“Focus On Building A Business That’s Always Flowing Not Stopping & Starting”
THE ENDING FIRST - THE ULTIMATE GOAL: HAPPY PAST CLIENTS
Are you treating your real estate agency as a business, rather than a transactional hobby? Be intentional and set a "North Star" goal of happy past clients. You should want to create "raving fans" - incredibly happy people who you have served in the course of carrying out your real estate agency's business. Start with that end goal in mind!
IDEAL CUSTOMER - DEFINE THEM CLEARLY
If raw materials aren't coming in at one end of your assembly line, there's nothing to manufacture at the output end of the business, right? You want to treat your real estate business as a manufacturing plant, in which you manufacture relationships. With that in mind, what is your "raw material?" It's that ideal customer! Who is that ideal contact, sometimes referred to as an avatar in the real estate industry? There's nothing wrong with building relationships with the types of people you like. If you start with a clear avatar in mind, your marketing becomes much easier.
STOP HOARDING - LEADS VS. PROSPECTS & RELATIONSHIPS
If you don't define your ideal customer in the beginning, you will inevitably end up hoarding leads. If your CRM is loaded with leads going nowhere, then you know exactly what this means! If you stop hoarding, you'll start looking at leads who are ideal customers and therefore, most likely to become prospects who you can build a relationship with. Prospects are people who give your business what it desperately needs to keep the flow going, which is a steady stream of relationships that are building. Compare that to a list of leads in a piece of software -- and it becomes priceless!
WARNING - THE TRANSACTIONAL TRAP
Chasing and hoarding leads can sometimes generate short-term profits, but that is setting your real estate business up for failure. What happens if a recession hits and you suddenly find the tail wagging the dog? This is the main reason why you want to set up a business that flows and continues going strong, regardless of external circumstances such as a recession.
DOCUMENTING - LAYING OUT THE MANUAL STEPS
The real estate business is extremely complicated! This complexity is why the average agent only sells about three sites in an entire year. When it comes to documenting, you need to lay out all of the manual steps, from going out and finding someone, then listing their property for sale and so on. As we tell our Realty Classroom students all the time, you can't just do this on muscle -- you must sit down and document every single thing that you do in a transaction. Document it on checklists: What happens from the very minute you meet someone until the minute they become a "past client." Rookies: Shadow someone and take copious notes!
SEPARATING - MANAGERIAL VS. VISUAL & TECHNICAL
There are three types of personality in everyone's mindset: The Managerial, which does the separating; the Visual, which is the entrepreneur; and the Technical, which is the person actually doing the work of manufacturing the real estate sales. The Visual personality gets it - they see the vision of a successful business - and then they get excited and let the Technical take over and start going through the steps. Don't neglect the Manager, which is a mistake most of us make! Let the Manager separate all of the tasks out first.
MODULATING - CREATING WORK FLOW FOR MODULES
As you separate your tasks out, you'll want them to go into the appropriate modules. For example, all of your marketing steps from word of mouth, to friends and family, and so on, belongs in a Marketing Module or checklist. Let your Manager personality apply structure to your modules to maximize success. As you organize your micro-steps from the Documenting phase, put on your managerial hat to assign everything to its appropriate place. Once you go through this process, you'll be able to ask - every time - which module or checklist goes with this lead, prospect or client? The goal is to be able to shepherd someone through the modules from the point where you don't know them (marketing) all the way through until they're in your past client community.
DELEGATING - PLUGGING IN INDEPENDENT CONTRACTORS
When you look at all of the work that has been done, guess what happens next? The modules and checklists will work to leverage you so can expand and grow. Selling more will tax your time management, which means you're going to need someone else to help you step up. We now live in the land of independent contractors -- use them! With a modulated, managed system, you can delegate tasks like marketing to your trusted network of contractors.