If there’s one thing I know we all wish we had, it’s more time. Realtors® have a ton of demands on their time – farming, answering inquiries, marketing listings, keeping up on social media, running clients to showings, managing their budget, and keeping their important partnerships intact. No one I know thinks real estate is a 9 – 5 job. But they still find it worth the work.
Fortunately, there are steps you can take to make time management easier. Here are four. Take a look at these and see what you can implement next week – you’ll be amazed at the difference it makes!
Automate Your Lead Follow-up
If you’ve read many of my blog posts, you know I’m a huge advocate of marketing automation. That’s because before I implemented it, I was losing 70% of my leads because I simply didn’t have time to follow up with everyone. Now that I’ve automated my follow-up, I lose ZERO leads. The transformation has been amazing.
Automated follow-up sounds very impersonal, but it’s not. I use Infusionsoft, and couldn’t be more in love with its versatility. You can customize not only the emails – which can include the customer name and other personalization – but the actual flow of email itself. Based on what the reader clicks, you can trigger different email paths. It’s the ultimate in reacting to each customer individually.
I wrote a post that gives far more details about this a few months ago, called “How to Have a Full-Time Marketing Assistant for $199/month”. Take a look if you’re interested!
Be Choosy with Social Media
I hear so many Realtors® say “You have to be everywhere on social media,” and it makes me cringe. You DON’T have to be everywhere. You simply can’t!! Instead, be choosy. Select 1 – 3 social media platforms that make the most sense for your business demographic and neighborhood. Then, do the absolute best you can with these. It’s far better to have a great presence on a few sites than an inconsistent presence on many.
Like all marketing and relationship building, consistency is the key to success. No Realtor® or real estate office can be consistent on every social media platform in existence. Instead, choose 1 – 3 and focus on building those relationships. You’ll end up with far better marketing results in far less time.
Consider Hiring a Virtual Assistant
In today’s world, you no longer need to have an on-site full time administrative assistant unless you want one. If you’re in a position where you could use the help, but can’t afford a full-time employee, consider hiring a virtual assistant, or VA. A VA is a contract employee that you simply pay an hourly fee. You are not responsible for office space, benefits, or anything else.
A general VA can do basic office work, filter email, answer the phone, mail outreach material, and more. This can make a world of difference in how much time you have available. If you need more specific real estate help, there are also real estate VAs available. These people are often former Realtors®, and can help with more specific real estate paperwork, deal with banks and inspectors, and much more. In either case, a VA is a great solution for an overworked Realtor®.
Systematize Your Prospect Outreach
A lot of us put a TON of thought into what we are going to send our prospects each month/week. We all know that we need a ton of “touches” before we’re going to make a sale, but often we panic because we don’t know what to say. But what if you created a system?
Decide on how many “touches” you want to do, and designate specific content for each one. Touch #1 could be a specific welcome email you write in advance. Touch #2 could be a newsletter. Touch #33 could be a Buyer FAQ. Whatever it is, decide and create it in advance. Then, when a new prospect comes in, they just go into the system. No more deciding what to send – just send the next item on the list. How much easier is that?!
There are tons of ways you can plan your day and organize your time. These four tips are actionable, solid approaches that will dramatically reduce the amount of time certain tasks require. If you put them into practice, you’ll be less harried and more able to focus on what you love – helping people buy and sell homes.
What do you do to focus your time? Share in the comments!
Comments(2)