From Busy to Productive: Lessons from a Lead Generating Pro
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One of the biggest struggles real estate agents and brokers face is managing their businesses. While many agents create daily to-do lists of activities to complete, they often get so wrapped up in the emergencies that arise that they never get around to crossing items off that list. As a result, they work constantly trying to stay on task and find themselves on the fast-track to burnout. They may know they need to incorporate structure in their days, but aren’t sure where to start.
Like many in the real estate business, when Barbara Betts, a real estate professional in Long Beach, California, became an agent, she struggled to create structure in her day. “I started my career thinking I would just help people buy and sell homes. I didn’t think there was a business behind it,” she says. With no schedule or structure in her day, she worked all the time. Although she’d get home from work at six or seven in the evening, she was often up until two or three in the morning answering internet leads. “At one point I had worked for 27 days straight,” she says.
Unfortunately, working all the time didn’t translate to increased success in her business and the long hours were preventing her from spending time with her two children. As a result, she felt guilty all time—guilty when she was with her kids because she felt she had more work to do and guilty when she was working because she was missing out on their activities. She knew she had to make a change.
How did Barbara transition from being busy to becoming a productive, successful agent? She got a coach who worked with her to help her understand the difference between being productive and being busy. She also learned to include active rest into her schedule, which helped her learn to run her business like a business.
One of the first things Barbara worked on with her coach was discovering and leveraging her strengths and applying them to her business. Next, they developed goals based on her top priority: her children. Together, along with Barbara’s husband, Harold, they were able to create a plan that took into account family events, children’s activities, and vacations first before planning the rest of the day, week, month and year. She was able to create a life and a business and not sacrifice her time with her family. Including rest in her calendar helped her become more productive.
Since Barbara and Harold committed to a system and stuck with their plan, the business grew. In one year they closed 47 transactions and touted more than $21 million in sales volume. They were able to travel to watch their daughter dance and their son, who was offered an athletic scholarship to the University of Tennessee and was drafted by the Tampa Bay Rays, play baseball. “The biggest impact it had on my life is realizing we were able to do that kind of business and never missed one of our events or things that were important to our children,” she says.
If you want to achieve your goals and enjoy the results of your hard work, create structure in your day. While a system can help you get started, a coach can work hand-in-hand with you to break through the barriers preventing you from being productive and successful. Click here to learn how you can be more productive today.
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