Play Audio: 5 Step Planning Process For Real Estate Agents

Audio: 5 Step Planning Process For Real Estate Agents

Here’s my Five Step Process for doing your planning for the week.  Remember, it’s extremely important to spend 30-60 minutes per week working ON your business, not IN your business.  Take time on Sunday (my recommendation, though some of my clients do it on Friday afternoon) and follow these five steps to get the most out of your week:

Step One: review your yearly, quarterly, and monthly goals first to get back in touch with what you said you wanted to accomplish.

Step Two: review the previous week for lessons learned, insights, things you want to repeat, things you never want to do again, etc.  This is not meant to be a Pity Party.  Just 3-5 minutes in review to appreciate yourself for having had a great week and to identify things that need to be corrected.   

Step Three: review the upcoming week, checking all your appointments, meetings, lunch dates, etc. (the things already scheduled onto your calendar).  You’re checking to make sure you didn’t double book anyone, that you left enough driving time between appointments, etc.  What this review does is it triggers action steps.  For instance, whenever I see a lunch appointment on my calendar, it triggers me to reconfirm that person the day before by adding it to my To Do list.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve forgotten to do that reconfirming and then I show up for lunch, only to have the other person call the restaurant to say they’ve forgotten, would I please forgive them, etc.  Again, 3-5 minutes is all this should take.

Step Four: lead generation time.  Remember, I define lead generation time as any activity that could generate a lead.  This includes phoning, door knocking, sending out post cards or a newsletter, doing an ezine or email blast, faxing, attending a mixer or Chamber of Commerce or networking event, taking out ads, doing a TV spot, writing an article for publication, etc.  Anything that puts your name out there to potential clients.  MREA recommends 2 hours per day, Monday through Friday.  It doesn’t have to be all at once.  Do a half hour here, an hour there, etc.  If you don’t have a lot of leads, then maybe 3-4 hours per day is more appropriate.  Use your judgment.  Just remember what Gary once said (and I’m paraphrasing I’m sure): “If you don’t have leads, then you won’t have listings, and if you don’t have listings, you don’t have a business!” 

Step Five: everything else!  Going to the gym, doing paperwork, spending time with family, riding your bike, reading time, relaxation time, everything else gets scheduled after those first four steps.  And don’t schedule up every minute of every day.  Leave some time for spontaneity, serendipity, smelling the roses, you get what I mean.