Episode 59: Company Culture, Technology, and Personal Branding with Chris Hartley

Chris Hartley Is...

A VP of sales and marketing, public speaker and trainer, and a Professional Builder Magazine 40 Under 40 winner. Chris shares his expertise on a wide variety of important topics, including emerging technologies for selling homes, the importance of company culture, and how reaching out to thought leaders is the first step to becoming a thought leader yourself. Chris also discusses the importance of personal branding and self reflection in your career.

Learn all about it here on Builder Funnel Radio.

1:34 How Chris’s career got started
5:11 The marketing vs. sales dynamic
9:51 How mergers affect sales & marketing the most
13:15 Emerging technologies for selling homes
17:18 Sell homes with unassisted entry and virtual sellers
21:54 How to communicate with potential home buyers
27:20 Personal branding
39:08 Steps to start personal branding
45:34 Creating amazing company culture
50:54 The importance of self reflection
59:10 Connect with Chris
1:00:15 The Fast Five
1:01:43 Spencer’s takeaways

Technology

Chris walks us through some of the exciting new technologies home builders are using to sell homes, such as tools that allow potential buyers to enter a home on their own time — no need to have a salesman come guide them — and virtual sellers, in-home robots that are remotely operated by salesmen to guide potential buyers through homes.

Chris also believes that your website is your most important technological tool and should be updated regularly. Despite this, he says, 90% of industry people he talks to have a website that is more than a few years old. Chris says websites are a necessary investment; your website gets more traffic than your model home ever will.

Personal Branding

Chris is a major proponent of personal branding, saying that personal brand actually contributes to recognition of company brand. (Here he uses himself as an example.) People connect with people more than they connect with companies. If people connect with you and your personal brand, they will connect with your company’s brand vicariously.

What is the key to personal branding? Chris says just be genuine. Connect with people who inspire you, share content that inspires you, and eventually you will have a personal brand other people connect with.

Culture

Chris and a few of his friends are currently working on the 7 Winning Components of Creating Amazing Company Culture. He describes how when he came into the role of VP or sales and marketing at the young age of 31, he was able to win over a team of people who were mostly older than him by fostering a culture in which he could be a friend to his team instead of just a boss. This is what wins him the loyalty of his employees, who he says never leave; and when they do, they come back.