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There is only so much time in any day, and time is money. Using your time wisely and setting up your days to achieve the most out of them is crucial to success.
#1 Segment your day
With so much to do and so little time, it can be enticing to do many of your action items all at once – if this works for you, great! However, segmenting your day out and dedicating time slots to specific activities benefits many leading agents and even our team members.
Assign time for returning emails, making calls, prospecting, reaching out to leads etc., focusing on that activity specifically for that allotted time allows you to keep to a rhythm and experience less activity swap fatigue.
#2 Use your calendar
As soon as you make a plan, make it a priority to add it to your schedule. There are too many things in the day to keep track of, and our brains aren’t always reliable.
Working with many different agents, we have first-hand knowledge of the difference between an agent that can use a calendar effectively and those who cannot keep on top of all their commitments.
Here’s a situation that arises too often:
You have just had a call with a client, and they would like to have an appraisal done in two weeks. You make a mental note of it and say you will get back to them. Next week arrives, but you’ve got hot leads that require your attention immediately. Your focus shifts, and now you’ve got the details and needs of other clients in the spotlight. The evaluation drops in the priority list, and soon it disappears from the mental bank as the next week of tasks sweeps in to fill the void. The client never receives the communication; they feel unnurtured and unimportant, the listing goes to another agency; you lose a client, a future client, and perhaps your public perception is chipped away.
Use your schedule. Book your appointments into your calendar, set reminders and stick to them!
#3 Promote your brand
Set time aside to build your brand. You may be able to provide the best service in the state, but this will mean naught if no one knows who you are.
- Keep your social media updated with local listings and news. Keep the focus on your work, though don’t be scared to show the human behind the screen and suit.
- Blogging lets you flex your wealth of knowledge into long-form content while also increasing your search engine optimisation to draw more people towards your website. Clients with time to read will see how you operate and your insights – this doesn’t need to be pages upon pages, but enough to keep your website and social media feeds fresh.
- Traditional Marketing, the essentials, need to be focused on and nurtured. Your email blasts, flyers, signed advertisements and any other avenues you use to promote your brand need to be creative, relevant and up to date.
#4 Expand your knowledge
Stagnation is the enemy of progress. If you’ve been in the industry for a few years and found a groove that works for you, great! Now, what is the next step?
Are you looking at your processes and thinking about how you can improve, and more importantly, are you acting on that retrospection? How are you growing your business? What is the new skill that you are developing?
While agents can enjoy the spoils of opportunistic leads and clients, it isn’t enough to carry you successfully into the future. You need to develop new skills and strategies to get new results and clients and ensure you’re not becoming complacent. Many industry leaders with blogs, podcasts and social media spreads will help guide you in the following chapters of your professional life.
#5 Set yourself KPIs
Set yourself goals to reach for each day and ensure you don’t finish without hitting them! If you’re segmenting your day like in tip #1 and you’re spending a frequently allotted time doing calls, emailing clients, prospecting etc., set a number of contacts you’re going to reach or appointments you’re going to book and ensure you hit your target within the time slot. If you beat your KPI each time, move the goal post further away. Stay competitive and driven to improve each week, translating into more opportunities.
Putting these five things into practice will help to make you a leaner, more efficient agent. Check out the rest of our blogs for more ways to improve day-to-day. As always, listen for that “not yet”, as it may mean “sometime soon”.
