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/RealEstate is a bi-weekly podcast where we chat with agents and experts in the real estate space to find out what strategies are working for them, what tools are powering their business, and how they are maneuvering shifts in the industry. Join host and marketing aficionado Chris Whitling as he uncovers the tips, tricks, and tech ambitious agents can use to take their businesses to the next level.
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:20:09
Unknown
Well what's your what's your plan? What's your market research. And he's like market research. If you build it they will come right. It's like your market research is feel the dreams and it's yeah speaks to this exact point. Right. But I do think there's some exceptions there for sure I think really what what that what that impinges on is this broader concept of, of market orientation.
00:00:20:13 - 00:00:47:07
Unknown
Right. So so typically what happens is you know, your brand, your company and, and part of the development of, of your growth into a company with a unique brand that a new product is you're identifying unmet needs in the marketplace. You're understanding those needs or understanding unique customer preferences. You are collecting that data from your market. You're assimilated and back into your brand, and then you are delivering that back to consumer, right?
00:00:47:07 - 00:01:00:18
Unknown
You are being market driven.
00:01:00:20 - 00:01:26:11
Unknown
I want to switch gears here a little bit because, you know, another thing that marketers talk a lot about is differentiation, right. And I'm curious to get your take on like differentiation versus branding. Like clearly these things are important, like maybe the brand is part of the way to communicate the differentiation. You know, and back at the thousand Watt conference, there was a lot of talk of like, well, if we're all running the same playbook, then maybe we're not the same, you know?
00:01:26:11 - 00:01:43:10
Unknown
And then there's also all these stats in the real estate market right now. They're like, well, there's more real estate agents right now than there are home sales, you know, for sale. All right. So, you know, if you if you're, you know, go go marketing back out again, you're like, well, you better be telling a pretty clear story on like who you are, what you do.
00:01:43:12 - 00:01:59:17
Unknown
You know, so you're not just like, I'm like that guy, right? Because that's not. It doesn't seem like a business winning standpoint. So anyway, I'm hoping you can give me like some, some guides here on like, how people should think about these concepts so that the best way to think about it is, is differentiation is is absolutely important.
00:01:59:17 - 00:02:21:20
Unknown
Right. If we're going back to one of a core kind of three goals of of the brand, it's to identify the offerings in the marketplace, to add unique value above and beyond the product, and to differentiate yourself from similar competitors. Right. So why go with with one real estate company versus another? There's going to be some some kind of brass tacks that that may differentiate.
00:02:21:20 - 00:02:50:03
Unknown
But there's also kind of a general feel and there's you know, a brand level explanation for why 1st May, may go to another. And so differentiation is important, number one. But number two, that differentiation has to be meaningful. And who defines what meaningful differentiation is. It's not you as, as the company. It's ultimately your customers your future customers, your target market.
00:02:50:03 - 00:03:10:08
Unknown
Right. So I think a lot of people think differentiation and they just want to be like difference from, let's say, visual salience, right? It's you say, well, there's all these other real estate people and they all have, you know, black and gray and, you know, blue, you know, web, web layouts. And we're the pink one, right?
00:03:10:08 - 00:03:33:11
Unknown
We're the pink one. And it's like, okay, that, you know, you're not wrong. You're not wrong. That is different. Right? That is a difference. Is that a meaningful difference possible. Right. Maybe that there is something certainly to to visual salience and attention and memorability associated with, kind of distinct colors and sort of high contrast colors. So it could be meaningful.
00:03:33:13 - 00:03:54:11
Unknown
But chances are that's not the kind of differentiation that that really allows you to build brand equity over time. Number one, because there's nothing proprietary or, you know, that you can own or build a moat around. So if you know, if pink web pages become something that customers seem to gravitate towards, guess what? Your competitors and switch to pink just as well.
00:03:54:16 - 00:04:17:14
Unknown
And then if everyone is pink, pink becomes the norm. And then that the one person with a gray scale, you know, web page, they become the cool, interesting, renegade people that attracts all the attention. So number one, that there's nothing kind of inherently differentiating about it. And then you can build a moat around, but number two, it's not something that, is going to be, kind of enduring and meaningful over time.
00:04:17:14 - 00:04:39:19
Unknown
It doesn't touch upon a lot of what we discussed earlier in terms of kind of tapping into this deeper and deeper emotional reservoir that if you think about what a consumer may associate with a brand, it certainly is these semantic elements. We spoke about this earlier, but ultimately, what difference the brand is, is how it enables the consumer to feel what it invokes in the consumer and the visual saliency stuff.
00:04:39:19 - 00:05:01:06
Unknown
It can be a nice, expression of, of this deeper emotional reservoir. If we go from kind of core brand to the, the external ways in which that is, is codified in the brand architecture, certainly. But it isn't meaningful differentiation typically in and of itself, I guess business people always like to take us back to comparison, comparing these things to relationships.
00:05:01:08 - 00:05:21:02
Unknown
You know, and so it almost reminds me of like, the difference between attraction versus a long term, like emotional connection. Yeah, I think that's a good way to think about it. Yeah. That like, yeah, you may, you know, you're walking down the streets and you know, you see somebody and, you know, funky green pants and like, absolutely.
00:05:21:02 - 00:05:35:02
Unknown
You're going to go your eyes are going to drift over there. But you know, on on further inspection, are they somebody that you would want to have a conversation with. Are they somebody you want to invite over to your table to, to have a drink with? Are they someone who you'd be friends with. That's that's you know, totally different.
00:05:35:02 - 00:05:53:16
Unknown
And it may not be you know, there may be ways in which those two things are, you know, mutually supportive. If, you know, you go to a concert and your goal is to, to meet people or to make friends, like having something unique about you that's visual gets the conversation started. But if you want to go beyond that, that's where you need that kind of that meaningful differentiation.
00:05:53:16 - 00:06:12:13
Unknown
And you need something deeper than than just the visuals and just the esthetics. Right, exactly. We could again, do a whole other thing on, you know, fashion being, you know, signaling mechanisms, you know, to other humans and working similar to branding and, and operating on this like who you want to attract, type thing, but, you know, stay focused.
00:06:12:15 - 00:06:35:01
Unknown
So one thing I've been curious, you know, about and I think is going to get asked is, you know, we have we have agents that have been around forever, you know, that I think could and I want to give them a guide to, you know, doing the drill down exercise on, like, how they get to sort of the deep emotional connections that, that are going to like, really make their messaging resonate.
00:06:35:03 - 00:07:07:21
Unknown
But there's probably like a chicken and the egg question that a lot of people are asking right now, which is like, so do I have to do all this exercise before I start? Or do I run my business for a while and then do an inventory of who I am, you know, having a lot of success with and then drill it so like, trigger the egg like, you know, I've got all this market strategy, market research, like whatever, you know, do I do I try and have like the fully built pieces at the beginning or do I do this like later on, later on down my life cycle?
00:07:07:22 - 00:07:34:06
Unknown
This is a real, genuine challenge. And, I mean, if there was a simple, straightforward kind of checklist or guide, then, you know, business success would be guaranteed. But obviously there's no success. There's nothing guaranteed in business. And so this is, I think, one of the biggest stumbling blocks. And there genuinely is no perfect solution. I think in terms of, of mitigating risk and really trying to put yourself in the best position to succeed, I think, is really to think about it in, in stages.
00:07:34:06 - 00:07:56:05
Unknown
Right. So if you're, early stage business, early stage brand, like the most, important milestone you have to meet is, is establishing product market fit, right? So you have a in the very beginning, all entrepreneurs, all business people, all they have is an idea. They have a hypothesis about how this product or how this company, how this service is going to resonate.
00:07:56:05 - 00:08:16:02
Unknown
And it's going to be valuable with their their target market, right, or a target market. But who ultimately decides what's valuable? The market decides what's valuable. And so, product market fit, if you go into a kind of lean startup method, this is a process where we're we're constantly iterating, we're gathering feedback, we're changing things up. You can either change elements of the product.
00:08:16:05 - 00:08:37:18
Unknown
You can either change the target market. We got the product right, but it's not the right people. Oh the people expressed interest, but the product's not quite right. So I'm gonna just sit through this long, arduous process of numerous testing, iterating. Hopefully you do reach that stage of of establishing product market fit. And I think there's a reason why it's called product market fit and not brand market fit, because I think, you know, marketers get into all sorts of debates.
00:08:37:18 - 00:08:59:12
Unknown
Oh, it's the four P's. Yeah, it's the four P's. You know, product placement pricing and promotion. But one quite frankly is just more important. The other product is more important. Right. So product market fit very very very important. Kind of the raw value. The most direct vessel of value is the product that can be a service based product can be a physical product that is the most important elements of of the marketing mix.
00:08:59:13 - 00:09:20:03
Unknown
You want to establish that product market fit such that the raw tax of your product are valued by at least a target market, such that they would pay you for it. Right? You can engage in this exchange of value, which is at the very core of marketing. And then I think once you reach this product market fit, then you're really in this position to invest heavily in brand, right?
00:09:20:03 - 00:09:41:00
Unknown
That's really where you can scale this. You can scale it to, you know, new markets. You can even scale this in terms of your product portfolio. And that's really where brand comes in. I think pre market fit I know different marketers think differently. For me I think pre market fit brand you do the bare minimum right. You want to have a respectable brand.
00:09:41:00 - 00:10:01:10
Unknown
You want to have you know the basics of your UX and your web design and all of that. And you want to have, you know, a name that's not laughable and you want to have some IP. But aside from that, you don't want to invest too early in brand number one, because if you fail, which most startups do and you don't establish product market fit, you've you've wasted a ton of time and money and resources on something that that has no use anymore.
00:10:01:12 - 00:10:23:23
Unknown
But to once you establish market, product, market fit, that's really when you're in a position to to really build a brand. Now you have at least from one target market, some data and some insights about why this core product is is valuable. Those are insights that are very useful to have in a crowded marketplace that you can scale this, you can build some differentiation.
00:10:23:23 - 00:10:45:20
Unknown
You can begin to build some equity with, growth marketing and, and brand building and I think so really kind of thinking about it in terms of those stages, I think is, is kind of the best general heuristic. No. And I really like what you're saying there. I, I probably add on, that a real estate agent, you know, also sort of has the parallel path that's happening that is like their personal career.
00:10:45:22 - 00:11:15:12
Unknown
And so early in that career they are going to be they themselves are going to be learning how to do the job and learning what they enjoy doing and learning, you know, like what markets they're most successful in. And so there's almost like this, this other parallel path that's happening. So it's probably, you know, you probably can push that, that, you know, sort of the big brain, you know, galaxy brain marketing thought, you know, down a few years and wait till you have your feet under you, so you really, like, have something to dig into.
00:11:15:12 - 00:11:38:11
Unknown
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00:11:38:13 - 00:12:02:22
Unknown
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00:12:03:00 - 00:12:24:00
Unknown
If it's searchable on your site, it's instantly at their fingertips on move to move to mobile search made smarter for your leads and your business. The other thing I really like that you said there is that the product is the most important, you know, and I've played this rhetorical game with, people many times that are like, okay, who is the best marketers out there?
00:12:24:01 - 00:12:50:11
Unknown
Is it the people at Apple, or is it the people at a brand who's growing despite the fact that the company has not invested in the product in years? Right. And I tend to argue that it's not Apple. Right. Like they have really skilled product people that know exactly how to, like, build a very compelling product, but the marketers at the other company are having to work a lot harder because the product doesn't necessarily sell itself.
00:12:50:11 - 00:13:17:02
Unknown
Right. That's not an ideal situation. That is the argument is this flawed situation. But yeah, just to reinforce that product being a hyper, hyper important part, part of that for BMX, definitely, definitely. I think it's also, you know, depending on what kind of what stage the business and the brand is. So I think, you know, especially early on, you know, you're not going to be able to attract and retain customers through placement or pricing or promotion.
00:13:17:02 - 00:13:32:13
Unknown
Right? If you don't have a core product that provides, you know, value in a way where customers would actually want to to send you money for it or set you time for it or engage otherwise in this exchange of value, like you just you just don't have a solvent business. And once you have that, then you can invest in branding.
00:13:32:13 - 00:13:50:06
Unknown
And there's a huge I mean, you mentioned Apple's the huge obvious interplay between brand and product. I think most kind of tech geeks would would argue that, yeah, the iPhone is is if we're just looking at the brass tacks features is not actually as good as maybe Android or Samsung. But, you know, it's the Apple brand, it's the ecosystem.
00:13:50:06 - 00:14:14:23
Unknown
It's it's the the network effects. It's being able to send people, you know, other other Apple people, you know, text messages that don't show up in different colors. Cog about a stroke of genius right there. Absolutely, absolutely. And so yeah, there's there's this wonderful interplay obviously between brand and product. But, you know, even for a massive, you know, $2 trillion company like Apple, you know, in the beginning, in the 70s, it had to be about product.
00:14:14:23 - 00:14:40:23
Unknown
Right. And Steve Jobs and team had these ideas about how products should look and feel and how technology should enter people's lives. And those were big, ideal brand conversations that ultimately ended up influencing a whole portfolio of products. But if those ideals failed to be iterated into the product, you know, very early on, we're talking, you know, 70s and 80s all the way up to, you know, the iPhone 2007, you know, still, it's a really a product conversation.
00:14:40:23 - 00:15:03:02
Unknown
So, yeah, they're all important ultimately. But I think at different stages of, of the company. All right. So I got at least two more questions. And we're running out of time. And so the first one is, you know, you walked through an exercise that starts with, you know, this is the product that we make. And ends in the client thinking about their death.
00:15:03:04 - 00:15:30:15
Unknown
And I want you to walk people through what we're trying to accomplish there. And what this whole thing is, anyway. Totally. Yeah. So this is what we call in the book the true Y test. And it's a it's a methodology and market research methodology for really, drilling down, very deeply into what we hope is this kind of emotional reservoir, which our product might be able to to tap into and which ultimately we can we can build a brand around.
00:15:30:15 - 00:15:50:18
Unknown
And, this this actually dovetails nicely to what we spoke about earlier in terms of once you're at that stage of product market fit and you get some insights. Now you're in a position to, to, to really invest in brand and scale that brand for the long term. And so the brand that, we spoke about and I think really provides a great example of this is Airbnb.
00:15:50:18 - 00:16:11:12
Unknown
So Airbnb had this is going back into the, the around I think was 2009, 2010 and established product market fit. And, and they had data suggesting that, yeah, people are engaged in this, you know, dual sort of marketplace, both on the rental side as well as the sublet side. And, you know, we have good product market fit.
00:16:11:12 - 00:16:28:01
Unknown
So now we're in a position to really scale that and take this business to the next level. And so what they did is, is a version of the true wide test where they said, well, why is this product valuable at kind of a, you know, a product level, a simple value level, like why is it important? Right.
00:16:28:01 - 00:16:48:12
Unknown
So why is it important to stay at an Airbnb property as opposed to a hotel? Right. And in the book we go through the exact kind of methodology here. You get the actual aggregated responses of all of their, customers, and this aggregated market research. And so you start kind of early on and it's like, oh, well, you know, hotels are overpriced and they're kind of un special.
00:16:48:15 - 00:17:08:18
Unknown
Okay. And so you get, you know, that that's something. But the goal that the true eye test is really to get to this deeper, deeper emotional reservoir. You, as you said earlier, you want to get to death. Right. And that's actually a methodological feature. So you're really being insatiable in your pursuit of like a deeper emotional connection associated with this, this unique value product.
00:17:08:23 - 00:17:28:03
Unknown
So why is it important to stay at something that is is not generic? And people say, oh, you know, well, you know, when you travel, you want to have, you know, authentic experiences, okay. It's getting somewhere. But like, why is it important to have authentic experiences. Right. We're still kind of talking about basic value. Well, people want to have, you know, people travel to make their lives richer.
00:17:28:06 - 00:17:47:16
Unknown
Right. And so that's like, okay, now you're getting somewhere. It's not really about, you know, the logistics and the utilitarian nature of travel. Right? We're not competing on price. We're competing for this, this greater vaunted human experience. And so you drive, you dive down, you know, far enough, and you ask why, why, why, why, why. And then eventually you get to death, right?
00:17:47:16 - 00:18:08:08
Unknown
Why do you travel to make your lives richer? Why is that important? Because we're finite creatures on this earth, right? If we live forever, none of this would matter. And philosophers will debate that endlessly. And that's a conversation for another time. But eventually you reach death on on any given brand, on any given product. And that's when you know that as, as a market researcher, you can come up for air.
00:18:08:08 - 00:18:27:15
Unknown
And typically speaking, when you do that, the last kind of 2 or 3 which precede death, that's kind of this really rich, raw material, which then you can utilize as insights to kind of bake into, your brand. And so that's exactly what Airbnb did. They realized that that people travel to make their lives richer. They want to belong everywhere they go.
00:18:27:15 - 00:18:48:10
Unknown
They want to have these authentic experiences. That's a really long catchphrase for a brand. And so Airbnb really simplified that to belong anywhere. And that really became kind of the bleeding heart of the Airbnb brand and has really influenced everything that they've done since. So yeah, I think it's a really great methodology for kind of going from basic value to these deeper emotional insights.
00:18:48:13 - 00:19:22:03
Unknown
Yeah. And so I love this exercise. You know, and definitely like in my college career, you know, it was something I think we called it in. That means chain analysis. So it's been a long time. So, yeah, that's what that was. But it's super useful. It's super useful. And maybe the tip that I give the audience and also so we can, win the algorithm, buzzword bingo is you can go to ChatGPT and start asking these questions and let it play this out for you.
00:19:22:05 - 00:19:38:10
Unknown
So, like, after you got off on stage, off stage, I did this and, you know, picked a brand and started just asking why, why, why, why, why, you know, and it took like eight responses or so and then it's like, well, we're we do this because we're all going to die. You know, it's like, well, all of us, but you catch you.
00:19:38:12 - 00:19:59:06
Unknown
Yeah, yeah. And so it you can start there, right? You could start there and say like, hey, you know, this is this is who I am. This is what I do. This is who I like serving, you know? Why is that important? Okay. Why is that important? Why is that important? Why is that important? Right. And you're you're going to go down that path with people or with the AI.
00:19:59:08 - 00:20:24:04
Unknown
And then as soon as you hit like, well, because we're all going to die, rewind and then use that as a basis or starting to figure out your communication strategy, which we're running out of time. So we're not even going to talk about like communication strategy. So all right, the last question I had for you, which hopefully we're not opening up too big of a, a thing here is, you know, I saw you hanging out at conference for the rest of the period.
00:20:24:06 - 00:20:47:09
Unknown
You know, you said you've done some, other work in the real estate market. So I guess I'm just curious to get your reaction in to the rest of the things that were said on stage or things that you, you know, any, like shower, thought, eureka moments that you had, you know, after the conference that you thought, you know, man, that that industry, the real estate industry really needs to be thinking about ECS.
00:20:47:11 - 00:21:07:22
Unknown
Yeah, totally. So yeah, I, I wouldn't say I have kind of direct expertise in real estate. I that, that that's, that's much more, kind of on your side of the call. But yeah, I mean, the thousand watt conference, as we were talking about earlier, the summit, I mean, that was just it was an amazing experience. You feel like as as a speaker, I, you know, afterwards was able to to sit and and be able to, to see a wide array of talks.
00:21:07:22 - 00:21:27:22
Unknown
And it's just like drinking from a firehose, like you just getting so many great insights. And I think that the big thing that that came up, was was of course, AI and you know, that that's, you know, I feel like that's you can't complete a sentence now in 2025 without at least having AI is is one of the the words of the acronyms you're using.
00:21:28:00 - 00:22:00:15
Unknown
But I think it has is just incredible relevance for a lot of our conversation. Right. Because now the, the tools to be able to, you know, take an idea or to take a kernel or to to have something that that's unique and valuable and differentiated and meaningful and to be able to to scale it and unique and interesting ways and different modalities, whether it's visual, whether it's auditory, whether it's, a unique way in which you address customers via email, whatever it is like, AI provides this incredible tool for scale.
00:22:00:17 - 00:22:20:06
Unknown
And I think that that's really the promise of, of AI, at least in the in the kind of short term, medium term for, you know, marketing and branding is really on the execution. And I think it's more important than ever to really get to that kernel. Right, to get to that point of this is our conviction as a brand.
00:22:20:06 - 00:22:37:09
Unknown
This is what makes us unique. If marketing strategy is what do we do better than anybody else, and who do we do it for? That's what we have to understand. Right? And that's a hard fought battle to get to that kernel. And once we have it, if it's the right kernel, then we have these incredible tools of scale.
00:22:37:09 - 00:23:10:13
Unknown
We have these incredible tools of of, of really making that, instantiate it in so many different ways. And so I see kind of the real promise for AI and the scale of these ideas. But I think a lot of the, the kind of the fundamental frameworks and the real fundamentals of human to human interactions and being relevant, being meaningful, tapping into deeper emotional connections, framing what may you may think initially is really kind of basic utilitarian value in these, you know, uncover a bull deeper emotional reservoirs.
00:23:10:13 - 00:23:28:12
Unknown
That's where the kernel lies. And so, for me, it was it was real eye opening in terms of of just how much AI is already influencing the industry and just kind of the need more than ever to kind of get to that kind of kernel of of your, your unique brand, unique meaning that you're providing. That's awesome.
00:23:28:17 - 00:23:46:13
Unknown
That is where we have to end it. Because I think that perfectly sums up a lot of what we've been thinking about over here. Matt. This has been truly spectacular. I had a great time. Again, tell people where they can find you. Absolutely. So, yeah, fantastic chatting with you, Chris. Yeah. I'm happy to continue the conversation with with any listeners.
00:23:46:15 - 00:24:03:03
Unknown
Probably the best way to, to get in touch with me is just my website, which is neuroscience of.com. So I host, a newsletter about marketing and psychology there. As, as we spoke about in the beginning, I've written a couple books. You can find all that on their website as well. Awesome. And we'll put links to all that down below.
00:24:03:05 - 00:24:31:09
Unknown
Everyone, thanks for tuning in. If you have any questions about the episode, or any follow up, thoughts, concerns, leave them down below. We read all of your comments, give us the, you know, like and subscribe. That really helps us out and we'll catch you next time. Thank you.