Real estate career success hinges on many components, as you well know.
A recent email from Graham McGregor, a marketer whose daily words of advice you might enjoy,
reminded me of one of the most important of them: habits.
In that email, he wrote about what he called “The rule of 5.” This rule states that you must take action on 5 things to move your career forward every day.
He said that it doesn’t matter how small these action steps are, just so you make it a habit to do 5 things every day. And that makes perfect sense, because our lives really are run on habits. And, the more you do, the more real estate career success you’ll see, so the more you’ll want to do.
Action leads to more action, while inertia can kill your ambition and your career.
Over the 19 years that I was an agent and then a broker, I watched at least a dozen people become agents and then wash out within a year or so.
They got off to a poor start, then got discouraged and started sitting around doing nothing (except complaining). And just as with any habit, the more those agents did nothing, the more they did nothing, until one day they walked away from real estate.
Perhaps the rule of 5 would have saved their careers, but we’ll never know.
I know you already have good habits.
You wouldn’t be reading emails and blog posts like this one if you didn’t. In fact, you probably have
plenty of career-building habits that you follow without even thinking about it.
Your routine habits might include answering every phone call, email, and text message at the earliest opportunity, logging in to MLS every morning to check for new listings and/or price reductions, creating a new market report on a specific date each month, or even removing litter and dusting the dashboard on your car each day.
And of course you might follow that old advice: “Get up, dress up, show up.”
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“Don’t be fooled by the calendar. There are only as many days in the year as you make use of. One man gets only a week’s value out of a year while another man gets a full year’s value out of a week.”
Charles Richards
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Meanwhile, I think following the “Rule of 5” sounds like a good habit to add.
But … can you really add 5 more things to your already busy days? Sure. You just need to have a list handy to remind yourself, then take advantage of all those lulls between appointments.
Here are suggestions that can each fit easily into less (or far less) than half an hour of your day:
Remember that phones are still used for making phone calls… call a past client or someone in your sphere just to say “Hi, how are you?” Or, call to recognize a special day, such as a birthday or their “Houseaversary.”
Proofread one more time, then upload a blog post you already had written.
Write a “Hi, how are you” note to a past client or someone in your sphere.
Pen a thank you note. Hint: If you copy one from my collection of Thank You Notes, you’ll only need to add a few words of personalization.
Write a comment on an Active Rain blog post.
Reply to the comments on your own blog.
Share one or more of your posts or pages on Facebook, LinkedIn, or one of the other social sites.
Visit Copy by Marte and choose your next set of prospecting letters.
Load those letters into your autoresponder or your print mailing software, so they’re ready to go.
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“The key is in not spending time, but in investing it.”
Stephen R. Covey
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Invest in your future for a few extra minutes each day and reap the rewards of real estate career success!
