What it takes to be a Successful Real Estate Agent – Part 2: Organisation
What does it take to be a successful real estate agent? When working in the real estate industry, you have several appointments to juggle -such as: listing presentations, client updates, open homes, negotiation and contract signing – in addition to phone appointments and follow ups and the list goes on.
Being organised comes in many forms and is a non-negotiable when striving to become a successful real estate agent. It is important to be organised as your potential and current clients will need to trust that you can handle the responsibility of looking after their home with top priority.
In part 2 of our blog series, we outline our top 5 organisational skills a top real estate agent needs:
Physical Organisation & Appearance
As a sales agent you will be responsible for organising the smooth sale of multiple clients’ homes and if you can’t keep yourself and your workspace organised, you may be perceived as unprofessional, unreliable and disorganised. This may lead people to believe you will not be able to meet deadlines and obtain the best outcome for your clients. This will result in less work and a poorer agent reputation.
Physical organisation means keeping your physical surroundings in an organised manner, including maintaining a neat desk, clean car, organised filing system for paperwork and a detailed schedule/diary and to do list.
A poorly organised workspace leads to physical discomfort, lost files or paperwork which could ultimately lead to lost deadlines and business.
In addition to your physical surroundings, your physical appearance should be well groomed, clean and tidy. You can usually always spot a real estate agent by their attire being at a high standard.
Time Management
As a real estate agent, you will have multiple tasks and places to go throughout the day with different clients. Preparing the flow of your work day in advance (the night/week before) will help you to sleep better, leading to a more positive mood the next day and increased productivity.
Create task lists for each day and allocate times to work on them. Ensure you always add time each day to work on your long-term goals, otherwise they can easily be pushed back and never achieved.
Knowing your internal “prime time” and utilising that to your advantage will also increase productivity. If you work better in the mornings, get the hardest tasks out of the way first; if you work better in the evenings, however, prepare to do the most of your work in the afternoon and complete the easier tasks first up.
Applying effective time management skills can not only help you be more productive at work but should also help you to keep a healthy work/life balance to prevent burning out.
Punctuality
Punctuality is perceived as a direct reflection of your professionalism and is a direct outcome of your time management skills. Scheduling yourself enough time in between appointments to ensure you leave enough time for contingencies like traffic is a must.
Try to always arrive 10 minutes early to all your physical appointments and in the odd occasion you are running late for whatever reason, it is important to call ahead, apologise and update your client with a new appointment time. Everyone’s time is valuable, and you will be judged on your punctuality as a sales agent and if you are considerate of others’ time as much as your own.
Being organised and knowing how to structure your day takes hard work and discipline but the reward is worth it. Maintaining a good workflow will ensure that you can take on more clients and know that you can service every client effectively.
Delegation
People often think that it is quicker to do everything themselves and tend to overload themselves with too many tasks. The great thing about being in real estate is that it is usually a team effort.
As a lead agent, you will usually have a couple of associates assisting you. It may take a little time at first to teach your team members what to do, but once this initial investment is made, it will repay you many times over.
Delegation is the skill of assigning responsibility to someone to complete a clearly defined task and be responsible for its success or failure. This not only empowers other staff in the team and builds their skills and confidence, it allows you more time to focus on the things that you specialise in.
Minimise Distractions
This may sound simple, but in an actual working environment it’s not so easy to follow through. Your day is filled with various distractions such as phone calls, walk ins, staff and client meetings, emails, mentoring staff etc.
Ensure you allocate blocks of time in your calendar to work on projects or large tasks each day. Treat these time allocations as meetings, turn off your mobile phone, tell other staff you’re in a meeting and close your email. You may think this is not useful time, but on the contrary, you allow yourself dedicated focus time resulting in quicker outcomes and higher quality of work. This is also a good technique to show other staff in the office how to become more efficient in the workplace.
Thinking about becoming a real estate agent or property manager? We’ll teach you how with our flexible and affordable real estate courses. Call Validum Institute on (07) 3193 5270 or visit www.validum.edu.au and experience Validum difference today.
