Almost every aspiring real estate agent dreams of a flexible schedule filled with leisurely afternoons.
But, if you don’t have your calendar set up with specific times for critical business-building activities – like making calls and following up with clients – chances are you’re spending a lot of time on the real estate roller coaster.
We’re not talking about the fun kind. Expect fewer thrills and a lot more queasiness.
Because if you’re on this roller coaster, it’s not a question of whether you’ll drop the ball but how frequently. You and your clients deserve better.
To succeed as a real estate agent, you need to build and commit to a working calendar, ideally one you can access on your phone. Follow these steps for a winning calendar setup.
Set Up Your Online Calendar
Google Calendar is a great tool for this, though not the only one. We use it because it integrates well with a lot of other digital tools as well as with the rest of Google Suite.
The key to creating an effective daily calendar is to block out time for all your daily prospecting activities – all the actions you need to take to succeed as a real estate agent. Because if it’s not in your calendar, it won’t happen.
Prospecting Time
As an agent, you’ll spend much of your work day communicating with clients and prospects, as well as other professionals in your industry.
The backbone of your calendar is the system you create, which supports the goals you want to reach on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. Setting a goal for the number of conversations you want to have each and every work day is critical to staying on track and motivated.
Once you have those goals, block out time in your calendar for each specific type of engagement:
- Text messages
- DMs and social media comments
- Phone calls
- Dialers
- Video messages
The goal for most of these is to get face-to-face with people, ultimately with a view to helping them buy or sell a home.
Clients and prospects want to know when they can contact you. And they want to trust that, when they call or text you during those times, they’ll be able to reach you. In addition to prospecting time, block out the best times for these conversations, and communicate those times to your prospects and clients.
Avoid the dreaded phone tag – or at least minimize it.
Best Times for Conversations
What are the best times to engage in the conversations you need to have?
You’ve heard the expression, “Eat the frog.” We won’t actually make you eat one, but we do recommend diving in and getting these conversations started early in the day.
Eating the frog means if you know which types of communication you tend to put off for later, you move those up and get them done first. Use that fresh supply of energy to get the needle moving as early as possible.
Then set up block after block tackling one action after another, so you know when you’re doing every task each and every day.
“Do Not Disturb” Time
Phone calls can be rough in the morning, but the phone is still the most valuable asset we have in this business. Those real-time conversations can make all the difference. Because it shows you’re willing to take time out of your day to really connect with people.
Text messages definitely have their place, but they can only communicate so much. Add a real voice with a fully present human behind it, and you can get things moving a lot faster.
Set up a block of time every day for calls you need to make. Make it your “Do Not Disturb” time. It doesn’t have to be the exact same block of time every day, but make that “Don’t bug me, I’m calling people” time a daily priority.
