Great Reminders from the GNAR

I attended a panel discussion this past week at GNAR where several of the area’s top Realtors gave recommendations and examples of how they do business, and gave some tips on some of the things they do that are successful.  The overriding theme that I heard was that each of these individuals are organized, have a plan, and are very deliberate in following the plan.  Here are some of the notes I took and wanted to pass along:

Daily Routine:

• "I try to have a successful day by noon every day."
• Say ‘no’ to just about everything that is not relevant to growing your business when determining your schedule.
• Block time for specific activities (particularly those that are sales related).
• Be proactive with your schedule and not reactive to the events of the day.
• Have a checklist for the important tasks that must be accomplished (a “to do” list).
• Remember that clients must still be cared for, so flexibility has to be built into each day.

Tracking Leads and Follow up:

• “I’m old school – I have a paper file for every lead with all the appropriate info on the client”
• Some suggestions on systems: boomtown, wiseagent, top producer, excel, or a simple note card system

Past Clients:

• Monthly newsletter
• Mailing birthday cards
• “Client Appreciation” events (happy hours, movie nights, ice cream socials, etc….)
• “I use several methods (email, social media, regular mail, phone calls) to reach every past client at least once a month – I want to stay ‘top of mind’

Marketing:

• Social media – use videos when possible, pictures at a minimum;  Hootsuite is a great site that allows you to supercharge your various social media outlets.
• Get help with any phase of marketing that you don’t do well.
• Whatever you do, be consistent with it.  One and done will never work (this isn’t NCAA basketball).

Technology suggestions:

• MileIQ – to track mileage
• Pdfexpert – for contracts
• Expensetracker – for managing expenses (receipts)
• Dropbox – for managing files (essential for teams)
• Other suggestions – dotloop, odesk, outdesk, googledrive, easilydo and fullcontract
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I think the other thing that I re-learned listening to the panelists is that there is no reason to ‘re-invent the wheel’.  Creating new ideas and processes can be fun, but can also be very time consuming.  There are so many ways to do our business well.  If we will simply learn from others, we’ll have the best ideas.  And these ideas are already proven to work.