In the arena of luxury real estate marketing, the entire competitive landscape needs to be redefined.  A completely new paradigm needs to be considered that determines who the big winners in the industry will be in 2010 and beyond. Whoever wins the COMPETITION FOR ATTENTION (who stands out the most?) and the COMPETITION FOR RETENTION (who is remembered first?) will get the lion’s share of business.

In the Olympic Men’s Luge event Germany took first place, with Austria second and Latvia in third.  The athletes were so close in technical skills that what separated gold, silver and bronze was the length of time it takes to blink your eye. The difference between first and second place was 0.5250 second.   Latvia was behind #1 by only 1.002 second.   

Following this Olympic example, if luxury real estate agents competed on fundamentals alone, such as negotiation skills or local market knowledge, there would probably be very little difference among the top three agents in terms of market share.  But, in business it usually does not work that way.  Often, there is a large margin between best selling or top producing #1 and the #2 contender, with #3 being forgettable. 

Ironically, the difference may have nothing, whatsoever, to do with the quality of product or service in a given category.  In the category of MP3 players, the well-made Microsoft Zune cannot hold a candle to Apple’s iPod who dominates this category with a 90% market share.  iPod has won the competition for attention, because of its design and the popularity of iTunes.

iPod has also won the battle of retention because most people have retained only one MP3 brand in their “memory folder” for this product category. They cannot even think of a second brand name. 

Try this! Start blinking your eyes and quickly answer this question:  What is the first adhesive cellophane tape that comes to your mind? Now, can you think of a second brand other than the “category killer”, Scotch Tape?

This is the paradigm shift that needs to happen in luxury real estate marketing: the difference in market share is, in reality, MIND-SHARE! The competitive playing field is actually in the minds of the target market.  Very few agents understand this concept which opens up a tremendous competitive advantage for those of you who want to become the “break-away brand” in your marketplace.

Understanding that you are competing for the ATTENTION of your target market in a time starved, attention deficient world will change your entire approach to marketing and branding. In our strategic branding practice, we use the expression. Stand Out or Bow Out! People do not have time to pay attention to a lesser known brand that “blends in”. The agent, who COMES TO MIND FIRST, the personal brand that wins the battle of RETENTION, dominates the marketplace, period! If you have the heart of an Olympic champion it is you who needs to come to mind first, in a blink of an eye.

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