Mark Brower is the owner and designated broker of Mark Brower Properties. He has over 20 years of experience in property management and investing, and lives in Mesa, Arizona. Mark is a Second Nature Triple Win Mentor.
A brand is far more than just designs on a page. It needs to be lived and carried out in everything that your company does. But your visual branding—including your property management logo, colors, website, and photography—are the physical representation of your brand.
If you want to build a successful property management company, developing a logo and visual representation that exemplifies your personality and who you are as a company is essential. It cannot be skipped. It’s how potential new customers will identify and connect with you, so it’s worth the effort.
You’ve heard the cliches about how you only get one chance to make a first impression. But when we look deeper at what that means, the stakes are actually even higher.
When people intersect with your brand, they’re making huge judgment calls on very limited information in a short amount of time. They’re trying to make a determination on whether they can trust you, and in property management, they’re trusting you with one of the most important financial assets in their life.
They’re looking at every single piece of evidence that they can possibly consume as to whether they can trust this new—very important—relationship. And they’re always looking for a reason to say no.
Think about when you’re showing a home. Chances are, the resident who’s getting a tour knows within about two minutes whether they want to live there or not. They get a first impression, and if they see one little flaw that turns them off, they’re checked out. Your branding is the same way.
So when you think about the visual representation of your company, you need to eliminate every flaw that you can, just like you would in a rental listing or home showing.
Yes, your logo is important, but it’s not the end all be all. The real value isn’t so much in how your logo looks, but in the consistency of how you use it.
Consistency builds trust. When your audience gets used to seeing your logo and colors used in the same way across multiple channels, they feel more familiar with it. They get comfortable with you as a business. That’s why we put our logos on everything from swag gifts to pens and stationery.
On the other hand, if you’re inconsistent about how you use it, you’re going to breed distrust. Just like your customer service delivery needs to be consistent, so does your visual branding
Think about your team’s email signatures: even if the smallest thing is different across team members, it hurts that sense of trust. Someone receiving emails from three members of your team is going to be thrown off when all of their signatures are different.
There are plenty of other places to build consistency, too. The photos of your staff on your website should be consistent. They should all be high quality, taken from the same angle, ideally with the same lighting and background. In an industry where people have a lot of options in who to work with, the slightest perception of mistrust can jeopardize your chance of working with a great client. So efforts toward brand consistency are never wasted.
All of these seemingly small branding elements add up to shape opinion. The details matter more than you’d think, and you can’t let them slip. Letting them slip carries much more cost than taking the time to get the right in the first place. Ideally, a potential client should look at your website and think, “Wow, if they’re this disciplined with these details on the website, they’re going to be disciplined about the work they do on my property.”
Discipline and consistency around your visual brand also shape a baseline level of professionalism. I’ve seen more than one property management company who lets the details slide. As a potential client, I’d be thinking, “If you can’t put a logo on a PDF correctly, what are you going to do to my house?” You need to appear competent, capable, and professional so that people can trust you, and attention to detail is a big part of that.
Some of the most successful entrepreneurs I’ve met get to a deep level of obsession over the tiny details until they get it right. That’s something I’ll be vulnerable about and admit I’ve struggled with. It can be hard to get out of the big-picture mindset of a business owner and really focus on the details. But you can’t afford not to.
When you buy a physical product, you can actually hold it in your hand. You can look at it and see what, exactly, you got for your money.
In a service-based industry, your customers can’t do that. Instead, they tend to fill that gap with the experiences that they’ve had with you and your brand. Instead of seeing something on a shelf, they remember their interactions with you and the way you represented yourself visually.
In a lot of ways, your brand is a symbol of the value you provide. You need to adopt that mindset and lean into it. You need to be as consistent with your brand as other companies are with their products. There should be a quality assurance process to make sure that you’re nailing the details and presenting yourself consistently. Otherwise you’re jeopardizing your value.
Just because you want to keep consistent with your branding, that doesn’t mean it can’t evolve. After all, your company and your personality are always changing, so sometimes your brand needs to keep up.
At Mark Brower Properties, we just visited our visual branding and decided to make some changes, including an update to our logo. Our old logo used block letters, but now the “Mark” in Mark Brower Properties has been redone as a hand-written version of my name.
Our updated logo
It’s very similar to how I write my name when I’m signing things. And it brings the personality and human aspect to the brand. It reflects who I am.
In my experience, people are afraid to commit to being open and vulnerable about who they are. Too many small business owners feel the need to portray themselves as something that they’re not, rather than being honest. But the reality is that audiences really love when people are themselves. People do business with people, so when they see vulnerability and a personal touch, it goes a long way.
Make sure that you’re consistent with your property management logo and your website, but even more importantly, make sure that they actually represent you.
Look, I know what you’re thinking reading this. You have way too much on your plate to go analyzing everyone’s email signatures to make sure that the logos are the same size.
I completely understand that. But at the same time, this stuff really is important.
Think about it this way: in business, there are production tasks, and there are tasks that increase production capacity.
Branding is a task that increases your production capabilities. It helps build an engine that will bring more residents and more property owners in the door. And every small detail adds up. The benefits compound. And when done well, they help build an authentic, trustworthy brand that people want to do business with.
Want to learn more about how to manage your business reputation? Watch Second Nature’s recent webinar with LeadSimple on reputation management.