Most of us are creatures of habit – both positive and negative. Are your real estate habits helping or hurting your success?
Your real estate habits will determine both your level of success and your happiness.
Today’s message is for real estate agents who want to earn a comfortable living and have time to enjoy the people and activities they love. Creating good real estate habits will bring you more clients and add hours to your day – hours you can fill with greater business accomplishments or more pleasurable time with the people you love.
If you’re not as successful as you want to be and/or don’t have as much time with family and activities as you’d like, it might be time to create new real estate habits.
Here are a few real estate habits that can lead to greater success
Start work at the same time each morning – fully dressed and ready to go, even if you’ll be working from home.
Begin the day with a plan of action. What do you need to accomplish today, and when do you need to do it? Pencil in small 10-15 minute tasks between appointments, so you don’t waste that time.
Work when you’re working. Avoid the temptation to check your Facebook feed, go shopping, or read the trivial emails that have come in through the night. If you’re at the office, avoid the water-cooler talk, the gossip, and the discussions of last night’s TV shows.
Market yourself consistently. Choose your marketing activities and stick with them.
- If you’re blogging, post on the same days each week.
- If you’re sending prospecting letters, create systems that get every letter and email sent on time.
- If you write articles for a weekly publication, meet every deadline.
- Whatever the activity, set your schedule and adhere to it – even if you have to get up early or stay up late to get it done.
Failure to market consistently is the #1 reason why so many real estate agents have a roller-coaster income. When they’re busy, they stop marketing. Then when all their transactions are closed, they begin again – leaving a large gap between commission checks.
Follow up with leads as quickly as possible. Then market to them consistently until they turn into clients or tell you to stop.
Stay in touch with past clients. Again, be consistent. You can do add-on contacts, such as sending a link or a news clipping that would interest someone, but don’t skip the regular contact.
Update your website, including your agent bio, at least annually. Put the task in your planning calendar.
Proofread everything you send out.
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“H is for Habit, winners make a habit of doing the things losers don’t want to do.”
― Lucas Remmerswaal, The A-Z of 13 Habits: Inspired by Warren Buffett
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Small habits count too…
These real estate habits will serve you well in other areas of your life as well…
- Pause before answering the phone. Instead of answering immediately, take a deep breath and put a smile on your face first. It will show in your voice.
- Be early for appointments. Then take a few minutes to de-clutter your mind and do a positive affirmation
or three before you smile and get out of the car. - Always expect to do well. Go into every meeting with the expectation that people will like you and listen to you.
- Keep your pity parties short. When someone is rude, a transaction falls apart, or you fail to get that listing, go ahead and feel sorry for yourself. You can even cuss and holler if you’re all alone. But set a time limit. The minutes is usually enough. Then move on.
- Stop complaining. We all do it, and it does no one any good. So when you want to complain, shift your mind to a different topic and talk of being thankful for something. This is important in person – and doubly important on social media. Remember that the words you write will live forever.
Good real estate habits that lead to personal happiness…
Schedule your personal commitments and stick to the schedule. If one of your kids has a ball game or a recital and you’ve said you’d be there – put it in your calendar and schedule clients around it. The same goes for any event that’s important to someone you love.
Respect your family / personal time. You probably won’t succeed in real estate if you try to work 9 to 5 Monday through Friday, but you won’t succeed in happiness if you’re available to clients 24/7. Set your hours, let your clients know those hours, and don’t deviate except in a crunch. (The middle of a tense negotiation, etc.)
If you’ve developed bad habits – as in the opposite of any of the above – it’s time for a change.
Some will tell you to simply discipline yourself, and of course discipline is always a good idea.
However, habits are strong. Sometimes it takes dedicated effort to overcome bad ones and create good ones.
The good news is, a friend told me about a book filled with tactics that make it easier, no matter what habit you’re trying to break or create. I borrowed it from the library, then after reading several chapters, went on line and ordered my own copy. The book is Atomic Habits, by James Clear, and I highly recommend it.
Graphics courtesy of Stuart Miles @ freedigitalphotos.net
