With an article on time-blocking, we’d be negligent in abiding by our own time-blocking guidelines if we didn’t break this blog into two posts — you know, to give you time to do actual lead generation (another item on my checklist!)! Today, we’ll share part one with the balance following tomorrow so be sure to come back tomorrow!
You might be asking yourself, “How can I do all of the stuff that Walter talks about in his seminars and in his blogs?” Without making time for the most profitable activities, I can tell you exactly what will happen — you are going to be spending time on the most urgent items, which are almost never your most profitable activities.
This is the reason why my system Grow Your Leads: Just Add Wa(l)ter (today’s blog special, too!) is so popular with top agents, because it points the direction to the most profitable activities in real estate. One needs now to decipher the implementation of these activities on a consistent basis.
Many activities are not done consistently by top agents in our country. For instance, agents need to choose a few seller lead generation activities. Whether you choose for sale by owners, expireds, mature people in large homes, out-of-state owners, or any of the any other amazing systems that will produce seller leads — you need to find the time to make sure they are getting done on a consistent basis.
With implementation, your listings will go up, increasing your buyer inquiries. Buyers, being the demanding lot that they are, will soon cause you to be jumping through hoops at all hours of the day, if you have not followed some of the ideas shared in Fast Lane Buyer Systems.
Without time-blocking, you will find that you will always be urgently busy without getting your most profitable activities done; therefore, your listings will fall and buyer activity will fall. The largest difference between mediocre real estate agents and top producers is that top agents always find time to keep their pipelines filled with the most profitable activities. The most profitable activities are, of course, lead generation activities. These activities are normally time-blocked by the top agent to do himself/herself or are activities for the assistant to complete.
Let me give you a break-down:
At 9:00AM every morning, I knew that I would spend 15 minutes researching the expireds of that day. I spent more time than anyone else researching and getting better names, addresses, and phone numbers. I then spent another 15 to 30 minutes preparing letters for mailing. I would then start calling those same prospects.
On my way back from lunch, I would time-block my day to stop by one of the most expensive expireds each day. On my way home, I would try reaching those expireds who I could not reach earlier in the day. The next day after I called all the expireds, I went ahead and sent them my “crumpled letter” from the previous day. There was little or no negotiation with the time-blocks. The only thing that would allow me to look the other way is a listing presentation or a family emergency.
The other activities that I would like to make certain that you time-block are just as important as your seller lead generation activities, especially activities where you knew the exact number that you need to complete.
Here’s what I mean – if you have a 1,000 person database and there are approximately 300 working days in a year, you should be calling six people a day to get through your database with phone calls twice in a year. It would most likely be more calls in a day, because I would like for you to try calling three times before giving up and putting them back in rotation.
The same goes for the letters to the database – if you are going to be sending one letter each quarter and there are 100 working days in a quarter, you will be sending approximately 10 letters a day to get all the letters to your database for that quarter.
The magic of breaking your business plan into time-blocked pieces is that it allows you to “eat the elephant” faster and more efficiently. It also allows you to write personal notes on those letters, hand-sign them, and see if any of the letters might require special handling.
Another massively important time-block is listing leads in the “A” class. This group is for people who are going to be listing in the next ninety days. You were either unsuccessful in getting them to list, or they have promised you a listing. Even though they have told you not to call back until a certain time-frame, it is your job to call them each week with something of value to weigh their motivation and readiness without letting the lead pass you by. It is important that you maintain contact on a much more regular business than the “soon to list” person tells you to contact.
The last important time-block group that we’ll cover today is the buyers in the “A” class group. These are buyers who have jumped through all the “hoops.” This means they have answered the questions, been pre-approved in writing, have showed up for a meeting at your office, and have signed a loyalty agreement. These people need to be time-blocked for once a week to determine if the properties you are sending them still meet their criteria and when they would like to go look at the best leads.
Come back tomorrow for more important time-blocking activities to include in your top producer day!
Lead generation is what builds your business and keeps your pipeline full, no matter what the market says! Grow Your Leads: Just Add Wa(l)ter is a hefty book full of detailed and complete prospecting systems, and it includes the data CD (digital copy). This is also a great manual for an assistant.
Call 800.792.5837 and ask for the $50 blog special on Grow Your Leads: Just Add Wa(l)ter. Check out the content details here: http://www.waltersanford.com/shop/grow-your-leads-just-ask-walter/.
