If only I knew then what I know now… As a brand new agent in Manhattan in 2010, I made a huge mistake. I turned down a job at Nest Seekers—the brokerage where Ryan Serhant was just getting started building the most successful personal brand in the history of real estate. Don’t get me wrong—I did well in the East Village brokerage I ended up joining, but a decade later it’s hard not to wonder what if?
That’s why I was thrilled to get a chance to review Ryan Serhant’s new course, Sell It Like Serhant: How to Build Your Personal Brand. The course promises to teach agents the personal brand-building secrets Ryan learned while I was busy renting out 5th-floor walk-ups on Avenue A. But does it deliver on that promise? Can you really learn how to build a brand like Ryan’s?
What This Review Covers
Course: Sell It Like Serhant: How to Build Your Personal Brand
Pricing for May 2022: $997
Experience level: 0-10+ years
Best for: Mid-level – experienced agents
Topics covered: Personal branding
The Close Score: 4.9 (out of 5)
The Pitch: What This Course Promises to Teach Agents
Pricing: Is the Sell It Like Serhant Personal Branding Course Worth $997?
Is This “Brand Strategy System” an Actual System? Will It Work for Most Agents?
Who This Course Is Best For: Potential ROI & Drawbacks
The Pitch: What This Course Promises to Teach Agents
The Sell It Like Serhant: How to Build Your Personal Brand course pitches itself as an actionable, step-by-step plan showing Realtors how to build and promote a powerful personal brand using what they call the Serhant Brand Strategy System. This system is based on the strategies Ryan Serhant used to build his own renowned brand.
Pricing: Is the Sell It Like Serhant Personal Branding Course Worth $997?
For most agents, the answer is a resounding yes. I do think the Sell It Like Serhant: How to Build Your Personal Brand course is worth the price. Here’s why: First, unlike other top-tier real estate courses, this course is taught by people who have seen incredible success in the fields they teach. It is also highly actionable, engaging, and incredibly well-produced. It’s not cheap, but you get more for your money, and arguably a better potential return on investment (ROI) than you do from many other real estate courses.
Here’s four reasons why I think this course is worth the money:
1. The Teachers Have All Walked the Walk (& Then Some)
One of the dirtiest secrets in the real estate coaching world is that many of the most famous coaches in the industry have never worked as real estate agents. I won’t name names here, but if you’ve shopped around for a coach, you can probably name more than one.
That’s a big reason why this course stands out in a sea of expensive real estate courses promising agents the world. The teachers have all walked the walk. Have a look at their qualifications to see what I mean:
Ryan Serhant
The Core Identity section of the course is taught by Ryan himself. If you’re reading this, or if you have had eyeballs for the last few years, then you already know how wildly successful Ryan has been at building a personal real estate brand. In the intro to this article, I argued that he built the most successful personal brand in the history of real estate, and I stand by that. I challenge you to find any agent anywhere with a more recognized personal brand.
He’s also a highly engaging teacher. His energy is infectious, and the delivery of the course is logical, easy to follow, and highly actionable. Basically, everything you want in a real estate course
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Tyler Mount
The Consistent Content section of the course is taught by Tyler Mount, Brand Strategy & Social Media Consultant for SERHANT. Tyler has managed digital campaigns for Biden for America, NBC, Playbill, IBM, Hilton Hotels, Sofitel, T-Mobile, the Tony Awards, the Grammy Awards, and the Olivier Awards. He’s also won numerous awards in his career, including two Tony Awards, a Grammy Award, an Olivier Award, two Outer Critics Circle Awards, two Drama League Awards, a Drama Desk Award, and a GLAAD Media Award.
So when Tyler tells you a brand-building or social media strategy works, you can rest assured he is speaking from deep professional experience.
Alyssa Garnick
The Shout It From the Mountaintop section of the course is taught by Alyssa Garnick, founder of Agean Public Relations and a consultant for the SERHANT. brokerage. Alyssa has spent 25 years working with the world’s largest brands, generating ideas, integrated campaigns, and results. She is also skilled at leveraging pop culture and trends and is an award-winning PR strategist and campaign architect.
Alyssa’s section of the course focuses on sharing your newly built brand with the world, and as a consummate PR professional, like Tyler, she also speaks from deep professional experience.
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2. It’s Not Cheap, But You Get What You Pay For
This course is not exactly cheap at $997, but comparable to other high-end courses from famous real estate coaches who have never even worked as agents… When you consider this course could easily become the very foundation of your real estate career, the potential ROI becomes clearer.
This is also not a “sit back and watch” kind of course. It is designed for you to actually do the work. Paying a serious amount of money might make you more likely to take the work seriously. Learning is great, but if you actually want to build a brand, you need to act.
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3. It Includes More Content Than Many Other Top-tier Real Estate Courses
This course shines due to the sheet value of what’s included in it. A lot of expensive real estate courses include videos, workbooks, and access to mastermind groups. Only a handful of them are as well produced and actionable as this course (more on this later). Here’s what you get for your money:
- 55 chapters, 5+ hours of content
- 72-page brand strategy workbook
- 30 days of access to a Sell It Like Serhant Private Membership
4. The Secret Sauce: The Serhant Brand Strategy System
Of course, you’re probably not plunking down almost a thousand dollars just because the teachers have experience and offer a lot of content. You want to to be assured that their strategies will work for you, right?
Well, as someone who has spent the last five years obsessing over real estate branding and talking to some of the most qualified branding experts in the industry, I can say this: Yeah, I think the secret sauce here lives up to the hype.
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Is This ‘Brand Strategy System’ an Actual System? Will It Work for Most Agents?
If you’re a natural skeptic like I am, you’re probably saying to yourself, “Yeah, he starred in a freaking hit TV show! This ‘system’ only worked for him!” I hear you, but you’re wrong. This is indeed an actual system and one that any agent can leverage to build a powerful personal brand. Sure, you could spend a few years like I did hunting down the rough outlines of this system, but do you have years? How will you separate the bad advice from the gold?
Here’s how I see this system working for agents at different levels of their careers:
Who This Course Is Best For: Potential ROI & Drawbacks
The Potential ROI for New Agents
While admittedly some of the advice in this course is common sense for someone who has been living, eating, and sleeping real estate branding as I have for the last five years, it won’t be common sense for new agents. The experience level of the teachers, the quality of the course and workbook, and the actionable nature of the course make it an incredibly compelling career foundation for new agents.
It’s also important to remember that building a great brand is not something you can create in an afternoon. A great brand can take weeks or months to build and years to refine. It’s also an ongoing process. Your personal brand will evolve and grow as your career does. Of course, without a strong foundation, you will be building on sand.
Drawbacks for New Agents
While contributor Sean Moudry and I have been bullish on the importance of agents building brands early in their careers, some strategies in the course will be difficult for them to use right away. For example, the Shout It From the Mountaintop section of the course focuses heavily on strategies to get press. This can be an uphill battle for new agents. It’s still a great long-term strategy, but building the credibility to get regular press can take a long time.
The Potential ROI for Mid-level Agents
While getting started on your personal brand early is important, I think mid-level agents will get the best ROI from this course. Mid-level agents will have a few years of experience under their belts, so they’ll have a better idea of how they approach real estate, and what their niche could and should be.
Unlike experienced agents, they are less likely to have an established personal brand that isn’t working for them. That means they can start fresh, but with some experience to get the ball rolling faster.
Mid-level agents will also have a much easier time using all the strategies to get press that are outlined in the Shout It From the Mountaintop section of the course.
Drawbacks for Mid-level Agents
Beyond the relatively high price, I don’t think there are any drawbacks to this course for mid-level agents. If you want to build a personal brand, this is the course to take.
The Potential ROI for Experienced Agents
There is enough proprietary gold dust in the course to justify even the most experienced agents signing up. They have the most experience to roll over into their personal brands, and have a much clearer understanding of their value proposition in the market. All it takes is a little refinement to build a killer brand and this course is a great way to do that.
Drawbacks for Experienced Agents
Some experienced agents already have personal brands that are not working for them and reinvention so late in the game might be tricky. However, if you’re an experienced agent and haven’t focused on building your personal brand yet, then you have zero excuses for not taking this course. The price is a drop in the bucket for an experienced agent and will have a much faster ROI.
Over to You
Have you taken the Sell It Like Serhant: Building Your Personal Brand course? Would you recommend it to other agents? If not, which branding course would you recommend? Let us know in the comments.
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