Near the close of the first hour of BAM BBQ, Tom Toole, the objection-handling G.O.A.T., took the stage to discuss time management—”the number one area that people in this business struggle with.”
When was the last time you heard another agent (or yourself) say, “I just don’t have time to do all the things I need to get done.”
So, during his segment during this summer’s hottest virtual event, Tom walks you through how to take the same 24 hours everyone has and make it work for your business.
And it all comes down to your calendar.
If you show me your calendar, you’re going to show me your commitments… If you’re not using your calendar, and you’re trying to operate from your headspace and remember what to do, you’ve already lost the time management game.
When you’re building your calendar out the way Tom prescribes, you’ll block out time for six different activity buckets that are essential to any real estate agent, whether you’re a solo agent, an agent on a team, or a team lead.
So, open your calendar or grab a notebook, and let’s get into it!
Six Essential Time Buckets for the Real Estate Agent’s Calendar
#1: Your Top Personal Commitments
Not making time for personal commitments is asking for burnout and for big trouble in your closest relationships. Even if you excel in making time for your professional priorities, not making time for personal needs will ultimately undermine the progress you make.
Personal commitments can include—
- Dates with your spouse/partner
- Family vacations
- Family commitments (e.g., attending a special event for one of your kids)
- Working out/daily exercise
Planning time off and time on is where every calendar should start. So, I would start with those things. What are those things that are really important to you personally? Obviously, we’ve all got to work. We’ve all got to do things. I would make sure you’ve got something in there with your time off and your time on, whatever that looks like.
Granted, when you’re just getting started with your business, you’ll probably have far more time on than time off until you’ve built your business up and put systems in place to allow you to take more time off (when it makes sense to do that).
So, as Tom puts it, if you’re getting started, “get ready to over-index on your time on.”
The next five time blocks are all about agent tactics you need to make time for every day. Some might feel more urgent than others. But neglecting any of these will ultimately limit the growth of your business—if it doesn’t tank it completely.
#2: Income-Producing Activities
These are the tasks most agents are willing to skip in favor of activities that feel either more urgent or more enjoyable. But these activities are the number one tactical bucket for any agent. Because you can only plan your activities; you can’t plan your results.
Here are some of those income-producing activities to make time for on your daily calendar:
- Making phone calls / having conversations
- Doing video CMAs
- Sending out text messages
- Email campaigns
- Prepping your call sheets
These are the activities that will enable you to go on appointments, which is the number one objective for real estate agents. If you’re familiar with EOS (the Entrepreneurial Operating System), these are your rocks. Make time for them.
#3: Appointments
Every real estate agent’s calendar should have a time block for appointments, both internal (with your team, your assistant, etc.) and external (client-facing).
You already know appointments are essential to winning over potential clients. Getting face-to-face with a person automatically makes you more real and memorable than agents who have, as of yet, only communicated via phone calls, text messages, and emails.
#4: Prep Time
Prep time is another priority agents often overlook or forget to block out time for.
Lack of prep will kill you in this business. Because there are people like me out there and Byron and other folks…that are so overly prepped for every meeting they walk into. If you don’t show up ready to execute, you’re not going to win.
If you’ve ever overlooked the importance of prep time, think back to the last time you tried giving a listing presentation or meeting up with a buyer without preparing for it. Here’s hoping the memory is fuzzy but still powerful enough to live on as a teachable moment.
You need prep time built into your calendar if you want to build a reputation for showing up as a professional.
#5: Client Maintenance Calls
Every serious real estate agent should commit to a weekly communication guarantee.
What that means is making a commitment to communicate with your client at least once a week to keep them in the loop on everything pertaining to their home search or home sale.
When you time-block that client maintenance call, what ends up happening is—
- You can get price adjustments before the weekend
- You can touch base before the weekend, and
- You’re not getting dominated by the lack of communication and people calling you for an update.
Committing to a weekly communication guarantee makes you predictable—in the best way. Your clients know when they’re going to hear from you.
It also keeps you in charge of your own calendar. Because you’re not interrupting one of your other time blocks to respond to phone calls, texts, or emails from clients who are wondering why they’re not hearing from you.
#6: Deal Maintenance
While this is an important time block, Tom would actually rate this as the lowest priority on your agent calendar in terms of importance to your business.
The problem is most agents end up prioritizing this over everything else.
They’ve got a tough inspection negotiation, and they want to get that done right away, and they say, ‘I won’t prospect today. I won’t talk to my clients today. I’ll skip some other things to deal with this.’ And that’s not how to handle it.
So, make sure you set a specific block for deal maintenance, and take care of these types of conversations during that time.
Tom’s presentation, along with the full recording of our three-hour BAM BBQ event, is available here on BAMx.
If you’re not a BAMx member yet, sign up and take advantage of the 25% member discount on tickets to BAM Mania—our must-attend in-person event for 2024 at the Circa Resort and Casino in Las Vegas.
Check out the agenda and insane speaker line-up, and sign up while seats are still available.
