5 Tips for Spring Cleaning Your Business!

With warm weather, fresh air and longer days luring us outdoors, many of us are attempting to get our spring cleaning done around our homes in order to relax and enjoy the summer season.  Yet we oftentimes stop when our kitchen cupboards are organized, we’ve washed our windows and have cleaned our gutters... but what about the rest of our lives?  

As a real estate agent, you’re well aware of the stresses and busy schedule that await you each morning.  While you love your job, you don’t set time aside to freshen up your business each year, and it can end up dragging you down in the long run.

So, in honor of this refreshing season, I thought five tips for spring cleaning your business would be just the thing to help you regroup, get organized and prioritize.  You’ll be feeling less cluttered, rejuvenated and ready to continue through the busy warmer months!
 

1.  Plan Your Day- No matter how small your to do list seems, making a daily plan is essential.  If you only have one showing and the rest of your day is “free,” take that time to do things you’ve been pushing off.  While you don’t want to be working around the clock, tackling one extra project on a less busy day will keep you from being overwhelmed down the road.

2.  Delegate- In a recent article, Kristin Marquet, who founded the communications firm Marquet Media in New York city noted how much money she wasted trying to do everything herself.  She found that spending 10 hours per week doing administrative tasks at her rate of $100 per hour, caused her to lose around $1,000 a week!  Because of this, she hired a bookeeper, web designer and writer at a fraction of the cost of her time.  While it may seem hard to let go of some of your daily tasks, it will save you time and money in the long run!  As Real Estate Virtual Assistants, we take those daily tasks off our clients lists which frees them up to do what they do best!  


3.  Have Clear Direction- If you have an office of people working for you, an assistant or you’re on your own, having a clear direction is vital.  This means organizing your weekly and daily tasks from keeping track of your marketing, your blog, procedures for current and potential clients or anything else you do on a  regular basis.  A great way to do this is through lists and checklists.  Ideally, you should have a few people in your office or your assistant completely trained and up to speed on what you do on a regular basis.  Give them the big picture of your plans as well as the details of your small, daily tasks.  This way, if someone is sick or your assistant quits, it’s easy to train someone else and you’re up and running again without missing a beat. 

We’ve found this to work well in our office!  While many Real Estate Virtual Assistants work on their own from home, we have an in office team that is crossed trained and ready to jump in on any task at a moment’s notice.  Our checklists and processes that we have in place allow us to note each clients tasks and preferences, meaning that if one of us is sick; we have a small army to pick up their tasks and our clients never have to suffer without an assistant!  


4. Fix Your Leaks- Leaky expenditures can add up and cause you to wonder where all your money is going!  It’s easy to sign up here and there for small programs, websites and subscriptions that, although they’re real estate related, you don’t really need them.  It’s important to look at a month’s spending and really evaluate what you need to keep and what you can cut.  Although a few ten dollar expenses a month doesn’t seem like much, they can add up to significant amounts in a years’ time. 


5.  Be Picky- It may seem counterproductive to turn away potential or current clients, but there are those clients that will drain you with endless calls, emails... you know the type.  While bending over backwards for them, you realize you’re pushing other clients to the backburner and aren’t making any progress in any direction with any of your clients.  It’s okay to turn down a client that you feel end up giving you more of a headache than it’s worth.  



So, as you take on spring cleaning around your house, I would encourage you to tackle spring cleaning your real estate business as well!  You’ll feel rejuvenated having your work life in order and will find you’re not working harder, but smarter!  



Have questions about delegating those tasks that are taking up your time?  Let us know!  We’re here to help when you need us- no matter how big or small the task!  Feel free to contact us today to get started!

Allie Coyle
Marketing & Copywriting Coordinator