The word ‘busy’ is an understatement when it comes to the life and times of a real estate agent.
If you open a top performing agent’s diary, there will be an array of appointments, listings, sales and a to-do list a mile long.
It can be easy to become overwhelmed, give in to the chaos, and repeatedly find yourself in a situationally reactive process. But it doesn’t have to be like that.
There is light at the end of the tunnel. A light where you have escaped the hamster wheel hustle and grind and replaced it with seamless systems and processes that help you build a sustainable business and fulfilling career.
But where do you start?
- The audit
You need to slow down to speed up, and what slowing down means is analysing every inch of your business. Set aside time to do an audit and examine your last 20 sales, taking note of what’s working and what’s not.
If you’re great at generating referral business, do more of that, and if you’re not sourcing listings from open homes, see that as an opportunity to grow and improve. What is critical at this stage is to know where you want your business to end up.
Set your goals and break them down into what you need to do to achieve them in the next three, six, nine and 12 months. - Automate, delegate and template
As a power agent, your end goal is to dedicate as much time as possible to the dollar-productive tasks of listing, negotiating, selling and managing and empowering your team. Take the time to put systems and processes in place now, and you’ll reap the rewards throughout your career.
Consider automation for handling activities like buyer inquiries and lead nurturing systems, for managing email marketing and anniversaries, and put procedures and checklists in place for your list-to-sale process, running 5-star open homes, prospecting, auctions, and hot buyers.
As a high-performing agent learning to successfully delegate to your team and even to third-party providers is a game-changer. However, agents often find delegating difficult because mistakes can cost listings, sales and income. Giving up this control, which may cause a loss in income, is a real risk.
While you can do anything, you can’t do everything. So focus on the dollar-producing tasks and delegate items such as copywriting and email marketing to expert third parties, and entrust your team with things like confirming appointments, putting together listing presentations and vendor reports.
I’m sure you’ve all heard the saying ‘you don’t need to reinvent the wheel’. And it’s true; you don’t. In real estate, there are a lot of everyday tasks you can template, especially when it comes to communications.
I recommend templating your most used and successful letters, emails and even your most frequently sent text messages.
You can still oversee the process and implement quality control by communicating the needed result, the steps to take to get those outcomes and initiating an ‘earlyline’. An earlyline is a pre-deadline so that you get to check the task has been completed at the desired standard and make any changes if needed. - Your ideal week
My third and final tip is to time block your ideal week in to your calendar. Forward-thinking and forward planning is your best friend in real estate. I don’t mean micromanaging every task down to the last second, but put in place a clear outline on when non dollar-productive tasks need to be started and finished.
For example, you might send your weekly email newsletter on a Tuesday afternoon, so you have your PA start working on it the Thursday before. Scheduling the ‘known quantities’ or ‘known tasks’ into your week means that when something unexpected happens, such as a vendor wanting to list a property immediately or a buyer who needs to inspect that home now, you have the time available and have the confidence that all of the other tasks will get done.
Establishing systems and structures in your real estate business gives you true peace of mind.
