Back in my Navy days, in addition to your primary job on a ship you also stood what was called "watch". Basically for a certain number of hours, you'd fill an additional job that had to so with operating the ship. In my limited career I served as EOOW (Engineering Officer of the Watch), JOOD (Junior Officer of the Deck), OOD (Officer of the Deck) and TAO (Tactical Action Officer). Those watches might be in the busiest part of the day, or they might be the midwatch (midnight to 4 a.m. give or take a bit) with the side perk of seeing SOOOOO many stars in the skies because Navy ships aren't like cruiseliners, we run with required navigational lights and not much else.
The bottom line is on a ship there's not just one person that can do a particular job. The military is in the warfare business and with high risk comes the knowledge that there may come a time when it will be "next man (or woman) up". We always had people crosstrained to fill more than one position without losing a step in our capability. Those lessons from 30 years ago continue to serve me well today.
While real estate isn't the same risky business as the military, some of the same principles can apply.
Who do you have crosstrained to help you when the demand is there?
Even as a single agent, you can still have arrangements made with another agent so when you need help, there is someone trained to help you out. Be it medical needs, family emergency, or just a plain old vacation that needs taken, there will be times you need someone to tag in for you, or you for them.
In our home with the numerous furry ones, we're past the point of easily finding a pet/housesitter that can take care of everything to our satisfaction. So that means either Liz and leave town, or I can. Feeding 15 cats and 6 Chihuahuas isn't the easiest production in the world since the meals are personalized to each pet's personal dietary/medical needs. In a normal day, Liz takes care of breakfast, I take care of dinner. Yes, we have spreadsheets for the individual recipes so when we have to swap duties, we are crosstrained to cover the other meal.
The same applies to our real estate roles. There are certain things that are primarily my turf, and other tasks Liz usually takes. But the reality is if we get down to a one person operation for a bit, we have the ability to cover the ESSENTIAL activities of the other person. The reality for us today is blogging wouldn't be one of those essential activities for the short term. We'd count on the 4000 plus posts and the IDX pages to keep doing their thing while we kept going on the client critical tasks, and as needed hire another agent in our office to take care of showings that were beyond our limit.
But we are crosstrained for critical tasks.
Either of us can take care of our buyers.
Either of us can list a home.
Either of us can guide our clients all the way to the closing table.
Just don't ask me to be TOO touchy-feely, after all, I am an engineer :)
Until next Tuesday, just Ask An Ambassador if you need help,
Bill & Liz aka BLiz
Comments(23)