Corporate buzzwords come and go, but one that stuck around was "bandwidth". In this case, it had nothing to do with sound waves or anything technical and everything to do with human capability to handle work.
In my engineering job a typical month required me to write approximately 4 reports. Depending on the complexity of the reports, that might be challenging or not so bad. My "bandwidth" was my capability to handle that month's reports. If I had the capability to handle additional tasks, I had available bandwidth, and if I was bandwidth strapped for the month we were in danger of missing report deadlines and a few things could be done:
1. Ask for support from other team members
2. Reschedule tasks
3. Expand my bandwidth by working additional hours (nights/weekends)
If you're working in real estate or any supporting industry, you have bandwidth constraints defined by you personally or by your team's capabilities.
Only so many listings can be adequately supported at a time.
Only so many buyers wanting to see houses can be toured in the same day.
The number of daily home inspections is limited, as is the number of homes that can be staged, loan applications processed, etc.
When you reach the limit of your bandwidth, there's a danger that the stress of running full bore is going to create mistakes (and the clean-up of those mistakes means MORE demand on an already scarce bandwidth).
So what do you do to give yourself more bandwidth?
1. Set your priorities and manage your time effectively. Are you focusing on the things you do best?
2. Decide if expanding bandwidth is right for you (add more team members, eliminate or offload certain tasks, work more hours).
3. Say NO before you've reached the point of no return. Refer out if necessary. Don't take on clients that need double and triple the time of a typical client unless you've got a strong justification for doing so.
Failing to address bandwidth limits can lead to unhappy clients and missed business, and an unhappy family (you missed ANOTHER birthday to show houses??).
Until next Tuesday, just Ask An Ambassador if you need help,
Bill & Liz aka BLiz
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