A stellar morning to each and every one of you focused lead generators, salespeople, and businesspeople! There is simply no good reason why today cannot be the BEST day of the week for you set appointments and get contracts signed … but as it’s been said before, ‘you have to be IN it to win it’! Are you going to get fully in the game today?
Over the past month or so I’ve had a number of interesting conversations with agents who are in ‘expansion mode’. In each case they’ve been working diligently for 6 months, a year, maybe even longer and have built up their skills and their confidence to the point where it’s time to go to the next level. In general there are two areas we have to focus on to make that happen–staff and marketing. You are only one person, with a limited amount of time and things that you personally can do in one day … so it doesn’t take long to feel the pressure and need to ‘duplicate yourself’. Not to mention the fact that to do more transactions we have to have more sellers and buyers to interact with and get contracts signed from … hence the need for marketing and lead generation!
But check it out: before you go out and expand your passive or proactive marketing and lead gen efforts, you have to ask yourself, “What will I do with the new business that it brings in?”
It’s ~always~ a good idea to start planning for the next necessary staff person prior to upping your marketing budget because otherwise you’re simply going to have too much going on for you to handle by yourself and you’ll become overwhelmed. So—will it be a listing and marketing manager? A transaction/database coordinator? Maybe even a general admin person just to run errands, scan documents, drop off pre-listing packages, or wash your car that makes the most sense to add next? Picture building a skyscraper … you can only go so high with a certain sized foundation. To go higher, you have to go wider at the bottom, so think of adding systems and staff as ‘widening’ the necessary foundation of your business model.
Look at the level of business that you’re currently doing and the things that most often keep you away from spending more time on ‘money-making’ activities. IF you’re spending 2-3 hours a day consistently prospecting, making strong presentations, and pricing homes well, you should be listing enough property and having enough sales to justify and pay for at least a part time admin person/listing coordinator! Remember, you can’t grow the business unless you expand your staff because 80%+ of your time NEEDS to remain on lead gen, lead follow up, presenting, getting contracts signed, and negotiating. That’s where you make the big money. With a few exceptions, everything else is fair game for a staff person to deal with. Be willing to expand!
Give this some thought, share your own experiences, and evaluate where you are right now with your own business. You may realize that you need to do some more planning to really be clear on what the next step for you personally is … so schedule the time to do it!
In the meantime, this thing called ‘today’ is staring us in the face–let’s all commit to making it count!