8 Ways To Make Positive Changes In Your Real Estate Business

Now that we are half-way through February, are you still on track to achieve all those New Year’s resolutions you set seven weeks ago for your real estate business? Now is a good time to check your progress and adjust your habits if you have fallen back into old routines.

You’ve probably heard Albert Einstein’s definition of insanity: “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Of course, it is human nature to resist change and it generally takes 21-30 days to form new habits. If you aren’t consciously focusing on making positive changes in your life, they probably won’t stick. Here are 8 ways to make positive changes in your business.

1. Review your successes – Look back over the last six months and ask yourself which activities generated the most clients. Was it advertising? Your website? Networking? Staying in touch with your sphere of influence?
2. Identify your strengths – What activities do you do well? Which come easy to you? What do you like doing?
3. Improve your weaknesses – One way to improve your business is to turn a weakness into a strength. What is one thing about your business you wish you could improve? Now, look over your list of strengths – how can you turn this weekends into a strength? Do you need to learn a new skill or hire an assistant to do it for you? How can you shift your mindset so this weakness isn’t so tedious or unpleasant? What would need to happen for you to dramatically improve this area of your business?
4. Mirror successful agents – Look at the most successful real estate agent you know. What does he or she do that you aren’t doing? How might your business change if you added one of this agent’s activities to your daily to do list?
5. Find a coach or mentor – Sometimes, despite your best efforts, you don’t know what is wrong – or worse, you know what to do, you just don’t do it! In these cases, it can be helpful to find a coach or mentor to help you become unstuck. Who do you know that can help guide you through your difficult challenges and hold you accountable for your results?
6. Schedule business review sessions – As an independent real estate agent, you have complete control over the success of your company. You are its President and responsible for its long-term strategic vision and making sure you achieve the results you want. Schedule time each week to review your accomplishments and solve any problems that have arisen. If you ignore problems, they will only get bigger.
7. Create an action plan – Start with one part of your business that is “good” but could become “excellent” if you put in more time or effort. What, exactly, do you have to do to transform this part of your business? Make a list of action steps that you will complete over the next few weeks.
8. Eliminate your least productive tasks – What activities do you do that suck up all your time, leave you feeling drained, and don’t directly impact getting or keeping clients? Identify your biggest time wasters and commit to eliminating them over the next month or finding someone to do them for you.

By following these eight steps, you can keep what is already working in your real estate business, add a few innovative tactics, and get rid of all the things that aren’t working or no longer work. Consider the 80/20 rule: 20% of your activities account for 80% of your results. Focus on those 20% of your activities that dramatically impact your bottom line.