I went to a time management seminar not long after I changed my career to real estate (now beginning my third year). Excellent speaker, good suggestions, except: "Successful agents spend 90% of their time prospecting for new clients."
Waidaminute. If I'm spending 90% of my time selling myself to new clients, what, exactly, am I selling?? Granted the value of marketing, differentiation, and contacts, if I include the time I'm spending typing this and all other posts I still wouldn't hit 30%. 90%????? Would I go to a surgeon who spends 10% of his time practicing his specialty?
[Unfortunately, I've met some who take this axiom to heart. Enormous effort is spent on perfecting listing presentations, overcoming objections, learning to say what people want to hear. But they're like the car-chasing dog: excellent at the chase, no idea what to do with the catch. Listing in hand, they move on to the next presentation.]
Noting I cut my business teeth with thirteen years at Nordstrom in the late sixties and seventies, my approach has always been simple: Take very, very, very good care of the customer. All else follows.
So how do I take good care of customers if I'm busy looking for new customers?
But I've remembered a Phil Knight quote:
"Yes, of course Nike is a marketing company, but our product is our number one marketing tool."
The realtor's product is service. If we can put the time we service our customer into the prospecting column, voila! 90% seems reasonable!
I feel soooo much better...
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