There are many agents who function pretty well independently without assistants or many systems as long as the inventory or work load maintains a certain level. However, once the workload exceeds the agent's threshold of management, then what little systems that are incorporated start to fail. A back-up of work ensues and the agent ends up with angry clients and is exhausted from endless hours of work that never seem to end!

A few years back, I noticed a serious flaw in our office listing system. Although my assistant functioned very well when we averaged 1 listing per day, the system failed miserably when we had 2 or more listings in one day! We had unhappy clients and an assistant that was ready to pull her hair out in frustration! Part of the problem was that our agent was promising clients that their property would be on the market by the end of the day!

In reviewing the systems we had, I noticed a serious flaw in the way the assistant set up tasks for the day. On a typical day, my assistant would group similar tasks that needed to be completed but were for different clients. For example, when we print out brochures for the weekly distribution, we typically print out brochures for all of our listings at one time. Doing so saves time and steps.

Using this same protocol for 6 listings to be processed in one day does not work!In our office it takes approximately 2 hours to complete a new listing (get it into MLS, write and print out a brochure, take pictures, etc.).  If you take 2 hours and multiply it by 6, it will take 12 hours total to complete just one listing if you combine tasks from separate clients! An example is taking pictures. You may have 6 houses that need pictures shot, but one of the clients won't be ready for a photo shoot until 4 pm that day. By waiting until 4 pm to take pictures of all 6 houses, you have wasted time and delayed processing the other 5 properties!

So here is what we do for high volume days.

Each listing is processed in it's entirety in the order it is received by the listing department. No doubling or tripling up on tasks no matter how tempted you are to do so!

The agent must promise the client that listings will processed within 48 hours. By under-promising and over-delivering, we make our clients happy, and staff feels less pressure to complete listings quickly and they are completed with less mistakes!

What kind of systems do you have for high volume days in your office? Having these types of systems in place, can help you to transition into a competent top producing agent!

Welcome to my World!