SOUL feature in ACME Magizine’s latest edition
From the very beginning, Soul Property Agents wasn’t going to be established like other agencies. Firstly, Nathan Thomas and Angelo Cirillo are brazen, colloquial and laid-back individuals, who are a stark contrast to the suave stereotype so often seen in the real estate industry. To reflect their unconventional nature, these two agents set out to define their future brand with massive emphasis placed on the brand’s core, or rather the brand personality: “When we had the great idea of opening our own agency, one of the core parts of our business was what we stood for and what we represented in the market which was something that we wanted to get right” shared Nathan.
“We reached out and we talked with Steve Osborn. The way his agency operated felt like the right fit for us, as well as the process that they wanted to take us through in identifying what was important to us and refining our core principles. The process took a lot of information from us and channelled it into the outcome that we were looking for; that being our core principles, what the brand stood for, as well as our language” said Nathan.
Language became a key component of the brand personality that Nathan and Angelo spent a great amount of time working on. They recognised that language is vital for human connection, and as such required the right language tools for their real estate brand to not only accurately reflect themselves but to emulate a real and authentic, person to person connection: “We wanted the language to represent what the brand did. We felt limited as agents in being able to do that, so the team at Identity Marketing really helped us with that. It was a really fun exercise, but it was also challenging” said Nathan.
When asked how the market has reacted to the implementation of the non-visual brand assets, Nathan was quick to emphasise that what the market was experiencing was the result of principles being put into action, rather than sharing the principles themselves. Nathan went on to explain that he’s seen many real estate brands take a half baked approach to showcasing their brand personality, focusing on telling rather than acting out and letting the market come to their own assumptions: “The marketplace is responding to a culmination of everything we do. The team understands our principles and applies those principles. It’s subliminal in how the market is reacting, I don’t know how to put it, it’s almost like an aura, an energy.” Nathan continues “The things people are saying about us is that our energy and our approachability provides confidence and that is built from the foundation of these principles. They’re not actually reacting to the principle, but rather it’s the principle that’s giving us the confidence in our marketplace and that’s what they’re reacting to” said Nathan.
The journey to opening Soul Property Agents and success was not without trials and challenges, with Nathan stating that both he and Angelo felt the process frustrating at times as it urged them to think deeper, moving beyond surface-level conclusions to find the treasure within: “It was a frustrating process because you have to think, but the result for us has been brilliant. We were very conscious that there is a lot of contradiction in real estate, particularly between marketing and branding and the reality of the agents and the agency. That is something we just don’t want to have and what really worked for us was that Identity Marketing gave us the framework, we then did the work, but we did it together” shared Nathan
Despite any frustrations. It’s clear that the process of defining core values, personality dimensions, principles and language was all worth it, with Nathan speaking on behalf of the agency: “This branding part of it, it has changed our world. I don’t think we could have been as successful opening Soul Property Agents and done it the way we’ve done it without what we’ve done with Identity Marketing – seriously”
Check out the latest edition of ACME Magizine here