The office computer desktop wallpaper tends to be an afterthought sent our way by Corporate. Most of the spring, it 
was an ad for a company-wide production competition. The contest ended in May but the wallpaper continued well into August. Corporate changed out the wallpaper several weeks ago. The new wallpaper just says "One appointment a day, 5 days a week".
That slogan has slowly soaked through the hard-crusted shell of my real estate cynicism. That shell has been developed by years of exposure to office managers and trainers who mistakenly believe that what it is that we do is SELL. I don't SELL anything. I navigate and direct real estate transactions through the difficult waters of contract formation, loan approval and closing. I don't get paid for what I do. I get paid for what I know. I know from years and years of experience where a deal can get into trouble. My job is to see those problems from a distance and then sail around them. My transactions aren't always smooth sailing. By the time we sail into the safe harbor of a closing, the sails may be in tatters.....but, we make it to port!
Back to that message from Corporate, I continue to think about that One Appointment a Day. It doesn't matter what kind of work a person does, every single bit of money paid to everyone comes from people. We don't get paid to mail out postcards. We have to be in contact with people to make money. Getting in front of just one more person per day really will bump up the cashflow.
At the risk of stating the obvious, those of us who are still in the real estate business have gone through some Interesting Times over the last several years. Talk about tattered sails..... The New Normal has certainly made me take a look at every part of my business. I whole-hearted subscribe to the idea that everything that happens to us happens for a reason, and that in the end, it is always good. So, as stressful as the market has been for the last several years, I can look back and see how much my personal businss practices have gotten better over that period of time.
So, that business about One Appointment a Day...I have decided that is good advice, a great goal. Like all goals, it is something I currently am striving to accomplish. For the last several weeks, part of my daily analysis of my To-Do List has been to go through the exercise of asking myself "who can I go see today?" and "who am I going to go see tomorrow?" The trick is to get in front of someone every day. Yesterday, I knocked on doors up and down a street where one of my buyers wants to live. As a result of that exercise, I found out about a house that is going on the market this weekend. My clients are going to get to see that house before anyone else.
One Appointment A Day. It can't hurt. Should help. (As much as it pains me to say it) Thanks Corporate!
***photo courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/buddawiggi/ Creative Commons
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