As a real estate professional or affiliate service provider, do you ever wonder, “How can I elevate my productivity?”

If the answer is yes, you’ll find value in this post.

The latest numbers show there are roughly 2 million licensed real estate agents in the United States. That’s about one agent for every 52 households. About 65% of these agents (1.3 million) choose to be held to a higher standard and join the National Association of REALTORS®.

What’s the difference? That title—REALTOR®^—is essential to know because it separates the professionals from the rest. Becoming a member requires adherence to a strict Code of Ethics and to be held accountable by a local board. All agents are agents, yet not all agents are REALTORS®—there is a difference.

As you can imagine, professional real estate sales is a competitive space. With 5.3 million homes sold in the U.S. annually, that means, on average, the typical agent closes three transactions. For the average-priced home in the U.S., that creates about $20,412 of income before expenses.

“The secret of getting ahead is getting started” — Mark Twain

Productivity matters as today’s modern consumers want to be confident that they deal with a full-time professional, not a hobbyist. Productivity matters to the top-producing associate as they desire to be surrounded by other high-producing, full-time professionals.

Iron sharpens iron is the mindset for peak performance.

There are four factors you need to create any outcome.

– First is a solid mindset 
– Second is a strong game plan
– Third is sales skills
– Fourth is a complete set of tools

Mindset is No. 1 because, without it, you are paralyzed. You can have the best strategy globally, yet you will struggle if you are not in a growth mindset state.

A solid game plan is second, as all top performers we have studied have one. A start-to-finish, step-by-step checklist that is simple to follow and execute.

Now you may have seen these two great quotes about planning from Dwight Eisenhower, a five star General and our 34th president:

“No plan ever survives the first contact with the enemy” and “In preparing for battle, I have found that planning is useless, yet planning is indispensable!”

Meaning the skill of being adaptable is critical to success in any endeavor.

Sales skills come in third, as we all need the skills to execute the game plan. One of the four critical skills for the modern sales professional is understanding “why they buy.” Once you have mastered the skills of why they buy, your results will skyrocket. You can get started on understanding why they buy at jparcode.com

Fourth, what’s in your tool bag? Tools help you uncover and serve buyers, sellers and investors. Tools can help you automate, eliminate or delegate critical tasks. Top performers have essential systems for operations—a CRM, for example—and marketing like kvCORE.

And finally, we come to teams. One of the trends in professional real estate sales is teaming up. It’s hard to go solo; even the Lone Ranger had Tonto. Teams outproduce an individual and create a better consumer experience for the client and a better quality of life for the agent. JPAR recently released a comprehensive guide covering the six factors to master before you create a team.

Some suggest that professional coaching makes a difference in your performance, and our survey shows that to be true. Yet, our survey also showed that being an active member of a small accountability group that meets weekly can be just as effective. More on that in future posts.

There you have it: five ways to be more productive. A solid mindset, a well-thought-out game plan, persuasive skills, tools designed for productivity and teaming up.

If you are ready to get more productive, today is the day. If you would like to know more about JPAR, reach out now:

Franchising opportunities: franchise.jpar.com
Agent opportunities: jparready.com

“Don’t count the days. Make the days count.” — Muhammad Ali

Mark Johnson is the chief executive officer of JPAR Real Estate—a rapidly growing full-service transaction-based real estate brokerage—the host of “Success Superstars,”—a weekly show that highlights the blueprint of agent success—and the co-founder of CoRecruit. He has invested decades in understanding the inner workings of high-performing real estate companies, managers, teams and their leaders in major markets across the world. Johnson has served as a business coach in progressive leadership capacities for one of the largest U.S.-based real estate firms, in sales and customer marketing leadership capacities for a major consumer-goods company, and served in the U.S. Army.