You may have decided to get into real estate so you could be your own boss, set up your own working hours and make a lot of money.
So, how’s that working for you?
The challenge with entrepreneurship is being laser-focused on dollar-productive activities. When you first get into the business, you need to learn the skills, implement systems, install new programs, deploy various platforms, study scripts, market and process transactions. That’s a full-time job, and you haven’t even begun to work with buyers and sellers.
But here’s where most agents fail: They get too busy working in the business and fail to work on their business.
By nature, our business is radically unpredictable. Buyers decide to buy, and sellers decide to sell on their own timetable—and we want to be there at that magic moment—but the intensity of showing buyers, servicing sellers and maintaining prospecting can be daunting unless you develop a plan to keep all the plates spinning and the income funnel full.
The plan is simple—but getting an agent to do it is the hard part.
No matter what’s happening, only you have the power to block your day. This begins with blocking out dollar-productive activities by using a My Perfect Week Planner.*
The system visually helps you lay out a perfect week so that you’re able to establish a rhythm of daily habits that result in regular, consistent income. Think of blocking your time using a traffic light as an example:
- Red is for non-negotiable time. These hours are reserved for your personal “big rocks” like sleep, family time, etc.
- Yellow is used to time-block a daily prospecting hour. I can imagine you rolling your eyes right about now, but prospecting is the key to getting paid regularly. Pretend that this is sacred time, even if it’s 15-30-minute increments five days a week, and stick to it. Whether you’re prospect-phobic or simply believe prospecting is limited to cold calls, think conversation, not solicitation. Rotate through your sphere of influence with scheduled calls to update contact information and to share a save-the-date for your future client appreciation party. These approaches are easy and friendly.
- Green is the easiest time to block on your weekly calendar. These are appointments that are related to earning or receiving money, and are usually the most fun. Block in green the hours you’ve earmarked for closings, listing appointments or working with buyers.
The goal is to increase the green in your weekly calendar. You wouldn’t want to miss a closing, so why not block out a small increment of time to talk to more people in order to make more sales so you have more green in your week?
Sit down at the beginning of each week to plan. Real estate has plenty of opportunity for busy work that will rob you of energy and income, so take control of your week before the chaos hits so that you can do those activities that serve and pay you first. It’s also a good idea to get a good coach to help you learn new habits to plan for success, and hire out the administrative work so that you can focus on being the CEO, building your business every day, one day at a time.
*For a complimentary copy of My Perfect/Productive Week Scheduler, visit http://bit.ly/2raO1Dj
Terri Murphy is a communication engagement specialist, author, speaker and coach. She is the author/co-author of five books, and founder of MurphyOnRealEstate.com. Contact her at TerriMurphy.com or Terri@TerriMurphy.com.
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