Time Management Skills to Master for Real Estate Agents
Real estate agents everywhere:
Does your day feel like a cascade of tasks with no breaks for solving some of your larger problems? Do you feel overwhelmed and like you could really use either a) more hours in the day or b) less projects to do? Then it’s time to learn and master new time management skills.
Let’s start at the beginning: addressing your daily activities as a real estate agent.
Define Your Day
Jumping from task to task might just be how you’ve always done things. But we’re here to say: there is another way. Instead of going into your workday unprepared and ready to react to whatever tasks come your way, create actionable plans, block time out on your calendar, and define how you want to spend the next 8 to 10 hours.
Defining your day means thinking about what goals you want to accomplish, how you’re going to accomplish them, and actually going through with it. Taking the time to plan and define your time might not come naturally at first, but it has big payoffs for those who stick to their goals. Having more time to prepare for the future, research your local market, improve your digital and in-person marketing, and grow your business are just a few of the rewards that come with defining your day before it happens.
Assess the Big Picture
Addressing your short-term goals is a step in the right direction to long-term time management success.
But to really be successful, you have to make time to look at the bird’s-eye-view of your real estate business. Making time to analyze the gaps, or know what you don’t know, is crucial to unlocking your potential as an agent.
So how do you find your pitfalls so that you can improve your time management skills? Take note of everything that happens in a day, what your clients say about your process, and where you feel the most inefficient.
Do your clients complain about your outdated website? Do you spend too much time reposting ads on Craigslist and not enough time generating leads? Do you tend to fall behind on emails? Documenting your challenges and scheduling time to address them will take your business from okay to amazing. While this isn’t a traditional time-management tip, and it might seem difficult because it adds even more work to your busy schedule, looking at the long-term issues save you from painful slip ups and time-wasting activities in the long-run.
Utilize Technology
Organizing leads manually or working through a report line-by-line aren’t efficient methods for getting technology-based tasks done. Good technology speeds up and simplifies every process a real estate agent could find: from updating your website to include lead-capture triggers to having automated email campaigns, there are several ways to utilize technology and save time for other projects that can’t be simplified.
Outdated websites can cost you. Not only can they drive away potential leads by being clunky and not working on mobile devices, they also might not have fully functioning IDX capabilities and lead capture abilities. Whether you’re looking to update your online presence or start from scratch, WolfNet offers custom real estate agent websites that include capabilities like lead capture, responsive design, embedded IDX property search, and other helpful attributes. If you have one of our awesome websites and want to take things to the next step, read our article on how to leverage marketing automation for lead nurturing.
There is another type of tech that can help you save time and work more efficiently—customer relationship management (CRM) systems. CRMs (like Contactually, LionDesk, Top Producer, and others) integrate with your website’s data to strengthen business relationships with your customers, which in turn drives revenue and customer retention over time. Utilizing a CRM instead of an Excel database can save a lot of time, especially for those who aren’t Excel wizards or Google Analytics experts.
Now that you know how to define what you need to get done in a day to be successful, analyze the big picture, and harness technology to add extra time to your day you can get out there an excel as agent, grow your business, and never stop selling. Want more tips like this? Follow us on Facebook.