Is Your Structure Strong?

Is Your Structure Strong?  

If you've ever watched a building being constructed, you know that they don't start with walls and a roof. The first thing that is built is a foundation, and onto that goes the basic structure of the building – the steel bars and girders that provide the strength and stability for the building to come. What do you suppose would happen if some of those bars started to bend, or were missing? Obviously, the building would no longer be strong and safe. 

It's the same thing with your real estate business. When you began you laid the foundation with your education and training, and then you added the structural framework with the way you did prospecting and follow-up, phone calls and email, your website, and all the other pieces of your business that support your main purpose – listing and selling real estate!

The Flaw 

Now consider what happens if one or more of those structural pieces falls away or weakens from lack of attention? Even if all the other pieces are strong – if you're busy making phone calls and answering emails to be responsive – you still can find that your business suffers because some of your infrastructure is weak or missing. 

Here's an example of what I mean: I worked with a real estate coaching client who was so distracted by her short sale problems and issues that everything else in her business was falling by the wayside. Her infrastructure is weak, and because she didn’t realize it, she wasn't taking steps to fix it. 

The Clues

Could this happen to you? Here are some clues that let you know you are off course: 

• You have too many distractions, you are always emergency driven, putting out so many fires that you can’t find the time or the energy to do the things you ought to do.
• You make mistakes that you could easily have avoided.
• You are too tired to even care.  

The problem is that you are stuck in the scarcity mindset. When your infrastructure is weak you intrinsically know it, and yet you may be in denial about the specifics. Living and working in fear of loss or of being hurt tends to bring exactly what you fear into your life.  

The Mess

Here's what it looks and feels like when you stray way off course: 

• You are lost. You are not on track and you have no clue how to get back on.  You probably don’t even know how you got lost in the first place.
• Excuses! You find yourself thinking/saying, "I can’t…Poor me…I have no time…I can’t afford it…." 
• You make mistakes. Big expensive mistakes. 
• You suffer loss of income because your transactions are falling apart. 
• If your transactions do close, you don’t have enough business in the pipeline to replenish those transactions. Either you don't have enough leads or not enough good leads. 
• Now you've lost control of yourself and your business.  You start to chase business. 
• You start lowering your business standards to work with anyone who is breathing just to get things rolling again, creating the same mess all over again.
• You aren't getting referrals any more because you are not doing a good job.   
• You begin to spin out of control. 
• You begin to blame everyone and anyone for your mess. 
• You come home and take out your misery on anyone and anything around.

This is all feedback that’s letting you know you are off course. Now it's time to stop screaming that it's happening, listen and pay attention, and then respond differently. 

The Cleanup

Let’s turn on the GPS.  Do you hear what your GPS would say to get back on course?

Thinking back to the agent whose business was suffering because she was spending too much time and energy on short sales, what could she have done? Well, if your infrastructure is weak because you don’t have the expertise or assistance to support you with these transactions, put the ego aside and find a person who is highly qualified. Refer all your short sale leads/REO leads to that person, and take a healthy referral fee when they close. It's that simple! You just zapped a big old hairy psychic vampire. And you left room for the kind of business you handle well…and profitably!  You'll find yourself energized to go out and prospect daily for new business.

Here are some ideas and techniques to help you get back on course: 

• Create time blocks and time frames, and stick to them.
• Define your boundaries. If you won't assert boundaries you’ll never be able to handle the stress of success. 
• Get rid of all distractions. Shut the door!
• Don’t react to the phone or email. Check email and voice mail every couple of hours. Get a phone message service. Resist the temptation to believe that there are real need-you-this-instant emergencies in real estate.
• Create check lists, and don't let them get stale.
• Raise your standards and set expectations with your seller up front. 
• Outsource. Hire an assistant to help you or enroll people like the title company and others involved with the transaction to do some of the leg work. Or, get your company involved to hire a team you can outsource to. I have access to inexpensive, high quality assistants who can support you in your business… that I share with agents playing The Real Estate Game.
• If the transaction is a short sale, ask the bank for exactly what they want and expect.  Then communicate that to the seller, and make it the seller’s responsibility to gather the necessary information. The Realtor® is not responsible for the seller’s debt!
• Continue to prospect to get different kinds of leads, not just short sales. The more you do this, the more good qualified leads you’ll have so you can say "no" to the busyness and business that will get you lost all over again.
• Pray and/or meditate.

We can get so busy that we lose sight of flaws or weaknesses in our own structure. While coaching a client in this month's The Real Estate Game, we realized the part of her infrastructure that was weak was in prospecting. Prospecting is one of the bearing walls to your business, so if you don't do anything else, you must prospect. This agent wasn't prospecting because she was too busy doing all the busy work, and didn't have the time or energy to do the income building tasks. She was too busy to get business. But her job was to create business – and realizing that was the breakthrough. 

Right from the beginning of this session of The Real Estate Game, she was relentless with her prospecting. And the result? She acquired several high quality leads, two of which led to 2 week sales!  

A strengthened infrastructure leads to immediate business. 

Is your structure strong?

To your success,

About Coach Patti Kouri:

Coach Patti the owner of Accelerated Performance Coaching Inc., and The Real Estate Game®, strives to maintain an atmosphere of community, connection, and harmony by becoming your resource base to enhance and enrich your personal and business life. Coach Patti was voted one of the ‘Top 50 Most Influential Women In Real Estate Leadership in 2008’ by the 2008 edition of the Swanepoel Trends Report. www.CoachPatti.com  www.TheRealEstateGame.com.