Jacqueline Kyo Thomas
When you think “productivity,” what’s the first thing that pops into your mind?
A lot of us think that productivity is the magical ability to squeeze just a little bit more into our already overstuffed workday. But let’s be clear. Productivity is not about cramming more things on your plate. Productivity is about being efficient with the tasks that you must do.
As a real estate agent, there are things that you must do no matter what. For example, every day, rain or shine, you’ve got to prospect, maintain your business, meet with clients, and network. How can you become efficient at these daily, and often mundane tasks?
Cloning?
Nope. The answer is a lot simpler and cheaper. In this post, we’ll share how to turn into a more productive version of yourself without controversial science.
1. Start With Your Most Important Task
What do you need to do each day to feel successful? While it’s tempting to go abstract and grandiose, choose a goal that is specific, reasonable and measurable. For example, my most important task today is to call 25 new prospects or automate the monthly utility bills for my business.
Choose tasks that can easily be checked off of your to-do list.
If possible, it’s a good practice to tackle the most important task first before you handle the rest. This ensures that you’ll not only get it done, but you’ll also do it when you’re still fresh-eyed and ready to face the day, therefore minimizing mistakes.
So, when should you plan your most important task for the day? The night before. By preparing ahead of time, you’ll go into each day with a plan of action. You won’t waste the morning in “planning” mode.
If you’re so inclined, you can do something similar for the entire week, too. Map out your top five goals for the upcoming week on the weekend.
2. Block Your Day
Multitasking is a no-no.
Although multitasking gives off the appearance that you're doing more, it's hurting your productivity and you're actually doing less. Here's the hard truth: Most of us cannot multitask at all. Instead of working on two or more different things at once, what we're actually doing is switching from one task to the next in quick succession. That may sound productive, but it's not. With each switch, we have to refocus on the new task at hand. This means that we actually take longer to finish a task— 50% longer. And not only that, we make 50% more mistakes in the process of multitasking.
Multitasking is a waste of your time. Instead, embrace block scheduling.
In a block schedule, you group like tasks together. For example, you’ll specify an hour or two in which to do all of your prospecting. For another hour, you’ll respond to and send emails. Then, you’ll allocate an hour to do all of your appraisals, and so on. Instead of scattering similar tasks throughout the day, you’ll do them one after the other. This allows you to stay “in the zone” and accomplish the tasks a lot sooner.
3. Meet Efficiently
Because you’re a real estate agent, you can’t always pick and choose when you’re going to meet. Your client does that. But, in many scenarios, you do have the deciding vote. Instead of waiting for your client, if given the chance, take charge of the conversation and recommend when and where to meet.
There are three rules to making your meetings as productive as possible:
- Meet in the mornings. While this isn’t always possible, morning meetings are always best. The time leading up to an afternoon or early evening meeting is usually wasted. Instead, schedule for the morning hours so that you can have the afternoon/evenings free to handle the rest of your tasks.
- Meet at the same place. If meeting outside of your office, become a regular in the local cafe. Don’t meet at multiple places, which only puts mileage on you and your car. Stay put after your first meeting. Be sure to choose a place that you don’t mind being in for a few hours.
- Meet back to back. Don’t space your meetings out. Instead schedule your appointments next to each other with a 10-15 minute buffer between. This gives you time to make the necessary notes and clear your headspace before meeting with the next person.
4. Create a Cold Calling Script
You’ve got to prospect. It’s going to be awkward, at least at first.
But fortunately, it doesn't have to be done inefficiently. You can create a script to use when cold calling prospective clients. This will prevent the oh-so embarrassing word fumble as you struggle to introduce yourself and get to the point. A cold call script will help you breeze through the call, hit the right points, and get a quick answer.
We've actually created two scripts that you can borrow for your real estate cold calls. You can check them out here: Create a Cold Calling Script for Your Real Estate Business.
5. Set and Forget Your Social Media
Social media is a bottomless pit that we can all get lost in from time to time. I’m guilty, you’re guilty. But to be more productive, we’ve got to make a change.
Enter social media automation. Using automation tools like Buffer, SproutSocial, and Hootsuite, real estate agents can plug in their necessary updates once a week and be "active" on social media every day. Most tools allow you to fill up a queue of posts and then schedule a time for delivering those posts. You can create a week's or even a month's worth of social media updates in one sitting.
But wait, there's more.
In addition to posting new updates that you've scheduled, some tools also sync with your blog and automatically post updates when you publish a new post. Also, tools like Edgar repost your old content so that your queue is never empty even when you forget to schedule new posts.
Speaking of social media posts, be sure that everything you publish on social media is also compliant with fair housing laws. Photos in your posts should show a diversity of ages, genders, abilities, and ethnicities. Also ensure that you show a mix of people. Be inclusive in your language, and avoid singling out a particular religion, ethnicity, or disability.
6. Label Clients in Your Phone
When you make new contacts, don’t just enter a number in your phone with the intention of updating it at a later time. Let’s be honest: That time rarely comes and before you know it, you’re staring at a list of numbers in your phone and have no clue who they belong to.
Instead of relying on your memory, take the extra 30 seconds to attach a name, budget, and a small note to their contact details. You can always update it later as you learn more information about the prospect, or when you transfer the contact to your CRM (if using). However, this little tip increases your productivity because it removes guesswork.
Related Resources Before you go, check out these additional resources: