The Profit Prospectus

Fourth Q has me hyper-focused on biz building this year. Y’all know what a huge Tom Ferry fan I am, and his 90 day challenge really inspired me to think about the tidal wave that is the real estate agent pipeline. I’m hoping to break that high and low cycle by consistently putting in the time for business building. You know the tasks we love to hate… all that prospecting. My office started a weekly accountability group, but I want to take it one step further and create a weekly checklist that features new and different prospecting tasks each week. Some will be fun. Some will be hard. Some will stretch you. Seriously. But you know what will totally make it all worth it? The serious leads that will start rolling in as the consistency builds a solid pipeline. If you’re up for the challenge, feel free to download The Profit Prospectus and work along with me. Instructions are included below for newer agents or those who have been in the biz so long they’ve forgotten what basic prospecting looks like.

Hi! Welcome to The Profit Prospectus for the week of December 1st – 7th, 2017. There are six sections and they go like this:

1. Appointments: Use this to fill in any appointments for the day. Top producing agents treat EVERYTHING as an appointment. That means your power hour, it’s an appointment. Your social media time, it’s an appointment. Your prospecting time, it’s an appointment. Pencil it in, and keep it there. When you start making prospecting negotiable and not treating it as an appointment, you stop doing it.
2. Pop-by or call: This section is our business building task for the week. This is where you reach out to past clients. You can stop by to say hey and take them a small token of appreciation. Just check-in on them to see how things are going. If the conversation goes well enough, ask for referrals. But you be the judge. In some cases it’s best just to stop by, have a quick conversation, and leave them with a small gift that includes your information. This re-establishes you in their mind, leaves them with a good feeling about you, and if you include literature on your business and referrals in the gift, they’ll get the message.
3. Meet & Greet: You need to meet and chat with 3+ new people every day, depending on what your sales goals are. This can be in a waiting room, at the coffee shop, at a happy hour, community event, volunteer hours, etc. Give your card to at least 3 new people every day this week.
4. Notes/Affirmation: Free space to make notes. Write down an inspiring thought or quote to motivate you. Maybe jot down a big goal you have to help remind you why you’re working so hard! Shameless plug, we post a motivation quote every Monday on our Instagram and the blog.
5. Client Follow-up: The #1 complaint from clients about their real estate agent – not enough follow-up or communication. Pencil in a small amount of time to send emails or call your current clients. Great time to update them, or check-in to see how their week is going and if they need anything. If things are going REALLY well… ask if they know of any friends looking to buy or sell.
6. The big seven. These are the 7 things I’m putting in my day every weekday.
   1. Power Hour – Coffee. Workout. Devotional of some type. Whatever your routine is. Don’t have one? Great time to establish one. Chaos breeds chaos. A regimented morning routine starts your day off and keeps you clear-headed for whats coming.
   2. Get Social – Open up your social media and interact with your followers/friends. Like or comment something to ten people. Schedule 2 posts for the day. I’m a big fan of the set it and forget it. DO NOT MINDLESSLY SCROLL. This is how social media sucks your time away. Find your ten people, interact, then shut it down and move on to the next task.
   3. Learning time – watch a motivational video, read a blog post on REALTOR® on the Road, find an article on your local market, browse through the hot sheet, etc. Whatever it is, just learn something real estate related. This can be 10 minutes. Doesn’t have to take hours. Always be learning. I like to listen to a business podcast while getting ready for the day.
   4. Open House Plan – themed open houses are all the rage right now. Find a property in a great neighborhood and plan something epic. Take this week to get your ducks in a row and get it planned out for a future date. If you don’t have any listings in appropriate locations for this, find another agent in your office and ask to do one on theirs.
   5. Blog – if you have a website, you need a blog. It builds SEO and drives users to your site. I schedule mine a week to a month in advance if I have time. Sometimes I do them months in advance. Try to post something to your blog daily. Even if it’s just another agents listing. This can do double duty and be your social media post for the day too.
   6. Coffee & Cards – Get an afternoon cup of coffee, tea, wine? (I’m not judging.) Another chance to hand out those cards and meet new people.
   7. Newsletter – write a newsletter this week. Take a few minutes each day and send it out later in the week. Put in some hot properties, some industry news, market stats, home – care tips, etc. Send it out to your email list.

If this amount of tasks is overwhelming to you, pick a couple each day and work them in. My last thought is a bit of tough love… people are always commenting on our production and wanting to know how Dave & I sell 150-200 properties a year without an assistant. It’s regimented, hard work. We put in the time. Everyone wants to be a top producer, but very few want to do the tasks to produce the results. It’s not easy. It sometimes keeps us up until midnight getting our digital tasks completed, but it’s always, always worth it.