Aaron Hoos

I am secretly addicted to the Food Network. (Okay, not so secretly anymore).

I love cooking competitions and restaurant makeover shows. My PVR is set up to automatically record shows like “Opening Soon”, “Kitchen Nightmares”, and “Restaurant Impossible”.

Many of these shows have one thing in common: A celebrity chef who seems to be equal parts chef and diva.

You don’t really see this level of celebrity in other niches. (Well, there are some celebrity real estate agents and celebrity home renovation people but we don’t attach the word “celebrity” to their title in the same way that we throw around the word “celebrity chef”.)

I was thinking about this the other day while watching some cooking show or another. I wondered: “Why don’t we see more celebrity real estate agents or celebrity real estate investors or celebrity financial advisors or celebrity accountants?”

That idea sort of seems strange. After all, “celebrity accountant” or “celebrity actuary” or “celebrity insurance broker” doesn’t seem to have the same ring as “celebrity chef”… but why not?

Why can’t YOU be the celebrity in your niche? There is plenty of room for celebrities in a number of niches – real estate, investing, insurance, accounting, even collections.

The benefit is there: As a celebrity, you attract people to you who want to orbit your shining star and your constant cross-promotion helps to increase your income.

So what does it take to be a celebrity? Well, let’s look at the six factors that put the “celebrity” into “celebrity chef” and see if we can identify some lessons for you to apply to your practice:

6 FACTORS TO HELP YOU BECOME A CELEBRITY IN YOUR NICHE

1. You need to be skilled. No hacks allowed. We may not always like the celebrity personality of a celebrity chef but the chef-skills always deliver. Great cooking every time. And it’s not just skill, I think, but also mastery, and a dedication to exacting excellence. How can you become a skilled master who is dedicated to exacting excellence in your market? You need to be able to rise above and consistently out-shine your peers. So what skills can you hone to consistently out-shine your peers? For a related post, check out: What the drunk uncle from Family Ties can teach us about success.
2. Success. Some celebrity chefs seem to come out of nowhere to skyrocket to fame and fortune. But “nowhere” usually means that they were slogging it out in a hot kitchen, working their way up from lowly dishwasher to become the head chef at top-name restaurants. In your practice, don’t expect celebrity to suddenly appear out of nowhere. You need to put in the time, grind it out, and build a portfolio of success. (Fortunately, you can do this as the same time as you develop your skills).
3. You need to have some flair. I don’t think there is such a thing as a bland celebrity chef. All celebrity chefs bring something extra to the equation. They’re skilled (see above) but they are more than just skilled. For some, it’s a personality – funny, obnoxious, in-your-face. For others, it’s a particular style or approach – hands-on, innovative, social. (For celebrity chefs it might be fast meals for families or Italian peasant food). To develop your own flair, consider what aspects of your personality are the strongest, or think about your interests and how other people connect with them. This flair or unique approach really becomes the crux of your brand. (Think: Gordon Ramsay’s In-Your-Face approach or Jamie Oliver’s casual approach to delicious, healthy food). I’ve talked a bit about this in the past but I’ve only scratched the surface. For a related post, check out: What is your brand’s personality.
4. A book. Every celebrity chef seems to have at least one book. Probably a cookbook. Probably a dozen cookbooks. A book on its own isn’t the answer but it’s part of the celebrity equation. The good news is, you don’t need to sit down and write a huge novel. What you need is something that you can highlight as an accomplishment and that readers will find helpful. Start with a 100 to 200 page book. They aren’t that hard to write! (Hey, give me a call if you want to talk about writing a book). If you’re really not sure where to start, why not think about an ebook – something smallish at around 50 pages – and test it in the marketplace. Expanding it will be easy and it’s simple to turn into a print book (which still carries plenty of credibility).
5. TV show. Every celebrity chef has a TV show. Or three. They have a cooking show and guest appearances, an I’m-starting-a-restaurant show, and a traveling-the-world-to-taste-food show. Why don’t you have a show? You can. It’s easier than you probably think it is. Start with your own YouTube channel and instead of just filming random thoughts into the camera (as I do from time to time on my YouTube channel), actually treat it like your own show. I think this is a cool idea that is under-used (especially in the financial or real estate space). There are plenty of ideas to draw from (and I’ll give you some ideas in a future blog post).
6. PR Campaign. Celebrity chefs seem to be magnets for fans. Sure, it’s their charisma and great dishes but don’t overlook the fact that they are a brand and they probably have a serious PR engine chugging away in the background. When they are not cooking they are promoting, promoting, promoting, promoting, promoting. For most of you, you’re already doing some promoting already (good!) but if you want to achieve celebrity status, you need to tie together several things (a book, a show, etc.) and promote the heck out of it.

Notice something about these six things? Chefs who move out of the kitchen and into the limelight do so by leveraging their skills into a brand and then leveraging that brand into a media empire.

You can do the same! Celebrity doesn’t have to be limited to chefs. There is A LOT of room for celebrities in your market. You already have the skills and you probably have a brand (or the makings of one). Next, build a media empire to skyrocket your practice to celebrity status.

You’ve probably heard the well-known, often-quoted concept that all products or services possess two of the following three qualities:

Good, Fast, Cheap.

It means that every product or service you buy will be…

• Good and fast but not cheap
• Good and cheap but not fast, or,
• Fast and cheap but not good

Every client who wants to buy a product or service will have an innate preference about which two qualities they want their product or service to possess. And they will seek out products or services that match their preference.

Knowing this, most businesses specifically sell their products in a way that fulfills two of the three qualities. For example, a fast food restaurant might offer food that is fast and cheap but not very good, or a freelance writer (ahem) might offer writing services that are good and fast but not cheap.

HERE’S WHY THIS MATTERS TO REAL ESTATE PROFESSIONALS

If you’re a real estate professional, you might be wondering how this applies to you. I think the answer is quite exciting and can help you become even more successful because it will help you build better relationship with your clients.

Yes, the good, fast, cheap concept applies even to your real estate practice! Here’s how:

Every client you work with — whether they’re listing or buying — wants the home listing or home purchase to satisfy two of the three qualities.

For example, they might want to buy a house quickly and with your great service and therefore they will have less concern about the cost. Or, they might want to buy a house cheaply and with great service and will therefore maybe not get a house as quickly as others.

I’m sure you read the above paragraph and said: ‘Aaron, all of my clients always want all three of those qualities and I deliver all three qualities every time‘.

Here’s my response: I believe that all clients want all three qualities in the service they receive from you but there are only two qualities that are extremely important to them (and the third is less important).

Even if you offer all three qualities all the time and with every client, you will build better relationships with your clients when you intentionally identify what is important to each of them and you highlight that aspect of your service to them whenever you interact with them.

Let’s say that you identify a client whose must-have service qualities are good and cheap and they really don’t care that much about how fast you are. You will build a stronger relationship with them by highlighting the depth of your service and how hard you’re working for them, as well as how much money they are saving. Don’t worry about talking about how quickly you can close the sale or how fast they can find a home. Those don’t matter as much to them.

It’s all about finding out what is important to your client and then making sure that your interaction with them resonates those two most-important qualities.

By highlighting the aspects of your service to them, and by going the extra mile in the two must-have qualities that are important to your client, you’ll demonstrate your value to them much more effectively than if you tried to establish your credentials and ability in all three.

Want to dive into this good-fast-cheap concept even more? My blog post Why good-fast-cheap might be wrong (and how to fix it so you can sell more) will give you an in-depth look at the good-fast-cheap model and help you use it more skillfully to work with your real estate clients.

HERE’S A BONUS IDEA TO SUPER-CHARGE YOUR BRANDING

You can construct your entire business around one of these models — which is exactly what some real estate professionals do. (The flat fee real estate agents are using “cheap” as one of the must-have qualities while other real estate professionals might use “good” or “fast” as one of their must-have qualities).

Although you’ll drive away some clients because you’re focusing on something they don’t care about, you’ll attract more clients by marketing in a way that truly resonates with the must-have qualities they are looking for in a real estate professional.

Real estate and financial advisors are under a lot of pressure to lower their fees for clients.

The pressure is sometimes audibly heard from clients who blatantly ask: “Would you consider lowering your fee for me?“. And sometimes it’s not heard at all because the prospective client doesn’t bother using your service and decides to go a “do-it-themselves” route.

How can real estate and financial professionals overcome this pricing pressure and charge what they deserve to earn for their services? And, how can you attract and retain clients who happily pay this rate instead of trying to grind you down or try to do it themselves without your help?

LOOKING ELSEWHERE FOR INSIGHT

We can find the answer by looking at businesses (in other industries) that get clients to pay higher fees:

• Movie theatres charge higher-than-average prices for a ticket to a movie… and then they charge even more for popcorn and drinks.
• Apple charges higher-than-average fees for their iPhones and iPads and yet they enjoy massive growth and marketshare retention.
• Visa and MasterCard charge controversially high interest rates (19% on the low-end) but that doesn’t stop people from running their expenses through their cards and even maxing them out sometimes.

What do all of these businesses have in common? They offer something that the customer cannot get anywhere else.

That’s the secret.

Although there are cheaper alternatives (such as renting a movie, buying a non-Apple mobile device or tablet, or paying with cash or debit), the businesses listed above offer products and services that make the cheaper alternatives pale in comparison.

Customers perceive that the theater experience or the Apple brand or the own-it-now-instead-of-later convenience of credit cards are so valuable that the extra cost is worthwhile.

For many years, the financial and real estate industries enjoyed a similar “exclusive” reputation but…

FINANCIAL AND REAL ESTATE HAVE CHANGED

Clients used to put a lot of trust into their financial advisors and real estate agents because these professionals provided exclusive high-value service that the client could not get anywhere else. But the internet transformed these industries and levelled the playing field between professionals and their clients.

Clients could perform far more of their own research and gain easier access to information and services that were difficult to access.

Although financial and real estate professionals still provide an invaluable service, clients don’t perceive the value that they used to perceive so they want to try doing the same thing on their own. Unlike the businesses we listed earlier, the difference between the higher-priced offering and the lower-priced alternative does not seem different enough (in the clients’ eyes).

Therefore, professionals need offer even more services and demonstrate even greater value than they ever have before.

It’s time to put your innovation hat on and do the following:

• List all of the services you perform (both free and paid). Then find ways to ramp them up and make them even more valuable for your client. Consider adding more information, new technology, and go-the-extra-mile service.
• Think about the information you currently provide. Chances are, quite a bit of it is available online for free. So dig deep and find additional insight you can give to your clients that they can’t get anywhere else.
• Brainstorm activities that your clients do, which are related to your service but not something you currently provide. Figure out how you can extend your services to include those related activities. For real estate professionals: Once a client buys a home, they have to make arrangements to move in. Can you extend your services to include managing those end-to-end moving details for them? For financial professionals: Clients who buy investments and insurance from you might also need accounting done. Can you bring an accountant into your office to provide a full net worth management service?
• A big part of the value difference is simply perception. People who go for the do-it-themselves approach instead of hiring you are doing so because they don’t see a difference between your services and the cheaper alternative. Revisit your marketing to see how it positions you. If your marketing isn’t positioning you as the ONLY professional for your prospective clients’ needs, find out how you can be different and rework that marketing content. If you’re not sure where to start, try listing all of the things that clients would miss out by choosing a do-it-themselves approach instead of using your approach. List as many items as you can. Then brainstorm further to create a larger list (and develop new services of your own, if possible). The larger the list, the better.