“Rinse and repeat.”

These instructions are most commonly found on bottles of shampoo and conditioner, but the principle is applicable to almost any business, including real estate. Want to elevate your business’ execution? Apply the simple “rinse-and-repeat” strategy. It will be one of the best strategies you’ve ever learned.

If you’re like most folks in real estate, you’ve tried again and again to implement new systems in your business to increase revenue and profit, all to no avail. You end up exactly where you started, with absolutely no forward progress whatsoever. So, what’s the solution? Rinse and repeat. That means repeating productive actions—things you know will help your business—over and over. Do it, then do it again; do it, do it again; do it, do it again. Get the point?

Let’s take lead management, for example. You’ve probably noticed that today’s market is very competitive, with Wall Street companies trying to get between us and our past clients, our sphere and our prospects. Real estate agents earn nearly $80 billion in commissions in the U.S. each year, and these Wall Street companies believe we won’t follow up with our contacts consistently enough to earn their business the next time they’re ready to buy or sell. So how do we keep this from happening? We execute a high-touch follow-up program for each of our contacts using the rinse-and-repeat strategy.

Sounds easy enough, right? Well, it isn’t. If it was, then everyone would already be doing it.

I’m currently working with a very high-producing client in the Phoenix area—I mean a couple million a year in commission—and we’re working on keeping competitors from getting between him and his clients. Our first instructions to his sales manager and his team were to enter all leads into their client relationship management (CRM) system upon first contact. But after 30 days of holding at least four open houses per weekend, the team had only entered a total of 14 leads from open houses. Just 14 leads from 16 open houses? Not likely. They probably had nearly 80 visitors to these open houses. So why weren’t the leads entered? Because they weren’t rinsing and repeating.

It can be difficult to establish new habits with our team members. We have to tell them what to do and then tell them again and again and again. It shouldn’t be this way with adults, but it’s just the way it is. Think “rinse and repeat” each time you’re teaching people something new, and let this remind you to rinse and repeat while you’re adopting a new process, too. If you want to elevate your ability to execute any new program or system, you have to learn how to be consistent about it. You have to repeat things over and over until your execution reaches a level that produces noticeable, positive results.

I know it sounds simple, but sometimes the simplest things have the biggest impact. Want to make a real difference in your business? Just remember three words: rinse and repeat.

Cleve Gaddis is a master coach with Workman Success Systems and a team leader with Gaddis Partners, RE/MAX Center in Atlanta. He learned sales the hard way, selling vacuum cleaners door-to-door, and now puts those skills to use in helping his team close $60 million annually. He loves to share his systems and strategies to help others succeed. He hosts the Call Cleve Atlanta Real Estate Show, heard weekly on NewsTalk 1160 WCFO. Contact him at Cleve@WorkmanSuccessSystems.com. For more information, please visit www.workmansuccesssystems.com.