Has this ever described your day?

You wake up in the morning rested and excited about your day. After doing yoga/gratitude journal/a walk (or whatever self-care you enjoy most), and eating a healthy breakfast, you head to your desk, ready to tackle the day.  You quickly deal with new emails and issues that need resolved, then focus on your prospecting calls. 

Next, it’s time for your first appointment, and you arrive 15 minutes early.  After that, you pick up a salad and head to the park to enjoy your lunchbreak on a beautiful day. Feeling energized, you handle your afternoon appointments and a scheduled closing. 

After handing over the keys to your excited new home buyers, you arrive home feeling happy that you were able to help someone’s dream come true. After a relaxing evening as you get ready for bed, you are filled with gratitude that you work in such a rewarding career and are able to help so many people. You quickly fall asleep …. 

Are you thinking to yourself there is no way that scenario bears any resemblance on the life of a real estate agent? Not to most agents! 

In fact, you can personally attest to the fact that you spent the entire day frantically running around putting out fires.  Lunch? What’s that? You grabbed an espresso and a bagel as you rushed to your next meeting, arriving late to every appointment that day.  You spent the catching up on emails, and by midnight, collapsed into bed, dead-tired, but unable to sleep because of the list of what’s on your plate for tomorrow running through your head.  As you beat yourself up for not getting more done on that endless to-do list, you ask yourself again whether this level of stress is even worth those big commission checks.

If you are nodding your head agreeing with our stressed-out, exhausted agent, you are not alone. The truth is the real estate industry is often unpredictable, and feels out of control.

Let’s face it, if you are like most salespeople, events of the day control YOU, not the other way around. Too often, entrepreneurs are reactive as they attempt to do it all, multi-tasking and juggling multiple responsibilities, with never a moment to actually work ON their business and to plan their day.

While you can’t make real estate a consistent and predictable business, every agent can take steps to harness the daily chaos, and achieve a life that is more balanced.  The key to your sanity lies in operational excellence. 

Operational excellence means you have systems in place that will ensure that no detail gets overlooked, which reduces the stress of distractions and last-minute hiccups.  Systems allow you to focus on profit generating initiatives that increase your bottom line, instead of constantly putting out fires.  It’s time to set up your business AS a business and implement processes and systems to regain control!

With systems that are well-organized and consistently executed, the outcomes are more easily monitored and measured, and the daily chaos is tamed. Scheduling regular income-producing activities allows your cash flow to stabilize, helping you avoid the ups and downs of this industry.

Operational excellence starts with a plan, and incorporates the details that allow you to work ON your business as well as IN your business to attain your desired results and enjoy balance in your life. 

• You have to know where you want to go.  A strategic plan focused on specific outcomes will help you prioritize dollar-productive activities first.  Start with a vision for the next 90 days, and track your progress. 

• Plan your days in advance, not on the fly! Creating a non-negotiable time-blocking schedule for your day/week/month is one of the most successful tools for taming your schedule.  Time-block for the actions that will make your strategic plan possible, and schedule dollar-productive activities, such as prospecting, each day.  The excuse that you can’t time-block your schedule is bunk.  If you don’t schedule the time to complete those income-producing initiatives, you will forever be reactionary, and likely to burn out. 

• Create detailed action plans.  Don’t confuse a “wish list” with an action plan.  Action plans are the steps you need to follow to get to your destination. Automation, delegation, and consistent measurement are the keys to materializing your end result. The most important step is to set up the action plans for each project or initiative with deadlines and milestones to make it happen.   

• You aren’t afraid to delegate the small stuff!  Hiring out those time consuming, but not money-making activities is the key to setting yourself up for earning more and doing less. Don’t think you can’t afford it either!  If you are paying yourself to do drop offs, you get paid like an Uber driver.  Keep track of your time and see where you can empower someone else to do what you don’t need to do. Focus on dollar productive and you’ll enjoy less stress and more productivity. 

The real key here is your mindset.  By controlling your focus, you control your behavior, choices, the actions that follow, and the outcomes you intend.  Incorporating even one simple system that is plugged into your day, and you will be on your way to creating habits that build for success and allow you to reach your goals with energy to spare. Establish your operational excellence through systems and team initiatives and create a win-win for you, your team, and your clients!