Thoughts on Time Management
I’ve outlined a series of points for us to go through on time management.
1. Work Days
Although we already have the first part of the year completed, I’d like you to determine how many days you’re going to actually work the rest of the year. Now, I get this kind of a response. “Well, when you say work what are you referring to?”
You normally have a work week Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, half day Saturday … whatever that is. How many days you’re going to work? It should be someplace between 245 and 265 days in a normal year. That gives you your holidays, it gives you your weekends if you want them off … it gives you time to spend time with your family. However, if you’re attending Mike Ferry events those should be under work days.
The key to time management is to target how many days you’re going to work. So let’s do that first. Remember, you should probably have a 10 percent variance, because you’re gonna have a couple sick days. Maybe your kids are sick. You’re gonna flake out a little bit. These are all normal.
2. Following a Schedule
Having a precise schedule can solve almost every production problem you have … if you choose to follow it. See, there’s the catch … choosing to follow the schedule. Agents are always creating elaborate schedules, and then they put them in their desk drawer, and then I guess they think the desk is gonna be better organized than they are. So I wrote something down here. I want you to listen to it very carefully. The schedule I have should include time for role play and practice. Obviously sometime for prospecting.
Some time for lead follow up. Sometime for pre-qualifying. Sometime for preparing for the listing appointment. And obviously going on appointments themselves. So your schedule should be into blocks of time. It should be very precise and obviously not very complicated. So each day you should have a space allotted for prospecting. For role play. For pre-qualifying. Administration to prepare a pre listing package. The stronger the schedule, the simpler, it is the more it’s in blocks of time, the easier it is to then do what it is you’re supposed to do.
3. Treat it like a Job
Treat your real estate career as if it were a real job, and then operate it as such .. as if you were being paid a $100k, $150k or $200k a year to be a saleperson. Would there be certain expectations of you time wise? Yes. Would there be a certain schedule you have to follow? Yes.
One of my mentors, Dr. Günther Klaus, did a project for a company in Southern California back in the late 70s and early 80s. The company had 300 salespeople, and a gigantic almost warehouse-sized room with 300 desks, 300 telephones 300 file cabinets, 300 computers and 300 little nametags. They weren’t succeeding … they were a company where the salespeople truly had to be on the street to accomplish anything. Really, how much money do you make sitting in the office? So they brought Gunther in as a consultant to find out what was going wrong.
For a couple of days, Gunther would walk in the office. At any given time there’d be 100, 200, 250 salespeople at their desk on their computers … on the phone talking to who knows who. So on the first weekend of his job he asked permission to do whatever it takes to make the company succeed. The company said yes.
Over the weekend, he had a moving company take all 300 desks, and had all 300 phones installed as wall phones with their name tags above and their computers placed on the floor. They came in on Monday, as you can imagine, they were furious.
“What is going on? I can’t believe that! I mean who’s who’s in charge of this?”
Gunther stood in the middle of the floor and said, “Your job is to go out and talk to people, not sit in the office.” This is one of the hard lessons on life. In a real job, selling requires communication and face-to-face conversations. You’ve got to get out of the office. Treat this like a real job, and you’ll succeed.
4. Track Your Time
Do a little test, maybe next week. For just five days, track your time hour by hour. Take a yellow Scratch Pad, 8:00 to 9:00, what do you do?From 9:00 to 10:00, what do you do? From 10:00 to 11:00, what do you do?
You’re going to discover, you’re probably not doing as much as you believe you’re doing. Track your time hour by hour to see if your schedule and what you do actually match up.
5. Scheduling and Accountability
The schedule you have should be somewhat public … meaning your spouse should have a copy of your weekly schedule, daily schedule. Give a copy to your sales manager, your broker … so when they see you off schedule they can say, “Hey, get back to work.”
What a great listing tool to actually show a seller! “This is the schedule I follow. This is what I’ll do to get your home sold.”
So your schedule should be somewhat public, but the key to a schedule is the accountability that goes with the schedule. If you have an assistant, give them a copy of your schedule. Accountability and scheduling go hand-in-hand.
6. Be Flexible
Your schedule is like a business plan … it’s a working document. It’s not set in stone. You have to be a little flexible. You’re going to have times when things overlap, or you’re going to come up short on one part because you’re working on something else. It’s normal. I’ve seen people create schedules so inflexible that if they got off the track their day was ruined.
Let’s say you’re going to be in the office at 7:30 … 7:30 to 8:00, you’re going to return phone calls from the day before. From 8:00 to 8:30, you’re going to do a little administrative work to make sure your files are up to date. Starting at 8:30, you’re going to play practice with either somebody on the phone or by yourself in the office. From 9:00 to 12:00, you’re going to prospect. You take lunch between 12:00 to 1:00. If something goes a little wrong between 7:30 and 12:00, you can’t panic … you just have to build flexibility in.
The goal is to have a schedule which is the roadmap to get you from point A to point B to point C and D … or in essence, to get you to the goals you’ve set.
7. Build a Habit
Following the schedule is simply developing a habit like any other habit you could have. The more often you do it, easier it becomes. The easier it becomes, the more the habit actually becomes part of your life. Scheduling is a habit. Just like working out is a habit. Just like going to lunch at a certain time is a habit.
The stronger you are with the habit, the better the response you get.
8. Three Daily Segments
There’s three segments to a Mike Ferry trained agent’s life, and this is really an important part of any time management we do. A, the morning routine … what do you do from the time you get to the office, until say 11:30, 12 o’clock? B, afternoon routine … what happens from 12:00 to 3:00. And then C, what I call presentation time … generally that’s going to take place after 3 o’clock in the afternoon.
What are you being held accountable to in the morning? What are you being held accountable to in the afternoon? And what are you doing in terms of presentations?
9. The Morning Routine
The morning routine is what we refer to as “Money Time”. That is when your energy is probably at its highest. Focus is at its best. You’re probably a little bit more determined. So “Money Time” is prospecting and lead follow up time.
How can all the people that are most productive in real estate prospect from around 8:30 or 9:30 until 10:30 or 12? And people that don’t do any business can’t prospect? It’s a habit.
10. The Afternoon Schedule
The afternoon schedule should be set aside for lead follow up. Previewing property. Pre-qualifying buyers and sellers … and most importantly going on appointments.
Mike Ferry is the global leader in real estate coaching and training. Watch Mike each week as he discusses a variety of topics to help real estate agents and brokers. Grow your real estate business by improving your mindset, developing your skills and creating a plan of action to increase your production!
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