dear to my heart because I first hand had great results when I used social media strategically when I was building my personal brand. So many years ago, one of the companies that I've created was a fashion label. So I had a client in mind, I was designing clothes for a particular woman, and I knew exactly how to reach her. But we have to be honest, in business, my client is not just the woman who's going to wear my designs. My client is actually the boutiques and the department stores that's going to hold my fashion label. This is because no matter what a great designer I was, no matter if I had the perfect uh pieces when it comes to dresses and to trousers, if it was not placed in the right location where people can go and pick it up, my sales will be very minimal. So when I did that, when I had a very clear audience in mind, automatically I knew how to communicate really well on social media because it was my machine, my engine, my media platform that can help me reach a client that was very clear in my mind. The first thing I did was write a list of my dream boutiques and department stores. I had that list on the wall, and everything that I worked when it comes to being present online was working towards that list. A year and a half later, I had a meeting with uh one of the biggest boutiques, and actually it's a global brand, and I had a meeting with the buyer. And the first thing she said to me was something that confirmed that social media can and is used when it comes to business owners, when it comes to service providers like you. It can and it will be used easily to attract the light clients. She said this beautiful statement to me. She said, Rena, I watched how your customers responded to your content on social media. I've been following you for a while and I saw and I saw your design story on uh online. I see what other retailers say about you. We actually meet now, she said. But I already know everything that I need to know about you, and I know for a fact that you are the right designer that we would like to carry in our boutique. You see, what happened in that meeting was that everything that was done in terms of communication and how I showed up online was building to my dream client. What happened in that meeting was that the trust was built was built way before that meeting. She already trusted me. She knew what my messaging was all about. She knew what kind of a designer I was, she knew my values, she knew which customers I serve, and she saw what other retailers who were carrying my brand, what other retailers said about me. So the trust was built way before that meeting point. The meeting point was basically to close the deal. This is exactly how media, uh, sorry, this is how business owners or social um um social media managers use when it comes to people and the service providers. This is how they use social media. You build a personal brand that actually is built on trust. So you're not showing up on social media because by the time someone meets you, they're impressed by you. No. You want to show up in social media in such a way that people already trust you even before meeting you in person. Now, just to clear it up, I want to properly introduce myself. I'm not a fashion designer who came here to talk about social media. I'm actually a communication strategist and a personal brand expert who has more than 20 years of experience in this field. One of the companies I created was a fashion brand. But I have a consultancy about personal brand and, of course, about social media and communication. I have worked with amazing companies all around the world. I've worked in places like Red Bull, where I was in charge of communication for the Middle East and Africa. I've worked also in Europe and here in North America through my consultancy. I have also created the trust method, which is a system of building your personal brand online and offline in such a way that you utilize trust, you create trust, so that it directly impacts your business or it directly impacts your pipeline. People start coming through your pipeline. And this is what we all want. We want leads all the time, no matter what the business is. In the end, it's a business. But my biggest thing that I'm very much proud of is the number of founders and business owners that I was very lucky to help for them to understand what is a personal brand and how do you strategically build it instead of just randomly posting and using social media in a very ineffective or inefficient way. So I want to put this off the gate and I want to be really clear. You guys are here because your expertise is not the problem. You have the expertise, you know everything about the real estate market, you know about negotiation, you know how to deal with clients, deal with their needs, make sure that they get exactly what they want. This is not the issue when it comes to social media, and most business owners don't have an expertise problem. They have a trust issue. What happens is that the clients who are your potential clients don't trust you yet on social media if social media is not filling up your pipeline. This is the situation. So I just want to make sure that it's not about expertise, it's about how do you showcase your expertise in such a way that is communicated in a format that builds trust on social media when it's not a one-on-one in-person communication. Because in person you're able to do that. How do we do it in a very, very uh competitive place like social media? So, until they trust you, the posts that you put out there, the effort that you put out there, they are invisible in terms of the sea of other content that is out there. So, the this is the gap that I hope the first mindset shift happens. I'm not gonna talk about what's the best posting time, or do you put reels versus carousels, or what do you put in your communication? Because irrelevant of what social media platform you use, irrelevant if there was an algorithm change which happens on in Meta and in YouTube all the time, we are living now at a state with AI. We are living at not a state of attention, we are living in a state of trust. People take buying decisions based on trust. So the difference when you're active on social media, there's a difference between being visible and being credible. Being visible, which is very important, but being visible is your perspective, is just that. Do I put a video versus a written post? Do I put a carousel versus something else? That is basically you're just utilizing visibility on social media. But visibility alone doesn't get clients through the pipeline. What we need here, the mindset shift, is to talk about credibility. Because credibility is built on trust. And when there's credibility, that means you're building a digital presence where you're actually building a reputation, an online reputation. When you have an online reputation, now we're going to talk about controlling the narrative. And what do I mean by controlling the narrative? That means people start seeing you the way you want them to see you. People start referring to you the way you want them to refer to you. They start remembering you the way you want to be remembered. That's controlling the narrative. That is a communication skill. And what's more important than that, you might have 10,000 followers, but a very, very, very thin, how can I say, pipeline in terms of leads. You can have a thousand followers, but a very smooth and a very effective pipeline. People still connect and contact you. This is what this is the gap that we are filling today. On social media, the first mindset shift, visibility will get you the attention, it will get you the eyeballs, but credibility is what's gonna get you hired. Okay, how are we gonna do that? And let's be honest, right? This is this is all about trying to, you know, best showcase our expertise. I'm sure now, if I just say, let's put a show of hands, how many people use social media today to talk about, you know, the listings or what's out there and you know, uh, what did the Bank of Canada announce? I'm sure everybody, or at least mostly, will put their hands up because this is the day and age we live in. We know that social media is our own media engine. So this is not where we want to be honest. We want to be honest in the sense is can you say, can you really be um can you really confirm that the kind of clients that you're getting come to you and say, Yes, I saw the post, and that's why I contacted you. I've been following you for quite some time, and you represent me and you you think of the things that I, you know, I always have questions about when it comes to buying a house or selling a house, or which area do I need to live in, or what's the best area for my family because I have kids. Can you say that consistently and every single time you show up on social media that this is happening? If there is a gap there, this is why we're here today, let's discuss it. Okay, so as I said, I've created the trust method. This is based on 20 plus years of being in communication. I've worked with multinational companies and I've worked with CEOs and executives. Trust is the reason why people take a buying decision. In the end, when we're talking about high-end products, we're not talking about something that you buy for $20 or even $100 or even a thousand. When we're talking about a high-ticket product, trust is a major factor. It's a human behavior. And people trust people who see them, who understands them, and who can get them what they want. It's kind of a selfish relationship, you know what I mean? So the elements of the trust method, which is one of my IP, is based on five principles. And these five principles, when you stack them on top of each other, you build the right type of trust where basically you attract qualified leads. Because not everybody is a lead. Qualified leads is what we're all looking for. So the trust method is based on five principles. There's the truth, which is basically who you are, your point of view, what do you stand for, the values. The relevance is how relevant are you when you're speaking to your audience? Are you speaking to their needs, to their wants, or are you speaking from what you think are their needs and their wants? Are you speaking to them because what you think they should know? There's a huge difference between these two when it comes to communication. Understanding is basically knowing your audience really well, where you stop talking to a category and you start talking to a context. This is the way in marketing communication we look at audience. Substance is that you're not only showing up consistently, which you are on social media, but you're actually knowing how to best articulate your message on social media where it becomes a signal of trust where people follow, people comment, people go in your DM and people contact. And testimony is basic, basically letting your clients become the voice, your voice, in building your reputation, especially your digital reputation. So the trust method is really big. We have a very limited time today. I'm gonna cover the main two that will help you basically get the ball rolling when it comes to social media. Sorry, social media today. Okay, so the first question that from my experience with um with people who work in the real estate market is who is really your client? Like, do you really understand your client? Most of the answers that I get from friends who are in real estate or from clients previously who I've worked with is that, yeah, you know, they give me a demographic, or they give me an age group, or they give me an income bracket. Usually, usually, this is the way that we look at our audience. The problem with this, this is that we're not really thinking about the buyer behavior. When we're talking to a category, we're talking to a huge, huge landscape of people who are extremely different from each other. A person can be uh interested in real estate at an age different from another, um, at a at an age different from another, at an income different from another. So knowing your audience really well, that means you're understanding that this person, knowing them so well, you understand that this person is making one of the most important decisions in their life. Knowing their fears, knowing their wants, knowing their desires, their dreams, their plans, their family status, their the dynamics, what is important for them and what is not important for them. When we answer that question, when we start knowing our clients very well, it will translate differently in the content that you put on social media. Just simply as there's a lot of data that proves it. When you talk to a category, because it's a huge landscape, it's a big demographic, or it's a big space of people in whatever category you want to look at them, the type of content that you will automatically put out there has to be broad because there's so many people in that category. So if your category is first-time home buyers, that's a lot of different people. It could be a young first-time home buyer, it could be a new immigrant first-time homebuyer, it could be someone from a third certain ethnicity or someone from a certain gender, it could be a certain income. It's big. So as a result, what's happening is that the content becomes very generic. This is when we see a lot of content, and I'm talking from my perspective as an expert who analyzes it on social media. Generic content is content that doesn't really talk to a particular person. It's anybody and everybody. And when you try to talk to everybody, you talk to no one because no one sees themselves in that content, so they scroll by. But when you start thinking about context, this is an example of context. People terrified that they are about to make the biggest financial decision of their life. That's just an example. You can choose the context that you want. When you start talking to a context, your content automatically becomes very specific. Because then you will know how do you communicate a certain piece of information that talks to these people. If you're sharing data, what data is really important for these people? What will make them be interested in following you when it comes to what's happening in the market landscape specific to these people? So do you see what happens with the content quality that is that is out there? It becomes very specific. And specific content is the content that stops the scrolling. This is the content because I mean, think about it. Put yourself in their shoes. We all use social media, we all do the domes, dome scrolling. Um when do you really stop the scrolling? It's based on your desire. If you want to be entertained, the videos that give you the entertainment is the videos that you stop on. If you want to be educated and you want to know something new, that's the videos that you will stop and you start consuming and maybe click on the creator of that video and start consuming more of their content. If you want something to do with a particular thing, I'm a mother, I'm looking for things to do with food for my kids. I will be following for the people who are talking about food for kids who are picky eaters. It's the more specific it is, the more you guarantee that your content will stop the scrolling. And this is what we want. So today, people don't even Google anymore. The numbers are very clear. They're even using AI. So imagine with all of this data that is out there, your problem is the sorry, the problem of the audience is that they don't want more information. What they want is on social media, their experience is that they are seen, is that they are understood, and that they are getting something out of the person who is giving me that piece of information on the feed. So when we pause now, I want you to think about, okay, so that we can put this in practice: context versus category. I want you to think about the last three clients that you had. Don't think about the property, don't tell me which houses they decided to live in or buy or sell or whatever. Think about the human. Think about the people. And think about your experience. And let's start asking the right questions. What were they thinking when they came to you? What were their priorities when they came to you? What was the process like? What was their fears? Which part of it? Was it the financial part? Was it the home? Was it the renovation part? What was it exactly? Specifics. The more specific, the better your content is. What did they desire? What was the dynamic of that of those clients? Do you usually have more or do you feel fulfilled that you deal more with families versus a couple? Do you deal like all of these questions? They're not questions just for question sake. These are the questions that when you get the answers to, this is your content brief. Every single one of questions like that that can help you get out of the category part and look at it from a contextual, nuance part, this is the type of content that you will create automatically that will have nuance that becomes attractive, and people start getting the right trust signals from you. This is not just another agent, this is not just another info dump. This is not just a regular, you know, pictures of a house that is so beautiful, but what is it to me? What do I learn? What do I need to look for when I am looking for a house? What do I need to know about the agent so that I can build that trust? This is how people who are consuming content who are interested and they are good leads, say, let's say for you, these are the type of questions they're asking. They already know what areas they want to live in, or at least a list of areas. They already know what kind of priorities they have, they already have their own priorities when it comes to their family or financial dynamics. But they want to maximize the result, and this is a signal that you give them through your content. So, from now on, I really hope I can help you with this mindset shift. When you're using social media, you are not using it for posting. Of course, you will post, but the purpose, the goal is not to put any post, it's not to put any piece of come, uh, any piece of content, any piece of information. Your purpose or the whole reason of using social media if you want it to be a good sales machine for you, is that you're gonna start positioning. And in marketing and in communication, positioning, this technical word means that how do you put yourself in a position where you are differentiating yourself from someone else who is doing the same job as you in a competitive market? That is positioning. How do you become different from someone else who's doing exactly what you do? Okay, so you become the differentiator in a competitive landscape. Every content has to come from that perspective. And now that we know what positioning is, how do we get there? How can I make sure that my content stands out and I position myself, not just like any agent, but I am the agent that. They can contact me that I will make sure that I will get them exactly what they want. I will get the right deal, I will do the right negotiations. How can I position myself as the expert that I am? You have to answer these three very specific questions. Who are your clients? We already talked about that. Importance of niching down. The second is what do I believe about real estate, about the market, about what's happening around that other people are not talking about? And the last thing is, what does working with me make it possible for the clients that I get? Why am I different? So we're gonna go into more detail of this, but specifically about the client, I want to just put it out there before I go any further. I know it feels counterintuitive. You know, you're like, oh my God, I'm a person who serves, I can help a family and I can help a single person get a house, for example. But again, it's if you're gonna look at it this way, you're not going to be presenting yourself as a person who is trustworthy in the sense that I understand you can serve everybody, but maybe you don't understand the situation that I am in, your potential customer that I am in, you might not understand it. You might not understand how I see things. This is the way that unfortunately, when you're not niching down, this is the way automatically the communication happens. But when you're a niche and I, you know, you're gonna think, okay, but if I serve a group of people, I'm just gonna get those people. Actually, no. When you serve a group of people, what happens is that your communication becomes more focused because you're looking at one customer. And when you start looking at one customer and your communication becomes focused on social media, it starts attracting other groups of people. So although you're talking to one group, other people will be attracted and you know, to come within your sphere, within your community on social media. This is this is actually something that a lot of data shows us over the years, whether it was from TV to now social media to later on with AI. This is how the so this is how the human behavior behavior happens. So today, from now on, we're not showing up to post, we're showing up to position. How can we make sure that the positioning happens really effectively? And how do we answer these questions? When you start showing up on social media, we're not looking at just posting for posting sake, but we're looking to position ourselves like this. As a social, as a real estate agent, showing up on social media means that the minute someone lands up on your profile, they immediately know who you are, who do you serve, what do you stand for, what is your point of view, and what differentiates you. If they land today, they land in a week, they land in a year, immediately they can know from your content these five important things. Who you are, who do you serve, what values do you embrace, what makes you different, and what exactly differentiates you from another agent that they can easily hire. So I want to give you more examples. I thought about three important things. I was looking around social media and I found a repetition in the type of content that a lot of agents, not only in Canada, all over the world, they usually put out. So I'm gonna show you three different types of content and how shifting it with positioning in mind looks like. The first type of content that builds trust, it gives the right trust signals, is your expertise made useful. As I said before, people use social media for selfish reasons. They either want to be entertained or they want to learn something new or they want to connect or you know, do something. There's always a selfish reason people use social media. How can you translate the expertise that you already have, the knowledge that you already have in such a way, communicated in a very specific way, where it adds value to your potential clients? Because people like when they're consuming information that they, when they think about it, it made a difference for them. It made them either feel something or it made them think of something that they were not thinking of, or it helps them in a decision. So, how can you translate your expertise in such a way that it is digestible, it's not an information dump, and it is something that is attractive for them, and they say, okay, I this this agent reads my mind. That's exactly what I was thinking. Let's put this to the test. So this is we want to differentiate between good and between exceptional, okay? So the good thing, it's factual, you know, something like, for example, the Bank of Canada held rates this month. It's important pieces of information, you know that. But for me, the potential client, why is it important for me? There's there are no trust signals there. But instead, if we communicate it in a in a different way, the Bank of Canada held rates. A lot of my clients are asking me if it's the right time to buy. Here's my honest answer. Wait a minute. I want to know what this agent is gonna talk about. What is really, is it a good time to buy? I want to sell my house. Is that a right time? Is that does that mean, does that give me a signal of me learning something new or me um um trusting that there is something good for me or maybe not good for me at this particular time uh in the market? What does this agent tell me? I want to know more. I want to know more about this agent, the trust signals. Another type of content is basically your opinion and point of view. And I know because also I have clients who think like that, having an opinion and a point of view on social media might feel risky. I know that. But the mindset shift that I want you to think about today is that having an opinion doesn't mean it has to be controversial. You don't have to ruffle some feathers so that you can talk about what you really think. You don't need to say something that could be offensive so that you can share your point of view. Having an opinion means what kind of content put in a certain way communicated where it shows your personality. It shows your point of view, it shows the way that you think. Because these are differentiated that another person who's doing the same job as you don't have. They're not you. You are uniquely you. So when you share your opinion, when you share a point of view, when you share a perspective from the way that you see it, it gives a trust signal that this is not an agent who is just, it becomes like a service of a commodity. It's very anybody and anybody can do it, but it's a person that has a point of view that maybe I agree with, or maybe they tell me something that I was not aware of, and I want to get to know them more. That's the trust signal in terms of sharing your point of view. Let's put that to the test. So this is again good and exceptional content. The listings have increased in GTA by 5% year on year. This is good news, but why is it good news? Or is it good news? I'm not really sure. As a person who's looking at it, who's in the market, I this kind of this kind of signal doesn't give me anything. But if the same information is then shared with, not everyone in the market, not everything in the market is worth your investment. This is what I think you should you should look at when it comes to investing in this market because it has increased in the GTA 5% year on year. And even when you're sharing it, you don't need to be controversial, but your point of view will tell me, do I really need to look at condos or is it better do I go for, you know, a townhouse because that's a better investment for me. Do I look at this city versus that, this neighborhood versus that? Do I think about going outside the city because of the schools? Because you shared that information with me. That kind of content and that point of view will showcase not only that you're good and in translating and giving information, but that your opinion is adding value to me, giving me the trust signals that I need. And uh the final type of content thing that you can think about is your client stories. And this, I think, is like a something that is um, how can I say, people like people in the real estate, they don't use it enough. They're not utilizing it enough. It's like a gold mine. Usually, what I saw from my research is a picture of a beautiful house, maybe with a sold sign that said, Congratulations to my clients on buying their new house. And it's great, but your clients have more than that to help you. Their stories have more than that to help you build your positioning and your personal brand on social media. These stories matter because we know from research that storytelling is much more effective than information sharing. One piece of story has more trust signals than 10 regular generic listings, you know? This is what the research research shows. People trust people who can make a difference in other people's life. People trust people who help other people reach a certain goal because of this human element. So let me give you a case study about how what is what is a client story and how can I do it without mentioning, of course, for privacy my client's name or status or anything of that. You can do it. So I'm gonna give you a case study of two listings. They're extremely similar, they're in the same neighborhoods, but how was it shared by two different agents? And I'm gonna show you how client stories play a role in that. And how does it help building the reputation of the agent who is sharing that? Okay, now we've changed names for privacy reasons, but the example still stands. The first listing is just sold a stunning three bed semi-detached in East York, hardwood floors, updated kitchen, steps from the subway. DM me if you need an agent. We see that a lot, and it's it's a good piece of information. I'm not saying anything. We're looking for exceptional. Now, when you read this, if you were someone who's in the market, if you were the potential client, what do you know about the agent? Nothing, exactly. And the problem with with that is that you can know everything about the the property, but nothing about the agent. When you don't know anything about the agent, anybody would have posted this. Any agent in the GTA would have posted this. It does not differentiate you. But I want you to meet Nadia. Okay, we've changed her name, but Nadia is interesting. On her social media platform on Instagram, she says that she's specializing and she specializes in helping young families make their first move uh out of a condo. And she wrote for a very similar property. We had a budget of 850K, and everyone told us East York was out of reach. They were wrong. Here's what we found. What we negotiated, and my clients were over the moon when they got the keys. This is exactly why I love this neighborhood and why I think it is one of the most underestimated pockets in the city for young families right now. Now, when you're looking at this, what do you know about Nadia? You don't just know what she does, you know that she's not just an agent. She's an amazing agent. Oh my god, the negotiations, she's so skilled. You also know from this post, which is a client story, is that she will go out of her way to get what her clients want. She's a fighter. So that's a value that she has. This is part of her value, value system. And also, what do we know about Nadia over here is that she shared with us her point of view. There's a pocket in the city that maybe not a lot of people are looking at it, but its potential is great. Now, her target audience, if we want to put it that way, when she puts it on social media, is young people who want to make their first move on condo. But even if I am not a person who's within that target group, if I'm actually selling a house, I want to call Nadia because maybe all of her, you know, the people who are following her on social media are people who want to move out of a condo. I'm in a different category. So do you see how good piece of content can help you attract other types of clients, even though it is niche down? So don't be afraid to be really specific on how who is your target audience. Because when you're specific, this is the type of content that you're able because you know who you're talking to. So the content automatically becomes nuanced and it becomes very much uh put in a way that signals trust. This is what we want to do with communication. So, what can you do today? I'm not gonna give you like 90 days, do all of this. Let's be practical. What can you do this week and every week that can help you, you know, get on the rhythm of trying to communicate like the expert that you are, and trying to communicate and signal all the trust signals that you you really have in terms of expertise and experience? The first thing I want you to do is just open social media and look at the last five posts that you've done and look at them from an eye of a critique, okay? If you think that any one of those posts can be written by anybody else other than you, that's your starting point. How can you repost that, that piece, in such a way that it gives you one of the signals or examples that I just gave you? Because the stories are there. You guys have the stories, you guys have the opinions, you guys know who you really want to serve. So, how can you show it through your communication online on social media so that you can build the trust factor? The second thing that you can do is think about a real experience and think about your point of view today. What is happening in the market that you think that your ideal client needs to know? What is your opinion about something that is happening right now that your potential client, if they know, will give them the right signal about you? Think about it. And this is something that you can do once a week on social media and it will get the ball rolling. And another thing that you can do on a weekly basis is how can you turn one client story into a three-sentence post with a nice picture that talks to the human part of that story? Because people connect with people and they connect based on the human. Okay, so I want you to think of it this way building a reputation that opens doors before you even knock them means that you still it starts the minute someone lands on your social media profile, and all the data actually gives to this the sales conversation, it starts the minute someone actually finds you online, even before they meet you. Anybody in business, any type of business, when it comes to social media, the sales conversation starts the minute someone discovers you on social media. What does that mean? It means that every post, every opinion, every story, anything that you put on your page, on social media, on whatever social media platform, be it YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, X, Twitter, LinkedIn, whatever it is, would have two different two signals. There's no third and there's no nothing in between. Either your content will signal that, you know, you're building the case when people consume your content that you are someone that they should trust and they should follow, engage, contact, or it will give them no reason to connect with you and they'll keep on scrolling. This is the sales conversation. Even before people meet you in person, it starts on social media. People decide when they're when they're in the intent of having a purchase decision, no matter how small or big. Their intention starts way before connecting with someone who can help them with that intention. And where do people start that? They started on the internet, they start it now on social media, and they start by searching on AI and on Google. And you have to show up in those search, and it comes up when people engage with your content. What when do they engage? When it actually has context and it's nuanced in such a way that they feel seen, understood, and you know, they feel like they're being heard. So the second thing from my trust uh method that I want to talk to you is about testimonials. Now, testimonials, unfortunately, and it's not only in the real estate market thing, usually testimonials are so not utilized in such a way. People take it as a trophy. They might share a Google review one time, and then that trophy goes on a shelf and then nobody looks at it again, which is such a shame because testimonials are basically your clients, your customers giving trust signals about you based on a positive experience with you. Okay, so testimonials are really good. However, not all testimonials are created equal. So, how can we get really good, really good testimonials? Now, in the science of brand and personal brand and the science of building a reputation, there are three things that you need to put in mind when you're collecting a testimonial to make it exceptional. Number one, it's the moment that you collect it. And usually you get great testimonials at the highest level of emotion, and that is on the day of the closing when it comes to your industry. That time, it's the highest level of emotion. The client is extremely happy, the adrenaline rush automatically the way they're going to share their testimonial is completely different than the next day or a week later. Sorry. The second thing is asking them the right questions. Usually, when people ask for a testimonial, they say, Can you please give me a Google review, for example? But because you are a service provider, you're dealing with people, you need to ask them the right question. And the right question is not, are you happy you got the house? Of course they are. But it's how did they feel when they first met you and how did you get them to the point that they are right now, where they're in their dream home, or they got they got to sell their home for the price that they want, for example. So asking the qu the right question is really important because that's when you start pulling out nuanced information from them that you've experienced firsthand, but it's in their words, because you want to use it in their words. And the last thing is, and I think this is something that you will really benefit from. In addition, if you use Google Reviews or any other way of collecting your reviews, please create a questionnaire. And it's really short, five questions will be more than enough. And with the right questions, you will be able to take out tons of stories from the same client through testimonial. One good testimonial has much more trust signal than content that you talk about yourself. Because people see the transformation, the experience of someone else when they worked with you. So it's really different. Now, how do we know it's a good social proof versus an exceptional social proof? There's um there's this review, Great Agent, highly recommend. And this is a this is a nice review. It came from a good place. It's warm. The person obviously is happy, the person got what they want. It's a good review. But when you put it in a questionnaire format and you take out raw experience at the right time using the right questions, you can get something like this. I was convinced we could not afford anything decent in this market. She found us a home we love, under budget, in the neighborhood we wanted. I will send everyone I know her way. I mean, that line alone, that's the best trigger for someone else to contact that agent. The difference between this type of testimonial and that is that this is story driven, and what's more important, it's transformation. They were in point A, there are bumps on the way, but they arrived to point B thanks to the person who helped them. So, I want to bring it back from my story. What we're doing today is that we're changing a mindset of how we look at social media. We're changing our mindset of how do we show up on social media. You're not building a following. A following is a byproduct. When you start sharing who you are, when you start, when you start putting out content with context, when you start sharing information that people want to save, and a wife wants to share it with her husband at 11 a.m. while she's like binge scrolling, you are you are gonna get the followers. Followers is usually a byproduct when it comes to people in business. You are building a reputation. People who are on social media who are just focusing on following, these are social media influencers, their business model is very different from you. They want to work with brands who give them a budget and then, you know, and they put ads in terms of content on it. Your presence on social media is because you're a so you're a you're a service provider. You are pe you are helping someone make one of the most important decisions in their life, buying or selling or moving from one city to another. It is a big deal. You're building your reputation on social media, you're not showing up just for showing up's case. What I really hope that today I was able to make you think about five key things when it comes to how do we show up in such a way that we stand out on social media from a communication point of view. Okay, it's all about communication, it's a skill. That is, number one, really knowing who your audience is. What do they really want? What do they really feel? What are their priorities? What what are they looking for? What are their dreams, their desires, their fears, everything, everything about that audience. The second thing is that you already have a point of view that you share with a colleague or even with a client over coffee. You already do that. You need to start putting it up online because that's a very important trust signals, trust signal that showcases who you are, your personality, your perspective, your way of thinking, which is basically differentiating you from someone else who's doing exactly the same job in a very competitive market. The other thing is that you know how to make your content speak to the right person at the right moment. You receive a lot of data every single day. Something from the Bank of Canada, something about the market, something about a new rule or a regulation when it comes to taxations or a new project, you receive that information. You know what it means. You know if it's good news or bad news, you know which bits and pieces of it to take it, that will make it useful for someone else so that you can put yourself as a differentiator from just another agent. And also, you know from what I've showed is that how do you let your client voices really become part of your reputation-building machine on social media? Because I can tell you this for a fact people who succeed on social media as a business or a service provider or a founder, they succeed because they understand that this is a reputation system. It's not luck. It's not luck. There's science and communication, there's there's signals in communication, it's a strategy and it's a communication skill. And it's just about really narrowing things, a lot of things, just narrowing it down and putting it into the right perspective with the right focus. So, what I can also do today is that I'm gonna leave this here. There's this slide and one last slide, okay? The last slide is actually after this is a request from me to you. But I'm gonna leave this here. This is a digital um Kickstarter guide. There's more than 250 people who downloaded this, it's on my website. But this is a guide of how do you build your personal brand by using social media. It's a very easy guide. You print it out, it's digital, you can do it on the on the computer, and it asks you a bunch of questions, your answers by answering them. It will help you identify how do you niche down, what is your mission, what do you want to be known for, how can you share your point of view, what type of content you need to create, which platform to choose. Is it Instagram, is it Twitter, is it TikTok, whatever. What is the best platform where you can reach your audience and you are confident that you can be consistent on and the type of content that you can do? You're more than welcome to download it. And this is, as I said, the after this is a request from me to you. But if there are any questions, I'm happy to answer them. And thank you so much for your time.

unknown 49:27

Thank you. Thank you so much.