—J. Paul Getty

 

It really doesn’t matter where you find yourself today—doing 3 deals a year or 200—if you are the sole catalyst for your production, if it is primarily your efforts creating whatever level of business you’re currently enjoying… you are working IN your business and, eventually, are doomed to either peak out or, worse, burn out.

The problem is, there are only 24 hours in a day. And if you are trading your time for dollars… which you are doing when you work IN your business versus ON your business… you have placed a serious limitation upon your earning capacity.

Not to mention the fact that to earn it (whatever it is), you will often find yourself working sixty, seventy, even eighty hours per week. And, you can’t take time off! If you do… your production, your business suffers. Your income suffers. Your lifestyle suffers.

If such is the case, I can assure you… career burnout is just around the corner. It took me over five years of working IN my business (five years of being bored, beat-up and broke!) to finally realize that the "rewards" simply weren’t worth all the time, hassle, and expense of creating them. I mean, what good is being a multi million dollar producer and pocketing a few thousand bucks when you don’t have a life apart from the business to enjoy it?

Key distinction: Leverage allows you to multiply your efforts, time, and energy which means multiplied income and time to enjoy it.

Ideally,your goal is to convert your existing business—or the one you are about to create—into a perfectly organized model for thousands more just like it. In other words, most profitable way to view and build your business is in with the creation of a "franchise" in mind. And that means you either have to have a thousand yous available to work in each and every one of those businesses… or discover a way to "clone" your work and have this clone (your systems) keep on working for you… even while you’re out playing life somewhere.

Of course, this is the ideal situation, albeit a difficult one to achieve. So while you’re striving towards that end… focus on leveraging yourself…

Leverage is utilizing assets (people, time, money, connections, systems, knowledge, family, strategic alliances) to get the maximum return, results, and rewards with the minimum risk, effort or investment.

Becoming a listing agent is a classic example of the power of multiplying yourself and your efforts through leverage.

You build an inventory listing by listing. No leverage there. However, any one (or all!) of those listings can be sold—and income generated—for you and your business… totally independent of your efforts. That’s leverage.

Proper leveraging doesn’t mean you spend hours knocking on every door within a housing complex to introduce yourself and your services… it means you spend a few minutes contacting the Home Owners Association and arranging to give a free speech at their next meeting… sharing your benefit-rich wealth of knowledge with dozens, even hundreds of potential prospects all at once.

Instead of doing everything yourself or hiring just one assistant to take up the slack, proper leveraging means hiring specific people to perform specific tasks and then constantly upgrading… just like a professional sports team.

Smart leveraging means writing any letter or communication once, maintaining it in an electronic data base, and simply merging your next client’s name and address into the copy the next time the same situation arises.

Leveraging your marketing capital mean placing your name, face, and benefit-rich message at every ingress and egress of a targeted neighborhood via inexpensive bus bench advertising—reaching hundreds, even thousands of the right people every single day, 365 days of the year… versus spending the same money on 2,500 super expensive 4-color personal brochures which can only serve you but once…

Proper leveraging means you receive one inbound call from a potential buyer… record your qualifying sequence of questions… transcribe the recording… and have all other inbound calls received by your assistant who follows your documented qualifying sequence. Your time is thus freed to work ON your business so you can then find even more leveraging opportunities.

Instead of purchasing one large congratulatory gift for your happily involved clients… the smart marketer leverages goodwill by purchasing a half dozen smaller, but uniquely personal gifts which are delivered once a month… ensuring their name, face, and occupation is kept in front of their past clients.

Proper leveraging means you make your best sales, pricing, and "here’s what I and my team of specialists will do to get your home sold… fast, and with the least amount of hassle" presentation once… on video tape and/or written down and published in a brief, informative yet entertaining manual… and distribute it to every prospect before your appointments. You let your "clone" do all the selling, convincing, reasoning, and cajoling for you before you even arrive—not only cutting your actual, in-person presentations down to less than 30 minutes, but increasing your "closing" percentages as well…

Effective leveraging means using both sides of your house brochures… one side to extol the virtues of the particular house in question… the other to list every single one of your listings… to make an incredible FREE offer compelling them to pick up the phone or stop by your office to take advantage of it… to offer a series of testimonials from a number of your previous clients…

Let’s take a look a seven specific areas you need to address to create maximum leverage of both your time and your income:

Of course, I am sure you already have a personal computer or laptop (better yet….a tablet pc!) and know how to use it. If not, may I suggest you get with the program…

Properly used, a computer will provide you will a multitude of opportunities to leverage your time and assets. You will discover a number of ways you can reach more people faster, more economically, and with less hesitation about what to do and when. Specifically, a computer is of the utmost importance for the following reasons:

·         It stores information

·         It sorts information

·         It performs routine tasks automatically

·         It enables you to personalize your marketing materials and emphasizes your client-centered, benefit-rich approach to the business.

Your computer, ideally, should be able to assist you in the following essential tasks of your real estate business:

·         Design your marketing campaigns

·         Develop your own proprietary education products (free reports, etc.)

·         Help you acquire already created products from others

·         Actually do your marketing for you (i.e., the internet)

·         Provide routine management services (escrow tracking, price reduction campaigns, seller updates, buyer updates)

Your computer should be minimally equipped with a good contact management system to track all your leads, clients and referrals. I recommend www.busyagentpro.com . It should include a "to-do" list function and a calendar, scheduling function. It should have a good word processor integrated with your contact management system. And it should have a good "marketing oriented" system. A tracking function, spread-sheet program like Microsoft Excel is preferred.

Your time is valuable and you should make it a point to take the time to plan how best to use your available time. Take at least a half hour at the end of every day to plan your next day. Prioritize. How? How yourself this these questions:

·         What MUST I accomplish tomorrow?

·         What SHOULD I accomplish tomorrow?

·         What is the most important thing I can do tomorrow?

Schedule the ‘musts’ first. Then schedule the ‘most important things’ next. And if, if, you have time left… go forward with your shoulds.

Now don’t gloss over this section. Marketing, after all, is only comprised of two components: planning and execution. Too many would be marketers, in their haste to get something done, completely by-pass the planning stage and… chances are… get so caught up "working for the sake of work" they get nothing valuable done. Don’t fall victim to this tragic error. Plan your work then work your plan.

3. Make marketing your highest of priorities

You don’t make any money by prospecting. You don’t earn a single commission from filling out contracts. You don’t earn a dime from understanding agency rules and regulations. And you certainly don’t earn a dime from by sitting at your desk wondering where your next commission check is going to come from.You only make money when you put yourself in a position to make money… when you’ve created the situation wherein you find yourself face-to-face with a buyer or seller who is willing and able to conduct business with you now!

That’s it. So if you want to leverage your time and assets to best propel you towards the fortune you want and deserve, you need to focus first and foremost of marketing. All facets: Lead generation, Conversion, Presentations, Materials, Follow up sequences, fulfillment, education and referral generation.

First and foremost, concentrate in developing an automatic lead-generation system which works consistently and predicable.

·         Study targeted, emotional response marketing

·         Learn how to use the classifieds for lead generation

·         Combine image and response ads for display advertising

·         Learn how to use free publicity

·         Learn how to generate referrals

·         Locate and utilize areas of marketing which are constant (i.e., bus benches, airport signs, billboards, signs in public restrooms, etc.)

Again, let me ask you: Do you make any money for addressing postcards and affixing stamps to be delivered to your "Just-Listed" file of neighbors? Do you get paid for holding an open-house? Do you get paid for assembling all the information you need to deliver a solid, benefit-laden pre-sell package to either buyer or seller? Do you get paid to track your escrows? Write follow up letters to your clients?

No. So why are you doing all this "busy work" which only serves to eat up your time? Why are you still making cold calls to expires when you could hire someone else to do the same thing for about $6 an hour?

Point made, I hope. Your time is far to valuable to be wasted in carrying out the systems you’ve designed to make your business work. Simply train people to work the systems. In fact, as quiet as it’s kept, you cannot afford to be without assistants or professional affiliates to help you complete the busy work of your business.

To be continued…..

Happy selling!

Brandon Patrick

Dean of Students

Real Estate Toolbox University