Getting attention is a vital part of effective marketing. You must stand out from the herd.

In the early days of our westward migration, there were no barbed-wire fences or cattle gates. There were endless unfettered hectares of scrub and grassland as far as the eye could see and nothing to inhibit movement or maintain control. With so much free forage and a hungry, growing nation to feed, cattle ranching soon replaced hunting the all but extinct Buffalo.

When you get a lot of something in one place, be it cattle or real estate practitioners, they have a tendency to be indistinguishable from one another. With no fences to keep your cattle in and the other rancher's cattle out, issues of true ownership could come into question.

In prior articles I've pointed out that in many real estate markets the number of agents exceeds the number of closings by as many as five to one. When you do the math, you realize that at any given time, eighty percent of all licensees cannot possibly earn a living.

What separates those who survive and ultimately succeed in building a viable, profitable, predictable business is an understanding of business fundamentals such as planning, budgeting, and time management. But in the end, their most formidable business challenge will be to distinguish themselves in an impossibly crowded field.

"When everybody is somebody, no one is anybody." -- Gilbert & Sullivan

At some point after mid-century, the real estate business began to evolve from a small community of professional brokers into large international sales organizations. Laws in most states were changed to allow an apprentice or salesperson to operate under the broker's close supervision.

The business shifted away from providing professional real estate services into a competition for salespeople. A broker can only do so much, but an army of salespeople splitting 50-50 with the broker can provide a bigger and better business model. And if bigger is better, why not go for worldwide dominance?

The crowning event in this evolution occurred in 1995 when HFS, now Cendant, bought Century 21 to add to its stable of marketing companies. Despite the low margins, Cendant loved the cash flow, felt they could further develop the value of the brand, and had investors' money to burn. They set out to buy every real estate agent in America. Soon they purchased Coldwell Banker and ERA. They were buying brands. They knew that agents would stay. Today CENDANT has more than 40 percent of all agents nationwide and accounts for almost 25 percent of all real estate business.

Why, with such a large percentage of the market, they don't do more business is a reflection of the difference in effectiveness between selling and marketing, as indicated below.

In sales -- the goal is to go find a customer and persuade them.

In marketing -- the customer comes to you, predisposed to use your services.

Marketing is mental positioning. Take and hold the number one position in the minds of a couple of hundred people (your "community") such that anytime they think of real estate or real estate finance, your image comes to mind immediately.

As with any product or service, holding this space allows you to compete in the minds of your community, rather than in the more costly and difficult marketplace, where clutter abounds.

Take, for instance, toothpaste; Crest didn't have salespeople in the toothpaste aisle at the supermarket, but their marketing produced enough people who went down that aisle predisposed to look for the Crest brand to make it the number one selling dentifrice in the country for thirty years.

And here is an important lesson about the strength of brands. Although it was the dominant brand in its product category, today it is number two behind Colgate. Trying to capitalize on the strength of Crest's brand, P&G rushed a host of other products to market. As it turns out, market share is inversely proportional to the number of products under the brand umbrella. Auto makers are learning that lesson now.

Budweiser isn't really the best beer in America, but it is a fantastic marketing company that knows the most mundane details of their young male target -- how, where, and when to reach him, what images to use to plant the message, what trigger devices to use to affect the predisposition to acquire Budweiser.

And Century 21 isn't even in the real estate business. Like other Cendant companies and national firms, they are in the more lucrative agent recruiting business. The once close supervision of a broker has been replaced by office sales managers or franchise licensing.

The reinforcement of real estate brands has made them very effective marketers to sales agents but not particularly efficient when it comes to attracting customers, training their agents, or delivering real estate services through their sales people.

Effective marketing of their brands serves to attract a steady stream of new real estate licensees who incorrectly perceive that the strength of the company brand will compensate for their lack of credibility, knowledge, experience and customers.

And, in a sort of cruel irony, prior to departing the business, the licensee will probably spend more time and energy marketing the company brand to strangers than marketing his brand to his community.

Just as revealing is the fact that the company is successful because of its brand marketing, yet it trains it's licensees to be salespeople not brand developers. That would, of course, conflict with and dilute the company brand, and if the licensee succeeds in creating his own customers, he will probably go out on his own.

Marketing takes time. Selling is easier to teach than proficiency in the real estate business. But in the end, marketing allows you to spend more time with the customers and referral sources of you're choosing. You developed them and no one else can advertise them away from your brand.

Marketing your brand to your community rather than being dependent on the warm leads of your company is in-line with how the role of brands has changed.

"We are on the cusp of a major shift in how we think about branding. Historically, a brand has been a promise that says, "If you buy this product or buy from my company, you can rely on me because of the attributes attached to the brand." We're going to see a new kind of branding emerge, a much more customer-centric branding where the promise is, "I know you as an individual customer better than anyone else, and you can trust me to assemble the right products or services to meet your individual needs," notes John Hagel.

John Hagel, chief strategy officer at entrepreneurial operating company Twelve Entrepreneuring in San Francisco, was formerly a principal and head of the e-commerce practice at McKinsey & Co. He is the author of "Net Worth: Shaping Markets When Customers Make the Rules" (Harvard Business School Press, 1999).

If you haven't yet developed a brand you will want to consider three things:

1. Define the result you want.

2. Identify the target market you will market your brand to.

3. Design your brand to reflect your uniqueness and be effective with your target market.

Defining the result

As a real estate practitioner, good times or bad, you want a nice fat portfolio of well priced listings because some of them will sell every month. Doesn't it make sense to market in a way that produces that result?

Entry level housing always sells. Owners don't like where they live. They are just waiting for someone to show them how to move up into a better community, school district, or bigger house. If they bought the house two, three or four years ago, they probably don't remember much so they are very easy to work with.

This is achieved by establishing in the minds of your community that you are the trusted advisor in all matters related to real estate.

Identifying the target market

You cannot be all things to all people but you can be very special to a few if you choose wisely. Chances are that you already know a few hundred people. But part of the daily grind of real estate is adding new people to your community who are likely to refer your preferred client to you.

You only need one or two hundred people who believe in you and have your brand registered in their brain to maintain that listing portfolio. Think of it as a process of selecting and upgrading. These people are the gateway to the actual sellers. Make sure your brand will resonate with these people.

Incorporating your uniqueness and strengths into the brand

You are a one-of-a-kind. There is nobody else like you, and Walt Disney once remarked that what makes us unique is what makes us valuable. Your brand should reflect your uniqueness and strengths. These are the qualities that will help differentiate you, attract to you people of similar values and interests who in-turn will refer to you people like them.

Create a niche. Do you love golf? Why not learn every golf course and associated housing opportunity within an hour's drive. Speak about it, write about it, and of course, build your brand around it.

What's in a name? Over the years I've seen some people use their name to great advantage. Nancy Bright is leaning against a giant florescent yellow light-bulb and her last name is highlighted in the same color. A practitioner named Nickels says, "Get your Nickels worth," and Crystal Pierce even introduced the aspect of consumer education with the phrase, "Making your real estate options Crystal clear."

Consider a "slogo." A slogo combines a slogan, a logo, and a graphic such as a photo into one easily identifiable symbol that can help you to create a memorable image in peoples' minds. But be sure to avoid logo conflict. Maybe it only seems like everybody is branding everything, but when it comes to clothing, many people are starting to resemble a NASCAR entry. If you have more than one logo in the same vision field, it's probably counterproductive.

Be clever not corny. There is a very fine line here. You want your brand to be memorable but also to stand the test of time. What seems cute and clever today might seem odd in a few years.

The same applies to photos. I remember a new agent who had her photo taken with her two cats. Cute, if you are a cat lover or appearing on the cover of People Magazine. But in a subtle way it argues against professionalism, reliability and other qualities necessary to assume the role of trusted advisor.

Do not be disinclined to seek professional help in what might be the most important decision you ever make about your business. Youincorporated.com and Hobbs/Herder are great resources. Check them out.

In the end, you, not the brand, still have to be that trusted advisor, who, in the words of John Hagel, is trusted to provide the best products and services.