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After you’ve taken a browse through your bank accounts, reviewed your investments, set your mindset on a positive trajectory and worked out, it’s time to get on with the business day. Don’t skip these key rules. If you’re struggling with this, perfect your pre-work routine before conquering your daily work schedule.
Secret::: It’s important to recognize that your daily schedule should always be based on profit. More specifically, on the things you must take action on daily to lead to that profit.
Memorize this list: Lead Generation, Lead Follow Up, Prequalifying, Presenting, Negotiating and Closing. ‘Lather, rinse, repeat!’ If it’s not on that list, why are you doing it? So get clear right now that you must lead with profit, and that means you must lead with profit producing activities.
The most common profit-killing, schedule-wrecking activities of all agents, regardless of market, experience or price range are the following:
- No morning control of time. Getting to work when you finally can get to work is not a plan. That’s what hobbyists do. They fit it in when they get to it.
- Getting stuck in the weeds of Transaction Coordination. Get a transaction coordinator. It’s the cost of each transaction and it’s well worth it to maintain your sanity and buy your time back.
- Playing around with social media, pretending it’s generating leads for you.
- Going to appointments you don’t have to go to. Home inspections, lender lunches, free trainings, oh my! If it’s not on the dollar productive list of activities, it’s not a necessary appointment. You’re just hiding out, pretending to work.
So those are activities you’re no longer allowed to do. If this is a challenge, make a deal with your spouse, your kids or your assistant that every time they catch you doing any of this, they get a crisp $100 bill. That will cure you! If that’s not enough, make it $500 until you are clear that you’re not being profitable when you do those schedule-wrecking activities.
Let’s get back to what you must do daily in order to meet or exceed your goals in the 5 areas of life. It all starts with generating leads in the first place. Without leads, the rest of the list is meaningless. You might have the most polished listing presentation in the world, or the most amazing buyer pre-qualification script, but with no leads, it really doesn’t matter!
Lead generation. You are either running a marketing enhanced, prospecting based company, a prospecting based, marketing enhanced company. You may be a referral-only company, but that’s not sustainable. You may be a prospecting-only company, but that’s extremely dependent on you. The first two are the most sustainable. Being prospecting-based and marketing-enhanced is the most viable long term, the most stable and the least dependent on market conditions.
If you are lead generation challenged, refer to our Survival Guide, our Treasure Map or our 90 Day Massive Action Plan, included in Real Estate Coaching Essentials. Remember to FOCUS, Follow One Course Until Successful. Don’t do the 90 DayMassive Action Plan for 9 days and give up! Ask for help if you need it!
Recommended IDEAL Schedule. (“Ideal” means you follow it 4 out of 5 working days, every week that you’re not on vacation).
6:30am: Awake. Powerful affirmations, 20 to 30 minute simple work out, 8 ounces of water, review goals for the day.
Secret: No day should have more than 5 specific, attainable, achievable goals. 3 is better most days. Things like:
- Resolve home inspection remedy.
- Get listing docs back from seller.
- Get contract signed.
- Follow up on 100% of leads.
7:00am: 30 minute financial review. Are you trending up or down versus your financial goals? Are you on track, ahead or behind? By how much? Take a look at your white boards and your vital signs report. What is your appointment schedule? What appointments must you set today? What appointments are you going on today?
Note: At this point, you’re 100% on your control of mind, body and wallet.
7:00 to 8am: Prepare for your day. Breakfast, shower, dress. When in doubt, dress for success. Always be dressed one level nicer than your prospect or client.
8am: Take 20 minutes to clear out any mission-critical email, voicemail, texts, etc. Delete all trash, spam, etc. Delegate anything you can to your Transaction coordinator, personal assistant, etc. If you don’t have them, then you ARE them. Prioritize by urgency and set a plan in place.
8:30am to 9:30am: Relentless Lead Follow Up with Intent to Set Appointment! Since you’re most likely to set an appointment with this category of prospects, it’s valuable to pursue them first thing in your day. You have their phone numbers, they’re expecting your call and you have what they want. Remember to pre-qualify all listing and buyer leads prior to setting that appointment. Do not skip this step. You should never, ever end the day, or even the morning, with leads you’ve not followed up on! Use proven lead follow up scripts.
9:30am: More lead follow up if you have the leads to follow up on. If not, it’s time for lead generation. Choose your most-likely-to-list spokes first. Yes, this means unrepresented sellers, expireds, probate. It just makes sense to speak with people who need what it is you do. Remember, if you’ve generated enough leads to follow up on, do that FIRST!
10:30am: Call your required Past Client / Center of Influence list. Take the total number of people on your list, divide by 20 working days, 40 working days or 60, to determine how many you will call daily, to contact your sphere every 90 days or less.
Example: If you have 100 people on your list, divide by 20 working days, and you have to speak with 5 people per day to touch your entire list monthly. What would your business be like then?
11:30am: Assess your day so far. Have you set any appointments yet? If no appointments yet, proceed to continued lead follow up or prospecting.
12:30pm: LUNCH. Yes, actually eat lunch…ideally with a past client, current client, etc. Eat lunch somewhere in your market where you can be out and about talking about real estate.
1:30pm: Check in with your transactions, your team, your staff, your co-op agents, etc. This is your Hour of Power to keep your existing business buttoned up. Only One Hour.
2 to 5pm: Appointment time. If no appointments, you have options, but they all center around creating income. Appointments are best, but after that, it’s time for calling your sellers, setting up showings, previewing, doing price reductions, scheduling open houses, creating marketing plans, etc. Ideally it’s back to your lead follow up, preparing for tomorrow’s appointments, etc. If you get bored or unproductive with your normal routine, break out of it by going after a new spoke, such as probate, new construction, for rent by owners, or a new category of center of influence events.
5:00 to 6pm: Tie down loose ends. Any negotiations should be resolved and sent to the other side, so they’ll owe you a response in the morning, not the other way around.
6pm: Quittin’ Time!
