Getting FUB’d Up With Bridget: Best Practices for Follow Up Boss Cleanup
Operations
⏳ 10 Ways to Find More Time in Your Week
If your to-do list has items that have carried over for weeks…or months (you know who you are!) then it’s time to give your schedule a good overhaul. In our fast-paced industry, effective time management isn’t a skill, it’s an absolute necessity, and we often feel like there’s not enough time to get things done. Juggling meetings, admin work, showings, marketing, and networking events on top of your responsibilities at home, family, and social life can seem impossible and overwhelming. Use our guide to find more time in your week and take back control of your schedule!
🚨 Prioritize
Identify and schedule the high-priority items that contribute directly to your business goals. It can wait if it isn’t a big lever in moving the needle forward for you. Schedule and knock out your most important and urgent items first like prospecting, following up with potential clients, working with active buyers, and promoting your active listings. By making sure these items are done first, it ensures that you are propelling your business forward even on days when the whirlwind takes you off course as the day goes on. Using time blocks is a great tool here to reserve those AM hours for the most important items.
🚫 Eliminate Unnecessary Meetings
Look, just because you’ve always had that meeting every Wednesday at 10 AM, doesn’t mean that you ALWAYS have to have it. Take an honest look at your recurring meetings and determine which ones can be shorter, less frequent, or (gasp!) just an email to communicate.
🗣️ Delegate
You can still be that hands-on, there-for-you-every-step agent and have help. When you go to the doctor the woman who is wearing the white coat performing the exam isn’t the same person checking you in, filing your paperwork, and collecting your co-pay and you don’t respect her any less, do you? Sort out which items absolutely need your voice and your brain and create a system to delegate the other items. If you aren’t in a position to hire someone to delegate to, team up with others to create a position and share the cost!
📱 Embrace Technology
Leverage your CRM software (cough, Follow Up Boss,) scheduling tools like Calendly, and task management apps to help you streamline your workflow and focus on building relationships and closing transactions. Ensure that your system is simple and there are no redundancies. For example, I didn’t realize that I was attempting to keep up with both a digital AND a paper calendar for a while (DOH!) and found time when I just committed to the digital one. Commit to one source of information and share it with those who also need that information.
📅 Set Realistic Goals and Deadlines
If you’re finding that you are pressed for time, STOP telling people that you can have that to them by tomorrow and painting yourself into a corner. If you are scrambling to get things done, change your auto-response to be “I’ll have that to you next week” or “I’ll have that to you in two weeks.” Your clients won’t balk at a clear timeline, even if it’s out of your comfort zone, and will let you know if they need something sooner.
🚧 Establish Boundaries
As a recovering people-pleaser, I appreciate how hard it is to say no. What if they stop inviting me to hang out?! What if they find another agent?! As difficult as it is to start saying no, it’s equally empowering to keep promises that you’ve made to yourself. Determine which boundaries are going to help you find more time and more ease in your week and stick to them. It’ll feel so good and they will still want to hang out with you, I promise.
📏 Use Some Rules to Help You Build a Practice
This helped me a lot and I use these regularly, first up is The Two Minute Rule is that if you can accomplish the task in two minutes or less, go ahead and do it. I love this because it sometimes took longer to pull up my to-do list and add the task and the date it was due than to actually knock out what needed to be done. The next one is always running through my head: Don’t Put It Down, Put It Away. Instead of putting something down on your catch-all counter or where it doesn’t belong, walk over to where it belongs and put it away so you don’t have to touch it twice.
🍑 Whole-A** One Thing
This one took a while for me to embrace because I just KNEW that I was being more productive by doing ten things at once. But by slowing down and giving things my full attention to complete them one at a time, I’m actually way more productive than I ever was and I feel so much better about my workday since my brain isn’t trying to do multiple things at once. I still catch myself doing three things simultaneously, but after about a year of practice those momentary lapses are brief and I get myself back on track quickly. Whole-A** one thing instead of half-a**ing multiples and see how your clients (and loved ones!) respond when they finally have your full attention.
🚬 Scrolling is the New Smoking
This probably should have been the first one on the list as it’s likely the most obvious. As much as I hate to say this because it means I need to take my own advice, but you can easily find hours and hours in your week if you ditch your scrolling habit. Take stock of exactly how long you are spending on social media each day vs how long you actually need to be on social media to promote your business and take measures to break your habit. Turn on the time limit and stick to it to use your newly found time to accomplish more of your important items with ease. This also helps you with whole-a**ing one thing at a time AND keeping those promises you make to yourself as you build firm boundaries.
🤔 Regularly Evaluate and Adjust
Overhauling your schedule is something that should be done regularly and I’d recommend at least twice a year to stay ahead of feeling rushed and overwhelmed. Set yourself a reminder and trim the fat regularly to stay in control of your schedule and time.
Last, some of these items may be harder to implement than others. Old habits can be difficult to change so give yourself some grace when you slip back into something you are attempting to stop. Progress isn’t a straight line, just get yourself back on track and do better moving forward.
🎁 Give Your Agents the Gift of a Business Plan
The most successful agents have an executable plan for their business. As leaders, we often overlook that an agent’s livelihood is a business inside a business or, in most cases, a brokerage. Just because we have a plan for the overall business and assist them in setting goals, that doesn’t mean that they know how to achieve those goals.
By helping your agents to develop their own personal business plan it not only helps them take ownership of their work and efforts, it aids them in having clarity on exactly how to accomplish the goals they need to hit in order to reach their personal success and maintain the overall health of the team or brokerage.
Set up a workshop with your agents with a clear outline on how to develop a business plan and watch them flourish as they achieve their goals with ease in the new year.
Below is our guide to creating a business plan for your real estate business for you to add your own tools and inspiration to!
🎁 Step One: Use a goal calculator like this one from our pals at SISU to help you determine exactly the effort needed on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis in order to reach your goals.
🎁 Step Two: Map out the specifics as to how you want to go about doing the things prescribed on the calculator and break it down by each month and week. Remember, there are many ways to achieve your goals and using a variety of tools will help you get there!
Questions to ask yourself to aid you in completing Step Two:
- How many hours do I need to set aside for prospecting each day? Each week?
- How much vacation time will I take this year? Factor this into your plan.
- How many open houses do I want to commit to doing each month?
- What is my social media strategy?
- Where will I post my content and how often?
- You can utilize a Social Media Calendar to pre-plan your posts
- Where will I post my content and how often?
- How many listings vs buyers do I want to work with?
- What is my niche and what are the necessary steps to improve my visibility with this audience?
- What community events should I plan to attend or sponsor this year?
- What networking events do I need to attend?
- What promotional materials should I be utilizing?
- How often do I send them and how much do I budget for them?
- Where are my boundaries going to be for my personal and family time?
- Where does my self-care fit into my business?
- Exercise, rest, and play should all be factored in
🎁 Step Three: Put your plan down on paper by mapping out in writing what is necessary for you to do each quarter, month, and week in order for you to reach your goals.
Do this in such a way that your actions are specific and measurable so that you can hold yourself accountable and your mentor or coach can assist you.
Be sure to break everything down into as small of pieces as possible. We all know that quote about eating an elephant! (And where the heck did that come from?!) If you are just looking at “I need to sell 25 homes next year” without small steps in between, your plan will not motivate you or help hold you accountable for the items you need to accomplish.
🎁 Step Four: Don’t put this plan away! Creating the plan is to use it regularly, not to think about it once. Revisit this weekly to ensure that you are following the steps that you laid out in order to reach your goals. Add to your task lists and calendars the items that you have prescribed yourself so that you are setting yourself up for success in actually accomplishing them.
Below are additional resources that aid in making business plans for you to use. This is YOUR business and there’s not a one-size-fits-all recipe for success, so take the information above, from the links below, and anything else you can find and put together what works best for you and your real estate business.
You’ve got this!
Follow Up Boss Goal Setting and Reporting
Tom Ferry’s Business Plan Writing Workbook
NAR’s Guidance on Writing Business Plans for Realtors
Brian Icenhower’s Real Estate Plan Template
⚖️ Five Ways to Improve Your Life and Work Balance During the Holidays
‘Tis the season to be jolly, but for real estate professionals, the holiday season often brings a flurry of activity that can make achieving work-life balance seem like a distant dream. Fear not, though, as we’ve curated a list of five ways for you to navigate this festive season without sacrificing your well-deserved downtime.
📆 Prioritize and Plan Ahead
The holiday season can be unpredictable as there are events popping up from all corners of your life, but with careful planning, you can stay one step ahead. By taking the time to create a detailed schedule of the season you can better prepare for your events and reduce scrambling for last-minute gifts and pot-luck contributions. Make sure you add personal and downtime during this season, if you push too hard it could lead to exhaustion or illness!
Take stock of your projects and tasks due during this time and make sure that you have prioritized them properly to ensure that you aren’t waiting until the last minute as staying on schedule will reduce your stress.
⚠️ Set Boundaries and Communicate
Communicating effectively is going to be on any list of helpful tips we send to you, but this is especially important for setting clear boundaries with clients and team members about your availability during the holidays. Make it known when you’ll be taking time off and establish expectations for response times. This proactive communication not only manages expectations but also fosters understanding, which promotes a healthier work environment, encouraging others to do the same.
💻 Leverage Technology to Streamline Processes
Make the most of technology to streamline your processes and save time during the holidays. Shore up your Follow Up Boss Systems (have you taken our FREE Building FUB Course yet?), automate email responses and as many routine tasks as you can. By embracing technology, you can maintain a strong online presence and keep your business running smoothly, allowing more time for holiday festivities and rest after a long year.
🤝 Delegate and Collaborate
You don’t have to do it all alone and attempting to do so is a sure-fire way to lead to burnout. Delegate tasks where you can or hire additional support during peak periods during busy seasons or times when you’re taking time off. By collaborating with others to share the workload you can divide and conquer to ensure everyone gets some well-deserved time off. A collaborative approach not only lightens the load but also creates a supportive network within your organization.
💆♀️ Practice Self-Care and Enjoy the Festivities
Yes, this is the season of giving to others, but by prioritizing your well-being during the holidays you will not only feel better, but you will have the foundation to show up in better ways for those you love…and your clients too! Schedule regular breaks throughout the week to recharge, whether it’s a short walk, meditation, or a festive coffee break. Take advantage of downtime to immerse yourself in the holiday spirit by attending local events, spending quality time with loved ones, and embracing the joy of the season as time away from your business, even in short bursts, allows you to come back with fresh ideas and the energy to tackle the next big thing.
🔏 Strategies for Teams to Create a Killer Closing Process
Setting up a closing process can be transformative to your business. It will help you retain agents, be able to handle more transactions, and increase repeat clients due to the ease of the process. This week, we held a webinar with the Closing Wizards over at Open to Close where Andrew and I discussed the mindset and strategies to use to create a closing process, and below are some of the takeaways. The full recording is below for your viewing pleasure.
🧐 Assess your Current Closing Process
- Take stock of what you are currently doing to establish a baseline.
- Using feedback from your clients, agents, and Transaction Coordinators (if you have them) take stock of where your friction points are.
- Questions to ask might be: Where does the work pile up? At which points do your clients have lots of questions? What are items that are regularly missed? Are there any commonalities for transactions that fall out of contract? And can we be proactive in preventing them during the closing process?
- Another great source of information is your closing attorney. Meet with them regularly to discuss how the closings are going with your clients and get information about ways you can improve the process or coach your agents to approach the closing process or contract differently.
📐 Solve for Friction
- Take the answers to the questions above and begin solving each one and documenting the new SOP for which the process should be executed.
- If your clients are sending in questions at a certain point, send a proactive email educating them on what to expect at that point in the process and why it is important.
- If items are regularly missed, set automatic reminders for that item to be completed or the information gathered from the client.
- Coach your agents at a high level on the contract and any other items that your closing attorney recommends based on their experience with them.
- Introduce your newly licensed agents to the closing process so that they understand their role along with what the Transaction Coordinator and Attorney’s office are responsible for.
📋 Establish Clear Lines on Who Does What
- Having a written checklist that denotes what the agent is responsible for and what the Transaction Coordinator’s responsibilities is going to be a great resource for you. It will create a repeatable process and each person will know their role and feel secure that the other is doing their part.
- Remind your agents that, even though they have assistance, as the license holder they are ultimately responsible for the collection of those items and the satisfaction of the client. They still need to be very involved with the process and communicate with all parties at a high level.
🤝 Create a Team Culture
- Be proactive in cultivating a team culture between your agents and operations staff. Ensure that each role understands the experience of the other parties to create empathy so that you can avoid any Us vs Them mentalities.
- Coach your agents and staff on how best to interact with different personalities. Often we find that those crush it in an admin role communicate and like to receive information differently than those who excel in outside sales. The more we learn about how one another operate, the smoother the behind-the-scenes transactions will go.
- Offer opportunities for Sales and Operations to have social interactions with one another. The more we see one another with similar items of interest and cultivate relationships between the different legs of the organization, the better our systems will run.
- Ensure that the each party is on the same playing field. A Transaction Coordinator is not above the Agent on the organizational chart and vice versa. The agent could not produce as much as they do without the operational support and the operations staff wouldn’t have a career without the agent. Seeing this as a partnership also helps to foster strong positive relationships.
🧰 Utilize Tools to Create Efficiencies
- Use software (cough, Follow Up Boss, cough,) and other tools that will allow you to communicate at a very high level internally which will both save time and create a seamless experience for everyone involved: Transaction Coordinator, Agent, and Client.
- Utilize Custom Fields within your CRM so that you can scale to other types of business and other geographic areas with ease.
- Automate, but keep the human element. There are certain points in the process where it is acceptable to have an automated email and those that require a phone call or other personal communication. Determine which are which and automate what you can so that you can focus on serving the client at a high level.
📋 Your Guide to Year-End Reviews with Agents
It feels a bit too early to be talking about the end of year, doesn’t it? November is here, whether it feels like it or not, and if you want your next year to be better than your this year, setting aside time for those year-end reviews should be on your to-do list!
Annual reviews not only show that you are engaged with your agents, it shows that you care about their development and are committed to their success.
📆 Make Them Easily Accessible
- For ease of scheduling, use Calendly, Sign Up Genius, or any similar tool to show times that you are available to meet for the review. Back-and-forth regarding “What about this time?” begins the entire transaction with some frustration.
- Block off ample time within your calendar to accomplish this so that those you meet with will have no challenge finding a spot to work for them and, if possible, provide a variety of morning and afternoon times across several days. You can always fill those times with other things once everyone reserves their spot.
- It’s ideal to meet in person, but the increased demands of the holidays may make it more difficult if going into the office isn’t part of their normal routine. Meeting via video chat can be just as effective, and they will appreciate your flexibility!
📝 Have a Plan
- Annual reviews aren’t a time to wing it. Develop a general strategy on how you want to approach the reviews as a whole this year and plan your questions and action items to discuss around it. Do you want to focus on personal development? Increasing production? Building a business plan for the next year?
- Know your numbers. Gather their annual goal vs what was actually accomplished, and any other metrics necessary to analyze their performance over the current year and predict their output to set their goal for the upcoming year.
- Ensure when you meet that the goal is theirs and not your office or company goal. If they are intrinsically motivated to achieve something, it will be much easier to do. Of course, give them your perspective as to whether their goal is not high enough or unrealistic based on your experience with them, but ultimately it needs to be their own.
🫀 Get Human
- This is a great opportunity to discuss how they felt about the past year and the things that they are excited about or apprehensive of in the upcoming year.
- If they are open to it, discuss any personal life challenges that may have stood in the way of them achieving their professional goals and if there are any known big events scheduled or anticipated in the upcoming year so that you can help them plan accordingly.
📐 Be Specific with Your Coaching
- If their goal is to accomplish more in the upcoming year, they need your guidance on how to get there. Advising them to work harder not only isn’t motivating, but it’s not going to help them get where they want to go.
- Offer them specific items to do and strategies they can use to achieve their new goals and help them make a concrete plan to get there. Remember, if they knew what to do they would have done it already. Keep it simple and specific so it is easier to execute.
🪴 Celebrate Their Growth
- Celebrate not only their transactional accomplishments but also their growth over the previous year. Are they approaching their work in a more proactive and less reactive way? Have they developed systems to complete their work in less time?
✅ Make a Plan for Accountability
- Discussing goals and the specific way to achieve them isn’t going to take one conversation. Make a commitment during this meeting on how frequently you will meet during the upcoming year and what means they will use to hold themselves accountable for the actions it takes to reach their goals.
- Follow through with your commitment by scheduling pre-planned meetings and accountability check-ins so you can uphold your part of the deal.
🚢 Navigating Industry Changes and Challenges
Whether it’s a DOJ ruling, industry changes, market shifts, companies getting acquired, or some other news that seemingly has an uncertain outcome, the real estate industry is always changing and presenting us with new challenges. It reminds me of the saying, “A smooth sea never made a skillful sailor,” and underlines the fact that those who choose to navigate changes and challenges to make the best of it will strengthen their business and be able to stay out at sea to face future storms.
Whatever the wild world of real estate throws our way, we are committed to
supporting and helping you to build the business of your dreams.
Here are some strategies to face news head-on with your clients and agents so that you remain the steady beacon of leadership through whatever the industry throws your way.
📱 Prompt and Transparent Communication
- Act swiftly to communicate the situation to your team and clients. A delay in communication can lead to speculation and increased anxiety so it’s always best to face it head-on while acknowledging that you may not have all the information just yet.
- Be transparent and honest about what is happening by sharing all available facts, even if you perceive them to be unfavorable. Never downplay or sugar-coat the issue at hand.
🫡 Take Responsibility Where Necessary
- Own up to any mistakes or challenges immediately as this demonstrates both maturity and integrity.
- Clearly outline the company’s commitment to addressing the issue and preventing similar challenges in the future, if applicable.
🥰 Show Empathy
- Understand and acknowledge the concerns and frustrations of your clients.
- Express empathy for any negative impacts that the situation may have caused them.
📝 Provide Solutions and Action Plans
- Present concrete steps that the company is taking to resolve the issue and prevent its recurrence and explain how these actions will benefit team members and clients.
- Offer a timeline for when clients can expect to see improvements or resolution
📈 Regular Updates
- Keep your agents and clients informed about progress and developments through regular updates. One announcement is never enough and you need to keep the conversation going as long as it takes.
- Even if there isn’t any significant news to report, a simple message acknowledging the ongoing commitment to resolution can be reassuring
👩🏫 Learn from the Experience
- Conduct a thorough post-incident analysis to understand what went wrong, and how you can prevent it from happening in the future or how you can strengthen your business from similar things happening moving forward if the challenge was completely out of your control.
- Share the lessons learned with your clients to demonstrate a commitment to improvement and transparency.