In reality, most new agents find that managing their time effectively in real estate is one of the most challenging aspects to master. Even I find it hard when I first pursue my career in real estate. If you are struggling on this aspect, try putting in some of these time management strategies into your practice and you can thank me later.
- Breaking your goals down
What you need to do before everything else is to first create a goal sheet of big things you would like to accomplish, then break that down to specific activities that you need to do to make the goal a reality. A goal without execution is nothing but a hallucination.
For example, if my goal is to get five motivated buyers in the next six weeks, how am I going to achieve that? Things will not happen simply because I put it in papers. What you need to do is ask yourself “what activity will result in five buyers?” Once you start asking the right questions, your brain will start finding solutions to it.
Figuring out your how is going to take some time. The next thing to do is to break those activities into daily tasks in order to get you closer to that 5 buyers. What might that look like? If our big goal is five buyers in the next six weeks, what I would do is identify a few areas where I can focus on and work my way from it. One of the most common things you can start doing is utilizing social media platform. Committing to posting on three different platforms as many times as you can in a day, five days a week is going to be beneficial for you to grow your presence.
- Punch the clock
Real estate is tough and if nobody has shared that with you yet, allow me to be the bad news person in the room. One of the most common question new agents wonder is, “how am I going to spend all the free time?” And as for experienced agents, they may wonder, “how am going to find any free time with all this schedule going on?. You will find it common that most new agents will look like they have plenty of time but nothing to do because they don’t know how to allocate activities to it. Start by allocating activities on daily basis and you’ll save a lot of time and resource.
- Leverage your way
There are two sides of a story in real estate, there are some people who grow successfully in a short period of time whereas there are people who have worked for a long time but still have not reach the top yet. The answer to that lies in one simple explanation “working smart.”
Try using a customer management platform that automates follow-up communication to your past clients because we only have so many hours in a day and it is really hard for us to do everything by ourselves when the lists grow. Another emerging method that many agents are starting to use are implementing platforms like video conferencing, electronic signature software for the handling of documents, video tours for listings, social media for marketing. With all these tools available online, you should take good use of it. Leveraging the tools available will help free up the precious minutes of the day that would otherwise be tied down by unproductive activities. There is only one of you, let the tools make you more efficient with your time.
- Work hard, play hard
Making sure that you have the right mentality is important, when it is time to work, be committed to making that time valuable. But at some point, stop to enjoy your life outside of work. Always make time to be with your family and loved ones. Spend the time on personal development because that is what most successful real estate agents are doing on daily basis. Without growth we are stagnant. I am sure you don’t want to be in the same spot as you are one year from today right? So, start working!