I’m sure you could have guessed that going into this insight, after all, it’s part of our business to write those mission and vision statements. But in all seriousness, we want the absolute best for our clients, and that means sharing our expertise, opinions, and what we believe to be the crucial aspects of marketing and branding for any real estate endeavor.
So, yes, you do need a mission, vision, and set of core values as a real estate business. But don’t just take our word for it, let’s dig in a bit to understand why.
Your mission is the purpose of your business. It outlines the difference you want to make in your community. It is truly your core identity — your ‘why.’
Your vision statement is typically one line defining the purpose behind your brand’s existence. It’s essentially your brand looking forward and saying what it hopes to achieve through its mission statement.
We like to think of your vision as the ‘bird’s eye view’ big-picture impact you want to have on the world. Your mission is like the marching orders for how to realize your vision.
Each of these statements is an essential component of your overall messaging, but unlike many other aspects of your messaging, many real estate developers like to make these statements public.
Below are examples of a longer-form mission and vision story. Sometimes mission and vision statements can be written out this way. This is our work from a branding project for Woodlands Resort:
Discover the power of putting people first, and let it change the way you approach your property development project. You’re one step away from the keys to success.
Real estate developers often rush through or brush aside their mission and vision statements. What was once an afterthought is becoming more and more crucial to the real estate development and real estate marketing process. Once you establish your purpose, everything else falls into place. All decisions become more clear and the effort it takes to get from planning to finishing becomes much more simple.
We talk a lot about vision specifically in our real estate development report — ‘Making Places’. In it, we mention the three keys to placemaking, with a shared vision being the first.
A shared vision seeks to develop consistency within a project and ensure the end product has cohesion. It is a mental image of the look and feel of your development and what it will mean to the community. Giving your development physical and emotional meaning, from the beginning, will ensure a successful project — one that audiences are excited to be a part of.
Speaking of audiences, we do this all for them, right? It’s important to understand how valuable a mission statement is for your future clients and customers. Your mission statement allows them to get to know you and understand the impact you hope to have on their lives. The hope is that the target audience you are trying to reach feels drawn to your mission statement and then becomes a loyal and reliable customer.
Your core values act as a guiding light for your brand messaging, especially as you think about your audience. Core values will help define the beliefs you stand for, an elaboration of your mission statement, and are key to helping your customers connect with you and your brand.
What is most important to your business deep in its core? Think of words like: Integrity, Respect, Authenticity, Collaboration, Loyalty, Sustainability, Open-Mindedness, Innovation, Kindness, etc.
Here’s an example from a brand guide we put together for a Greystar development we branded.
Ex. The Calo
Core values indicate a level of transparency and trust you need to establish with your customers. A huge reason why your target audience may be choosing your apartment complex or housing development is because of how you align with their personalities, goals, and of course, values. If your values indicate to your target audience that you care, you’re here for them, and that you have values that you make every decision based on, you are more likely to connect with them successfully.
Not only that, but like a shared vision, you are creating more ways to fool-proof consistency in all of your decision-making. Consistency makes for a better development, successful business, and customers who trust you.
Like your mission and vision, core values are an essential part of your messaging platform. Some companies choose not to share their core values with customers and some do. That is up to you, but either way, audiences will notice the consistency and the way your values shine through in your actions and your correspondence with them.
Hopefully, with that extra explanation, you still understand that the answer to whether or not you should have a mission statement, vision statement, and core values is yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. (For good measure.)
Too often we see real estate developers come to us with nothing. No messaging platform and no focus on their mission or vision. We love to help, in fact, give us a call if you think you’re one of those real estate developers. But we also want to help you realize this on your own. Take a look at what you do have, is it accurate? Is it serving its correct purpose? Do you have what you need to make an impact on your audience and establish consistency in everything you do?
Write those missions/visions/core values!!!! Believe us, you’ll start to see results right away, even if all it is is excitement at first.
If you want to learn more about what we do for our clients in the real estate industry, check out our website or our Making Places report.