I just met with 4 of the real estate agents that we work with, and all of them were saying the same thing. They are feeling the real estate market is shifting. Things are starting to get harder, and slowing down. All the things we love to talk about as Realtors. You know, “It's not me, its the market”.
Should you panic, should you be worried the sky is falling?
My opinion is, you should no panic there is always opportunities even in a slow/down market if you know where to look.
Furthermore, with 2019 around the corner, this is not the time to sit back and relax while enjoying the holidays.That is what your competition is doing. They are doing NOTHING to better their business. Right now is the best time to take action.
It is time for you to start planning, building, and setting yourself up for success in 2019.
The best time to get your business systems in order was yesterday. But it’s never too late to start. There are things you can start doing right now, so as the market shifts, you are not going to be left wondering what happened.The market is going to shift. That is the nature of the real estate business.
So what are you going to do about it?
The agents I was meeting with were all talking about what cuts they need to make or what they need to stop doing. I was like “STOP”, let's not focus on what you need to stop doing, let's focus on what you need to start doing.
(You do need to regularly access you ROI and adjust your business from time to time but that will be for future posts)
So think about it. Real Estate is not rocket science. You have everything in your toolbox to get, grow, and keep their business to thrive in this market. But truth be told, I don't want to be that guy that tells you it's so easy. It takes hard work to grow a business and even harder work to maintain that business while providing an amazing level of service. By you just taking the time to read this says two things.
First it says you are willing to invest in yourself.
Secondly, you're looking for more opportunities where other agents are not.
So what is stopping you?
One of the things may be that you can't be in two places at once.
You can't both work in the business, and on the business at a high-level simultaneously. So you might be like other agents and have hit a plateau. You may be stuck at a point where it's becoming harder and harder to get to the next level. Because you're a business owner, and this is your baby, it's hard to let go of some of these processes and build systems to let other people run.
At a certain point if you are controlling all of the small processes, it is keeping you from focusing on revenue-generating activities. You need to be looking at your business as a living, breathing organism that needs to constantly be evolving, changing, growing and adapting to the fluctuations within this industry.
My goal for the last six years has been to help other agents build a successful long-term business that provides for their families and hopefully contributes to raise the quality of agents out there. I hope this resource “RE Agent Builder”, which is 100% free, can give you the ideas, tools, systems, and plans to help your business thrive.
So let's get back to the point like I mentioned there are barriers in your way that you need to start removing if you want your real estate business to get to the next level.
One of those things is your mindset about your most valuable asset. The 4 agents I met with once faced with a challenge we're all thinking about ways to make their business small get, nimble, hunker down and hopefully survive the shifting market.
I challenged them the question that mindset. Is that really what you should be doing?
Is that what you think Warren Buffett, Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos would do if they had a looming challenge facing them? Do you think they would get small run and hide or do you think they would shift their mindset and attack the challenge at full speed...
So one shift you can make is around your most valuable asset?
What do you think your most valuable asset is?
- Your database
- Your CRM software
- Your broker
- Your brand
- Your lead generator
- Your team
In my opinion your most valuable asset is your TIME.
Of all the agents I worked with over the years, the agents that were making $250k - $1,000,000+ in GCI per year were the agents that had a good control over their time.
Time is something you can't create more of. Once it is gone it’s gone forever.
You have to guard that time like someone is trying to steal it from you. because truthfully everything is trying to steal your time. Something to think about is you have the same amount of time as the top agent in your marketplace. You also have the same amount of time as Warren Buffett, Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos so what makes them different than you?
So let's dig in.
How do you become a protector of your time? How do you make sure that your time is being used effectively?
(Now, I don't want to over-promise I don't have every answers but my hope with RE Agent Builder is to be able to give you little nuggets, tips tricks, hacks, or things that I have used or learned from the successful agents, partners and business leaders I work with and give them to you. So you can Implement them and use them in your business to become more successful.)
There are a ton of things to help you take control of you time and we will cover a lot of them soon.
- Time blocking
- Gamifying your day
- Setting goals
- Creating upper and lower bounds
- Efficiency in technology
- Measuring performance
But one simple thing you can do right now to help take control of your time again is daily goal planning.
Like I mentioned earlier there are so many things trying to steal your time and distract you from working in, or on your business. You need to start with simple things so you can get some wins under your belt and start building new success habits.
So do not try and master time blocking, gamifying your day, setting goals, creating upper and lower bounds, efficiency in technology, measuring performance all in a day. Start small and build as you go. This is a marathon not a sprint.
I challenge you to start planning your day the night before. Do not get crazy and try and map out every 15 mins just write down 3 goals you want to complete tomorrow. What are the 3 most important things you can do tomorrow to help you business. If there is a big project you need to complete like setting up a new spoke in you hub spoke business model focus on a small piece to that project you can get done tomorrow. (If you do not know what a hub spoke business model I will cover that also)
You might be saying but my days and crazy and impossible to plan. That is something you need to control and stop right now. If you are not controlling your time I promise you something or someone else is.
If you create the day plan the night before you will know going into the day that
come hell or high water these 3 things are going to get done no matter what pops up.
Now, don't go crazy with this just focus on 3 things every day that are going to help you push your business in the right direction. It you put too many things on the list it will be too big and demoralizing to get the important things done, or you will feel overwhelmed every day by a huge amount of task and more likely to hit burnout faster than you could scale your business.
If you're trying to call this more than three things in my good overwhelming and you might not have those little winds that will help you get to the Finish Line quicker.
so do this before you go to bed write down the three main things you want to get done the next day.
Example: as an agent that does over a hundred transactions a year his 3 things looks something like this
1. Check in on every active client
2. Call 10 people in SOi DB to say hi
3. Touch each deal in pipeline
Now is your time.
Write out your 3 goals for tomorrow the night before.
Tip:
If you are spending more that 5 mins writing your 3 goals for tomorrow you are doing something wrong.
Do not over think it execution over perfection.
Here’s how to do it:
Get something to write with
Get something to write on
WRITE!
(next day) Complete the goals
Rinse and repeat