3 places to focus your efforts in 2018
Every year we make resolutions to improve our lives and our selves. This year taking a look at your productivity and how you manage your time will help you improve your performance while lessening the amount of effort required to be more successful. Here are three places to focus your efforts in 2018:
1. Planning
If you start your year off with a plan, you will find you need to put less effort into each aspect of your business. The beauty of a business plan is that it allows you to have a path you wish to follow, but does not necessarily have to keep you inflexible on the route you wish to take. In other words if you attack your business plan now, you can have a jumping off point and then you can improve upon it as you learn what works and what doesn't. Your business plan should be a "living" document that can grow and change with you as you progress.
Your plan does not have to be complicated. Some of the basics could include:
Your financial goals for the year either by number of sales, total sales volume or your gross commission income
A schedule to review your progress
Three areas to focus your efforts such as improve online presence, find new marketing strategy or improve your CRM
2. Consistency
They say that it takes two months for something you do everyday to become a habit. When you focus your efforts on being consistent, you will find it becomes second nature. It starts with a scheduled time to review your progress based on your business plan. You can then look at how you wish to attack each new listing you acquire. Make sure you have a schedule to follow to keep you on track and to make sure you manage your clients' expectations. Your plan should include each step required from the MLS listing to marketing and ensuring you keep the status of your listing up to date following the sale.
You also want to be consistent with your general advertising/marketing efforts. For example, statistics show that the best time to post something on Facebook is Wednesdays at 3 pm. This makes it is easy to be consistent for your posts. For sending out eflyers, Tuesdays at 10 am work best, so this would be the best day to send out your keep in touch newsletters.
3. Time Management
Consistency and time management work hand in hand. The more consistent you are with the way you handle each listing, new pitch for clients, your keep in touch strategy, etc. the better your time management skills will become.
An important aspect of time management is delegation. Even if you work alone, finding services that help ease your work load will help you manage your time more effectively. A good example is to find an affordable marketing service to assist with photo shoots, eflyers, virtual tours and even managing your Facebook page. Having a virtual assistant is affordable and will allow you to focus on serving your clients.
Putting effort into these three area will allow you to get a "rhythm" going. Each area leads to success in the next -- following and adjusting your business plan keeps you focused in general while consistency opens up time so you are able to focus on your clients' needs. And of course happy clients means more referrals and greater success.
