It doesn’t matter if you are an individual Sales Representative. or a large real estate team with a specialist for every area of your business, real estate systems can make you more productive and help you focus on your top 10% of money making tasks. Creating systems may sound boring, but if it helps, think of systems in relation to your car. When you hit the gas, hundreds of systems go into play. Immediately your car goes from sitting still at 0 km to a crazed tin can rushing down the highway, and the only thing between you and the pavement are automatic systems making sure your engine has enough fuel, air, and oil, all at the same time, or your engine is toast. Once you are traveling, your car is heating, cooling, stabilizing, and staying ready at a seconds notice in case you need to brake or swerve. See, these automated systems allow us to be a little super human in our everyday life and utilize complex machines with very little effort.
Our real estate businesses are complex machines as well, but sometimes we don’t do a very good job at running them. Everyday we need to market, list, show houses, sell, meet, and talk, leaving very little time for other important things. If we could only stream line some of our tasks we would be more effective and much more productive. Have you ever sat at your computer wondering how you should begin an email, knowing that you have written almost the exact same email dozens of times before? Most Contact Management Systems either have pre-made email templates or allow you to create your own email templates. Just tweak the template each time you need it and move on to the next task. This template system can be used with newsletters, drip campaigns, open house follow ups and much more. Many of us also spend valuable time on the phone trying to get showing feedback from other agents. This can be streamlined by automated emails that will be sent shortly after a showing was scheduled to be completed.
When trying to develop systems, ask around. Many agents have already developed systems of their own and are happy to share. If you can’t find what you are looking for, think outside the box. A great website to build customized systems is Podio.com. Watch their intro videos to get some great ideas.
It’s hard to talk about exact systems because each business is so different. A system can be simple or complex, but don’t make it any more complex than it needs to be or you will be unlikely to use it. Also, my favorite systems are those systems that run with little or no input after it is initially set up, freeing my time to focus on my top 10%. With systems we can be more, do more, and seem like superheros to our clients.
– Chris Salmans, OREA YPN Committee Member and Guest Blogger
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